Poems, second period | Page 4

story is the world's own doom."

"Hope thou hast felt,--thy wages, then, are paid;
Thy faith 'twas formed the rapture pledged to thee. Thou might'st have
of the wise inquiry made,--
The minutes thou neglectest, as they fade,
Are given back by no eternity!"
THE CONFLICT.
No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
The conflict duty claims--the
giant task;--
Thy spells, O virtue, never can assuage
The heart's
wild fire--this offering do not ask
True, I have sworn--a solemn vow have sworn,
That I myself will
curb the self within;
Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn--

Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.
Rent be the contract I with thee once made;--
She loves me, loves
me--forfeit be the crown!
Blessed he who, lulled in rapture's dreamy
shade,
Glides, as I glide, the deep fall gladly down.
She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays,
She sees my
spring-time wasted as it flees;
And, marvelling at the rigor that
gainsays
The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees.
Distrust this angel purity, fair soul!
It is to guilt thy pity armeth me;

Could being lavish its unmeasured whole,
It ne'er could give a gift
to rival thee!
Thee--the dear guilt I ever seek to shun,
O tyranny of fate, O wild
desires!
My virtue's only crown can but be won
In that last
breath--when virtue's self expires!
THE ARTISTS.
How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning

century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With
unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,--though silent,
rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great,
through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long

Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,--
Master of Nature, who
thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,

And from the desert soared in pride with thee!
Flushed with the glow of victory,
Never forget to prize the hand

That found the weeping orphan child
Deserted on life's barren strand,

And left a prey to hazard wild,--
That, ere thy spirit-honor saw the
day,
Thy youthful heart watched over silently,
And from thy tender
bosom turned away
Each thought that might have stained its purity;

That kind one ne'er forget who, as in sport,
Thy youth to noble
aspirations trained,
And who to thee in easy riddles taught
The
secret how each virtue might be gained;
Who, to receive him back
more perfect still,
E'en into strangers' arms her favorite gave--
Oh,
may'st thou never with degenerate will,
Humble thyself to be her
abject slave!
In industry, the bee the palm may bear;
In skill, the
worm a lesson may impart;
With spirits blest thy knowledge thou
dost share,
But thou, O man, alone hast art!
Only through beauty's morning gate
Didst thou the land of knowledge
find.
To merit a more glorious fate,
In graces trains itself the mind.

What thrilled thee through with trembling blessed,
When erst the
Muses swept the chord,
That power created in thy breast,
Which to
the mighty spirit soared.
When first was seen by doting reason's ken,
When many a thousand
years had passed away,
A symbol of the fair and great e'en then,

Before the childlike mind uncovered lay.

Its blessed form bade us
honor virtue's cause,--
The honest sense 'gainst vice put forth its
powers,
Before a Solon had devised the laws
That slowly bring to
light their languid flowers.
Before Eternity's vast scheme
Was to

the thinker's mind revealed,
Was't not foreshadowed in his dream,

Whose eyes explored yon starry field?
Urania,--the majestic dreaded one,
Who wears a glory of Orions
twined
Around her brow, and who is seen by none
Save purest
spirits, when, in splendor shrined,
She soars above the stars in pride,

Ascending to her sunny throne,--
Her fiery chaplet lays aside,

And now, as beauty, stands alone;
While, with the Graces' girdle
round her cast,
She seems a child, by children understood;
For we
shall recognize as truth at last,
What here as beauty only we have
viewed.
When the Creator banished from his sight
Frail man to dark
mortality's abode,
And granted him a late return to light,
Only by
treading reason's arduous road,--
When each immortal turned his face
away,
She, the compassionate, alone
Took up her dwelling in that
house of clay,
With the deserted, banished one.
With drooping wing
she hovers here
Around her darling, near the senses' land,
And on
his prison-walls so drear
Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand.
While soft humanity still lay at rest,
Within her tender arms extended,

No flame was stirred by bigots' murderous zest,
No guiltless blood
on high ascended.
The heart that she in gentle fetters binds,
Views
duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it
winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste
service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;

The spiritual life, so free from stain,
Freedom's sweet birthright,
they receive again,
Under the mystic sway of holy might.
The purest among millions, happy they
Whom to her service she has
sanctified,
Whose mouths the mighty one's commands convey,

Within whose breasts she deigneth to abide;

Whom she ordained to
feed her holy fire
Upon her altar's ever-flaming pyre,--
Whose eyes
alone her unveiled graces meet,
And whom she gathers round in

union sweet
In the much-honored place be glad
Where noble