The Pilgrims of the Rhine | Page 5

life to what the Limner draws,-- Plato but thought what godlike Cato was.* Recall the Wars of England's giant-born, Is Elyot's voice, is Hampden's death in vain? Have all the meteors of the vernal morn But wasted light upon a frozen main? Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown? The Sybarite lolls upon the martyr's throne. Lewd, ribald jests succeed to solemn zeal; And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel. Cold are the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrilled, And hushed the senates Vane's large presence filled. In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell? Where art thou, Freedom? Look! in Sidney's cell! There still as stately stands the living Truth, Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth. Her forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown, The headsman's block her last dread altar-stone, No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope, Far from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope. Millennial morns the tombs of Kedron gild, The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild,-- Till each foundation garnished with its gem, High o'er Gehenna flames Jerusalem! O thou blood-stained Ideal of the free, Whose breath is heard in clarions,--Liberty! Sublimer for thy grand illusions past, Thou spring'st to Heaven,--Religion at the last. Alike below, or commonwealths or thrones, Where'er men gather some crushed victim groans; Only in death thy real form we see, All life is bondage,--souls alone are free. Thus through the waste the wandering Hebrews went, Fire on the march, but cloud upon the tent. At last on Pisgah see the prophet stand, Before his vision spreads the PROMISED LAND; But where revealed the Canaan to his eye?-- Upon the mountain he ascends to die.
* What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was.--POPE.

VI.
YET ALL HAVE TWO ESCAPES INTO THE IDEAL WORLD; NAMELY, MEMORY AND HOPE.--EXAMPLE OF HOPE IN YOUTH, HOWEVER EXCLUDED FROM ACTION AND DESIRE.--NAPOLEON'S SON.
Yet whatsoever be our bondage here, All have two portals to the phantom sphere. What hath not glided through those gates that ope Beyond the Hour, to MEMORY or to HOPE! Give Youth the Garden,--still it soars above, Seeks some far glory, some diviner love. Place Age amidst the Golgotha,--its eyes Still quit the graves, to rest upon the skies; And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there, Track some lost angel through cerulean air.
Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain, The crownless son of earth's last Charlemagne,-- Him, at whose birth laughed all the violet vales (While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star, O Lucifer of nations). Hark, the gales Swell with the shout from all the hosts, whose war Rended the Alps, and crimsoned Memphian Nile,-- "Way for the coming of the Conqueror's Son: Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the Isle! Woe to the Scythian ice-world of the Don! O Thunder Lord, thy Lemnian bolts prepare, The Eagle's eyry hath its eagle heir!" Hark, at that shout from north to south, gray Power Quails on its weak, hereditary thrones; And widowed mothers prophesy the hour Of future carnage to their cradled sons. What! shall our race to blood be thus consigned, And Ate claim an heirloom in mankind? Are these red lots unshaken in the urn? Years pass; approach, pale Questioner, and learn Chained to his rock, with brows that vainly frown, The fallen Titan sinks in darkness down! And sadly gazing through his gilded grate, Behold the child whose birth was as a fate! Far from the land in which his life began; Walled from the healthful air of hardy man; Reared by cold hearts, and watched by jealous eyes, His guardians jailers, and his comrades spies. Each trite convention courtly fears inspire To stint experience and to dwarf desire; Narrows the action to a puppet stage, And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage. On the dejected brow and smileless cheek, What weary thought the languid lines bespeak; Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day, The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away. Yet oft in HOPE a boundless realm was thine, That vaguest Infinite,--the Dream of Fame; Son of the sword that first made kings divine, Heir to man's grandest royalty,--a Name! Then didst thou burst upon the startled world, And keep the glorious promise of thy birth; Then were the wings that bear the bolt unfurled, A monarch's voice cried, "Place upon the earth!" A new Philippi gained a second Rome, And the Son's sword avenged the greater Caesar's doom.

VII.
EXAMPLE OF MEMORY AS LEADING TO THE IDEAL,--AMIDST LIFE HOWEVER HUMBLE, AND IN A MIND HOWEVER IGNORANT.--THE VILLAGE WIDOW.
But turn the eye to life's sequestered vale And lowly roofs remote in hamlets green. Oft in my boyhood where the moss-grown pale Fenced quiet graves, a female form was seen; Each eve she sought the melancholy ground, And lingering paused, and wistful looked around. If yet