Poems, second period | Page 5

the cedar's slender trunk it viewed;?And pleasingly the ocean's crystal flood?Reflected back the dancing form again.?Could ye mistake the look, with beauty fraught,?That Nature gave to help ye on your way??The image floating on the billows taught?The art the fleeting shadow to portray.
From her own being torn apart,?Her phantom, beauteous as a dream,?She plunged into the silvery stream,?Surrendering to her spoiler's art.?Creative power soon in your breast unfolded;?Too noble far, not idly to conceive,?The shadow's form in sand, in clay ye moulded,?And made it in the sketch its being leave.?The longing thirst for action then awoke,--?And from your breast the first creation broke.
By contemplation captive made,?Ensnared by your discerning eye,?The friendly phantom's soon betrayed?The talisman that roused your ecstasy.?The laws of wonder-working might,?The stores by beauty brought to light,?Inventive reason in soft union planned?To blend together 'neath your forming hand.?The obelisk, the pyramid ascended,?The Hermes stood, the column sprang on high,?The reed poured forth the woodland melody,?Immortal song on victor's deeds attended.
The fairest flowers that decked the earth,?Into a nosegay, with wise choice combined,?Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;?Into a garland then were nosegays twined,?And from the works that mortal hands had made,?A second, nobler art was now displayed.?The child of beauty, self-sufficient now,?That issued from your hands to perfect day,?Loses the chaplet that adorned its brow,?Soon as reality asserts its sway.?The column, yielding to proportion's chains,?Must with its sisters join in friendly link,?The hero in the hero-band must sink,?The Muses' harp peals forth its tuneful strains.
The wondering savages soon came?To view the new creation's plan?"Behold!"--the joyous crowds exclaim,--
"Behold, all this is done by man!"?With jocund and more social aim?The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,?Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays?And lion-slayers, turning, as he spoke,?Even into heroes those who heard his lays.?For the first time the soul feels joy,?By raptures blessed that calmer are,?That only greet it from afar,?That passions wild can ne'er destroy,?And that, when tasted, do not cloy.
And now the spirit, free and fair,?Awoke from out its sensual sleep;?By you unchained, the slave of care?Into the arms of joy could leap.?Each brutish barrier soon was set at naught,?Humanity first graced the cloudless brow,?And the majestic, noble stranger, thought,?From out the wondering brain sprang boldly now.?Man in his glory stood upright,?And showed the stars his kingly face;?His speaking glance the sun's bright light?Blessed in the realms sublime of space.?Upon the cheek now bloomed the smile,?The voice's soulful harmony?Expanded into song the while,?And feeling swam in the moist eye;?And from the mouth, with spirit teeming o'er,?Jest, sweetly linked with grace, began to pour.
Sunk in the instincts of the worm,?By naught but sensual lust possessed,?Ye recognized within his breast?Love-spiritual's noble germ;?And that this germ of love so blest?Escaped the senses' abject load,?To the first pastoral song he owed.?Raised to the dignity of thought,?Passions more calm to flow were taught?From the bard's mouth with melody.?The cheeks with dewy softness burned;?The longing that, though quenched, still yearned,?Proclaimed the spirit-harmony.
The wisest's wisdom, and the strongest's vigor,--?The meekest's meekness, and the noblest's grace,?By you were knit together in one figure,?Wreathing a radiant glory round the place.?Man at the Unknown's sight must tremble,?Yet its refulgence needs must love;?That mighty Being to resemble,?Each glorious hero madly strove;?The prototype of beauty's earliest strain?Ye made resound through Nature's wide domain.
The passions' wild and headlong course,?The ever-varying plan of fate,?Duty and instinct's twofold force,?With proving mind and guidance straight?Ye then conducted to their ends.?What Nature, as she moves along,?Far from each other ever rends,?Become upon the stage, in song,?Members of order, firmly bound.?Awed by the Furies' chorus dread,?Murder draws down upon its head?The doom of death from their wild sound.?Long e'er the wise to give a verdict dared,?An Iliad had fate's mysteries declared?To early ages from afar;?While Providence in silence fared?Into the world from Thespis' car.?Yet into that world's current so sublime?Your symmetry was borne before its time,?When the dark hand of destiny?Failed in your sight to part by force.
What it had fashioned 'neath your eye,?In darkness life made haste to die,?Ere it fulfilled its beauteous course.?Then ye with bold and self-sufficient might?Led the arch further through the future's night:?Then, too, ye plunged, without a fear,?Into Avernus' ocean black,?And found the vanished life so dear?Beyond the urn, and brought it back.?A blooming Pollux-form appeared now soon,?On Castor leaning, and enshrined in light--?The shadow that is seen upon the moon,?Ere she has filled her silvery circle bright!
Yet higher,--higher still above the earth?Inventive genius never ceased to rise:?Creations from creations had their birth,?And harmonies from harmonies.?What here alone enchants the ravished sight,?A nobler beauty yonder must obey;?The graceful charms that in the nymph unite,?In the divine Athene melt away;?The strength with which the wrestler is endowed,?In the god's beauty we no longer find:?The wonder of his time--Jove's image proud--?In the Olympian temple is enshrined.
The world, transformed by industry's