Poems, second period | Page 6

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 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