Narrative Poems, part 3, Barclay of Ury etc | Page 6

blindness happeneth unto all.
"Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight,?Through present wrong, the eternal right;?And, step by step, since time began,?I see the steady gain of man;
"That all of good the past hath had?Remains to make our own time glad,?Our common daily life divine,?And every land a Palestine.
"Thou weariest of thy present state;?What gain to thee time's holiest date??The doubter now perchance had been?As High Priest or as Pilate then!
"What thought Chorazin's scribes? What faith?In Him had Nain and Nazareth??Of the few followers whom He led?One sold Him,--all forsook and fled.
"O friend! we need nor rock nor sand,?Nor storied stream of Morning-Land;?The heavens are glassed in Merrimac,--?What more could Jordan render back?
"We lack but open eye and ear?To find the Orient's marvels here;?The still small voice in autumn's hush,?Yon maple wood the burning bush.
"For still the new transcends the old,?In signs and tokens manifold;?Slaves rise up men; the olive waves,?With roots deep set in battle graves!
"Through the harsh noises of our day?A low, sweet prelude finds its way;?Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear,?A light is breaking, calm and clear.
"That song of Love, now low and far,?Erelong shall swell from star to star!?That light, the breaking day, which tips?The golden-spired Apocalypse!"
Then, when my good friend shook his head,?And, sighing, sadly smiled, I said:?"Thou mind'st me of a story told?In rare Bernardin's leaves of gold."
And while the slanted sunbeams wove?The shadows of the frost-stained grove,?And, picturing all, the river ran?O'er cloud and wood, I thus began:--
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
In Mount Valerien's chestnut wood?The Chapel of the Hermits stood;?And thither, at the close of day,?Came two old pilgrims, worn and gray.
One, whose impetuous youth defied?The storms of Baikal's wintry side,?And mused and dreamed where tropic day?Flamed o'er his lost Virginia's bay.
His simple tale of love and woe?All hearts had melted, high or low;--?A blissful pain, a sweet distress,?Immortal in its tenderness.
Yet, while above his charmed page?Beat quick the young heart of his age,?He walked amidst the crowd unknown,?A sorrowing old man, strange and lone.
A homeless, troubled age,--the gray?Pale setting of a weary day;?Too dull his ear for voice of praise,?Too sadly worn his brow for bays.
Pride, lust of power and glory, slept;?Yet still his heart its young dream kept,?And, wandering like the deluge-dove,?Still sought the resting-place of love.
And, mateless, childless, envied more?The peasant's welcome from his door?By smiling eyes at eventide,?Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.
Until, in place of wife and child,?All-pitying Nature on him smiled,?And gave to him the golden keys?To all her inmost sanctities.
Mild Druid of her wood-paths dim!?She laid her great heart bare to him,?Its loves and sweet accords;--he saw?The beauty of her perfect law.
The language of her signs lie knew,?What notes her cloudy clarion blew;?The rhythm of autumn's forest dyes,?The hymn of sunset's painted skies.
And thus he seemed to hear the song?Which swept, of old, the stars along;?And to his eyes the earth once more?Its fresh and primal beauty wore.
Who sought with him, from summer air,?And field and wood, a balm for care;?And bathed in light of sunset skies?His tortured nerves and weary eyes?
His fame on all the winds had flown;?His words had shaken crypt and throne;?Like fire, on camp and court and cell?They dropped, and kindled as they fell.
Beneath the pomps of state, below?The mitred juggler's masque and show,?A prophecy, a vague hope, ran?His burning thought from man to man.
For peace or rest too well he saw?The fraud of priests, the wrong of law,?And felt how hard, between the two,?Their breath of pain the millions drew.
A prophet-utterance, strong and wild,?The weakness of an unweaned child,?A sun-bright hope for human-kind,?And self-despair, in him combined.
He loathed the false, yet lived not true?To half the glorious truths he knew;?The doubt, the discord, and the sin,?He mourned without, he felt within.
Untrod by him the path he showed,?Sweet pictures on his easel glowed?Of simple faith, and loves of home,?And virtue's golden days to come.
But weakness, shame, and folly made?The foil to all his pen portrayed;?Still, where his dreamy splendors shone,?The shadow of himself was thrown.
Lord, what is man, whose thought, at times,?Up to Thy sevenfold brightness climbs,?While still his grosser instinct clings?To earth, like other creeping things!
So rich in words, in acts so mean;?So high, so low; chance-swung between?The foulness of the penal pit?And Truth's clear sky, millennium-lit!
Vain, pride of star-lent genius!--vain,?Quick fancy and creative brain,?Unblest by prayerful sacrifice,?Absurdly great, or weakly wise!
Midst yearnings for a truer life,?Without were fears, within was strife;?And still his wayward act denied?The perfect good for which he sighed.
The love he sent forth void returned;?The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,?Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,--?A fire-mount in a frozen zone!
Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed,[9]?Seen southward from his sleety mast,?About whose brows of changeless frost?A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.
Far round the mournful