The Daemon of the World | Page 4

and mind;

Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,

Which gently in his noble bosom wake
All kindly passions and all
pure desires.
Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,
Which

from the exhaustless lore of human weal
Dawns on the virtuous mind,
the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness gift
With
self-enshrined eternity, that mocks
The unprevailing hoariness of age,

And man, once fleeting o'er the transient scene
Swift as an
unremembered vision, stands
Immortal upon earth: no longer now

He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling
And horribly
devours its mangled flesh,
Or drinks its vital blood, which like a
stream
Of poison thro' his fevered veins did flow
Feeding a plague
that secretly consumed
His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind

Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief,
The germs of misery, death,
disease and crime.
No longer now the winged habitants,
That in the
woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man; but
gather round,
And prune their sunny feathers on the hands
Which
little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless
partners of their play.
All things are void of terror: man has lost
His
desolating privilege, and stands
An equal amidst equals: happiness

And science dawn though late upon the earth;
Peace cheers the mind,
health renovates the frame;
Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,

Reason and passion cease to combat there;
Whilst mind unfettered
o'er the earth extends
Its all-subduing energies, and wields
The
sceptre of a vast dominion there.
Mild is the slow necessity of death:
The tranquil spirit fails beneath
its grasp,
Without a groan, almost without a fear,
Resigned in peace
to the necessity,
Calm as a voyager to some distant land,
And full
of wonder, full of hope as he.
The deadly germs of languor and
disease
Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts
With choicest
boons her human worshippers.

How vigorous now the athletic form
of age!
How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!
Where neither
avarice, cunning, pride, or care,
Had stamped the seal of grey
deformity
On all the mingling lineaments of time.
How lovely the
intrepid front of youth!
How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

Within the massy prison's mouldering courts,
Fearless and free the
ruddy children play,
Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows

With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,
That mock the dungeon's
unavailing gloom;
The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,

There rust amid the accumulated ruins
Now mingling slowly with
their native earth:
There the broad beam of day, which feebly once

Lighted the cheek of lean captivity
With a pale and sickly glare, now
freely shines
On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:
No more the
shuddering voice of hoarse despair
Peals through the echoing vaults,
but soothing notes
Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds
And
merriment are resonant around.
The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more
The voice that once
waked multitudes to war
Thundering thro' all their aisles: but now
respond
To the death dirge of the melancholy wind:
It were a sight
of awfulness to see
The works of faith and slavery, so vast,
So
sumptuous, yet withal so perishing!
Even as the corpse that rests
beneath their wall.
A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death

To-day, the breathing marble glows above
To decorate its memory,
and tongues
Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms
In silence and
in darkness seize their prey.
These ruins soon leave not a wreck
behind:
Their elements, wide-scattered o'er the globe,
To happier
shapes are moulded, and become
Ministrant to all blissful impulses:

Thus human things are perfected, and earth,
Even as a child
beneath its mother's love,
Is strengthened in all excellence, and grows

Fairer and nobler with each passing year.
Now Time his dusky pennons o'er the scene
Closes in steadfast
darkness, and the past
Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:

Thy lore is learned. Earth's wonders are thine own,
With all the
fear and all the hope they bring.

My spells are past: the present now
recurs.
Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains
Yet unsubdued by
man's reclaiming hand.

Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,
Let virtue teach thee
firmly to pursue
The gradual paths of an aspiring change:
For birth
and life and death, and that strange state
Before the naked powers that
thro' the world
Wander like winds have found a human home,
All
tend to perfect happiness, and urge
The restless wheels of being on
their way,
Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,
Bicker
and burn to gain their destined goal:
For birth but wakes the universal
mind
Whose mighty streams might else in silence flow
Thro' the
vast world, to individual sense
Of outward shows, whose
unexperienced shape
New modes of passion to its frame may lend;

Life is its state of action, and the store
Of all events is aggregated
there
That variegate the eternal universe;
Death is a gate of
dreariness and gloom,
That leads to azure isles and beaming skies

And happy regions of eternal hope.
Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly
bear on:
Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk,

Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,
Yet spring's
awakening breath will woo the earth,
To feed with kindliest dews its
favourite flower,
That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,

Lighting the green wood with its sunny smile.
Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand,
So