Lady Jane Wilde: Verses about Spring

From the far off time of my youthful prime
A light comes evermore;
Oh! it seems so bright in its far‐off light,
The glory I had of yore.

What the swallow sang with its silvery clang,
When autumn and spring were near;
What the church bells rung and the choristers sung,
The chant and the song I hear.
Oh! that parting day when I went away,
How my heart to joy awoke!
And again I came, but ah! not the same,
For the trusting heart was broke.
Since that parting day—that parting day
Through the fair bright world I’ve ranged,
And the world is there still as bright and fair
But I—’tis I have changed.
Oh! childhood’s truth, with its words of sooth,
And its lips as pure as gold,
Like a bird it sung, and its untaught tongue
Was wise as the prophets of old.
Bright home and hearth, in this joyless dearth,
Could thy holy vision gleam
But once, once more from the far‐off shore
Of the past, as a heavenly dream!
Oh! the swallow may come from her southern home,
The spendthrift regain his gold,
The church bells ring, and the choristers sing
Again as they did of old;
But the hopes of youth and its trusting truth,
And bright sunny laughter gleams,
Once passed and o’er, can return no more,
Except in the land of dreams.

Will our Leaders faint and falter
At the foes they have to bind
The Ignorance and Prejudice,
Bigot heart and shallow mind?
Do they tremble at the ordeal
That is looming from afar
The battle, and the hero‐death,
And vict'ry's fiery car?

Ah! the brave ones! Lion‐hearted!
They whose prophet‐accents rung,
As if pentecostal fires
Had been kindled on their tongue;
Some with words of soft persuasion,
Melting hearts of stern and strong,
Like the minor chord that waketh
All our tears in Irish song.

Some with glance, like eagles, fearless,
And great thoughts that kindle deeds,
Bowing souls of men before them
As the storm‐wind sweeps the reeds.
Will they sink down, pale and weary?
Vain is preaching to the wind,
Burning words and supplications
Slavish souls are deaf and blind.

Never! Like the protomartyr,
Ages since on Judah's plains,
While around him, furious raging,
Stood the fierce, unbranded Cains;
So, sublime in holy daring,
Stand our Leaders calmly there,
Though such grief their spirit's clouding
As might quickly fade young hair.


Grief for the idiot people,
Who, with suicidal hand,
Strive to the bind the fetters closer
On their prostrate, bleeding land.
But a silver cord of gladness
Is inwoven in the gloom
Through the midnight of our sadness,
Brightest stars from heaven loom.

Morning comes when night is darkest,
Near to evil good will spring,
As the Indian serpent resteth
On the leaf that heals its sting.
Braver spirits will enkindle,
To redeem our abject race;
Noble hearts will beat yet nobler,
To retrieve our past disgrace.

Brighter still, and brighter shining,
Seems the glory of the few,
Who, in face of earth and heaven,
Swear to God they dare be true.
Let the masses pass on scorning,
Seek not courage in their mind;
Self‐devotion, patriot fervour,
Spring not from the craven kind.

Abject tears, and prayers submissive
Have they eyes, and cannot see?
Never country gained her freedom
When she sued on bended knee.
Be our Leaders, then, still daring,
Bold in word, and brave in fight;
And when comes the day of trial,
Then, may God defend the Right!

Stand on the heights, O Poet! nor come down
Amid the wise old serpents, coiled around
The Tree of Knowledge in Academics.
The Poet’s place is by the Tree of Life,
Whose fruit turns men to Gods, and makes them live,
Not seeking buried treasure in the tombs.
Leave the dim records of a by‐gone age
To those great Archivists, who flash the torch
Of Truth along Time’s mouldering records,
Illuminating all the fading Past,
Like golden letters on an ancient scroll.
The Poet soars with eagles, breathes pure ether,
Basks in the light that suns the mountain peak,
And sings, from spirit altitudes, such strains,
That all the toilers in life’s rugged furrows
Are forced, for once, to lift the bow’d‐down head,
And look on Heaven. Flashes from Poet’s words
Electric light, strong, swift, and sudden, like
The clash of thunder‐clouds, by which men read
God’s writing legibly on human hearts.
On reading his Essay on the Collation of Certain Ancient Spanish Manuscripts, printed from the proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.

