Poems, second period | Page 6

bold hand,?The human heart, by new-born instincts moved,?That have in burning fights been fully proved,?Your circle of creation now expand.?Advancing man bears on his soaring pinions,?In gratitude, art with him in his flight,?And out of Nature's now-enriched dominions?New worlds of beauty issue forth to light.?The barriers upon knowledge are o'erthrown;?The spirit that, with pleasure soon matured,?Has in your easy triumphs been inured?To hasten through an artist-whole of graces,?Nature's more distant columns duly places.?And overtakes her on her pathway lone.?He weighs her now with weights that human are,?Metes her with measures that she lent of old;?While in her beauty's rites more practised far,?She now must let his eye her form behold.?With youthful and self-pleasing bliss,?He lends the spheres his harmony,?And, if he praise earth's edifice,?'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.
In all that now around him breathes,?Proportion sweet is ever rife;?And beauty's golden girdle wreathes?With mildness round his path through life;?Perfection blest, triumphantly,?Before him in your works soars high;?Wherever boisterous rapture swells,?Wherever silent sorrow flees,?Where pensive contemplation dwells,?Where he the tears of anguish sees,?Where thousand terrors on him glare,?Harmonious streams are yet behind--?He sees the Graces sporting there,?With feeling silent and refined.?Gentle as beauty's lines together linking,?As the appearances that round him play,?In tender outline in each other sinking,?The soft breath of his life thus fleets away.?His spirit melts in the harmonious sea,?That, rich in rapture, round his senses flows,?And the dissolving thought all silently?To omnipresent Cytherea grows.?Joining in lofty union with the Fates,?On Graces and on Muses calm relying,?With freely-offered bosom he awaits?The shaft that soon against him will be flying?From the soft bow necessity creates.
Favorites beloved of blissful harmony,?Welcome attendants on life's dreary road,?The noblest and the dearest far that she,?Who gave us life, to bless that life bestowed!?That unyoked man his duties bears in mind,?And loves the fetters that his motions bind,?That Chance with brazen sceptre rules him not,--?For this eternity is now your lot,?Your heart has won a bright reward for this.?That round the cup where freedom flows,?Merrily sport the gods of bliss,--?The beauteous dream its fragrance throws,?For this, receive a loving kiss!
The spirit, glorious and serene,?Who round necessity the graces trains,--?Who bids his ether and his starry plains?Upon us wait with pleasing mien,--?Who, 'mid his terrors, by his majesty gives joy,?And who is beauteous e'en when seeking to destroy,--?Him imitate, the artist good!?As o'er the streamlet's crystal flood?The banks with checkered dances hover,?The flowery mead, the sunset's light,--?Thus gleams, life's barren pathway over,?Poesy's shadowy world so bright.?In bridal dress ye led us on?Before the terrible Unknown,?Before the inexorable fate,?As in your urns the bones are laid,?With beauteous magic veil ye shade?The chorus dread that cares create.?Thousands of years I hastened through?The boundless realm of vanished time?How sad it seems when left by you--?But where ye linger, how sublime!
She who, with fleeting wing, of yore?From your creating hand arose in might,?Within your arms was found once more,?When, vanquished by Time's silent flight,?Life's blossoms faded from the cheek,?And from the limbs all vigor went,?And mournfully, with footstep weak,?Upon his staff the gray-beard leant.?Then gave ye to the languishing,?Life's waters from a new-born spring;?Twice was the youth of time renewed,?Twice, from the seeds that ye had strewed.
When chased by fierce barbarian hordes away,?The last remaining votive brand ye tore?From Orient's altars, now pollution's prey,?And to these western lands in safety bore.?The fugitive from yonder eastern shore,?The youthful day, the West her dwelling made;?And on Hesperia's plains sprang up once more?Ionia's flowers, in pristine bloom arrayed.?Over the spirit fairer Nature shed,?With soft refulgence, a reflection bright,?And through the graceful soul with stately tread?Advanced the mighty Deity of light.?Millions of chains were burst asunder then,?And to the slave then human laws applied,?And mildly rose the younger race of men,?As brethren, gently wandering side by side,?With noble inward ecstasy,?The bliss imparted ye receive,?And in the veil of modesty,?With silent merit take your leave.?If on the paths of thought, so freely given,?The searcher now with daring fortune stands,?And, by triumphant Paeans onward driven,?Would seize upon the crown with dauntless hands--?If he with grovelling hireling's pay?Thinks to dismiss his glorious guide--?Or, with the first slave's-place array?Art near the throne his dream supplied--?Forgive him!--O'er your head to-day?Hovers perfection's crown in pride,?With you the earliest plant Spring had,?Soul-forming Nature first began;?With you, the harvest-chaplet glad,?Perfected Nature ends her plan.
The art creative, that all-modestly arose?From clay and stone, with silent triumph throws?Its arms around the spirit's vast domain.?What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows,?He knows, discovers, only for your gain?The treasures that the thinker has amassed,?He will enjoy within your arms alone,?Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.?To art ennobled shall have grown,--?Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height,?And there, illumined by the setting sun,?The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.?The richer ye reward the eager gaze?The higher, fairer orders that the mind?May traverse with its