Rampolli | Page 4

their
home. From eternal ages stood its mysterious structure. Beyond the red
hills of the morning, in the sacred bosom of the sea, dwelt the sun, the
all-enkindling, live luminary. An aged giant upbore the happy world.
Prisoned beneath mountains lay the first-born sons of mother Earth,
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