Timbuctoo
There was a land, which, far from human sight,
Old Ocean compassed with his numerous waves,
In the lone West. Tenacious of her right,
Imagination decked those unknown caves,
And vacant forests, and clear peaks of ice
With a transcendent beauty: that which saves
From the world's blight our primal sympathies,
Still in man's heart, as some familiar shrine,
Feeding the tremulous lamp of love that never dies.
Poets have loved that land, and dared to twine
Round its existence memories of old time,
When the good reigned; and none in grief did pine.
Sages, and all who owned the might sublime
To impress their thought upon the face of things,
And teach a nation's spirit how to climb,
Spake of long-lost Atlantis, when the springs
Of clear Ilissus or the Tusculan bower
Were welcoming the pure rest which Wisdom brings
To her elect, the marvellous calm of power.
Oft, too, some maiden, garlanding her brow
With Baian roses, at eve's mystic hour,
Has gazed on the sun's path, as he sank low,
I' th' awful main, behind Inarime;
And with clasped hands, and gleaming eye, “Shalt thou,
First-born of light, endure in the flat sea
Such intermission of thy life intense?
Thou lordly one, is there no home for thee?”
A Youth took up the voice: “Thou speedest hence,
Beautiful orb, but not to death or sleep,
That feel we; worlds invisible to sense,
Whose course is pure, where eyes forget to weep,
And th' earthly sisterhood of sorrow and love
Some god putteth asunder, these shall keep
Thy state imperial now: there shalt thou move
Fresh hearts with warmth and joyance to rebound,
By many a musical stream and solemn grove.”
Years lapsed in silence, and that holy ground
Was still an Eden, shut from sight; and few
Brave souls in its idea solace found.
In the last days a man arose, who knew
That ancient legend from his infancy.
Yea, visions on that child's emmarvailed view
Had flashed intuitive science; and his glee
Was lofty as his pensiveness, for both
Wore the bright colors of the thing to be!
But when his prime of life was come, the wrath
Of the cold world fell on him; it did thrill
His inmost self, but never quenched his faith.
Still to that faith he added search, and still,
As fevering with fond love of th' unknown shore,
From learning's fount he strove his thirst to fill.
But alway Nature seemed to meet the power
Of his high mind, to aid, and to reward
His reverent hope with her sublimest lore.
Each sentiment that burned; each falsehood warred
Against and slain; each novel truth inwrought—
What were they but the living lamps that starred
His transit o'er the tremulous gloom of Thought?
More, and now more, their gathered brilliancy
On the one master notion sending out,
Which brooded ever o'er the passionate sea
Of his deep soul; but ah! too dimly seen,
And formless in its own immensity!
Last came the joy, when that phantasmal scene
Lay in full glory round his outward sense;
And who had scorned before in hatred keen
Refuged their baseness now: for no pretence
Could wean their souls from awe; they dared not doubt
That with them walked on earth a spirit intense.
So others trod his path: and much was wrought
In the new land that made the angels weep.
That innocent blood—it was not shed for nought!
My God! it is an hour of dread, when leap,
Like a fire-fountain, forth the energies
Of Guilt, and desolate the poor man's sleep.
Yet not alone for torturing agonies,
Though meriting most, nor all that storm of Woe
Which did entempest their pure fulgent skies,
Shall the deep curse of ages cling, and grow
To the foul names of those who did the deed,
The lusters for the gold of Mexico!
Mute are th' ancestral voices we did heed,
The tones of superhuman melody:
And the “veiled maid” is vanished, who did feed
By converse high the faith of liberty
In young unwithered hearts, and Virtue, and Truth,
And every thing that makes us joy to be!
Lo! there hath passed away a glory of Youth
From this our world; and all is common now,
And sense doth tyrannize o'er Love and Ruth.
What, is Hope dead? and gaze we her pale brow,
Like the cold statues round a Roman's bier,
Then tearless travel on through tracts of human woe?
No! there is one, one ray that lingers here,
To battle with the world's o'ershadowing form,
Like the last firefly of a Tuscan year,
Or dying flashes of a noble storm.
