PART XI.

Joy lives within the halls of the great Earl;
The massive portals closed erewhile, are thrown
Open to feasting and to revelry.
The grass-grown areas and corridors,
Where the weeds bristled in rebellious strife,
Are tenanted again with life and mirth.
Years lapsed are dead, joy lives but in the hour.
That grey and antique mansion that had slept
Now basks in luxury of light. The eyes
Of the dark casements are expanded, bright
With joyous flowers and laughing faces thronged;
And the broad walks and avenues are filled
With happy groups, light maskers of the hour,
That flit within the atmosphere of wealth
Where'er the bell of revelry is heard.

Large-handed welcome, with his healthful laugh,
And eyes that court the scrutiny he loves,
Stands at the gate; the grasp of earnestness
Given, whose birth and death is in the hour.
Wherefore, but that fond self-love gathers round
The circle that as with a halo crowns
The fortunate? attraction light as air,
But substantive and lustrous, filling voids
That else were darkness. 'Tis the day of guild,
As when they met to hear the rival songs;
And there the lights of science and of art
Again are joined.
But where the enchantress? she,
Cornelia, the Circe of the hall,
That stateliest violet apart, that veiled
The leaves of her fine life in solitude?
In the saloon of dazzling light retired
From thronging crowds that filled it, she reclined
Beside the oriel opening on the air
Rich with the breath of flowers that clung around
The trellice, weaving network o'er her head.
Thought looked out from her chastened brow, like light
Shed through a vase, or spirit in its cell
Holding communion with the past. She sat,
But not alone; gyrations of the dance
In starry galaxies encircled them:
The lamps shed o'er their lunar lustrousness;
While in their paradise they thought and talked
Of other days.
Among the butterflies
Borne to and fro, one stood aloof; he watched
The twain as he would gaze within their hearts,
Unmarked, unheeded now among the crowd;
The star retired apart in his reserve,
Even Auriol of the West.
Averted eyes
Turned towards the rising light. Years had rolled on;
The name of Astrophel was heard by those
Who mark the coming star. The Lyrist gazed
Upon the altered Man whose life had passed
In hermit solitude; and felt there were
Powers that would live when he had joined the past.
Astrophel felt a presence watching him;
That on the heights between him and the sun
A shadow stood that looked into his soul:
He felt that warning sense of mystery
That bodies forth the undefinable;
He turned, and Auriol behind him stood.
Impassive still, in depths of his regard.
Astrophel in grave courtesy arose
To greet his rival, mindful of what time
He vainly strove with him in unproved arms.
With a calm smile, where contemplation dwelt
And memory of the years gone by, he watched
The impediment that sometime checked his path.
Even in the moment while his eye reposed
On him, his spirit threw itself within
The imaginative past, and he beheld
Achilles panoplied before his foe
Confronted at the Scaean gate; the strife
For the supremacy, and overthrow.
" Welcome the friend once met; and honour due
To the high lyric victor of past days,
And his wreath won. Hear now my courtesy:
If through the long lapsed years, each day a link
Of concentrated effort, there has been
One memory ascendant, it was yours;
If there has been one hope o'er all supreme,
One aspiration growing from the time,
Absorbing all in its intenser life,
That wish, that faith, that hope, o'er all has been
To meet you in the lists, the world around
Watching the strife, each vantage-ground your own.
The aspiration for a noble foe,
The emulation of the soul untouched
By baser envy, are the wings that mount
Ambition, restless till it gain the height
Of crowning triumph.
" On this night be paid
Homage to her who rules; to-morrow's dawn
The guild; and be the laurel his who wins.
I claim one honour, that the leaf be given
By the presiding and the living Muse;
Even from Cornelia's hand."
The faint smile played
Of self-reliance on the lyrist's lips,
As of one armed in proof; but in the eye
Of that grave Man who spake, the thought reserved.
The Lyrist caught that staid regard, and read
That records had gone forth of him, proclaimed
By watchers of the truth.
Slowly he spoke:
" On the morn's joust, one boon alike I crave;
Be it accorded with like courtesy."

While speaking to that lady he inclined
With the high gesture that indignant pride
Pays itself homage: —
" Be the laurel given
By the fallen foe; my self-created Muse
Draws nought from human influence. Let then
The vanquished to the victor yield the wreath.
Let each select the theme he loves, and choose
His mode of verse, but be the subject one,
An episode, or record from a life;
So shall ourselves reflected be within
The bosom of the awarder. Poetry
Is to express the feeling of the soul
In accents of fine art. As limners hue
The beautiful to form; as actor's feign
Passion till passed into reality;
As marble lives beneath the sculptor's hand;
As the musician bodies forth his thought
In audible melody, so poets mould
Their artificial verses."
Astrophel
Responded fervently:
" Ever be you still
The child of that fine art to which you cling;
Nature be my great nurse, her impulses
And inspirations mine, her poetry
The flame Promethean, inspiring clay
With solar fires.
" Within this fleshly form
The temple of our life, when all is still,
Its visual casements rich with holiest forms
Inspiring adoration, its aisles filled
With spiritual shapes, evoked yet feared;
Then like the solemn organ-peal that swells
From silence into life its world of sound,
The aspiration incense-like ascends,
With the calm utterance rising from the soul,
As from the depths of the eternal Sea.
Even such communion I have held with God
In Nature's forms: I saw behind her veils
The shadow of the One, and I have told
Confession given in those holiest hours."