The Pilgrims of the Rhine | Page 4

of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, he
allegorizes Religious Faith.

III.
GENIUS, LIFTING ITS LIFE TO THE IDEAL, BECOMES ITSELF
A PURE IDEA: IT MUST COMPREHEND ALL EXISTENCE, ALL
HUMAN SINS AND SUFFERINGS; BUT IN COMPREHENDING,
IT TRANSMUTES THEM.--THE POET IN HIS TWO-FOLD
BEING,--THE ACTUAL AND THE IDEAL.--THE INFLUENCE OF
GENIUS OVER THE STERNEST REALITIES OF EARTH; OVER
OUR PASSIONS; WARS AND SUPERSTITIONS.--ITS IDENTITY
IS WITH HUMAN PROGRESS.--ITS AGENCY, EVEN WHERE
UNACKNOWLEDGED, IS UNIVERSAL.
Oh, thou true Iris! sporting on thy bow Of tears and smiles! Jove's
herald, Poetry, Thou reflex image of all joy and woe, /Both/ fused in
light by thy dear fantasy! Lo! from the clay how Genius lifts its life,
And grows one pure Idea, one calm soul! True, its own clearness must
reflect our strife; True, its completeness must comprise our whole; But
as the sun transmutes the sullen hues Of marsh-grown vapours into
vermeil dyes, And melts them later into twilight dews, Shedding on
flowers the baptism of the skies; So glows the Ideal in the air we
breathe, So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin, Doth its warm light in
rosy colours wreathe Its playful cloudland, storing balms within.
Survey the Poet in his mortal mould, Man, amongst men, descended
from his throne! The moth that chased the star now frets the fold, Our
cares, our faults, our follies are his own. Passions as idle, and desires as
vain, Vex the wild heart, and dupe the erring brain. From Freedom's

field the recreant Horace flies To kiss the hand by which his country
dies; From Mary's grave the mighty Peasant turns, And hoarse with
orgies rings the laugh of Burns. While Rousseau's lips a lackey's vices
own,-- Lips that could draw the thunder on a throne! But when from
Life the Actual GENIUS springs, When, self-transformed by its own
magic rod, It snaps the fetters and expands the wings, And drops the
fleshly garb that veiled the god, How the mists vanish as the form
ascends! How in its aureole every sunbeam blends! By the
Arch-Brightener of Creation seen, How dim the crowns on perishable
brows! The snows of Atlas melt beneath the sheen, Through Thebaid
caves the rushing splendour flows. Cimmerian glooms with Asian
beams are bright, And Earth reposes in a belt of light. Now stern as
Vengeance shines the awful form, Armed with the bolt and glowing
through the storm; Sets the great deeps of human passion free, And
whelms the bulwarks that would breast the sea. Roused by its voice the
ghastly Wars arise, Mars reddens earth, the Valkyrs pale the skies; Dim
Superstition from her hell escapes, With all her shadowy brood of
monster shapes; Here life itself the scowl of Typhon* takes; There
Conscience shudders at Alecto's snakes; From Gothic graves at
midnight yawning wide, In gory cerements gibbering spectres glide;
And where o'er blasted heaths the lightnings flame, Black secret hags
"do deeds without a name!" Yet through its direst agencies of awe,
Light marks its presence and pervades its law, And, like Orion when
the storms are loud, It links creation while it gilds a cloud. By ruthless
Thor, free Thought, frank Honour stand, Fame's grand desire, and zeal
for Fatherland. The grim Religion of Barbarian Fear With some
Hereafter still connects the Here, Lifts the gross sense to some spiritual
source, And thrones some Jove above the Titan Force, Till, love
completing what in awe began, From the rude savage dawns the
thoughtful man.
* The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributes
of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian
Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and
everlasting youth.
Then, oh, behold the Glorious comforter! Still bright'ning worlds but
gladd'ning now the hearth, Or like the lustre of our nearest star, Fused
in the common atmosphere of earth. It sports like hope upon the

captive's chain; Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain; To
wonder's realm allures the earnest child; To the chaste love refines the
instinct wild; And as in waters the reflected beam, Still where we turn,
glides with us up the stream, And while in truth the whole expanse is
bright, Yields to each eye its own fond path of light,-- So over life the
rays of Genius fall, Give each his track because illuming all.

IV.
FORGIVENESS TO THE ERRORS OF OUR BENEFACTORS.
Hence is that secret pardon we bestow In the true instinct of the grateful
heart, Upon the Sons of Song. The good they do In the clear world of
their Uranian art Endures forever; while the evil done In the poor
drama of their mortal scene, Is but a passing cloud before the sun;