The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 100

There still the olives silver o'er The dimness of the distant hill; There still the flowers that Sharon bore, Calm air with many an odour fill.

Slowly THE LAST CRUSADER eyed The towers, the mount, the stream, the plain, And thought of those whose blood had dyed The earth with crimson streams in vain!

He thought of that sublime array, The Hosts, that over land and deep The Hermit marshall'd on their way, To see those towers, and halt to weep![G]

Resign'd the loved familiar lands, O'er burning wastes the cross to bear, And rescue from the Paynim's hands The empire of a sepulchre!

And vain the hope, and vain the loss, And vain the famine and the strife; In vain the faith that bore the Cross, The valour prodigal of life!

And vain was Richard's lion-soul, And guileless G.o.dfrey's patient mind-- Like waves on sh.o.r.e, they reach'd the goal, To die, and leave no trace behind!

"O G.o.d!" the last Crusader cried, "And art thou careless of thine own?

For us thy Son in Salem died, And Salem is the scoffer's throne!

"And shall we leave, from age to age, To G.o.dless hands the Holy Tomb?

Against thy saints the heathen rage-- Launch forth thy lightnings, and consume!"

Swift, as he spoke, before his sight A form flash'd, white-robed, from above; All Heaven was in those looks of light, But Heaven, whose native air is love.

"Alas!" the solemn Vision said, "_Thy_ G.o.d is of the shield and spear-- To bless the Quick and raise the Dead, The Saviour-G.o.d descended here!

"Ask not the Father to reward The hearts that seek, through blood, the Son; O warrior! never by the sword The Saviour's Holy Land is won!"

[F] The valley Jehoshaphat, through which rolls the torrent of the Kedron, is studded with tombs.

[G] See Ta.s.so, Ger. Lib. cant. iii. st. vi.

FOREBODINGS.

What are ye?--Strangers from the Phantom sh.o.r.e?

Lights that precede Funereal Destinies, Ev'n as the Spectres of the Sun, before He rises from the dearth of Arctic seas?

What demon presence haunts the haggard air?

What ice-wind checks the blood and lifts the hair?

What are ye?--"Nightmares known not to the sane, A sick man's sickly dreams"--the Leech replies, Then prates he much of viscera, spleen, and brain, And lays the Ghost with Galen;--"To the wise All things are matter;" well, we would be taught, Come, Leech, dissect the brain;--Now show me _Thought_!

Shame!--to the body, must the soul fulfil A slavery thus subjected and entire?

Must every crevice into light be still Choked with the clod? Each dread, and each desire Of things unknown, be track'd unto its germ In some crazed fibre rotting to the worm?

Trust we the dry philosophies that sneer Back every guess into the world of spirit, And what were left the present to revere?

And where would fade the future we inherit?

Try Heaven and h.e.l.l by the physician's test, And men know neither--while they well digest!

What mortal hand the airy line can draw 'Twixt Superst.i.tion in its shadowy terror And still Religion in its starry awe?-- Truth when sublime flows least distinct from error; Light of itself eludes our human eyes; Let it take colour, and it spans the skies!

Doubtful Foreshadows, have ye then of yore Never been prophets, murmuring weal or woe?

Beckoning no Sylla over seas of gore?

Warning no Julius of the fatal blow?

Seen in no mother-guise by that pale son Who led the Mede, and sleeps in Marathon?[H]

You, the Earth-shakers from whose right hands war Falls, as from Jove's the thunderbolt, obey; Gaul's sceptic Caesar had his guardian star, Stout Cromwell's iron creed its chosen day.

'Tis in proportion as men's lives are great, That, fates themselves,--they gla.s.s the shades of Fate.

The wisest sage the antique wisdom knew, Gazing into blue s.p.a.ce long silent hours, Would commune with his Genius: as the dew Recruits the river, so the unseen Powers Of Nature feed with thoughts spiritual, soul.-- Belief alone links knowledge to The Whole.