O Poet‐Prophets! God hath sent ye forth
With lips made consecrate by altar fire,
To guide the Future, not to tread the Past;
To chaunt, in glorious music, man’s great hymn,
The watchword of humanity—Advance!
Advance in Wisdom, Nobleness, and Truth,
High aims, high purposes, and self‐control,
Which is self‐reverence, knowing we shall stand
With crownéd angels before God’s great throne
The Poet nerves the arm to do great deeds,
Inspires great thoughts, flings o’er the tears of life
The rainbow arch, to save us from despair;
Quickens the stagnant energies to act,
Bears the advancing banner of the age,
Full in the van of all Humanity;
And, with a strength, God‐given, rolls the stone,
As angels may, from off the Sepulchre
Where souls lie bound, bidding them rise and live.
O Poet! preach this Gospel once again
True Life, true Liberty, God’s gifts to man;
Freedom from servile aims and selfish ends,
That swathe and bind the kingly spirit down,
Like Egypt’s grave‐clothes on the royal dead;
Scatter the golden grain of lofty thoughts
From which spring hero‐deeds—that so, in truth,
Our Future may be nobler than our Past,
In all that makes a nation’s life divine—
This is the Poet’s mission, therefore—Thine.

Has the line of the Patriots ended,
The race of the heroes failed,
That the bow of the mighty, unbended,
Falls slack from the hands of the quailed?
Or do graves lie too thick in the grass
For the chariot of Progress to pass?

Did the men of the past ever falter?
The stainless in name and fame.
They flung life’s best gifts on the altar
To kindle the sacrifice flame,
Till it rose like a pillar of light
Leading up from Egyptian night.

Oh! hearts all aflame, with the daring
Of youth leaping forth into life!
Have ye courage to lift up, unfearing,
The banner fallen low in the strife,
From hands faint through life’s deepest loss,
And bleeding from nails of the cross?

Can ye work on as they worked—unaided,
When all but honour seemed lost?
And give to your Country, as they did,
All, without counting the cost?
For the children have risen since then
Up to the height of men.

Now, swear by those pale martyr‐faces,
All worn by the furrows of tears,
By the lost youth no morrow replaces,
By all their long‐wasted years,
By the fires trod out on each hearth,
When the Exiles were driven forth;

By the young lives so vainly given,
By the raven hair blanched to grey,
By the strong spirits crushed and riven,
By the noble aims faded away,
By their brows, as the brows of a king,
Crowned by the circlet of suffering—
VII.
To strive as they strove, yet retrieving
The cause from all shadow of blame,
In the Congress of Peoples achieving
A place for our nation and name;
Not by war between brothers in blood,
But by glory made perfect through good.

We are blind, not discerning the promise,
’Tis the sword of the Spirit that kills;
Give us Light, and the fetters fall from us,
For the strong soul is free when it wills.
Not our wrongs but our sins make the cloud
That darkens the land like a shroud.

With this sword like an Archangel’s gleaming,
Go war against Evil and Sin,
’Gainst the falsehood, and meanness, and seeming
That stifle the true life within.
Your bonds are the bonds of the soul,
Strike them off, and you spring to the goal!

O men who have passed through the furnace,
Assayed like the gold, and as pure!
By your strength can the weakest gain firmness
The strongest may learn to endure,
When once they have chosen their part,
Though the sword may drive home to each heart.

O Martyrs! The scorners may trample
On the broken hearts strewed in their path;
But the young race, all flushed by example,
Will awake to the duties it hath,
And re‐kindle your own torch of Truth
With the passionate splendours of youth!

When mighty passions, surging, heave the depth of life's great ocean
When the people sway, like forest trees, to and fro in wild commotion
When the world‐old kingdoms, rent and riven, quiver in their place,
As the human central fire is upheaving at their base,
And throbbing hearts, and flashing eyes, speak a language deep and cryptic;
Yet he who runs may read aright these signs apocalyptic:
Then rise, ye crownéd Elohim*—rise trembling from your thrones;
Soon shall cease the eternal rhythm betwixt them and human groans.


