PART V.

Now stole athwart the brow of rolling Earth
The shadowing twilight; radiating o'er
Her mountain shoulder, glory lingered still;
Hues mellowing and blending with her breath,
Visibly rising on the finer air.
Day's sultry heats declined; exhausted life
Slept in the consciousness of her repose,
Visioning from the past the things to come.
Nature herself became a spectacle,
Breathless as motionless, her open face
Reflecting back the peace supreme above,
And, calm within, the currents of her life
On-flowing with a voice inaudible.

 Then rose the harmonies of sound in air,
Floating o'er earth, that make her stillness felt,
A presence in the heart; the infinite hum
Of insects thrilling their invisible wings;
Motions of plants, or respirations drawn;
And given back through fibrous pores the dew;
The flowing on of brooks unheard by flowers
Reflected in their mirrors, then, while fails
The ebbing light, they fold their dewy leaves,
Languidly closed in sleep and weariness.

The star-like lotos galaxied the stream;
The aromatic reeds with their rich breath
Loaded the fainting air; the acacia waved
Her golden tresses o'er the bank, the sky
Stealing with azure eyes between her robes.
There towered the plane-tree in its stately pride,
And there the taliput's gigantic leaf,
O'ershadowing the ground it canopied.
The cypress shed a feeling of repose
Owned by the heart; such, as in after days,
Mid Memphian monuments, or planted on
The starry watch-towers of Persepolis,
Symbolled the spiral flame. In elder time
Shaped by old Egypt in pyramidal forms,
Or obelisks, pointing heavenward, such as graced
The hanging gardens of Assyrian kings;
Days when the trees, earth's giant sons, were bless'd;
Where the grey patriarchs sate at evening's hour,
When, their forms dimly seen, the deep tones heard
Of their persuasive tongues, they seemed allied
Awhile with things divine.
Haunts such as were
Dreamed of by poets, in Atlantic isles,
Or where the Hesperides watched golden fruits
In vales of asphodel by heroes trod;
There, where the bride of Atlas caught the rays
Reflected from his westering brow. Bright fields
Where change of clime, or time, or life, was not,
Or chill vicissitudes of humanity;
But where a dragon watched with sleepless eyes,
Guarding, as ever, human happiness
In vain.
Unveiling Nature opened round
The one expression of her face to heaven,
The inwoven melodies of unison.
In later age, 'mid such a scene reclined,
The imaginative eye saw, stretched beneath
The oaks' fantastic branches, earth-born Pan,
His golden lyre attuning, planet-strung,
Singing the embrace of bridal earth and sky:
His eyes inspired and shaggy brow upturned
To the attendant Echo, bending o'er him,
Filled with adoring passion, as he drank
Her notes responsive. Nature thus reposed
As if in dreaming reverie absorbed,
Echoing unconsciously her harmonies.

 One watching star rose on the horizon line,
Glowing from far with red and angry eye
Over the arid earth. In after time
Star of the waters, fire-eyed Sirius, hailed
By grateful Egypt, herald of grey Nile,
Then when the golden tressèd river-god
King-like descended from the Ethiop hills,
Life quickening through the vale. In later days
Assyrian Saturn named, apart enshrined,
With floating beard like pendent wreath of mist,
Mantled in cloud; his ancient form embowed,
His grey eyes buried beneath pent-house lids,
Earthward declined; the light of stars remote,
Or rather moons, like melancholy lamps
Gleaming above him, motionless enthroned,
Watching with leaden and abstracted brow
The birth and growth of Time.
On the green bank
Our Parents sate, hand within hand conjoined,
Content, their evening adoration made,
As with one glance they turned where the large Moon
Infused her rays into their conscious life.

 Rising above the earth in after days,
Full-orbèd, such ethereal vision shed
Over the ocean-like Assyrian plain,
Chaldean shepherds bless'd; ruler of night,
The visible throne of present Deity
Felt, though unseen; or, under open shrine,
Amid the melodies of dulcimers,
In purple vesture robed, with downcast necks,
And white arms folded over whiter breasts,
Sidonian Virgins hailed, or, in slow dance,
Figured her mystic phases through mid-heaven;
While the rich incense, cloud-like, filled the dome,
And breathing fragrance stole into the heart
Langour, until idolatry became
Blended with human love.
As one who threads
Intricate ways through wildering woods remote,
Obsoure and thorny, opens on traced paths
Familiar known, forsook, but unforgot;
Or as, strayed child to his first haunt returned,
The discipline of love become delight,
Adam, with visage brightened, from whose eyes
Serene shone forth light comforting, began;

