Eidolon, or The Course of a Soul Part 3

It is n.o.bility to walk through life With a stout heart and cheerful courage on-- To look on sorrow with undaunted mien, And smile away the fears that trouble brings-- To bear unto the stricken solace sweet As water to the wounded, and to be A strength and an a.s.surance to the weak.

Ay! life, like matter, is atomic, and Man blows unto the winds what multiplied Makes up the universe. This radiant earth, Which, in its penitential moods the heart Feels were a paradise if guilt were not, Sprung from the womb of s.p.a.ce, in perfectness Co-equal with the fairest orb that holds Vice-royalty in heaven for the sun; Form, substance, seeming, and that vivid charm Which is the soul of matter like in each.

Mind differs only, making fair seem dull With what it glances through, and thus yon star Viewed with man's callous nature, would resolve Into reality as cold as Earth.

O Earth! thou Beauty! and thou Wonderful!

That from thy bosom like a living womb Bringest all forms of loveliness and grace Into the gladness of the summer air-- That givest to the winds that are the breath And heaving of thy pa.s.sion, winged thoughts To root, seed-like, into the ground, and spring, Bud, blossom, nourish'd ever by young showers, And moon-distilled dews, until they make Thine utterance odorous. That from thy soul, As from an unseen presence of divinest light, Dartest into the spirit subtle rays That quicken life to blessing, as the breath Of being stirreth the inanimate, Making existence joy, and love, and power.

O woods! and rustling forests! Ye that send Soft murmurs ever to the ends of heaven, And from your breast, as from a poet's soul, Issue all sweetest melodies of birds And leafy eloquence. O springs! and streams!

Blithe hearted wanderers throughout the earth, Tracing your footsteps still with flowers that rise Like stars beneath the feet of Night. O hills!

O mighty mountains! round whose h.o.a.ry brows Gather the mystic clouds of heaven, like thoughts Of unimagined wisdom, that are rocked To slumber by the deep-songed hurricanes, Sons of Destruction, and whose waking voice Is the eternal thunder. O wide ocean!

Swelling for ever with the mighty throes Of Nature's agony and ceaseless Act; Emblem of Time and of Eternity!

Time the great worker, the Implacable, That with the roll of human will and deed, And hopes, and joys, and shatter'd purposes Dashes relentless on! Eternity-- The Pauseless, the Insatiate! the gulf Whereto all motion, all existence flows, Enters and ends. O sunshine! and cool shade, And all that makes earth beautiful and sweet!

Soft moonlight! life's pure maidenhood, whose dreams Are gleams of antenatal blessedness, Witness for Earth's equality, and bid The sister orbs of heaven cry "Hail!" to her.

MAN.

O Mother Earth! methinks I hear a voice Sound 'mid the surging of the stars of heaven, Like a clear trump athwart the mighty roar Of falling waters.

"Oh thou beautiful, "Frail daughter of Immensity! that hangest "Upon the bosom of dim night, at once "A glory, and a brightness, and a shame-- "That from the urn of everlasting love "Drinkest of light and immortality, "Like a fair child in waywardness and mirth, "Triumphing in her loveliness; the swell "Of thy rapt harmonies is mute in heaven, "That once rang through the arches of all s.p.a.ce, "A wonder and an ecstasy; but still "Thy path is with the glorious and pure, "Spanning the empyrean with a jewelled zone, "Making heaven beautiful, and with thy grace "Charming to goodness, though thou act it not.

"Arise, O lovely fondling of the skies!

"Wake from the silence of thy fallen doom, "Breathe forth thy sweetness to the longing air; "The angels are about thee evermore, "Like watchers o'er a stricken one, that hold "A gla.s.s to catch the life-mist from her lips.

"Arise! and don thy bridal vestments pure, "And lead the train of heaven to the morn!

"Art thou not beautiful, Daughter of Heaven?-- "Beautiful as a bride before the sun, "Gliding along the blue serene of s.p.a.ce, "Pensive and glorious; showering soft light "Upon the path of heaven, as from the eyes "Of downward-glancing cherubim. Arise!

"Stand in the light of lights, and bare thy soul "Unto the searching of the undimmed spheres!"

O, Spirit! are there angels hovering now In the dim ocean of this twilight air?

SPIRIT.

There are pure angels ever round the earth, As stars are round the azure dome of heaven, In sunshine and in twilight and in gloom, That with the sweetness of an unseen love Circle humanity, and like the lark Hid in the glory of the noonday sun, Pour o'er the world heaven's constant tenderness.

