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Phantom Renegade: Unmasked Torrent
LETHE.A DUMB, dark region through whose desolate heartCreeps a dull river with a stagnant flood;Its skies are sombre-hued, and dreary clouds,No wind hath ever stirred, hang low and dim Page 6Above the barren woodlands; all things droopIn slumber; the little willow stoops to kissThe waves, but not a ripple murmurs backIts salutation, and wan starlike flowersYield a white radiance to the failing sense,And odors pregnant with the charms of rest,And glamour of Oblivion; all things droopIn slumber; for whate'er hath passed the boundsOf this miraculous kingdom, bird or beast,Men lured from action, or soul-sick of life,Weary and heartsore, maids in love's despair,Or mothers stricken by their first-born's crime--All sink without a struggle to deep peace.Prone in the gleam the river casts abroad,A gleam more pallid than the light of Hades,Lie those who sought this region ages since;Their upturned brows are smooth, and tranced with calm.And on their shadowy lips a waning smileFitfully glimmers; round them rest the formsOf savage beasts; the lion all unnerved,Drowsy and passionless, his huge limbs relaxed,And curved to lines of languor: the fierce pardTamed to a breathless quiet, whilst afar,Gloom the gaunt shapes of mighty brutes of eld,The world's primeval tenants; all things droopIn slumber; even the sluggish river's flowSounds like the dying surges of the seaTo ears far inland, or the feeblest sighOf winds that faint on lofty mountain-tops.This is the realm--"Oblivion"--this the streamWhich mortals have called--"Lethe!"THE REALM OF REST.In the realm that Nature boundethAre there balmy shores of peace,Where no passion-torrent soundeth,And no storm-wind seeks release?Rest they 'mid the waters golden,Of some strange untravelled sea,Where low, halcyon airs have stolen,Lingering round them slumbrously?Shores begirt with purple hazes,Mellowed by gray twilight's beams,Whose weird curtains shroud the mazes,Wandering through a realm of dreams;Shores, where Silence wooes Devotion,Action faints, and echo dies,And each peace-entranced emotionFeeds on quiet mysteries.If there be, O guardian Master,Genius of my life and fate,Bear me from the world's disaster,Through that kingdom's shadowy gate;Let me lie beneath its willows,On the fragrant, flowering strand,Lulled to rest by breezeless billows,Thrilled with airs of Elfin-land.Slumber, flushed with faintest dreamings;Deep that knows no answering deep,Unprofaned by phantom-seemings,--Mockeries of Protéan sleep;--Noiseless, timeless, half forgetting,May that sleep Elysian be,While serener tides are setting,Inward, from the roseate sea.Hark! to mine a voice is calling,Sweet as tropic winds at night,Gently dying, faintly fallingFrom some marvellous mystic height, Page 7Troubled Thought's unhallowed riot By its wandering glamour kissed, Feels a charm of sacred quiet, Fold it, like enchanted mist."There's a realm, thy footsteps nearing,"[Thus the voice to mine replies] "Where the heavy heart despairing,Breathes no more its life in sighs;'Tis a realm, imperial, stately, Refuge of dethronèd Years,Calm as midnight, towering greatly,Through a moonlit veil of tears."Though an empire, freedom reigneth,Kingly brow, and subject knee,Each with what to each partaineth,Slumbering in equality;'Tis a sleep, divorced from dreamings, Deep that knows no answering deep, Unprofaned by phantom-seemings--Noiseless, wondrous, timeless sleep."On its shores are weeping willows, Action faints, and Echo dies, And the languid dirge of billows, Lulls with opiate symphonies;But beside that, murmurous ocean All who rest, repose in sooth, And no more the stilled emotion Stirs to joy, or wakens ruth."Thou shalt gain these blest dominions, Thou shalt find this peaceful ground, Shaded by Oblivion's pinions, Startled by no mortal sound,Noiseless, timeless, ALL forgetting, Shall thy sleep Elysian be,While eternal tides are settingInward from that mystic sea."THE ISLAND IN THE SOUTH.THE ship went down at noonday in a cam,When not a zephyr broke the crystal sea.We two escaped alone: we reached an isleWhereon the water settled languidlyIn a long swell of music; luminous skiesO'erarched the place, and lazy, broad lagoonsSwept inland, with the boughs of plantain treesTrailing cool shadows through the dense repose;All round about us floated gentle airs,And odors that crept upward to the sense Like delicate pressures of voluptuous thought.I, with a long bound, leapt upon the shore Shouting, but