 ‘My Eve! henceforth from thee is wisdom heard,
That blossoms from humility and faith;
The sacrifice of doubt and sloth inert
On duty's altar, made by chastened hearts.
I feel an energy within us dwells
To wrestle with the spirit of self-love
Even to the going down of our life's sun.
Our offerings to God henceforth shall be
Of works, not words, our obligations owned,
And repose won from duty's rites fulfilled;
Hence growing forth the strength that makes us one’

 Answered the Ancestress serene:—‘O Adam!
A higher wisdom in us dwells than gained
From thought, or fortitude; but to endure
Passively, ills that we were formed to bear,
Strengthened by faith, these, inefficient all,
Even from the face and tongue of Earth are told
Prophetic revelations. Those seared flowers
Wake to the Sun no more; they could not live;
Their hour was given to them, it is past,
And they return and mingle with the dust
They rose from, slumber that awakes no more
The mutability of beautiful things,
Whereof we are a portion, is our own.
The Spirit that tempted us erewhile, whose words
Were darkness felt, warned us that nought endures;
That earth, like life, in changing is renewed.

 ‘All bright forms fade away to live again
In brighter hues; we too are of the dust,
And thus must fall and perish utterly.
O life of mine! even thus our day of change
Must come, when we shall see each other no more!
To sun and air insensible; hear not
The bird of even's song, or the low tones
Of the stilled brooks that tell their voiceless joys,
Or the leaves thrilling to the twilight air;
No more gaze through the depths of heaven, and see
The stars look down on us like living eyes
Rejoicing in their immortality;
Nor watch the mountainous clouds of glorious forms,
Mocking low earth, on whose white bosoms float
Spirits, reflecting God upon their brows;

 ‘When we shall be as we had never been;
This conscious being, all that we have thought,
The happiness untold within our hearts
But felt, then when enjoyment found no tongue;
The silent ecstasy in sighs respired,
The mutual craving for the life beyond,
The prayer breathed upward from our soul to Him
Who made us frail and erring as we are,
These shall become as sun-rays that are shed,
As odorous breath of unseen flowers that passed,
And left no vestige of their resting-place.

 ‘These are God's revelations of the truth,
Tongued from Earth's speaking altars. I, as thou,
Am human all, of human yearnings formed.
I too would live again; I would arise
With thee—without thee; what were my own life,
That grew but from thy being? I would rise
Even as yon stars that sink, returning still;
As shall these leaves, renewed, though not the same.

 ‘I would not leave this glorious Paradise
With all its sanctifying memories!
When in thy voice I hear my thought expressed,
Reflected from thine eyes, I feel we are one,
That the love kindled in us dieth not;
That faith and hope, with our first breath infused
Must live in us for ever; else whence springs
This longing of the conscious heart to know
The truth it prophectes?
‘I too have owned
Those impulses that pass not, silent joys
In-coming, and departing, unexpressed,
Shadows whose substant feeling found no tongue;
Inwardly cherished in the secret heart,

 ‘I too recall my earliest day of life,
The love and adoration that I felt
Before the things and images I saw;
The earth, and living sun that looked on it,
Parting, or seeming to depart, that gave
The hues that glorified our Paradise,
Until I saw the living One enthroned,
Hallowing the work He made. Alas! it was not.
That altar sank, but rose o'er it a star
Smiling, as if it beckoned us to depths
Of being holy as its own; and then,
As I bless'd it, day faded, and with night
God came before me in His mysteries.
That Star led on a host, till heaven became
No more blue space illumed by sun or cloud,
But as a wilderness of leaves of light,
Branching or flowering; and amid them spread
A mighty stream, winding its course as here,
And on its bosom glittering rays, but these
Dim to the glories flashing round its banks!

 I gazed until I felt each was an earth
In its enjoyment sphered, divine abode
Of forms diviner, till I prayed for wings
To flee away and blend my life with theirs,
And thus I owned the inferior nature, sighing
To share their happiness while feeling mine!
I yearned too much toward them, and I prayed
For the contentment that I had not. Then,
Adam! I turned to thee, and in thy face
I found a refuge from my restless thoughts,
From infinite power that pressed upon my heart.
Then the great truth flashed on me, that, as day
Hid from our eyes awhile the things divine,
Unfolded ere we slept, so life deceived,
Revealing to us everlasting forms
In action, to allure and draw us on
To similar duties, ere the sleep of death
Open serener being.
‘Then I turned
To Paradise, and felt the love in me
Hued forms with an expression not their own,
But still I knew, or felt I knew, that sense,
Tremblingly welcomed till familiar,
That veneration was in us instilled;
The memory and consciousness of Him
Traced on our hearts.
‘Yet, I contend in vain;
The feeling of distrust is hidden still;
The shadow of that spirit left its doubt
Within my bosom—be it pardoned, God!
For it is human. I would hear that Voice,
That spake to me, its certain truth confirm.’