Some in the soft-hued glimmering of dreams, Through the unfolded lattices of sleep, Steal to the soul in visions of delight, Pure and benignant as the evening dew That cools the bosom of the blushing rose.

Some all unseen, save in the blessed care, That like a lover's arm, from life's rough way Presses the serried thorns that choke it up; But all as with an atmosphere of love, And peace and strength encircling man, alike Within him and without, that the foul breath Of pestilent corruption touch him not.

Some are there who have loved and suffered much For earth, as a fond mother doth who sees Her babe die in her bosom; who have traced Man to the precipital brink of ruin, With open arms to charm him back from death, Rejected and despised; who on the scroll Of conscience, as with words of living light, Stamp the pure precepts of a holy lore, That sin obliterates and sets at naught.

MAN.

Oh! how polluted must man's spirit show In contrast with these ministers of heaven, That e'en beneath frail woman's purity Dims like a taper 'neath the light of day!-- Methinks if from our eyes sin's blindness fell, And gave pure angels to our ravish'd sight, Gliding around us clad in the bright robes Of love and immortality, this earth Would be like heaven. O! 'twere a blessed change, And perfect as when Death's exulting sigh Swoons through the empty chambers of the soul His note of liberty.

SPIRIT.

'Tis man alone Makes Earth less Paradise; its frame is full Of perfect blessedness, which to the pure Were Heaven in all its fulness; but mankind Are crimsoned o'er with sin, which like blood-stains A soundless ocean could not cleanse away.

And thus all flesh must thaw back to the dust From which it sprang, as ice doth unto water, Before the soul is purified for heaven.

Men little dream how near heaven is to them In possibility, how far in deed.

As little as they dream amid their mirth, Death stalks beside them; that his shadow falls In the same mirror where the maiden sees The image of her loveliness, and flits Amongst the whirl of revelry and show.

SCENE. _A rock overhanging the Sea._

MAN.

A rock and the wild waters! 'Tis a spot To moralize on life, and strip the world Of all its gaudy trappings and false gloss, That like the daubing on a wanton's cheek, Crimsons the paleness of disease and shame, And with life's semblance mocks a rotten heart.

O wild, wild sea! eternal wilderness Of strife and toil and fruitless energy!

Birthplace and Tomb! whence unto being spring Successive myriads to run their race, Rage, labour, and grow h.o.a.r, then pa.s.s away With all their deeds and memories, and cede Their petty sphere of inches to another.

O wild, wild sea! thou bosom of all pa.s.sion, And thought, and hope, and longing infinite!

That struggling ever from the riven caves, And fathomless abysses of the Earth, As from the cells of an awakened soul, Fling your hoa.r.s.e murmurs and aspiring groans To the strong winged winds, that puff them on In sport and in derision; that art stirred To tumult and to madness by the breath Of unseen currents, unsubstantial air, That pa.s.ses on, and leaves a foaming train To wonder at the thing that angered them.

O wild, wild sea! soul of indifference!

Lashing eternally the rifted sands And lonely sh.o.r.es about ye; swallowing The wreck of man's dependence, and the life That struggles with ye for the prize of love, And joy, and sorrow, clinging round its soul; That flowest on in coldness and self-aim O'er the dissolving frames of countless waves, That sink like generations, and so rise, Pausing or stilling never, numb'ring up A myriad selfish interests to make Thy sum of being perfect. Man may read The lore of human nature in thee, writ Not with the pen of flattery, that gilds The base past recognition, but all plain And coloured only by its truthfulness; The good and ill alike displayed, that lie Within the sounding of its inmost soul.

O! thought might wander o'er this briny waste, Dove-like, without one Ark whereon to rest From the interminable ebb and flow, As many a soul has flutter'd o'er the earth, Weary and faint, as mine did till it found A haven in the bosom of sweet love.

SPIRIT.

Then thou hast loved?

MAN.

Ay! so that life is bound About by it, as by a Gordian knot, Inseparable, until Death's sharp blade Divide its inmost coil. There is a time When all that sweeten'd youth and childhood dulls And fades to nothingness, as the faint moon Pales at the bright foreshadowing of morn, And leaves heaven void, when every chord is dumb That once made music in the soul, and life Is still and silent, though it be the pause That presages the storm and bitter strife, Whose fury ofttimes bends the spirit down, And strips it of its blossoms; Then to me O'er the blank chaos of my being came, As from the haunted chambers of deep thought, A glorious presence--an imagined grace, Whose footfalls as she rose pulsed thro' my heart With tremblings exquisite. It was sweet Love, The Blessed! the Indwelling! that doth make A virgin firmament for its pure light, Then at the pleading of its own deep want, Shines forth in glory and in tenderness.