she, pavilioned in dark locks,Sobbed out thanksgiving; 'twixt the world and us,Distance that seemed Eternity outrolledIts terrible barriers; on the waste a FateStood up, and stretching its blank hands abroadMuttered of desolation. Did we weep,And groaning cast our foreheads in the dust?So it had been, but in each others eyesSmiled a new world, dearer than that which roseBeneath the lost stars of the faded West. That very morn the white-stoled priest of God Had blessed us with the church's choicest prayers, And these did gird us like a sapphire wallWhen the floods threatened, and the ghastly doom Moaned itself impotent; free we were to loveTo the full scope of passion; a few suns,And in the deep recesses of the woodsWe built ourselves a cabin; the dim spotWas fortressed by the tropic's giant growths,Luxuriant Titans of a hundred years; And the vines, laced and interlaced between, Drooped with a flowery largess many-hued. Page 8It was a place of Faëry; songs of birdsThat glimmered in and out among the leaves,Like magical dreams embodied, wooed the windsTo gentlest motion of benignant wings;And the sun veiled his radiance, and the starsPeered through the shadowy stillness with a lightSo spiritual, the forest seemed to waneIn tremulous lines waved down the silvery aisles.There lived, there loved we, as none else have livedAnd loved, I think, since the primeval blightRained down its discords, and death clinched the curse.No shallow mockeries of a worn-out age,Effete and helpless, bound young passion roundWith the cold fetters of detested forms:Civilization was not there to setIts specious seal of custom on our hearts,Prisoning the bolder virtues; we might dareTo act, speak, think, as the true nature moved,Untutored and majestic; our souls grewTo the stature of the spirit, that looks downFrom the unpolluted regnancy of heavensThat hold no curses; the glad universeShowered rare benedictions on our path;Matter was merged in poesy: the windsFrom the serene Pacific, the quick galesFrom mountainous ridges in the uppermost air,The eternal chorus of far seas serene,The harmony of forests, the small voiceThat trembles from the happy rivulet's breast,All touched us with that sweet philosophyWhich, if we woo the visible world aright,Blesses experience with new gates of senseWhere through we gain Elysium. "We reached an isleWhereon the waters settled languidly."
Phantom Renegade: Unmasked torrent
Why didst thou take her from me? Why transformThe passionate presence in my shielding arms,To this poor phantom of a broken brain,Mocking my woe with shadows? On a nightWhen the still sea was calmest, the bright starsMost bright and a warm breathing on the windSpoke of perpetual summer, a strange voiceI scarce could hear, said: "It is evening time,"And a wan hand my eyes were blind to noteBeckoned her far away.The awful griefclosed round me like an ocean. I was mad,And raved my memory from me. When againThe world dawned, as a dreary landscape dawnsGrotesquely through the sluggish mists of March,I walked once more in a great capital's streets,A savage 'midst the civilized, a man--Shattered and wrecked, I grant you--still a manAmongst the puppets that usurp that nameAnd act the fraud so basely, that the FiendWearies to death the echoes of his hellIn laughter at them. I am with you still,Emasculate denizens of the stifling mart,Where heaven's free winds are throttled in the fumesOf furnaces, and the insulted sunGlooms through the crowding vapors at midday.Like it God, re-collecting to himselfHis immortality; where nerveless limbsBear nerveless bodies to their separate densOf torture, and lean, wide-eyed revellersFoster the hungering worm that never dies,And fan the lurid fire unquenchable;Where stealthy avarice larks in wait to sackThe widow's house; and license of low minds,Loaded with prurient knowledge, and no hearts(Self-worship having killed them), make the worldA Pandemonium. I am with you still;But the hours creep on to a more fortunate time;A vessel swells her broad sails in the bay,And the breeze bloweth seaward; I will seekMy island in the southern waves again;A thousand memories urge me, tones that sleptWaken to invitation; I can feelThe Hesperian beauty of that realm of peaceFlushing my brain and fancy; but through allThe ruddy vision glides a tender shade,And pauses with mute meaning by a grave.ODE.Delivered on the first anniversary of the Carolina Art Association, Feb. 10, 1856.THERE are two worlds wherein our souls may dwell,With discord, or ethereal music fraught,One the