Beyond the clime of Tripoly, and beyond
Bahr Abiad, where the lone peaks, unconform
To other hills, and with rare foliage crowned,
Hold converse with the Moon, a City stands
Which yet no mortal guest hath ever found.
Around it stretch away the level sands
Into the silence: pausing in his course,
The ostrich kens it from his subject lands.
Here with faint longings and a subdued force
Once more was sought th' ideal aliment
Of Man's most subtle being, the prime source
Of all his blessings: here might still be blent
Whate'er of heavenly beauty in form or sound
Illumes the Poet's heart with ravishment.
Thou fairy City, which the desert mound
Encompasseth, thou alien from the mass
Of human guilt, I would not wish thee found!
Perchance thou art too pure, and dost surpass
Too far amid th' Ideas ranged high
In the Eternal Reason's perfectness,
To our deject and most embased eye,
To look unharmed on thy integrity,
Symbol of Love, and Truth, and all that cannot die.
Thy Palaces and pleasure-domes to me
Are matter of strange thought: for sure thou art
A splendor in the wild: and aye to thee
Did visible guardians of the Earth's great heart
Bring their choice tributes, culled from many a mine,
Diamond, and jasper, porphyry, and the art
Of figured chrysolite: nor silver shine
There wanted, nor the mightier power of gold:
So wert thou reared of gore, City divine!
And who are they of blisses manifold,
That dwell within thee? Spirits of delight,
It may be spirits whose pure thoughts enfold,
In eminence of Being, all the light
That interpenetrates this mighty all,
And doth endure in its own beauty's right.
And oh! the vision were majestical
To them, indeed, of column, and of spire,
And hanging garden, and hoar waterfall!
For we, poor prisoners of this earthy mire,
See little; they, the essence and the law
Robing each other in its peculiar tire.
Yet moments have been, when in thought I saw
That city rise upon me from the void,
Populous with men: and phantasy would draw
Such portraiture of life, that I have joyed
In over-measure to behold her work,
Rich with the myriad charms, by evil unalloyed.
Methought I saw a nation, which did heark
To Justice, and to Truth: their ways were strait,
And the dread shadow, Tyranny, did lurk
Nowhere about them: not to scorn, or hate
A living thing was their sweet nature's bond:
So every soul moved free in kingly state.
Suffering they had (nor else were virtue found
In these our pilgrim spirits): gently still
And as from cause external came the wound,
Not like a gangrene of soul-festering ill,
To taint the springs of life, and undermine
The holy strength of their majestic will.
Methought I saw a face whose every line
Wore the pale cast of Thought; a good, old man,
Most eloquent, who spake of things divine.
Around him youths were gathered, who did scan
His countenance so grand and mild; and drank
The sweet, sad tones of Wisdom, which outran
The lifeblood, coursing to the heart, and sank
Inward from thought to thought, till they abode
'Mid Being's dim foundations, rank by rank
With those transcendent truths, arrayed by God
In linked armor for untiring fight,
Whose victory is, where time hath never trod.
Methought I saw a maiden in the light
Of beauty musing near an amaranth bower,
Herself a lordly blossom. Past delight
Was fused in actual sorrow by the power
Of mightiest Love upon her delicate cheek;
And magical was her wailing at that hour.
For aye with passionate sobs she mingled meek
Smiles of severe content: as though she raised
To Him her inmost heart, who shields the weak.
She wept nor long in solitude: I gazed,
Till women, and sweet children came, and took
Her hand, and uttered meaning words, and praised
The absent one with eyes, which as a book
Revealed the workings of the heart sincere.
In sooth, it was a glorious thing to look
Upon that interchange of smile and tear!
But when the mourner turned, in innocent grace
Lifting that earnest eye and forehead clear,
Oh then, methought, God triumphed in her face!
But these are dreams: though ministrant on good,
Dreams are they; and the Night of things their place.
So be it ever! Ever may the mood
“In which the affections gently lead us on”
Be as thy sphere of visible life. The crowd,
The turmoil, and the countenances wan
Of slaves, the Power-inchanted, thou shalt flee,
And by the gentle heart be seen, and loved alone.
