Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care, Had stamped the seal of grey deformity On all the mingling lineaments of time. How lovely the intrepid front of youth!
With meek-eyed courage decked with freshest grace; Courage of soul, that dreaded not a name, And elevated will, that journeyed on
Through life's phantasmal scene in fearlessness, With virtue, love, and pleasure, hand in hand.
Then, that sweet bondage which is freedom's self, And rivets with sensation's softest tie The kindred sympathies of human souls, Needed no fetters of tyrannic law: Those delicate and timid impulses In nature's primal modesty arose, And with undoubting confidence disclosed The growing longings of its dawning love, Unchecked by dull and selfish chastity, That virtue of the cheaply virtuous,
Who pride themselves in senselessness and frost. No longer prostitution's venomed bane Poisoned the springs of happiness and life; Woman and man, in confidence and love Equal and free and pure, together trod The mountain-paths of virtue, which no more Were stained with blood from many a pilgrim's feet.
Then, where, through distant ages, long in pride The place of the monarch-slave had mocked Famine's faint groan and penury's silent tear, A heap of crumbling ruins stood, and threw Year after year their stones upon the field, Wakening a lonely echo; and the leaves Of the old thorn, that on the topmost tower Usurped the royal ensign's grandeur, shook
In the stern storm that swayed the topmost tower. And whispered strange tales in the whirlwind's ear. Low through the lone cathedral's roofless aisles The melancholy winds a death-dirge sung: It were a sight of awfulness to see
The works of faith and slavery, so vast, So sumptuous, yet so perishing withal! Even as the corpse that rests beneath its wall. A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death To-day; the breathing marble glows above To decorate its memory, and tongues Are busy of its life; to-morrow, worms In silence and in darkness seize their prey.
Within the massy prison's mouldering courts, Fearless and free, the ruddy children played, Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows With the green ivy and the red wall-flower, That mock the dungeon's unavailing gloom; The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron, There rusted amid heaps of broken stone That mingled slowly with their native earth: There the broad beam of day, which feebly once Lighted the cheek of lean captivity
With a pale and sickly glare, then freely shone On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:
No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Pealed through the echoing vaults, but soothing note Of ivy fingered winds and gladsome birds And merriment were resonant around.
These ruins soon left not a wreck behind: Their elements, wide scattered o'er the globe, To happier shapes were moulded, and became Ministrant to all blissful impulses:
Thus human things were perfected, and earth, Even as a child beneath its mother's love, Was strengthened in all excellence, and grew Fairer and nobler with each passing year.
Now Time his dusky pennons o'er the scene Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past
Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:
Thy lore is learned. Earth's wonders are thine own, With all the fear and all the hope they bring
My spells are past; the present now recurs.
Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains Yet unsubdued by man's reclaiming hand.
Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course. Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue
The gradual paths of an aspiring change;
For birth and life and death, and that strange state Before the naked soul has found its home, All tend to perfect happiness, and urge The restless wheels of being on their way, Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life, Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal: For birth but wakes the spirit to the sense Of outward shews, whose unexperienced shape New modes of passion to its frame may lend; Life is its state of action, and the store Of all events is aggregated there That variegate the eternal universe; Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies Of happy regions of eternal hope.
Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on: Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom, Yet spring's awakening breath will woo the earth, To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower, That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens, Lighting the green-wood with its sunny smile. Fear not then, Spirit, death's disrobing hand, So welcome when the tyrant is awake, So welcome when the bigot's hell-torch burns; 'Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour, The transient gulph-dream of a starting sleep Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen Love's brightest roses on the scaffold bloom, Mingling with freedom's fadeless laurels there, And presaging the truth of vision'd bliss. Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene Of linked and gradual being has confirmed? Whose stingings bade thy heart look further still, When, to the moonlight walk by Henry led,
Sweetly and sadly thou didst talk of death? And wilt thou rudely tear them from thy breast, Listening supinely to a bigot's creed;
Or tamely crouching to the tyrant s rod, Whose iron thongs are red with human gore? Never but bravely bearing on, thy will Is destined an eternal war to wage
With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot The germs of misery from the human heart. Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The thorny pillow of unhappy crime, Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease: Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will, When fenced by power and master of the world. Thou art sincere and good ;of resolute mind, Free from heart-withering custom's cold control, Of passion lofty, pure, and unsubdued.
Earth's pride and meanness could not vanquish thee, And therefore art thou worthy of the boon
Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod, And many days of beaming hope shall bless Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love. Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life, and rapture, from thy smile.
The fairy waves her wand of charm. Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car That rolled beside the battlement, Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness. Again the enchanted steeds were yoked, Again the burning wheels inflame
The steep descent of heaven's untrodden way Fast and far the chariot flew:
The vast and fiery globes that rolled Around the Fairy's palace-gate
Lessened by slow degrees, and soon appeared Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs
That there attendant on the solar power
With borrowed light pursued their narrower way. Earth floated then below:
The chariot paused a moment there;
The Spirit then descended:
The restless coursers pawed the ungenial soil, Snuffed the gross air, and then, their errand done, Unfurled their pinions to the winds of heaven.
The Body and the Soul united then, A gentle start convulsed Ianthe's frame: Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed; Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained: She looked around in wonder, and beheld Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch, Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love, And the bright-beaming stars
That through the casement shone.
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