ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT

While

Castor and Pollux, and the two Dippers. through the whole of this silent indescribable show, inclosing and bathing my whole receptivity, ran the thought of Carlyle dying. (To soothe and spiritualise and, as far as may be, solve the mysteries of death and genius, consider them under the stars at midnight.)

And now that he has gone hence, can it be that Thomas Carlyle, soon to chemically dissolve in ashes and by winds, remains an identity still? In ways perhaps eluding all the statements lore and speculations of ten thousand years-eluding all possible statements to mórtal sense does he yet exist, a definite vital being, a spirit, an individual — perhaps now wafted in spaces among those stellar systems? I have no doubt of it. In silence of a fine night such questions are answer'd to the soul, the best answers that can be given. With me, too, when depressed by some specially sad event or teazing problem, I wait till I go out under the stars for the last voiceless satisfaction. WALT WHITMAN

On the Beach at Night

N the beach, at night,

ΟΝ Stands a child with her father,

Watching the east, the autumn sky.

Up through the darkness

While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black

masses spreading,

ON THE BEACH AT NIGHT

Lower, sullen and fast, athwart and down the sky, Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the

east,

Ascends, large and calm, the lord-star Jupiter;

And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate brothers, the Pleiades.

From the beach the child, holding the hand of her father,

Those burial clouds that lower, victorious, soon to

devour all,

Watching, silently weeps.

Weep not, child,

Weep not, my darling,

With these kisses let me remove your tears;

The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious, They shall not long possess the sky-shall devour the stars only in apparition :

Jupiter shall emerge-be patient-watch again another night-the Pleiades shall emerge,

They are immortal-all those stars, both silvery and golden, shall shine out again,

The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again-they endure;

The vast immortal suns, and the long enduring moons, shall again shine.

Then, dearest child, mournest thou only for Jupiter? Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?

THE KING ON THE TOWER

Something there is,

(With my lips soothing thee, adding, I whisper,

I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)

Something there is more immortal even than the stars, (Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing

away,)

Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous

Jupiter,

Longer than the sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant brothers, the Pleiades.

WALT WHITMAN

The King on the Tower

THE

HE cold grey hills they bind me around, The darksome valleys lie sleeping below, But the winds, as they pass all o'er this ground, Bring me never a sound of woe.

Oh! for all I have suffer'd and striven,

Care has embitter'd my cup and my feast; But here is the night and the dark blue heaven, And my soul shall be at rest.

O golden legends writ in the skies!
I turn toward you with longing soul,
And list to the awful harmonies

Of the Spheres as on they roll.

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION

My hair is grey and my sight nigh gone;
My sword it rusteth upon the wall;
Right have I spoken, right have I done-
When shall I rest me once for all?

O blessed rest! O royal night!
Wherefore seemeth the time so long
Till I see yon stars in their fullest light,
And list to their loudest song?

W. M. THACKERAY: from Uhland

Johannes Agricola in Meditation

HERE'S heaven above, and night by night

TH

I look right through its gorgeous roof;
No suns and moons though e'er so bright
Avail to stop me; splendour-proof

I keep the broods of stars aloof:
For I intend to get to God,

For 'tis to God I speed so fast,
For in God's breast, my own abode,
Those shoals of dazzling glory pass'd
I lay my spirit down at last.

I lie where I have always lain,

God smiles as he has always smiled:
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,

Ere stars were thunder-girt, or piled

The heavens, God thought on me his child; Ordain'd a life for me, array'd

Its circumstances every one

JOHANNES AGRICOLA IN MEDITATION

To the minutest; ay, God said

This head this hand should rest upon

Thus, ere he fashion'd star or sun.
And having thus created me,

Thus rooted me, he bade me grow,

That buds and blooms, nor seeks to know
The law by which it prospers so:
But sure that thought and word and deed
All go to swell his love for me,
Me, made because that love had need
Of something irreversibly

Pledged solely its content to be.

Yes, yes, a tree which must ascend

-No poison-gourd foredoom'd to stoop!
I have God! warrant, could I blend
All hideous sins, as in a cup,

To drink the mingled venoms up:
Secure my nature will convert

The draught to blossoming gladness fast:
While sweet dews turn to the gourd's hurt,
And bloat, and while they bloat it, blast,

As from the first its lot was cast.
For as I lie, smiled on, full fed

By unexhausted power to bless,
I gaze below on hell's fierce bed
And those its waves of flame oppress,
Swarming in ghastly wretchedness:
Whose life on earth aspired to be

One altar-smoke, so pure-to win
If not love like God's love for me,