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"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half-shown, are broken and withdrawn.

"Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt.

"But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain.

"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
In the same circle we revolve.
Assurance only breeds resolve."

As when a billow, blown against,
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced :

"Where wert thou when thy father play'd
In his free field, and pastime made,
A merry boy in sun and shade?

"A merry boy they called him then.

He sat upon the knees of men
In days that never come again.

"Before the little ducts began

To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
Their course, till thou wert also man:
"Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face,
Whose troubles number with his days:

"A life of nothings, nothing-worth.
From that first nothing ere his birth
To that last nothing under earth!"

"These words," I said, "are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast:

"But if I grant, thou might'st defend
The thesis which thy words intend-
That to begin implies to end;

"Yet how should I for certain hold,
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?
"I cannot make this matter plain,
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
A random arrow from the brain.
"It may be that no life is found,
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.

"As old mythologies relate,
Some draught of Lethe might await
The slipping thro' from state to state.
"As here we find in trances, men
Forget the dream that happens then,
Until they fall in trance again.

"So might we, if our state were such
As one before, remember much,

For those two likes might meet and touch.

"But, if I lapsed from nobler place,

Some legend of a fallen race
Alone might hint of my disgrace;

"Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height,

Some yearning toward the lamps of night.

"Or if thro' lower lives I cameTho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame

"I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not.

"And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

"Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory:

"For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?

"Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams

"Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare.'

The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality."

"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark. Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark.

"Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new?

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith,

No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long'd for death.

"T is life, whereof our nerves are scant,
O life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want."

I ceased, and sat as one forlorn.
Then said the voice, in quiet scorn:
"Behold, it is the Sabbath morn."

And I arose, and 1 released
The casement, and the light increased
With freshness in the dawning east.

Like soften'd airs that blowing steal,
When meres begin to uncongeal,
The sweet church bells began to peal.
On to God's house the people prest:
Passing the place where each must rest,
Each enter'd like a welcome guest.

One walk'd between his wife and child,
With measur'd footfall firm and mild,
And now and then he gravely smiled.
The prudent partner of his blood
Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good,
Wearing the rose of womanhood.
And in their double love secure,
The little maiden walk'd demure,
Pacing with downward eyelids pure.
These three made unity so sweet,
My frozen heart began to beat,
Remembering its ancient heat.

I blest them, and they wander'd on:

I spoke, but answer came there none:
The dull and bitter voice was gone.

A second voice was at mine ear,

A little whisper silver-clear,
A murmur, "Be of better cheer."

As from some blissful neighborhood, A notice faintly understood,

"I see the end, and know the good."

A little hint to solace woe,

A hint, a whisper breathing low,
"I may not speak of what I know."

Like an Eolian harp that wakes
No certain air, but overtakes

Far thought with music that it makes:

Such seem'd the whisper at my side:

"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied:

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove,
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.

And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.

I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter-showers:

You scarce could see the grass for flowers.

I wonder'd, while I paced along:
The woods were fill'd so full with song,
There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.

So variously seem'd all things wrought,
I marvell'd how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought;
And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!"

THE DAY-DREAM.

PROLOGUE.

O LADY FLORA, let me speak:

A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay.

As by the lattice you reclined,

I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming-and, behind,

A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last

Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past,

And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face,

Nor look with that too-earnest eyeThe rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly.

THE SLEEPING PALACE.

1.

The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains: Here rests the sap within the leaf,

Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapors lightly curl'd,

Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb.

2.

Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns,

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on the tower,
On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower,
The parrot in his gilded wires.

3.

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:
In these, in those the life is stay'd,
The mantles from the golden pegs
Droop sleepily: no sound is made,
Not even of a gnat that sings.

More like a picture seemeth all
Than those old portraits of old kings,
That watch the sleepers from the wall.

4.

Here sits the butler with a flask

Between his knees half-drained; and there The wrinkled steward at his task,

The maid-of-honor blooming fair:

The page has caught her hand in his :
Her lips are sever'd as to speak:

His own are pouted to a kiss:

The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.

5.

Till all the hundred summers pass,

The beams, that through the oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass,

And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. Each baron at the banquet sleeps, Grave faces gather'd in a ring. His state the king reposing keeps. He must have been a jovial king.

6.

All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
At distance like a little wood;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes,

And grapes with bunches red as blood;
All creeping plants, a wall of green
Close-matted, bur and brake and brier,
And glimpsing over these, just seen,
High up the topmost palace-spire.

7.

When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the soul of men?
Here all things in their place remain,
As all were order'd, ages since.
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,
And bring the fated fairy Prince.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

1.