loud mart wherein men buy and sell(Too oft the haunt of grovelling moods of Hell),The other, that immaculate realm of thought,In whose bright calm the master-workmen wrought,Where genius lives on light,And faith is lost in sight,Where crystal tides of perfect harmony swell Page 10Up to the heavens that never held cloud,And round great altars reverent hosts are bowed,Altars upreared to love that cannot die,To beauty that forever keeps its youth,To kingly grandeur, and to virginal truth,To all things wise and pure,Whereof our God hath said, "Endure! endure!Ye are but parts of me, The hath been, and the evermore to be,Of my supremest Immortality!"We falter in the darkness and the dearthWhich sordid passions and untamed desiresCreate about us; universal earthGroans with the burden of our sensual woes;The heart heaven gave for homage is consumedBy the wild rages of unhallowed firesThe blush of that fine glory which illumedThe earlier ages, hath gone out in gloom;There is no joy within us, no reposeOne creed our beacon, and one god our hold,The creed, the god, of gold;The heavenward wingèd Instinct that aspires,Like a lost seraph with dishevelled plume,Pants humbled in the "slough of deep Despond,"The present binds us, there is no Beyond,No glorious Future to the soul contentWith the poor husks and garbage of this world;And are indeed the wings of worship furledForevermore ? Is no evangel blent,No sweet evangel, with the hiss and humOf the century's wheels of progress? Science delvesDown to the earth's hot vitals, and exploresRealms arctic and antarctic, the strange shoresOf remote seas, or with raised vision stands,All undismayed, amidst the starry lands:Man too, material man, our baser selves,She hath unmasked even to the source of being;Almost she seems a god,Deep-searching and far-seeing;And yet how oft like some wild funeral wailWhich goes before the burial of our hopes,Emerging from the starry-blazoned copesOf highest firmaments, or darkest valeOf the nether earth, or from the burdened airOf chambers where this mortal frame lies bare,Probed to the core, her saddening accents come;"What! call'st thou man a seraph? nay, a clod,The veriest clod when his frail breath is spent,Man shows to us who know him; what is he?A speck! the merest dew-globe 'midst the seaOf life's infinity;"Or, "we have probed, dissected all we can,But never yet, in any mortal man,Found we the spirit! thing of time and clay,Eat, drink, enjoy thy transient insect-day!"Thus Science; but while still her mocking voiceRings with a cold sharp clearness in our ears,Her beauteous sister, on whose brow the yearsHave left no cankering vestige of decay, Page 11Eternal Art, she of the fathomless eyesBrimming with light, half worship, half surprise,In whose right hand a branch of fadeless palms,Plucked from the depths of golden shadowed calms,Points upward to the skies,She answers in a minor, sweet and strangeThe while, all graces in her aspect meet,And Doubt and Fear shrink shuddering at her feet,"I bring a nobler message! Soul, rejoice!Rise with me from thy troublous toils of sense,Thy bootless struggles, born of impotence,Rise to a subtler view, a broader rangeOf thought and aim;Mine is a sway ideal,But still the works I prompt, alone, are real;Mine is a realm from immemorial timeBegirt by deeds and purposes sublime,Whose consecration is faith's quenchless flame,Whose voices are the songs of poet-sages,Whose strong foundations resting on the ages,The throes and crash of empires have not shaken,Nor any futile force of human rages."Come! let us enter in!Behold, the portal gates stand open wide!Only, from off thy spirit shake the dustOf any thought of sin,Or sordid pride,For sacred is the kingdom of my trust,By mind, and strength, and beauty sanctified."She spake! and o'er the threshold of a sphere,A marvellous sphere, they passed;From the deep bosom of the purpling airA lambent glory broke along the vast,Horizon line, whence clouds, like incense, rolledAthwart a firmamental arc of goldAnd sapphire; clouds not vapor-born,But clasping each the radiant seeds of morn,Which suddenly, clear zenith heights attained,Burst into light, unfolding like a flower,From out whose quivering heart a mystic showerOf splendor rained:A spell was hers to conquer time and space,For from the desert grandeur of that placeA hundred temples rise,The marble poems of the bards of old,Whereon 'twere well to look with reverent eyes,Because they body noblest aspirations,Ethereal hopes, and winged imaginations,Whether to fabled Jove their