Mountain idylls, and Other Poems Part 8

Dying Hymn.

The hour-gla.s.s speeds its final sands, In splendor sinks the golden sun, So men must yield to death's demands When human life its course has run.

We view the ruins of the past, We stand surrounded by decay, Our transient hours are speeding fast And, e'er we think, have pa.s.sed away.

Weep not, nor mourn with idle tear That hour, inevitable and sure; We move, our sojourn finished here, To n.o.bler realms which shall endure.

In Mortem Meditare.

DYING THOUGHTS.

As Life's receding sunset fades And night descends, I calmly watch the gathering shades, As darkness stealthily invades And daylight ends.

Earth's span is drawing to its close, With every breath; My pain-racked brain no respite knows, Yet shrinks it, from the grim repose It feels in death.

The curtain falls on Life's last scene, The end is neared; At last I face death's somber screen, The fleeting joys which intervene Have disappeared.

And as a panoramic scroll The past unreels; The mocking past, beyond control, Though buried, as a parchment roll, Its tale reveals.

I stand before the dread, unknown, Yet solemn fact; I see the seeds of folly sown In wayward years, maturely grown, Nor can retract.

My weaknesses rise to my sight; And now, too late, I fain would former actions right, Which years have buried in their flight; Now sealed by fate.

My frailties and iniquities I plainly see; Committed acts accusive rise, Omitted duties criticise In mockery.

I feel I have offended oft, E'en at my best Have failed to guide my course aloft; Perhaps in trival hour, have scoffed With idle jest.

p.r.o.ne to misgiving, p.r.o.ne to doubt, And frail from birth; More light and frivolous than devout; With life's brief candle flickering out, I speed from earth.

Can grief excuse indifference With groan or tear?

Can deep remorse and penitence, Or anguish mitigate offense With pang sincere?

Ah! Tears can ne'er unlock the past Which opens not; And what is done is welded fast, Through all eternity to last, Nor change one jot.

Whate'er may lie beyond the veil I calmly face, And sink, as grievous tears bewail My faults and imperfections frail, In death's embrace.

And as I think the matter o'er, Pensive and sad, While its shortcomings I deplore, The fruits which my existence bore Were not all bad.

From all which can rejoice or grieve I shortly go, And now, in life's declining eve I wonder, hope, try to believe-- Soon I shall know!

My spirit flees, as night enwraps, To its reward; The earth recedes, I feel it lapse; I sink as dissolution snaps The silver cord.

O, Thou whose presence I can feel Each hour I live, While pa.s.sing through death's stern ordeal, Wilt Thou Thy mercy still reveal, And still forgive?

Deprive This Strange and Complex World.

Deprive this strange and complex world Of all the charms of art; Deprive it of those sweeter joys Which music doth impart; But oh, preserve that smile, which tells The secret of the heart!

The world may lose its ma.s.sive piles Which point their spires above; May spare the tuneful nightingale And gently cooing dove; But woe betide it, if it lose The sentiment of love!

The Legend of St. Regimund.

St. Regimund, e'er he became a saint, Was much imbued with vulgar earthly taint; E'er he renounced the honors of a Knight And doffed his coat of mail and helmet bright, For sober ca.s.sock and monastic hood, Leaving the castle for the cloister rude, And changed the banquet's sumptuous repast For frugal crusts and the ascetic fast; Forsook his charger and equipments for The crucifix and sacerdotal war; While yet with valiant sword and blazoned shield He braved the dangers of the martial field, Or sought the antlered trophies of the chase In forest and sequestered hunting place; Or, tiring of the hunt's exciting sport, Enjoyed the idle pleasures of the court, Whiling away the time with games of chance, With music and the more voluptuous dance, The hollow paths of vanity pursued, Laughed, jested, swore, drank, danced, and even wooed; No tongue more p.r.o.ne to questionable wit, Nor chaste, when time and place demanded it; His ba.s.so voice, both voluble and strong, Excelled in wa.s.sail mirth and ribald song; He swore with oaths most impious and unblest; Ate much, drank more, on these lines did his best; Caroused by day, caroused by candle light, In fact behaved like any other knight.