Ah! ye thought the nations, faint and weary, lay for ever bound;
They were sleeping like Orestes, with the Furies watching round;

Soon they'll spring to vengeance, maddened by the whisperings divine,
That breathed of human freedom, as they knelt before God's shrine.
See you not a form advancing, as the shadow of the Gnomon,
Step by step, in darkness, onward—can ye read the fatal omen!
Coarse the hand, and rude the raiment, and the brow is dark to see,
But flashes fierce the eye as those of vengeful Zincali.

On its brow a name is written—France read it once before,
And like a demon's compact, it was written in her gore
A fearful name—thrones trembled as the murmur passed along—
RETRIBUTION, proud oppressors, for your centuries of wrong.
From the orient to the ocean, from the palm‐tree to the pine,
From Innisfail, by Tagus, to the lordly Appenine
From Indus to the river by which pale Warsaw bleeds
Souls are wakening—hands are arming—God is blessing noble deeds.
IV.
Bravely done, ye Roman Eagles, ye are fluttering at last;
Spread your broad wings brave and proudly, as in old times, to the blast;
Never furl them—never flag, till with the Austrian's slaughter,
Ye crimson the full tide of the Danube's rolling water.
Who will falter now? Who'll stand like a trembling coward dumb!
Plaudite! Freedom stands again on the Janiculum!
From the Tiber to the Adige her vatic words are waking,
Italy! fair Italy! arise the dawn is breaking!


The Russian breathed on Poland, and she changed to a Zahara;
The jewels of her ancient crown adorn the Czar's tiara.
Her princes, and her nobles, tread the land with footsteps weary,
And her people cry to Heaven with ceaseless Miserere.
On her pale brow, thorn crownéd, ye may read her shame and loss;
See, foreign rule has branded there the fatal Thanatos.
But her agony and bloody sweat the Lord from Heaven will see,
And a resurrection morn heal the wounds of Calvary.

By our prophets God is speaking, in Sinai's awful thunders,
By pestilence and famine, in fearful signs and wonders;
By our great poet‐priesthood, the sacred race immortal,
Whose words go forth triumphant, as through a golden portal;
By our patriots and martyrs, who, for Freedom's holy law,
Have hearts to dare, a hand to burn, like Mutius Scævola.
Then, courage, Brothers! lock your shields, like the old Spartan band,
Advance! and be your watchword ever—God for Ireland!

Tis midnight, falls the lamp‐light dull and sickly,
On a pale and anxious crowd,
Through the court, and round the judges, thronging thickly,
With prayers none dare to speak aloud.
Two youths, two noble youths, stand prisoners at the bar
You can see them through the gloom
In pride of life and manhood’s beauty, there they are
Awaiting their death doom.

All eyes an earnest watch on them are keeping,
Some, sobbing, turn away,
And the strongest men can hardly see for weeping,
So noble and so loved were they.
Their hands are locked together, those young brothers,
As before the judge they stand
They feel not the deep grief that moves the others,
For they die for Fatherland.

They are pale, but it is not fear that whitens
On each proud, high brow,
For the triumph of the martyr’s glory brightens
Around them even now.
They sought to free their land from thrall of stranger;
Was it treason? Let them die;
But their blood will cry to Heaven—the Avenger
Yet will hearken from on high.

Before them, shrinking, cowering, scarcely human,
The base informer bends,
Who, Judas‐like, could sell the blood of true men,
While he clasped their hands as friends.
Aye, could fondle the young children of his victim,
Break bread with his young wife,
At the moment that for gold his perjured dictum
Sold the husband and the father’s life.

There is silence in the midnight—eyes are keeping
Troubled watch till forth the jury come;
There is silence in the midnight—eyes are weeping—
“Guilty!”—is the fatal uttered doom.
For a moment o’er the brothers’ noble faces
Came a shadow sad to see;
Then silently they rose up in their places,
And embraced each other fervently.

