The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 101

CHIEFLY CRITICAL OR REFLECTIVE.[A]

[A] These Poems, with one exception, have received but little alteration since they were first composed, and are taken from the little volume called "Eva, &c." The Poem called "THE IDEAL WORLD," to which I refer as an exception, appeared in a much ruder form in the earlier editions of the "Pilgrims of the Rhine," to which it served as a Preface. I recast, and, indeed, re-wrote it for the last edition of that work, from which (with slight corrections, and the omission of the verses which connected the poem with the tale by which it was first accompanied) it is now reprinted.

THE SOULS OF BOOKS.

I.

Sit here and muse!--it is an antique room-- High-roof'd with cas.e.m.e.nts, through whose purple pane Unwilling Daylight steals amidst the gloom, Shy as a fearful stranger.

There THEY reign (In loftier pomp than waking life had known), The Kings of Thought!--not crown'd until the grave.

When Agamemnon sinks into the tomb, The beggar Homer mounts the Monarch's throne!

Ye ever-living and imperial Souls, Who rule us from the page in which ye breathe, All that divide us from the clod ye gave!

Law--Order--Love--Intelligence--the Sense Of Beauty--Music and the Minstrel's wreath!-- What were our wanderings if without your goals?

As air and light, the glory ye dispense, Becomes our being--who of us can tell What he had been, had Cadmus never taught The art that fixes into form the thought-- Had Plato never spoken from his cell, Or his high harp blind Homer never strung?-- Kinder all earth hath grown since genial Shakspeare sung!

II.

Hark! while we muse, without the walls is heard The various murmur of the labouring crowd, How still, within those archive-cells interr'd, The Calm Ones reign!--and yet they rouse the loud Pa.s.sions and tumults of the circling world!

From them, how many a youthful Tully caught The zest and ardour of the eager Bar; From them, how many a young Ambition sought Gay meteors glancing o'er the sands afar-- By them each restless wing has been unfurl'd, And their ghosts urge each rival's rushing car!

They made yon Preacher zealous for the truth; They made yon Poet wistful for the star; Gave Age its pastime--fired the cheek of Youth-- The unseen sires of all our beings are,--

III.

And now so still! This, Cicero, is thy heart; I hear it beating through each purple line.

This is thyself, Anacreon--yet thou art Wreath'd, as in Athens, with the Cnidian vine.

I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold Thy spirit meets me in the haunted ground!

Sublime and eloquent, as while, of old, "It flamed and sparkled in its crystal bound;"[B]

These _are_ yourselves--your life of life! The Wise (Minstrel or Sage) _out_ of their books are clay; But _in_ their books, as from their graves, they rise, Angels--that, side by side, upon our way, Walk with and warn us!

Hark! the world so loud And _they_, the movers of the world, so still!

What gives this beauty to the grave? the shroud Scarce wraps the Poet, than at once there cease Envy and Hate! "Nine cities claim him dead, Through which the living Homer begg'd his bread!"

And what the charm that can such health distil From wither'd leaves--oft poisons in their bloom?

We call some books immoral! _Do they live?_ If so, believe me, TIME hath made them pure.

In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace-- G.o.d wills that nothing evil should endure; The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole, As the dust leaves the disembodied soul!

Come from thy niche, Lucretius! Thou didst give Man the black creed of Nothing in the tomb!

Well, when we read thee, does the dogma taint?

No; with a listless eye we pa.s.s it o'er, And linger only on the hues that paint The Poet's spirit lovelier than his lore.

None learn from thee to cavil with their G.o.d; None commune with thy genius to depart Without a loftier instinct of the heart.

Thou mak'st no Atheist--thou but mak'st the mind Richer in gifts which Atheists best confute-- FANCY AND THOUGHT! 'Tis these that from the sod Lift us! The life which soars above the brute Ever and mightiest, breathes from a great Poet's lute!

Lo! that grim Merriment of Hatred;[C]--born Of him--the Master-Mocker of Mankind, Beside the grin of whose malignant spleen, Voltaire's gay sarcasm seems a smile serene,-- Do we not place it in our children's hands, Leading young Hope through Lemuel's fabled lands?-- G.o.d's and man's libel in that foul yahoo!-- Well, and what mischief can the libel do?