Amongst the laughing and the gay I went, Seeking for one to realize love's dream, As mid the countless hosts of heaven the sage Peers for the brightness of a new-born star.

Then, soft hands trembled in my palm, and forms Graceful and rounded with the bloom of youth, Flitted about me in the languishment Of music and sweet motion; voices low, And modulate from laughter unto sadness, Hung on the air like perfume on the wind, And eyes, flashing, and mild, and fond, spake too, A very Babel of soft speech, and yet-- I sighed. Life seemed to me a painted daub--all glare, And show, and tinsel, where the eye in vain Sought some green spot to rest on, till a mist Swam o'er it as in gazing at the sun.

SPIRIT.

Man ofttimes palms an artificial life Upon the heart for that which is the true, Though to the real it be what a flower Is to its mimicry, a tinted rag Unsweetened by the breath of summer's love.

Joy flows alone from an _untroubled_ spring, Unstirred by the false whirl of giddy dreams, That send the dregs of pa.s.sion through its veins.

Amid that gay a.s.semblage many wore, Perchance, a laughing vizard o'er a heart Empty and sad; many a vacant smile, Like a sun-ray upon the winter's snow That freezes yet beneath it. Some there were Who flutter'd round its glitter, like a moth That takes a petty rush-light for the sun; And few who let the honest heart appear Unveiled mid Fashion's frigid masquerade.

Didst thou look deeper than the outward guise?

MAN.

Ay! some there were so lovely, that the eye Dreamt of them in its night, when they were gone; But when I search'd them, like a single flower The outer blossoms parted, and showed nought within.

Oh! then I fled, as one whose own wild thoughts Bid him outstrip the curbless winds of heaven, And storm the bulwarks of sublime desire.

Want grew within me as a famine grows With every hour that fleets unsatisfied; But in my wanderings there rose a spot, Where man had wrought pure nature's counsel out, Nor reared a shrine to mock her loveliness; Yet this I heeded not, for there was one Who came to me on sudden with such joy That I stirred not, but like one weak with thirst, Let the life draught flow o'er my powerless lips.

O! yet I see her, with those blessed eyes Slaying my soul with beauty; eyes so deep, That in their azure ocean of soft light Thought shrank into a fathom length; and smiles, Stealing their sweetness from a heaven of love, And joy, and immortality within, Whence all emotion, angel-like, came forth, Clad in a vesture of celestial light.

Her face beamed on me like a glimpse of heaven Caught in the rapture of prophetic trance, That in all day-light thoughts, and shaded dreams, Haunts the deep soul for ever. As she went, Grace lapt its mantle o'er her, like the gold On fleecy-bosomed clouds in sunny skies.

O Spirit! she was beautiful! a thing Guileless and pure, as though her youth had past With Heaven's own children in the light of G.o.d, Thence come to make a paradise of earth, And breathe the transports of transcendant bliss Like floral exhalations through my soul.

And I--I loved her with the love of heaven, That melts down time and s.p.a.ce, and all between, And clasps an essence in the soul's embrace; And from her being there would ever flow Full streams of holy melody, that lapt Earth, air, and heaven, and all terrestrial forms With charms bright as heaven's new-created light.

And as she gazed on the blue firmament, And shrined the stars with her pure thoughts, and dreamt Of that which lay beyond; I gazed on her, And drew Elysian theories of Heaven, As though borne thither by wing'd seraphims.

Oh! what is there in love that wreathes all things With an unfading halo of sweet light, Making the mystery of Nature clear?

SPIRIT.

Love, like the sun, clears from the soul all clouds That darken understanding, and wrap earth Round with a misty curtain, through whose folds The lineaments of beauty glimmer forth In undefined luxuriance. 'Tis a spell That brings by sympathetic influence The soul-deep glory from the universe.

All things are beautiful to those who love, Whether in mind or matter. Life becomes A pathway of soft light and radiance, Whereon the spirit glideth unto heaven As angels up the sunshine. Thought and deed Are blessed in the framing and the act, Fashioned and temper'd with pure charity, That knits man unto man, and grants the weak Exemption from the thraldom of the strong;-- And things inanimate, that yet are pierced Through with the spirit of eternal love, As with a life that circulates and glows In ruddy currents throughout all their frame, By gracious intuition stand revealed In all the plenitude of Eden charms.

Then Nature's language reaches to the heart, As through the modulations of a song Sweet thoughts flow o'er the spirit. What was fair Seems fairer, what was vividless grows bright.

MAN.