Oh! the rudest heart might tremble at such sorrow,
The rudest cheek might blanch at such a scene:
Twice the judge essayed to speak the word—to‐morrow
Twice faltered, as a woman he had been.
To‐morrow!—Fain the elder would have spoken,
Prayed for respite, tho’ it is not death he fears;
But thoughts of home and wife his heart hath broken,
And his words are stopped by tears.

But the youngest—oh, he spake out bold and clearly:
“I have no ties of children or of wife;
Let me die—but spare the brother who more dearly
Is loved by me than life.”
Pale martyrs, ye may cease, your days are numbered;
Next noon your sun of life goes down;
One day between the sentence and the scaffold
One day between the torture and the crown!

A hymn of joy is rising from creation;
Bright the azure of the glorious summer sky;
But human hearts weep sore in lamentation,
For the Brothers are led forth to die.
Aye, guard them with your cannon and your lances
So of old came martyrs to the stake;
Aye, guard them—see the people’s flashing glances,
For those noble two are dying for their sake.

Yet none spring forth their bonds to sever
Ah! methinks, had I been there,
I’d have dared a thousand deaths ere ever
The sword should touch their hair.
It falls!—there is a shriek of lamentation
From the weeping crowd around;
They’re stilled—the noblest hearts within the nation
The noblest heads lie bleeding on the ground.

Years have passed since that fatal scene of dying,
Yet, lifelike to this day,
In their coffins still those severed heads are lying,
Kept by angels from decay.
Oh! they preach to us, those still and pallid features
Those pale lips yet implore us, from their graves,
To strive for our birthright as God’s creatures,
Or die, if we can but live as slaves.

We stand in the light of a dawning day,
With its glory creation flushing;
And the life‐currents up from the pris’ning clay
Through the world’s great heart are rushing.
While from peak to peak of the spirit land
A voice unto voice is calling:
The night is over, the day is at hand,
And the fetters of earth are falling!

Yet, faces are pale with a mystic fear
Of the strife and trouble looming;
And we feel that mighty changes are near,
Tho’ the Lord delayeth his coming.

For the rent flags hang from each broken mast,
And down in the ocean’s surges
The shattered wreck of a foundering Past
Sinks mid the night wind’s dirges.

But the world goes thundering on to the light,
Unheeding our vain presages;
And nations are cleaving a path to Right
Through the mouldering dust of ages.
Are we, then, to rest in a chill despair,
Unmoved by these new elations;
Nor carry the flag of our Island fair
In the onward march of nations?

Shall our hands be folded in slumber, when
The bonds and the chains are shattered;
As stony and still as enchanted men,
In a cave of darkness fettered?
The cave may be dark, but we’ll flash bright gleams
Of the morning’s radiance on it,
And tread the New Path, tho’ the noontide beams,
As yet, fall faintly upon it.

For souls are around us, with gifts divine,
Unknown and neglected dying;
Like the precious ore in a hidden mine,
Unworked and as useless lying.
We summon them forth to the banded war,
The sword of the Spirit using,
To come with their forces from near and far,
New strength with our strength infusing.

Let each bear a torch with the foremost bands,
Through the Future’s dark outgoing;
Or stand by the helm, mid the shoals and sands
Of the river of life fast flowing.

Or as guides on the hills, with a bugle note,
Let us warn the mountain ranger
Of the chasms that cross and the mists that float
O’er his upward path of danger.

For the chasms are deep, and the river is strong,
And the tempest is wildly waking;
We have need of brave hands to guide us along
The path which the Age is taking.
With our gold and pearls let us build the State;
Faith, courage, and tender pity
Are the gems that shine on the golden gate
Of the Angels’ Heavenly city.

O People! so richly endowed with all
The splendours of spirit power,
With the poet’s gift and the minstrel‐soul,
And the orator’s glorious dower;
Are hearts not amongst us, or lips to vow,
With patriot fervour breathing,
To crown with their lustre no alien brow
While the thorn our own is wreathing.

Ev’n lovelier gifts on our lowly poor,
Kind Nature lavishly showers,
As the gold rain falls on the cottage door,
Of the glowing laburnam flowers;
The deathless love for their Country and God
Undimmed through the ages keeping,
Tho’ the fairest harvests that grew on our sod
Were left for the stangers’ reaping.

