Rounds and completes the sphere;
perfect While, opposite, the scale of night Silently with the stars ascended.
A prophecy and intimation, A pale and feeble adumbration, Of the great world of light, that lies Behind all human destinies.
And if a more auspicious fate On thy advancing steps await, Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along Of the great army of the poor, O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor. Nor to thyself the task shall be Without reward; for thou shalt learn The wisdom early to discern True beauty in utility;
As great Pythagoras of yore, Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note, Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue, The secret of the sounding wire, And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. Thy destiny remains untold; For, like Acestes' shaft of old, The swift thought kindles as it flies, And burns to ashes in the skies.
THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.
I SAW, as in a dream sublime, The balance in the hand of Time. O'er East and West its beam impended; And day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight,
Like the astrologers of eld, In that bright vision I beheld Greater and deeper mysteries. I saw, with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great Æolian lyre, Rising through all its sevenfold bars, From earth unto the fixed stars. And through the dewy atmosphere, Not only could I see, but hear, Its wondrous and harmonious strings, In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings, Where, chanting through his beard of
Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes, And down the sunless realms of space Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch This music sounded like a march, And with its chorus seemed to be Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast! His sword hung gleaming by his side, Scattered across the midnight air And, on his arm, the lion's hide The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God, Unharmed with naked feet she trod Upon the hot and burning stars, As on the glowing coals and bars, That were to prove her strength, and try Her holiness and her purity.
Thus moving on, with silent pace, And triumph in her sweet, pale face, She reached the station of Orion. Aghast he stood in strange alarm! And suddenly from his outstretched arm Down fell the red skin of the lion Into the river at his feet. His mighty club no longer beat
And like those waters rushing Among the wooden piers, A flood of thoughts came o'er me That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, O how often,
In the days that had gone by, I had stood on that bridge at midnight And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, O how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide Would bear me away on its bosom O'er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart washot and restless, And my life was full of care, And the burden laid upon me Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me, It is buried in the sea; And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers, Like the odor of brine from the ocean Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands Of care-encumbered men, Each bearing his burden of sorrow, Have crossed the bridge since then. I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro, The young heart hot and restless, And the old subdued and slow !
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows, As long as the heart has passions, As long as life has woes;
The moon and its broken reflection And its shadows shall appear, As the symbol of love in heaven, And its wavering image here.
GLOOMY and dark art thou, O chief of the mighty Omahas; Gloomy and dark as the driving cloud, whose name thou hast taken! Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket, I see thee stalk through the city's Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their footprints. What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the footprints?
How canst thou walk these streets, who hast trod the green turf of the prairies? How canst thou breathe this air, who hast breathed the sweet air of the mountains? Ah! 't is in vain that with lordly looks of disdain thou dost challenge Looks of disdain in return, and question these walls and these pavements, Claiming the soil for thy hunting-grounds, while down-trodden millions Starve in the garrets of Europe, and cry from its caverns that they, too, Have been created heirs of the earth, and claim its division!
Back, then, back to thy woods in the regions west of the Wabash ! There as a monarch thou reignest. In autumn the leaves of the maple Pave the floors of thy palace-halls with gold, and in summer
Pine-trees waft through its chambers the odorous breath of their branches. There thou art strong and great, a hero, a tamer of horses!
There thou chasest the stately stag on the banks of the Elkhorn,
Or by the roar of the Running-Water, or where the Omaha
Calls thee, and leaps through the wild ravine like a brave of the Blackfeet!
Hark! what murmurs arise from the heart of those mountainous deserts ? Is it the cry of the Foxes and Crows, or the mighty Behemoth, Who, unharmed, on his tusks once caught the bolts of the thunder, And now lurks in his lair to destroy the race of the red man? Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the Crows and the Foxes, Far more fatal to thee and thy race than the tread of Behemoth, Lo! the big thunder-canoe, that steadily breasts the Missouri's Merciless current ! and yonder, afar on the prairies, the camp-fires Gleam through the night; and the cloud of dust in the gray of the daybreak Marks not the buffalo's track, nor the Mandan's dexterous horse-race;
It is a caravan, whitening the desert where dwell the Camanches!
Ha! how the breath of these Saxons and Celts, like the blast of the east-wind, Drifts evermore to the west the scanty smokes of thy wigwams!
WHEN descends on the Atlantic The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges The toiling surges,
Laden with seaweed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore; From Bahama, and the dashing, Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf, that buries The Orkneyan skerries, Answering the hoarse Hebrides ;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the shifting
Currents of the restless main ; Till in sheltered coves, and reaches Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, erelong From each cave and rocky fastness, In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song: From the far-off isles enchanted, Heaven has planted With the golden fruit of Truth;
TO AN OLD DANISH SONG-BOOK. | Once Prince Frederick's Guard
Yet dost thou recall
Days departed, half-forgotten, When in dreamy youth I wandered By the Baltic,-
When I paused to hear
The old ballad of King Christian Shouted from suburban taverns In the twilight.
Thou recallest bards,
Who, in solitary chambers,
And with hearts by passion wasted, Wrote thy pages.
Thou recallest homes
Where thy songs of love and friendship
Made the gloomy Northern winter Bright as summer.
Once some ancient Scald,
In his bleak, ancestral Iceland, Chanted staves of these old ballads To the Vikings.
Once in Elsinore,
At the court of old King Hamlet, Yorick and his boon companions Sang these ditties.
Sang them in their smoky barracks Suddenly the English cannon Joined the chorus!
Peasants in the field,
Sailors on the roaring ocean,
Students, tradesmen, pale mechanics, All have sung them.
Thou hast been their friend;
They, alas! have left thee friendless! Yet at least by one warm fireside Art thou welcome.
And, as swallows build
In these wide, old-fashioned chimneys, So thy twittering songs shall nestle In my bosom,-
Quiet, close, and warm, Sheltered from all molestation, And recalling by their voices Youth and travel.
WALTER VON DER VOGELWEID.
VOGELWEID the Minnesinger,
When he left this world of ours, Laid his body in the cloister,
Under Würtzburg's minster towers.
And he gave the monks his treasures, Gave them all with this behest : They should feed the birds at noontide Daily on his place of rest;
Saying, "From these wandering min
I have learned the art of song; Let me now repay the lessons
They have taught so well and long."
Thus the bard of love departed; And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted By the children of the choir.
Day by day, o'er tower and turret, In foul weather and in fair, Day by day, in vaster numbers, Flocked the poets of the air.
On the tree whose heavy branches Overshadowed all the place, On the pavement, on the tombstone, On the poet's sculptured face,
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