Year after year unto her feet,

She lying on her couch alone, Across the purpled coverlet, The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, On either side her tranced form

Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl.

2.

The silk star-broider'd coverlid

Unto her limbs itself doth mould

Languidly ever; and, amid

Her full black ringlets downward roll'd,

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And liberal applications lie

In Art like Nature, dearest friend; So 't were to cramp its use, if I

Should hook it to some useful end.

L'ENVOI. 1.

You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense offends.
Well-were it not a pleasant thing

To fall asleep with all one's friends; To pass with all our social ties

To silence from the paths of men; And every hundred years to rise

And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars,

As wild as aught of fairy lore;
And all that else the years will show,
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
The vast Republics that may grow,

The Federations and the Powers;
Titanic forces taking birth
In divers seasons, divers climes;
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.

2.

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Thro' sunny decades new and strange,
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap
The flower and quintessence of change.

3.

Ah, yet would I-and would I might!
So much your eyes my fancy take-
Be still the first to leap to light

That I might kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care; You'd have my moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong,

My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss

The prelude to some brighter world.

4.

For since the time when Adam first Embraced his Eve in happy hour,

And every bird of Eden burst

In carol, every bud to flower,

What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes?
What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd?
Where on the double rosebud droops
The fulness of the pensive mind;
Which all too dearly self-involved,

Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;
A sleep by kisses undissolved,

That lets thee neither hear nor see:
But break it. In the name of wife,
And in the rights that name may give,
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,
And that for which I care to live.

EPILOGUE.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, "What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" What wonder I was all unwise,

To shape the song for your delight,

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Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!

And make her dance attendance; Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, And scirrhous roots and tendons.

"Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle ;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.

But what is that I hear? a sound

Like sleepy counsel pleading:

O Lord! 't is in my neighbor's ground,
The modern Muses reading.

They read Botanic Treatises,

And Works on Gardening through there,
And Methods of transplanting trees,
To look as if they grew there.

The wither'd Misses! how they prose
O'er books of travell'd seamen,
And show you slips of all that grows
From England to Van Diemen.
They read in arbors clipt and cut,
And alleys, faded places,
By squares of tropic summer shut
And warm'd in crystal cases.

But these, tho' fed with careful dirt,
Are neither green nor sappy;
Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,
The spindlings look unhappy.
Better to me the meanest weed
That blows upon its mountain,
The vilest herb that runs to seed
Beside its native fountain.

And I must work thro' months of toil, And years of cultivation,

Upon my proper patch of soil

To grow my own plantation.
I'll take the showers as they fall,
I will not vex my bosom :
Enough if at the end of all
A little garden blossom.

WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MON

OLOGUE.

MADE AT THE COCK.

O PLUMP head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,

How goes the time? "T is five o'clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:

But let it not be such as that

You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,
But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,

To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favor'd lips of mine;

Until the charm have power to make
New lifeblood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces break
In full and kindly blossom.

I pledge her silent at the board.
Her gradual fingers steal
And touch upon the master-chord
Of all I felt and feel.

Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,
And phantom hopes assemble;

And that child's heart within the man's
Begins to move and tremble.

Thro' many an hour of summer suns
By many pleasant ways,
Against its fountain upward runs

The current of my days.

I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd
The gas-light wavers dimmer;
And softly, thro' a vinous mist,
My college friendships glimmer.

I grow in worth, and wit, and sense.
Unboding critic-pen,

Or that eternal want of pence,

Which vexes public men,

Who hold their hands to all, and cry
For that which all deny them,-
Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,
And all the world go by them.

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,
Tho' fortune clip my wings,

I will not cramp my heart, nor take
Half-views of men and things.

Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;
There must be stormy weather:
But for some true result of good
All parties work together.

Let there be thistles, there are grapes;
If old things, there are new;
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,
Yet glimpses of the true.

Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme.
We lack not rhymes and reasons,

As on this whirligig of Time

We circle with the seasons.

This earth is rich in man and maid:

With fair horizons bound!

This whole wide earth of light and shade
Comes out, a perfect round.
High over roaring Temple-bar,

And, set in Heaven's third story,

I look at all things as they are,
But thro' a kind of glory.

Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest
Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,

The pint, you brought me, was the best
That ever came from pipe.

But tho' the port surpasses praise,
My nerves have dealt with stiffer.
Is there some magic in the place?
Or do my peptics differ?

For since I came to live and learn,
No pint of white or red
Had ever half the power to turn
This wheel within my head,
Which bears a season'd brain about,

Unsubject to confusion,

Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out,
Thro' every convolution.

For I am of a numerous house,
With many kinsmen gay,

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