The gentle grace that to commonest words
Gives a rare and tender beauty;
With the zeal that would face a thousand swords
For their Country, home and duty.

Still breathing the prayer for their Motherland
Her wrongs and her sorrows taught them;
Tho’ the scaffold’s doom, or the felon‐brand,
Were the only gifts she brought them.

But we, let us bring her—as eastern kings,
At the foot of Christ low kneeling
The gold that symbols our costliest things,
And myrrh for the spirit’s healing
Oh, Brothers! be with us, our aim is high,
The highest of man’s vocation:
With these priceless jewels, that round us lie,
To build up a noble Nation.

Beautiful Ireland! Who will preach to thee?
Souls are waiting for lips to vow;
And outstretched hands, that fain would reach to thee,
Yearn to help, if they knew but how,
To lift the thorn‐wreath off thy brow.

Passionate dreamers have fought and died for thee,
Poets poured forth their lava song;
But dreamer and poet have failed as a guide for thee
Still are unriven the chains of wrong.

Suffering Ireland! Martyr‐Nation!
Blind with tears thick as mountain mist;
Can none amidst all the new generation
Change them to glory, as hills sun‐kissed
Flash lights of opal and amethyst?

Welcome a Hero! A man to lead for us,
Sifting true men from chaff and weeds;
Daring and doing as those who, indeed, for us
Proved their zeal by their life and deeds.

Desolate Ireland! Saddest of mothers,
Waits and weeps in her island home;
But the Western Land—has she help for others
Who feeds her eagles on blood of brothers?
Not with cannon or roll of drum,
Or foreign flag can our triumph come.

Why seek aid from the arm of a stranger?
Trust thy sons, O Mother! for good;
Braver can none be in hours of danger,
Proudly claiming thy rights withstood.
VII.
Then, Ireland! wake from thy vain despairing!
Grand the uses of life may be;
Heights can be reached by heroic daring,
Crowns are won by the brave and free,
And Nations create their own destiny.

But, Time and the hour fleet fast unbidden,
A turbid stream over golden sands;
And too often the gold is scattered or hidden,
While we stand by with listless hands.

Then seize the least grain as it glistens and passes,
Swift and sure is that river’s flight:
The glory of morning the bright wave glasses,
But the gold and glory soon fade from sight,
And noon‐tide splendours will change to night.

Ah! life is too brief for languor or quarrel,
Second by second the dead dropp down;
And souls, all eager to strive for the laurel,
Faint and fall ere they win the crown.

Ireland rests mid the rush of progression,
As a frozen ship in a frozen sea;
And the changeless stillness of life’s stagnation,
Is worse than the wildest waves could be,
Rending the rocks eternally.

Then, trumpet‐tongued, to a people sleeping,
Who will speak with magic command,
Bidding them rise—these dead men, keeping
Watch by the dead in a silent land?

Grandly, solemnly, earnestly preaching,
Man’s great gospel of Truth and light;
With lips like saints’ in their love beseeching,
Hands as strong as a prophet’s to smite
The foes to Humanity’s sacred right.
.
Earth is thrilling with new aspirations,
Rending the fetters that bar and ban;
But we alone of the Christian nations
Fall to the rear in the march of Man.

Alas! can I help? but a nameless singer
Weak the words of a woman to save;
We wait the advent of some light‐bringer,
Strong to roll the stone from the grave,
And summon to life the death‐bound slave.

Down from heights of the Infinite drifting,
Raising the prisoned soul from gloom;
Like the white angels of God uplifting
Seal and stone from the Saviour’s tomb.
XVII.
Yet, hear me now, for a Nation pleading;
Strike! but with swords yet keener than steel;
Flash on the path the new Age is treading,
As sparks from grooves of the iron wheel,
In star‐flames its onward march reveal.

Work by the shore where our broad ocean rages,
Bridging it over by wraiths of steam;
Linking two worlds by a chain that sages
Forged in the heat of a science dream.

For Nature has stamped us with brand immortal,
Highway of nations our Land must be:
We hold the keys of the Old‐world portal,
We guard the pass of the Western Sea
Ireland, sole in her majesty!