This medieval knight (the legend saith) For months would scarcely draw a sober breath; But as his appet.i.te grew more and more Drank each day worse than on the day before; Was drunk all night, all day continued so, Indulged in every vice he chanced to know.

But long debauch and riotous excess Reduce their strongest votaries to distress; When nature can the strain no longer stand She chastens with a sure and irate hand, So when the day of reckoning had come, She smote with fever and delirium This valiant knight whom we have tried to paint; A very slim foundation for a saint!

The crisis reached, his fever stricken brain Surrendered reason to excessive pain; Nor moment's respite, comatose and kind, Relieved the raging furnace of his mind; And gruesome spectres, awful and unreal, Through his disordered vagaries would steal; When last his scorching temples sought repose In hasty nap or intermittent doze, His eyes beheld, though starting from his head, A grizzly figure leaning o'er his bed, With aspect foul beyond descriptive word, As one for months in sepulchre interred, Restored again to animated breath, A weird composite type of life and death; With countenance most hideous and vile, Leering with ghastly and unearthly smile; Pointing its shriveled finger, as in scorn, Of mockery and accusation born.

As he beheld in terror and surprise This gruesome shape which mocked before his eyes He could distinguish in its haughty mien A bearing, something as his own had been; Nor had its withered visage quite the look Of vampire, ghoul or evanescent spook; And as the apparition o'er him bent, He saw that every seam or lineament, Contour of feature, prominence of bone, Bore all a striking semblance to his own.

The horror stricken knight essayed to speak, But words responded tremulous and weak, And mustering his dissipated strength, A sitting posture he a.s.sumed at length,-- "Whate'er thou art, thou harbinger of gloom, Thou fiend or ghoul, fresh from the new made tomb, Thou vampire, diabolical and fell, Thou stygian shade or denizen of h.e.l.l, I charge thee, thing of evil, to confess Why thou hast thus disturbed my sore distress.

Why hast thou burst my chamber's bolted door Where guest unbidden never trod before?

Break this suspense, so horrible and still!

Declare thy tidings, be they good or ill, Be thou from Heaven or from the realms below.

I charge thee speak, be thou a friend or foe; Break thou thy silence, ominous and deep, Or hence! Pursue thy way and let me sleep!"

The grizzly spectre, still more ghastly grown, Surveyed with visage obdurate as stone, Then smiled with grimace of derisive craft, And in a most repugnant manner, laughed, But all the knight discerned with eye and ear, Was his own maudlin laugh and drunken leer.

"Breathe thou thy message," shrieked the frantic knight "Discharge thy purpose, though it blast and blight, I charge thee, speak, by all that is most fair.

By all most foul, I charge thee to declare; By my bright armor and my trusty sword; I charge thee, speak, by Holy Rood and Word!"

He sank exhausted, in such pallid fright The snowy sheets looked dark beside such white.

The spectre paused in silence for awhile, Then broke into a most repulsive smile, And answered in a weird and hollow tone, Enough to freeze the marrow in the bone: "I am thy blasted spirit's counterpart, A body fit for thy most evil heart, I am thy life, its psychic image sent To bear thee company, till thou repent."

'Tis said, for forty days the spectre stayed.

For forty days the knight incessant prayed; With scourge, with vigil and ascetic rite, With fast, with groan remorseful and contrite, He cleansed his blackened spirit by degrees, And purified it from its vanities; And as he prayed, the spectre's gruesome scowl Grew day by day less hideous and foul, As he waxed holy, it became more bright; And after forty days, arrayed in white It spread its spotless arms, devoid of taint Above this erstwhile knight and henceforth saint In benediction, as he knelt in prayer,-- Then vanished instantly to empty air.

Such is the tale, embellished by the Muse, 'Tis true or false, believe it as you choose; Some folks accept the story out and out, While some prefer to entertain a doubt.

But if it be fict.i.tious and unreal, 'Tis not subscribed and sworn, and bears no seal; It points a moral, as the legend old, If it conveys it, 'twas not vainly told, For should I such an apparition see-- I think t'would almost make a monk of me.

As The Indian.

_Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind Sees G.o.d in the clouds and hears Him in the wind.

--Pope._