The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 86

Not a sound is heard But my heart by thine, Breathe not a word, Lay thy hand in mine.

How trembling, yet still, On the lake's clear tide, Sleep the distant hill, And the bank beside.

The near and the far, Intermingled flow; The herb and the star Imaged both below.

So deep and so clear, Through the shadowy light, The far and the near In my soul unite;

The future and past, Like the bank and hill, On the surface gla.s.s'd, Though they tremble still;

Disturb not the dream Of this double whole; The heav'n in the stream On my soul thy soul.

The sense cannot count (As the waters gla.s.s The forest and mount And the clouds that pa.s.s)

The shadows and gleams In that stilly deep, Like the tranquil dreams Of a hermit's sleep.

_One_ shadow alone On my soul doth fall,-- And yet in the one It reflects on All.

IS IT ALL VANITY?

Doubting of life, my spirit paused perplext Let fall its fardell of laborious care, And the sharp cry of my great trouble vext Unsympathizing air.

Out on this choice of unrewarded toil, This upward path into the realm of snow!

Oh for one glimpse of the old happy soil Fragrant with flowers below!

For what false gold, like alchemists, we yearn, Wasting the wealth we never can recall, Joy and life's lavish prime;--and our return?

Ashes, cold ashes, all!

Could youth but dream what narrow burial-urns Hopes that went forth to conquer worlds should hold, How in a tomb the lamp Experience burns Amidst the dust of old!--

Look back, how all the beautiful Ideal, Sporting in doubtful moonlight, one by one Fade from the rising of the hard-eyed Real, Like Fairies from the sun.

Love render'd saintlike by its pure devotion; Knowledge exulting lone by sh.o.r.eless seas And Feelings tremulous to each emotion, As May leaves to the breeze.

And, oh, that grand Ambition, poet-nurst, When boyhood's heart swells up to the Sublime, And on the gaze the towers of Glory first Flash from the peaks of Time!

Are they then wiser who but nurse the growth Of joys in life's most common element, Creeping from hour to hour in that calm sloth Which Egoists call "Content?"

Who freight for storms no hopeful argosy, Who watch no beacon wane on hilltops grey, Who bound their all, where from the human eye The horizon fades away?

Alas for Labour, if indeed more wise To drink life's tide unwitting where it flows; Renounce the arduous palm, and only prize The Cnidian vine and rose!

Out from the Porch the Stoic cries "For shame!"

What hast thou left us, Stoic, in thy school?

"That pain or pleasure is but in the name?"

Go, p.r.i.c.k thy finger, fool!

Never grave Pallas, never Muse severe Charm'd this hard life like the free, zoneless Grace; Pleasure is sweet, in spite of every sneer On Zeno's wrinkled face.

What gain'd and left ye to this age of ours Ye early priesthoods of the Isis, Truth,-- When light first glimmer'd from the Cuthite's towers; When Thebes was in her youth?

When to the weird Chaldaean spoke the seer, When Hades open'd at Heraclean spells, When Fate made Nature her interpreter In leaves and murmuring wells?

When the keen Greek chased flying Science on, Upward and up the infinite abyss?-- Like perish'd stars your arts themselves have gone Noiseless to nothingness!

And what is knowledge but the Wizard's ring, Kindling a flame to circ.u.mscribe a ground?

The belt of light that lures the spirit's wing Hems the invoker round.

Ponder and ask again "what boots our toil?"

Can we the Garden's wanton child gainsay, When from kind lips he culls their rosy spoil And lives life's holiday?

Life answers "No--if ended here be life, Seize what the sense can give--it is thine all; Disarm thee, Virtue, barren is thy strife; Knowledge, thy torch let fall.

"Seek thy lost Psyche, yearning Love, no more!

Love is but l.u.s.t, if soul be only breath; Who would put forth one billow from the sh.o.r.e If the great sea be--Death?"

But if the soul, that slow artificer For ends its instinct rears _from_ life hath striven, Feeling beneath its patient webwork stir Wings only freed in Heaven,

_Then_ and but then to toil is to be wise; Solved is the riddle of the grand desire Which ever, ever, for the Distant sighs, And must perforce aspire.

Rise, then, my soul, take comfort from thy sorrow; Thou feel'st thy treasure when thou feel'st thy load; Life without thought, the day without the morrow, G.o.d on the brute bestow'd;

Longings obscure as for a native clime, Flight from what is to live in what may be, G.o.d gave the Soul.--Thy discontent with Time Proves thine eternity.

THE TRUE JOY-GIVER.

Oh Oevoe, _liber Pater_, Oh, the vintage feast divine, When the G.o.d was in the bosom And his rapture in the wine;

When the Faun laugh'd out at morning; When the Maenad hymn'd the night; And the Earth itself was drunken With the worship of delight;

Oh Oevoe, _liber Pater_, Whose orgies are upon The hilltops of Parna.s.sus, The banks of Helicon;--

How often have I hail'd thee!

How often have I been The bearer of the thyrsus, When its wither'd leaves were green.

Then the boughs were purple gleaming With the dewdrop and the star; And chanting came the wood-nymph, And flashing came the car.

Long faded are the garlands Of the thyrsus that I bore, When the wood-nymph chanted "Follow"

In the vintage-feast of yore.