Work! there is work for the thinker and doer,
And glory for all when the goal is won;
So we are true to our Country, or truer
Than Planets are to the central Sun.

Call from the hills our own Irish Eagle,
Spread its plumes on the “The Green” of old;
With a sunrise blaze, as a mantle regal,
Turning the dust‐brown wings to gold
Symbol and flag be it then unrolled!

Face Heaven’s light with as proud a daring,
Tread the heights with a step as grand,
Breast the wild storm with brave hearts unfearing
As kings might do for their rightful land.

Irish daring by land and by river,
Irish wealth from mountain and mine,
Irish courage so strong to deliver,
Irish love as strong to combine
Separate chords in one strain divine;

These are the forces of conquering power,
Chains to sever, if slaves we be;
Then strike in your might, O Men of the hour!
And Ireland springs on the path of the free!

The sin of our race is upon us,
The pitiless, cruel disdain
Of brother for brother, tho’ coiling
Round both is the one fatal chain;
And aimless and reckless and useless
Our lives pass along to the grave
In tumults of words that bewilder,
And the conflicts of slave with slave.

Yet shadows are heavy around us,
The darkness of sin and of shame,
While the souls of the Nation to slumber
Are lulled by vain visions of fame;
True hearts, passion‐wasted, and breaking
With sense of our infinite wrong,
Oh! wake them, nor dread the awaking,
We need all the strength of the strong.

For we rage with senseless endeavours
In a fever of wild unrest,
While glory lies trampled, dishonoured,
Death‐pale, with a wound in her breast;
Had we loosened one chain from the spirit,
Had we strove from the ruin of things
To build up a Temple of Concord,
More fair than the palace of Kings;

Our name might be heard where the Nations
Press on to the van of the fight,
Where Progress makes war upon Evil,
And Darkness is scattered by Light.

They have gold and frankincense and myrrh
To lay at the feet of their King,
But we—what have we but the wine‐cup
Of wrath and of sorrow to bring?

Let us ask of our souls, lying under
The doom of this bondage and ban,
Why we, made by God high as Angels,
Should fall so much lower than man;
Some indeed have been with us would scale
Heav’n’s heights for life‐fire if they dare
But the vultures now gnaw at their hearts
Evermore on the rocks of Despair.

Let us think, when we stand before God,
On the Day of the Judgment roll,
And He asks of the work we have done
In the strength of each God‐like soul;
Can we answer—“Our prayers have gone up
As light from the stars and the sun,
And Thy blessing came down on our deeds
As a crown when the victory’s won.

“We fought with wild beasts, wilder passions,
As of old did the saints of God,
Tho’ our life‐blood ran red in the dust
Of the fierce arena we trod;
We led up Thy people triumphant
From Egypt’s dark bondage of sin,
And made the fair land which Thou gavest
All glorious without and within.

“We changed to a measure of music
The discord and wail of her days,
For sorrow gave garments of gladness,
For scorn of her enemies praise;

We crowned her a Queen in the triumph
Of noble and beautiful lives,
While her chariot of Freedom rolled on
Through the crash of her fallen gyves.”

I ask of you, Princes, and Rulers,
I ask of you, Brothers around,
Can ye thus make reply for our people
When the Nations are judged or crowned?
If not, give the reins of the chariot
To men who can curb the wild steeds
They are nearing the gulf, in this hour
We appeal by our wrongs and our needs.

Stand back and give place to new leaders;
We need them—some strong gifted souls,
From whose lips, never touched by a falsehood,
The heart’s richest eloquence rolls.
True Patriots by grandeur of purpose,
True men by the power of the brain:
The chosen of God to lift upward
His Ark with hands clear of all stain.

We need them to tend the Lord’s vineyard,
As shepherds to watch round His fold,
With brave words from pure hearts outpouring,
As wine from a chalice of gold;
That the souls of the Nation uplifted,
May shine in new radiance of light,
As of old stood the Prophets transfigured
In glory with Christ on the height.

