The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. M.P Part 88

Lost vale, and lost maiden!

Enclosed in the garden the mortal was blest: A world with its wonders lay round him unguest; That world was his own when he tasted of knowledge-- Was it worth Aden?

THE KING AND THE WRAITH.

KING.

Who art thou, who art thou, indistinct as the spray Rising up from a torrent in vapour and cloud?

Ghastly Phantom, obscuring the splendour of day And enveloped in awe, as a corpse with a shroud?

WRAITH.

King, my form is thy shade, And my life is thy breath; Lo, thy likeness display'd In the mirror of Death!

KING.

My veins are as ice! 'Tis my voice that I hear!

'Tis my form coming forth from the cloud that I see!

My voice?--can its sound be so dread to my ear?

My form?--can myself be so loathly to me?

WRAITH.

Never Man comes in sight Of himself till the last; In the flicker of light When the fuel is past!

KING.

Nay, avaunt, lying Spectre, my fears are dispell'd, For the likeness that fool'd me is fading away, And I see, where the shape of a king was beheld, But the coil of an earthworm that creeps into clay.

WRAITH.

As thy shade I began; As thyself I depart; And thy last looks, O Man, See the worm that thou art!

LOVE AND DEATH.

O Strong as the eagle, O mild as the dove, How like and how unlike O Death and O Love!

Knitting earth to the heaven, The near to the far, With the step in the dust, And the eye on the star.

Ever changing your symbols Of light or of gloom; Now the rue on the altar, The rose on the tomb.

From Love, if the infant Receiveth his breath, The love that gave life Yields a subject to Death.

When Death smites the aged, Escaping above Flies the soul re-deliver'd By Death unto Love.

And therefore in wailing We enter on life; And therefore in smiling Depart from its strife.

Thus Love is best known By the tears it has shed; And Death's surest sign Is the smile of the dead.

The purer the spirit, The clearer its view, The more it confoundeth The shapes of the two;

For, if thou lov'st truly, Thou canst not dissever The grave from the altar, The Now from the Ever;

And if, n.o.bly hoping, Thou gazest above, In Death thou beholdest The aspect of LOVE.

THE POET TO THE DEAD.

PART I.

RETROSPECTION FROM THE HALTING-PLACE.

Let me pause, for I am weary, Weary of the trodden ways; And the landscape spreads more dreary Where it stretches from my gaze.

Many a prize I deem'd a blessing When I started for the goal, Midway in the course possessing Adds a burthen to the soul.

By the thorn that scantly shadeth From the sloped sun reclin'd, Let me look, before it fadeth On the eastern hill behind;--

On the hill that life ascended, While the dewy morn was young; While the mist with light contended And the early skylark sung.

Then, as when at first united, Rose together Love and Day; Nature with her sun was lighted, And my soul with Viola!

O my young earth's lost Immortal!

Naiad vanish'd from the streams!

Eve, torn from me at the portal Of my Paradise of Dreams!

On thy name, with lips that quiver, With a voice that chokes, I call.-- Well! the cave may hide the river, But the ocean merges all.

Yet, if but in self-deceiving, Can no magic charm thy shade?

Come unto my human grieving, Come, but as the human maid!

By the fount where love was plighted Where the lone wave gla.s.s'd the skies; By the hands that once united; By the welcome of the eyes;

By the silence sweetly broken When the full heart murmur'd low, And with sighs the words were spoken Ere the later tears did flow;

By the blush and soft confession; By the wanderings side by side; By the love-denied possession; And the heavenlier, so denied;

By the faith yet undiverted; By the worship sacred yet; To the soul so long deserted, Come, as when of old we met;