walls were raised,Or on their inner altar offerings blazedTo wise Athèna, or, in Christian RomeBeneath St. Peter's mighty circling dome,A second Heaven, the golden censers swing,The clear-toned choirs those hymns of rapture sing,Which, on harmonious waves of gratulation,The outburst of the sense of deep salvation,Uplift the spirit where the Incarnate WordAmid the praise no ear of man hath heard,The peace no mind of man can comprehend,Awaits to welcome Time's worn wanderers home! Page 12"But look again!" Art's eager Genius cried:"Thou hast not seen the end,Scarce the beginning!" As she spake, a tideOf all the mighty masters, loved, adored,From out the shining distant spaces poured,All those who fashioned, through an inward dower,The concrete forms of beauty and of power;Whether from white Pentelic quarries brought,The voiceless stone uprose, a breathing thought,Or, from the mystic rays of rainbows drawn,And colors of the sunset and the dawn,The painter's pencil his ideal fine,Had clothed in hues divine;Or, skilled in living wordsMelodious as the natural voice of birds(But each a sentient thing, a meaning grand,It is not given to all to understand),The poet from the shade of breezy woods,From barren seaside solitudes,And from the pregnant quiet of his soulOutbreathed the numbers that forever rollPerennial, as the fountains of the sea,And deep almost as deep eternity!Near and yet nearer the bright concourse came,Their faces all aflame,As when of yore the quick creative thrillDid smite them into utterance, and the throng,Awed by the fiery burden of the song,Grew reverent pale and still;O! solemn and sublime ApocalypseThat wresteth, from the dreary death-eclipse,The sacred presence of these marvellous men!Yonder the visible Homer moves again,Moves as he moved below,Save that his smitten visionRekindled at the fount of fire Elysian,Burns with a subtler, grander, deeper glow,And yonder Æschylus, with "thunderous brow,"Scarred by the lightning of his own creations,Wrapped in a cloud of sombre meditations,Hath seized the tragic muse, as if to herHe scorned to bend an humble worshipper,But would extort her gifts;Then Shakespeare mild,Blessed with the innocent credence of a child,With a child's thoughts and fancies undefiled,And yet a Magian strongTo whom the springs of terrible fears belong,Of majesty, and beauty, and delight,To the weird charm of whose infallible sight,The heart's emotions,Though turbid as the tides of darkest oceans,Shone clear as water of the woodland brooks--He passed with wisdom thronèd in his looksAttempered by the genial heats of wit;While close beside him, his grand countenance litBy thoughts like those which wrought his Judgment Day,Grave Michel AngeloHis massive forehead lifts,In a strange Titan fashion, unto Heaven;Next Raphael comes, with calm and star-like mien,Fresh from the beatific ecstasy,His face how beautiful, and how serene!Since God for him the awful veil had riven Page 13That shrouds Divinity,And rolled before his wondering mind and eyeVisions that we should gaze on but--to die!They passed, and thousands more passed by with them;Again Art's Genius spake: "Lo! these are theyWho, through stern tribulations,Have raised to right and truth the subject nations;Lo! these are they,Who, were the whole bright concourse swept away,Their fame's last barrier, built the surge to stemOf chaos and oblivion, whelmed beneathThe pitiless torrent of eternal death,Would yet bequeath to races unbegotThe precepts of a faith which faileth not;Pointing, from troublous toils of time and sense,From bootless struggles born of impotence,To that fair realm of thought,In whose bright calm these master-workmen wrought,Where crystal tides of perfect music swellUp to the heavens that never held a cloud,And round great altars worshipping hosts are bowed--Altars upreared to love that cannot die,To beauty that forever keeps its youth,To kingly grandeur, and to virginal truth,To all things wise and pure,Whereof our God hath said: 'Endure! endure!Ye are but parts of me,The HATH BEEN, and the evermore TO BE,Of my supremest Immortality!' "QUEEN GALENA, OR THE SULTANA BETRAYED.HOLD! let the heartless perjurer go!Speak not! strike not! he is my foe,From me, me only, comes the blow--I will repay him woe for woe;Look in my eyes! my eyes are dry,I breathe no plaint, I heave no sigh,But--will avenge me ere I die.Think you that I shall basely rest,And know the bosom mine hath prest,Is couched upon a colder breast?Think you that I shall yield the West,The Orient soul my nature nurst,<