Hail, then, each gleam, albeit of angry skies, Terrible never to the n.o.ble sight!

Hail the dread lightning, if it lift the eyes Up from the dust into the Infinite!

Look through thy grate, thou saddest captive, Doubt, And thank the flash that shows a Heaven without.

[H] Hippias, before the battle of Marathon, in which he was slain, dreamt a dream that he slept with his mother.--See Herodotus.

ORAMA; OR, FATE AND FREEWILL.

Thin, shadowy, scarce divided from the light, I saw a phantom at the birth of morn: Its robe was sable, but a fleecy white Flow'd silvering o'er the garb of gloom; a horn It held within its hand; no faintest breath Stirr'd its wan lips--death-like, it seem'd not Death.

My heart lay numb within me; and the flow Of life, like water under icebergs, crept; The pulses of my being seem'd to grow One awe;--voice fled the body as it slept, But from its startled depth arose the soul And king-like spoke:-- "What art thou, that dost seem To have o'er Immortality control?"

And the Shape answer'd, not by sound, "A Dream!

A Dream, but not a Dream: the Shade of things To come--a herald from the throne of Fate.

I ruled the hearts of earth's primaeval kings, I gave their life its impulse and its date: Grey Wisdom paled before me, and the stars Were made my weird interpreters--my hand Aroused the whirlwind of the destined wars, And bow'd the nations to my still command.

A Dream, but not a Dream;--a type, a sign, Pale with the Future, do I come to thee.

The lot of Man is twofold; gaze on thine, And choose thy path into eternity."

Thus spoke the Shade; and as when autumn's haze Rolls from a ghostly hill, and gives to view The various life of troubled human days, So round the phantom, pale phantasma grew, And landscapes rose on either side the still River of Time, whose waves are human hours.-- "What," said my soul, "doth not the Omniscient Will Foreshape, foredoom; if so, what choice is ours?"

The Ghost replied:-- "Deem'st thou the art divine Less than the human? Doth inventive Man All adverse means in one great end combine, And close each circle where the thought began, So that his genius, bent on schemes sublime, Scarce notes the obstructions to its purposed goal, But turns each discord of the changeful time Into the music of a changeless whole?

And deem'st thou Him who breathes, and worlds arise, But the blind agent of His own cold law?

Fool! doth yon river less reflect the skies Because some wavelet eddies round a straw?

Still to Man's choice is either margin given Beside the Stream of Time to wander free: And still, as nourish'd by the dews of Heaven, Glides the sure river to the solemn sea.

Choose as thou wilt!"-- Then luminously clear Flash'd either margin from the vapoury shade; What I beheld unmeet for mortal ear,-- Nor dare I tell the choice the mortal made.

But when the Shape had left me, and the dawn Smote the high lattice with a starbeam pale, As a blind man when from his sight withdrawn The film of dark,--or as unto the gale Leaps the live war-ship from the leaden calm,-- So joyous rose, look'd forth, and on to Fate Bounded my soul! Yet nor the Olympian palm Which fierce contestors hotly emulate, Nor roseate blooms in Cytherean dell, Nor laurel shadowing murmurous Helicon, Strain'd my desire divinely visible In the lone course it was my choice to run.

Wherefore was then my joy?--THAT I WAS FREE!

Not my life doom'd, as I had deem'd till then, An iron link of grim Necessity,-- A sand-grain wedged amidst the walls of men; The good, the ill, the happiness or woe, That waited, not a thraldom pre-decreed, But from myself as from their germ to grow,-- Let the Man suffer, still the Slave was freed!

Predestine earth, and heavenly Mercy dies; The voice of sorrow wastes its wail on air; Freewill restores the Father to the skies, Unlocks from ice the living realm of prayer, And gives creation what the human heart Gives to the creature, life to life replying.

O epoch in my being, and mine art, Known but to me!--How oft do thoughts undying Like rainbows, spring between the cloud and beam, Colouring the world yet painted on--a dream.

EARLIER POEMS.