Hesperus Part 9

Autumn, the Poet, Painter, and true King!

His gorgeous Ideality speaks forth

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From the rare colors of the changing leaves; And the ripe blood that swells his purple veins Is as the glowing of a sacred fire.

He walks with Sh.e.l.ley's spirit on the cliffs Of the Ethereal Caucasus, and o'er The summits of the Euganean hills; And meets the soul of Wordsworth, in profound And philosophic meditation, rapt In some great dream of love towards The human race. The cheery Spring may come, And touch the dreaming flowers into life, Summer expand her leafy sea of green, And wake the joyful wilderness to song, As a fair hand strikes music from a lyre: But Autumn, from its daybreak to its close, Setting in florid beauty, like the sun, Robed with rare brightness and ethereal flame, Holds all the year's ripe fruitage in its hands, And dies with songs of praise upon its lips.

And then, the Indian Summer, bland as June: Some Tuscarora King, Algonquin Seer, Or Huron Chief, returned to smoke the Pipe Of Peace upon the ancient hunting grounds; The mighty shade in spirit walking forth To feel the beauty of his native woods, Flashing in Autumn vestures, or to mark The scanty remnants of the scattered tribes Wending towards their graves. Few Braves are left; Few mighty Hunters; fewer stately Chiefs, Like great Tec.u.mseth fit to take the field, And lead the tribes to certain victory,

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Choosing annihilation to defeat: But having run thy gauntlet of their days, This Autumn remnant of some unknown race, Nearing the Winter of their sad decay, Fall like dry leaves into the lap of Time; Their old trunks sapless, their tough branches bare, And Fate's shrill war-whoop thund'ring at their heels.

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COLIN.

Who'll dive for the dead men now, Since Colin is gone?

Who'll feel for the anguished brow, Since Colin is gone?

True Feeling is not confined To the learned or lordly mind; Nor can it be bought and sold In exchange for an Alp of gold; For Nature, that never lies, Flings back with indignant scorn The counterfeit deed, still-born, In the face of the seeming wise, In the Ja.n.u.s face of the huckster race Who barter her truths for lies.

Who'll wrestle with dangers dire, Since Colin is gone?

Who'll fearlessly brave the maniac wave, Thoughtless of self, human life to save, Unmoved by the storm-fiend's ire?

Who, Shadrach-like, will walk through fire, Since Colin is gone?

Or hang his life on so frail a breath That there's but a step 'twixt life and death?

For Courage is not the heritage Of the n.o.bly born; and many a sage Has climbed to the temple of fame, And written his deathless name In letters of golden flame, Who, on glancing down

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From his high renown, Saw his unlettered sire Still by the old log fire, Saw the unpolished dame-- And the dunghill from which he came.

Ah, ye who judge the dead By the outward lives they led, And not by the hidden worth Which none but G.o.d can see; Ye who would spurn the earth That covers such as he; Would ye but bare your hearts, Cease to play borrowed parts, And come down from your self-built throne: How few from their house of gla.s.s, As the gibbering secrets pa.s.s, Would dare to fling, whether serf or king, The first accusing stone!

Peace, peace to his harmless dust!

Since Colin is gone; We can but hope and trust; Man judgeth, but G.o.d is just; Poor Colin is gone!

Had he faults? His heart was true, And warm as the summer's sun.

Had he failings? Ay, but few; 'Twas an honest race he run.

Let him rest in the poor man's grave, Ye who grant him no higher goal; There may be a curse on the hands that gave, But not on his simple soul!

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MARGERY.

"Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world.

The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the light That wakes the love of beauty in the soul; And being foe to these, despises G.o.d, The sole Dispenser of the gracious bliss That brings us nearer the celestial gate.

They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True, And grow in loveliness of heart and soul, Catch at Deception's airy gossamers, As children clutch at stars. To some, the world Is a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand, With here and there a mirage, fair to view, But insubstantial as the visions born Of Folly and Despair. Could we but know How nigh we are to the true light of heaven; In what a world of love we live and breathe; On what a tide of truth our souls are borne!

Yet we're but bubbles in the whirl of life, Mere flecks upon its ever-restless sea, Meteors in its ever-changing sky.

Eternity alone is worth the thought That we expend upon the pa.s.sing hour, Chasing the gaudy b.u.t.terflies that lure Our footsteps from the path that leads us home.

We will not see the beacon on the rock; The prompter is unheeded; and the spark Of the true spirit quenched in utter night, As we rush headlong, wrecked on Error's shoals.

Some hearts will never open; all their wards

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Have grown so rusty, that the golden key Of Love Divine must fail to move the bolt That Self has drawn to keep G.o.d's angels out."

So spake the merry Margery, the while Her fingers lengthened out a filigree, That seemed to me so many golden threads Of thought between her fingers and her brain, Bestrung with priceless pearls; her lightsome mood, Worn as occasion might necessitate, Replaced to-night by sober-sided Sense, That made her beauty like an eve in June, Just as the moon is risen. I, to mark My approbation of her present mood, Rehea.r.s.ed a rambling lyric of my own, That seemed prophetic of her thoughts to-night:

Within my mind there ever lives A yearning for the True, The Beautiful and Good. G.o.d gives These, as He gives the dew

That falls upon the flowers at night, The gra.s.s, the thirsty trees, Because 'tis needful; and the light That suns my mind from these--

Truth--Beauty--Goodness, doth but fill A void within my soul; And I fall p.r.o.ne before the Will Of Him who gave the whole--

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The wondrous life--the power to think, And love, and act, and speak.

Standing, half-poised, upon the brink Of being--strong, yet weak--

Strong in vast hopes, but weak in deeds, I lift my heart and pray, That where the tangled skein of creeds Excludes the light of day

From human minds, G.o.d's purposes May be made plain, that all May walk in truth's and wisdom's ways, And lay aside the thrall

Of enmity, whose clouds have kept Their souls as dark as night; That they whose love and hope have slept, May come into the light,

And live as men, with minds to grasp Within the sphere of thought The boundless universe, and clasp The good the wise have sought,

As if it were a long-lost dove, Or a stray soul returned To worship in the fane of love, That it so long had spurned.

Where'er I gaze, my eyes behold Nought but the beautiful.

The world is grand as it is old; The only fitting school

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For man, where he may learn to live, And live to learn that what He needs heaven will in mercy give.

Whatever be his lot,

He shapes it for himself; his mind Is his own heaven or h.e.l.l: Just as he peoples it, he'll find Himself compelled to dwell

With good or evil. Good abounds In this delightful sphere; But man will walk his daily rounds, And evermore give ear

To the false promptings that waylay His steps at every turn; Flinging the true and good away For joys that he should spurn,

As being all unworthy of His greatness as a man.