Poems, second period | Page 5

order
bade ye climb,
For in the spirit-world sublime,
Man's loftiest rank
ye've ever had!
Ere to the world proportion ye revealed,
That every being joyfully
obeys,--
A boundless structure, in night's veil concealed,
Illumed by
naught but faint and languid rays,
A band of phantoms, struggling
ceaselessly,
Holding his mind in slavish fetters bound,
Unsociable
and rude as be,
Assailing him on every side around,--
Thus seemed
to man creation in that day!
United to surrounding forms alone
By
the blind chains the passions had put on,
Whilst Nature's beauteous
spirit fled away
Unfelt, untasted, and unknown.
And, as it hovered o'er with parting ray,
Ye seized the shades so
neighborly,
With silent hand, with feeling mind,
And taught how
they might be combined
In one firm bond of harmony.
The gaze,
light-soaring, felt uplifted then,
When first 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