O impotence of Genius to belie Its glorious task--its mission from the sky!

Swift wrote this book to wreak a ribald scorn On aught the man should love or Priest should mourn-- And lo! the book, from all its ends beguiled, A harmless wonder to some happy child!

IV.

All books grow homilies by time; they are Temples, at once, and Landmarks. In them, we Who _but_ for them, upon that inch of ground We call "THE PRESENT," from the cell could see No daylight trembling on the dungeon bar; Turn, as we list, the globe's great axle round, Traverse all s.p.a.ce, and number every star, And feel the Near less household than the Far!

There is no Past, so long as Books shall live!

A disinterr'd Pompeii wakes again For him who seeks yon well; lost cities give Up their untarnish'd wonders, and the reign Of Jove revives and Saturn:--At our will Rise dome and tower on Delphi's sacred hill; Bloom Cimon's trees in Academe;[D]--along Leucadia's headland sighs the Lesbian's song; With Egypt's Queen once more we sail the Nile, And learn how worlds are barter'd for a smile:-- Rise up, ye walls, with gardens blooming o'er, Ope but that page--lo, Babylon once more!

V.

Ye make the Past our heritage and home: And is this all? No: by each prophet-sage-- No; by the herald souls that Greece and Rome Sent forth, like hymns, to greet the Morning Star That rose on Bethlehem--by thy golden page, Melodious Plato--by thy solemn dreams, World-wearied Tully!--and above ye all, By THIS, the Everlasting Monument Of G.o.d to mortals, on whose front the beams Flash glory-breathing day--our lights ye are To the dark Bourne beyond; in you are sent The types of Truths whose life is THE TO-COME; In you soars up the Adam from the fall; In you the FUTURE as the PAST is given-- Ev'n in our death ye bid us hail our birth;-- Unfold these pages, and behold the Heaven, Without one grave-stone left upon the Earth!

[B] "Comus."

[C] "Gulliver's Travels."

[D] Plut. in "Vit. Cim."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD AND CONDORCET

Led by the Graces, through a court he moved, "All men revered him, and all women loved;"[E]-- Happier than Paris, when to _him_ there came The three Celestials--Learning, Love, and Fame, He found the art to soothe them all, and see The Golden Apple shared amidst the Three.

Yet he, this man, for whom the world a.s.sumed Each rose that in Gargettian[F] gardens bloom'd, Left to mankind a legacy of all That from earth's sweetness can extract a gall.

With him, indeed, poor Love is but a name-- Virtue a mask--Beneficence a game.

The Eternal Egotist, the Human Soul, Sees but in Self the starting-post and goal.

Nipp'd in the frost of that cold, glittering air, High thoughts are dwarf'd, and youth's warm dreams despair!

He lived in luxury, and he died in peace, And saints in powder wept at his decease!

Man loves this sparkling satire on himself;-- Gaze round--see Rochefoucauld on every shelf!

Look on the other;--Penury made him sour, His learned youth the hireling slave of power; His Manhood cast amidst the stormiest time, A hideous stage, half frenzy and all crime:-- Upon the Dungeon's floor of stone he died, With Life's last Friend, his Horace, by his side!

Yet he--this Sage--who found the world so base, Left what?--His "Progress of the Human Race."

A golden dream of man without a sin; All virtue round him and all peace within!

Man does not love such portraits of himself, And thrusts the unwelcome Flatterer from the shelf.

[E] "The men respect you, and the women love you."--Such was the subtle compliment paid by Prior to one equally ambitious of either distinction; viz. Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke.

[F] Epicurean.

JEALOUSY AND ART.

If bright Apollo be the type of Art, So is flay'd Marsyas that of Jealousy: With the bare fibres which for ever smart Under the sunbeams that rejoice the sky.

Had Marsyas ask'd not with the G.o.d to vie, The G.o.d had praised the cunning of his flute.

Thou stealest half Apollo's melody, Tune but thy reed in concert with his lute.

Each should enrich the other--each enhance By his own gift the common Beautiful: That every colour more may charm the glance, All varying flowers the garland-weavers cull; Adorn'd by Contrast, Art no rival knows,-- The violet steals not perfume from the rose.