Classic Poem

Farewell to things material, void of sense,
Unchanging elements of earth and sky!
Welcome the breathing worlds,
Of fabric subtler far,
In which, O Life and Death, your mysteries dwell!
Creatures of blood,
With gifts unsearchable,
Sensations quick,
Instinct divine,
Likings, dislikings, pleasure, pain, endow'd.

Of such my vision was upon a day
In summer-tide, beneath the forest-boughs,
Listless reclin'd upon the perfum'd sward.
Endless the scenes,
Polar or tropical, that went and came,
Courting my vacant gaze;
Endless the tribes
Of bird and beast, which in those scenes appear'd.
While now Norwegia's pines,
Bending with weight of snow,
Now Cheviot's heathery hills before me lay, —
And now again, in undulations long,
The verdant prairies stretching far and wide,
Beyond the Western wave, —
Each with their busy races roaming wild.
Endless the scenes, —
Endless the climates, — endless, too, the praise
By their unnumber'd denizens outpour'd
To Him, their God unknown,
In whom they move and live.

I saw the cedars tall
Of which the Psalmist sings;
Glory of thy green haunts, O Lebanon!
I saw them cluster'd thick with various birds; —
Highest of all, the hern
Had pois'd her stormy nest.

Then glistening rose
A fair Pacific Isle,
With graceful ferns adorn'd, and scented shrubs;
Where, amid blossoms of a thousand dyes,
The joyous humming-birds,
More brightly tinted still,
Like gems upon the wing, their sport pursued,
Glancing from spray to spray,
Through the clear sunny ray,
In the full zest that springs of natural solitude.

Anon the eagle stands
High on a jutting crag,
That o'er the desert looks:
There I espied her, with her savage mate,
Their lofty eyry build;
There lay her eggs, and hatch her bristly brood —
No food has she at hand.
But lo, meanwhile,
From earth's far ends two hostile armies draw: —
Prescient of carrion near,
She for her starving nestlings feels no fear;
Soon all amid the slain are they,
Sucking the blood of kings!

The peacock next,
Fanning his goodly plumes,
His aureole display'd.
Upon a broken urn,
Relic of ancient days,
Graceful he stood, the rainbow amid birds!
Then came the mystic dove,
Her silvery feathers all bedropp'd with gold,
Sliding she came, down the smooth circling stair
Of yielding atmosphere, nor stirr'd a breath
With her becalmed wing.

I look again;
And lo, 'tis all a void of blue expanse, —
A reach of azure sky,
Interminably spread! —
Then comes a sound of myriad beating wings,
And through the thin aerial solitudes,
An army strong,
The swallows voyage along;
In instinct's faith sublime,
Seeking another clime,
Not knowing whither bent, as he of olden time!
All in a rush I see them onward sweep —
Then from far down below,
Ascending slow,
Swells up the peal of the Atlantic deep!

Anon a beauteous range of mountain-tops
Courts my delighted gaze,
Where the wild goats are seen,
Feeding at will
Upon the ridges green,
Their pasturage of old;
While slowly sails the condor overhead.
Then on its tide,
Like a broad flowing stream,
The vision bore me on,
And brought me to an English homestead sweet,
Pictur'd on memory's page;
Where, in the yard,
Thick laid with wholesome straw,
I see four oxen stand,
Feeding at early dawn.
Hard by, the calf, responsive to its dam,
Lows from within the stall;
While, from half-open stable-door,
Pipes merrily the ploughboy's whistle shrill,
Mimic of blackbird's note.
Then forth the team is led,
Sleeky and slow; and, hardly past the gate,
Is met by our old shepherd and his son,
From midnight-watch
Returning, nipp'd and raw, their dog behind.

But ah! what sounds of fear
Are these that smite mine ear?
'Tis night — the moon is up —
And from the forest's dense obscurity,
In gusts are borne.
Howlings of savage beasts, whose fiendish forms,
Betwixt the glimmering stems,
Glance by at intervals,
Fleetly careering.
After their panting prey.
Trembling, I hear and see; but lo,
With the first streak of dawn,
Each to his den they wend;
Or fossil cave — or hollow of the pine —
Or ruin'd tower of eld;
And there, among their cubs
The spoil dividing, lay them down in peace!

Then in my sight a tufted palm-tree stood,
Shading a grassy track,
That by a tinkling rill its course pursued.
There, on the pathway green,
A dead man in his pool of blood is seen; —
The sunbeams twinkling with the twinkling leaves
Upon his face serene; —
A saddled ass is grazing at his side; —
And o'er him stands erect
And motionless the mighty forest-king;
His eye in secret fascination set;
His tail and shaggy mane
Rigid as bronze: — the sun is mounting high,
Yet there he stands
In the same place; nor hurteth ass nor man.

Fades the quick-shifting scene; and in its stead
A dungeon spreads its gloom;
Upon whose floor,
Noisome with human gore,
Sits holy Daniel, and feels no fear,
An Angel watching near; —
While round and round, without a sound,
Lions and lions' whelps in ceaseless maze career.

Then lo, a wilderness,
Broken in jagged rocks, and all besprent
With prickly weeds; — where horrid beasts of prey,
In the broad light of day,
Were roaming terrible as Satan's brood,
Tainting with noxious breath that awful solitude;
And all amid the howling crew,
Victim of day's hot glare, and night's envenom'd dew,
One with a thorny crown
Appeareth, kneeling down! —
Ah! wherefore kneels He there,
In fast and prayer; —
Before eternity outstretch'd her wings,
Lord of lords, and King of kings!

Anon as from a vague abyss, up swam
Strange shadowy forms
Of mystic beasts by ancient Prophets seen.
He foremost, erst beheld on Chobar's margin green,
With fourfold wing and face, and living wheels between.
Then, as in th' Apocalypse, I stood
Upon a sandy shore;
And lo, a beast from out the ocean rose, —
Seven heads he had, ten horns,
And on each horn a crown, —
Leopard in form,
With lion's mouth, and paw of grisly bear.
I saw him mount upon th' horizon's edge, —
A dim and fearful thing;
I saw the nations darken in his shade.
Forthwith the serpent coils his slimy way,
Enormous stretch'd along
In folds without an end.
Then fiery coursers smote my sight;
And lo, Elias soars, rapt in his car of light!