Old Ocean compassed with his numerous waves,
In the lone West. Tenacious of her right,
Imagination decked those unknown caves,
And vacant forests, and clear peaks of ice
With a transcendent beauty: that which saves
From the world's blight our primal sympathies,
Still in man's heart, as some familiar shrine,
Feeding the tremulous lamp of love that never dies.
Poets have loved that land, and dared to twine
Round its existence memories of old time,
When the good reigned; and none in grief did pine.
Sages, and all who owned the might sublime
To impress their thought upon the face of things,
And teach a nation's spirit how to climb,
Spake of long-lost Atlantis, when the springs
Of clear Ilissus or the Tusculan bower
Were welcoming the pure rest which Wisdom brings
To her elect, the marvellous calm of power.
Oft, too, some maiden, garlanding her brow
With Baian roses, at eve's mystic hour,
Has gazed on the sun's path, as he sank low,
I' th' awful main, behind Inarime;
And with clasped hands, and gleaming eye, “Shalt thou,
First-born of light, endure in the flat sea
Such intermission of thy life intense?
Thou lordly one, is there no home for thee?”
A Youth took up the voice: “Thou speedest hence,
Beautiful orb, but not to death or sleep,
That feel we; worlds invisible to sense,
Whose course is pure, where eyes forget to weep,
And th' earthly sisterhood of sorrow and love
Some god putteth asunder, these shall keep
Thy state imperial now: there shalt thou move
Fresh hearts with warmth and joyance to rebound,
By many a musical stream and solemn grove.”
Years lapsed in silence, and that holy ground
Was still an Eden, shut from sight; and few
Brave souls in its idea solace found.
In the last days a man arose, who knew
That ancient legend from his infancy.
Yea, visions on that child's emmarvailed view
Had flashed intuitive science; and his glee
Was lofty as his pensiveness, for both
Wore the bright colors of the thing to be!
But when his prime of life was come, the wrath
Of the cold world fell on him; it did thrill
His inmost self, but never quenched his faith.
Still to that faith he added search, and still,
As fevering with fond love of th' unknown shore,
From learning's fount he strove his thirst to fill.
But alway Nature seemed to meet the power
Of his high mind, to aid, and to reward
His reverent hope with her sublimest lore.
Each sentiment that burned; each falsehood warred
Against and slain; each novel truth inwrought—
What were they but the living lamps that starred
His transit o'er the tremulous gloom of Thought?
More, and now more, their gathered brilliancy
On the one master notion sending out,
Which brooded ever o'er the passionate sea
Of his deep soul; but ah! too dimly seen,
And formless in its own immensity!
Last came the joy, when that phantasmal scene
Lay in full glory round his outward sense;
And who had scorned before in hatred keen
Refuged their baseness now: for no pretence
Could wean their souls from awe; they dared not doubt
That with them walked on earth a spirit intense.
So others trod his path: and much was wrought
In the new land that made the angels weep.
That innocent blood—it was not shed for nought!
My God! it is an hour of dread, when leap,
Like a fire-fountain, forth the energies
Of Guilt, and desolate the poor man's sleep.
Yet not alone for torturing agonies,
Though meriting most, nor all that storm of Woe
Which did entempest their pure fulgent skies,
Shall the deep curse of ages cling, and grow
To the foul names of those who did the deed,
The lusters for the gold of Mexico!
Mute are th' ancestral voices we did heed,
The tones of superhuman melody:
And the “veiled maid” is vanished, who did feed
By converse high the faith of liberty
In young unwithered hearts, and Virtue, and Truth,
And every thing that makes us joy to be!
Lo! there hath passed away a glory of Youth
From this our world; and all is common now,
And sense doth tyrannize o'er Love and Ruth.
What, is Hope dead? and gaze we her pale brow,
Like the cold statues round a Roman's bier,
Then tearless travel on through tracts of human woe?
No! there is one, one ray that lingers here,
To battle with the world's o'ershadowing form,
Like the last firefly of a Tuscan year,
Or dying flashes of a noble storm.
