Rampolli | Page 4

helpless in their destroying fury against the new, glorious race of gods, and their kindred, glad-hearted men. Ocean's dusky, green abyss was the lap of a goddess. In the crystal grottoes revelled a wanton folk. Rivers, trees, flowers, and beasts had human wits. Sweeter tasted the wine, poured out by youth impersonated; a god was in the grape-clusters; a loving, motherly goddess upgrew in the full golden sheaves; love's sacred carousal was a sweet worship of the fairest of the goddesses. Life revelled through the centuries like one spring-time, an ever-variegated festival of the children of heaven and the dwellers on the earth. All races childlike adored the ethereal, thousandfold flame, as the one sublimest thing in the world.
It was but a fancy, a horrible dream-shape--
That fearsome to the merry tables strode,?And wrapt the spirit in wild consternation.?The gods themselves here counsel knew nor showed?To fill the stifling heart with consolation.?Mysterious was the monster's pathless road,?Whoose rage would heed no prayer and no oblation;?Twas Death who broke the banquet up with fears,?With anguish, with dire pain, and bitter tears.
Eternally from all things here disparted?That sway the heart with pleasure's joyous flow,?Divided from the loved, whom, broken-hearted,?Vain longing tosses and unceasing woe--?In a dull dream to struggle, faint and thwarted,?Smeemed all was granted to the dead below!?Broke lay the merry wave of human glory?On Death's inevitable promontory.
With daring flight, aloft Thought's pinions sweep;?The horrid thing with beauty's robe men cover:?A gentle youth puts out his torch, to sleep;?Sweet comes the end, like moaning lute of lover.?Cool shadow-floods o'er melting memory creep:?So sang the song, for Misery was the mover.?Still undeciphered lay the endless Night--?The solemn symbol of a far-off Might.
The old world began to decline. The pleasure-garden of the young race withered away; up into opener regions and desolate, forsaking his childhood, struggled the growing man. The gods vanished with their retinue. Nature stood alone and lifeless. Dry Number and rigid Measure bound her with iron chains. As into dust and air the priceless blossoms of life fell away in words obscure. Gone was wonder-working Faith, and the all-transforming, all-uniting angel-comrade, the Imagination. A cold north wind blew unkindly over the torpid plain, and the wonderland first froze, then evaporated into aether. The far depths of heaven filled with flashing worlds. Into the deeper sanctuary, into the more exalted region of the mind, the soul of the world retired with all her powers, there to rule until the dawn should break of the glory universal. No longer was the Light the abode of the gods, and the heavenly token of their presence: they cast over them the veil of the Night. The Night became the mighty womb of revelations; into it the gods went back, and fell asleep, to go abroad in new and more glorious shapes over the transfigured world. Among the people which, untimely ripe, was become of all the most scornful and insolently hostile to the blessed innocence of youth, appeared the New World, in guise never seen before, in the song-favouring hut of poverty, a son of the first maid and mother, the eternal fruit of mysterious embrace. The forseeing, rich-blossoming wisdom of the East at once recognized the beginning of the new age; a star showed it the way to the lowly cradle of the king. In the name of the far-reaching future, they did him homage with lustre ond odour, the highest wonders of Nature. In solitude the heavenly heart unfolded itself to a flower-chalice of almighty love, upturned to the supreme face of the father, and resting on the bliss-boding bosom of the sweetly solemn mother. With deifying fervour the prophetic eye of the blooming child beheld the years to come, foresaw, untroubled over the earthly lot of his own days, the beloved offspring of his divine stem. Ere long the most childlike souls, by true love marvellously possessed, gathered about him. Like flowers sprang up a new strange life in his presence. Words inexhaustible and tidings the most joyful fell like sparks of a divine spirit from his friendly lips. From a far shore came a singer, born under the clear sky of Hellas, to Palestine, and gave up his whole heart to the marvellous child:--
The youth art thou who ages long hast stood?Upon our graves, lost in a maze of weening;?Sign in the darkness of God's tidings good,?Whence hints of growth humanity is gleaning;?For that we long, on that we sweetly brood?Which erst in woe had lost all life and meaning;?In everlasting life death found its goal,?For thou art Death, and thou first mak'st us whole.
Filled with joy, the singer went on to Indostan, his heart intoxicated with sweetest love, and poured it out in fiery songs under that tender sky, so that a thousand hearts bowed to him, and the good