Beyond the clime of Tripoly, and beyond
Bahr Abiad, where the lone peaks, unconform
To other hills, and with rare foliage crowned,
Hold converse with the Moon, a City stands
Which yet no mortal guest hath ever found.
Around it stretch away the level sands
Into the silence: pausing in his course,
The ostrich kens it from his subject lands.
Here with faint longings and a subdued force
Once more was sought th' ideal aliment
Of Man's most subtle being, the prime source
Of all his blessings: here might still be blent
Whate'er of heavenly beauty in form or sound
Illumes the Poet's heart with ravishment.
Thou fairy City, which the desert mound
Encompasseth, thou alien from the mass
Of human guilt, I would not wish thee found!
Perchance thou art too pure, and dost surpass
Too far amid th' Ideas ranged high
In the Eternal Reason's perfectness,
To our deject and most embased eye,
To look unharmed on thy integrity,
Symbol of Love, and Truth, and all that cannot die.
Thy Palaces and pleasure-domes to me
Are matter of strange thought: for sure thou art
A splendor in the wild: and aye to thee
Did visible guardians of the Earth's great heart
Bring their choice tributes, culled from many a mine,
Diamond, and jasper, porphyry, and the art
Of figured chrysolite: nor silver shine
There wanted, nor the mightier power of gold:
So wert thou reared of gore, City divine!
And who are they of blisses manifold,
That dwell within thee? Spirits of delight,
It may be spirits whose pure thoughts enfold,
In eminence of Being, all the light
That interpenetrates this mighty all,
And doth endure in its own beauty's right.
And oh! the vision were majestical
To them, indeed, of column, and of spire,
And hanging garden, and hoar waterfall!
For we, poor prisoners of this earthy mire,
See little; they, the essence and the law
Robing each other in its peculiar tire.
Yet moments have been, when in thought I saw
That city rise upon me from the void,
Populous with men: and phantasy would draw
Such portraiture of life, that I have joyed
In over-measure to behold her work,
Rich with the myriad charms, by evil unalloyed.
Methought I saw a nation, which did heark
To Justice, and to Truth: their ways were strait,
And the dread shadow, Tyranny, did lurk
Nowhere about them: not to scorn, or hate
A living thing was their sweet nature's bond:
So every soul moved free in kingly state.
Suffering they had (nor else were virtue found
In these our pilgrim spirits): gently still
And as from cause external came the wound,
Not like a gangrene of soul-festering ill,
To taint the springs of life, and undermine
The holy strength of their majestic will.
Methought I saw a face whose every line
Wore the pale cast of Thought; a good, old man,
Most eloquent, who spake of things divine.
Around him youths were gathered, who did scan
His countenance so grand and mild; and drank
The sweet, sad tones of Wisdom, which outran
The lifeblood, coursing to the heart, and sank
Inward from thought to thought, till they abode
'Mid Being's dim foundations, rank by rank
With those transcendent truths, arrayed by God
In linked armor for untiring fight,
Whose victory is, where time hath never trod.
Methought I saw a maiden in the light
Of beauty musing near an amaranth bower,
Herself a lordly blossom. Past delight
Was fused in actual sorrow by the power
Of mightiest Love upon her delicate cheek;
And magical was her wailing at that hour.
For aye with passionate sobs she mingled meek
Smiles of severe content: as though she raised
To Him her inmost heart, who shields the weak.
She wept nor long in solitude: I gazed,
Till women, and sweet children came, and took
Her hand, and uttered meaning words, and praised
The absent one with eyes, which as a book
Revealed the workings of the heart sincere.
In sooth, it was a glorious thing to look
Upon that interchange of smile and tear!
But when the mourner turned, in innocent grace
Lifting that earnest eye and forehead clear,
Oh then, methought, God triumphed in her face!
But these are dreams: though ministrant on good,
Dreams are they; and the Night of things their place.
So be it ever! Ever may the mood
“In which the affections gently lead us on”
Be as thy sphere of visible life. The crowd,
The turmoil, and the countenances wan
Of slaves, the Power-inchanted, thou shalt flee,
And by the gentle heart be seen, and loved alone.
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