Far out where the grand western sunsets
Flush crimson the mountain and sea,
And the echoes of Liberty mingle
With the roar of the waves on the lea;

Where over the dim shrouded passes
The clouds fling a rainbow‐hued arch,
And through giant‐rent portals a people
Go forth on their sad, solemn march:

I had dreams of a future of glory
For this fair motherland of mine,
When knowledge would bring with its splendours
The Human more near the Divine.
And as flash follows flash on the mountains,
When lightnings and thunders are hurled,
So would throb in electrical union
Her soul with the soul of the world.

For we stand too apart in our darkness,
As planets long rent from the sun,
And the mystical breath of the spirit
Scarce touches our hearts sweeping on.
I appeal from this drear isolation
To earth, to the mountains, and sky
Must we die as of thirst in a desert,
While full tides of life pass us by?

Yet still, through the darkness and sorrow,
I dream of a time yet to be,
When from mountain and ocean to Heaven
Will rise up the Hymn of the Free.
When our Country, made perfect through trial,
White‐robed, myrtle‐crowned, as a Bride,
Will stand forth, “a Lady of Kingdoms,”
Through Light and through Love glorified.

Shall we tread the dust of ages,
Musing, dreamlike, on the past,
Seeking on the broad earth’s pages
For the shadows Time hath cast;
Waking up some ancient story,
From each prostrate shrine or hall,
Old traditions of a glory
Earth may never more recall?

Poets thoughts of sadness breathing,
For the temples overthrown;
Where no incense now is wreathing,
And the gods are turned to stone.
Wandering by the graves of heroes,
Shrouded deep in classic gloom,
Or the tombs where Egypt’s Pharaohs
Wait the trumpet and the doom.

By the city, desert‐hidden,*
Which Judea’s mighty king
Made the Genii, at his bidding,
Raise by magic of his ring;
By the Lake Asphaltian wander,
While the crimson sunset glow
Flings its radiance, as we ponder
On the buried towns below.

By the Cromleach, sloping downward,
Where the Druid’s victim bled;
By those Towers, pointing sunward,
Hieroglyphics none have read:
In their mystic symbols seeking,
Of past creeds and rites o’erthrown,
If the truths they shrined are speaking
Yet in Litanies of Stone.

By the Temple of the Muses,
Where the climbers of the mount
Learned the soul’s diviner uses
From the Heliconian fount.
By the banks of dark Illyssus,
Where the Parcæ walked of old,
In their crowns of white narcissus,
And their garments starred with gold.

By the tomb of queenly Isis,
Where her fallen prophets wail,
Yet no hand has dared the crisis
Of the lifting of the vail.
By the altar which the Grecian
Raised to God without a name;
By the stately shrine Ephesian,
Erostratus burned for fame.

By the Libyan shrine of Ammon,
Where the sands are trod with care,
Lest we, bending to examine,
Start the lion from his lair.
Shall we tread the halls Assyrian,
Where the Arab tents are set;
Trace the glory of the Tyrian,
Where the fisher spreads speads his net?

Shall we seek the “Mene, mene,”
Wrote by God upon the wall,
While the proud son of Mandane
Strode across the fated hall?
Shall we mourn the Loxian’s lyre,
Or the Pythian priestess mute?
Shall we seek the Delphic fire,
Though we’ve lost Apollo’s lute?

Ah! the world has sadder ruins
Than these wrecks of things sublime;
For the touch of man’s misdoings
Leaves more blighted tracks than Time.
Ancient lore gives no examples
Of the ruins here we find—
Prostrate souls for fallen temples,
Mighty ruins of the mind.

We had hopes that rose as proudly
As each sculptured marble shrine;
And our prophets spake as loudly
As their oracles divine.
Grand resolves of giant daring,
Such as Titans breathed of old;
Brilliant aims their front uprearing,
Like a temple roofed with gold.

Souls of fire, like columns pointing,
Flamelike, upward to the skies;
Glorious brows, which God’s anointing
Consecrated altar‐wise.
Stainless hearts, like temples olden,
None but priest hath ever trod;
Hands as pure as were the golden
Staves which bore the ark of God.

Oh! they built up radiant visions,
Like an iris after rain;
How all Paradise traditions
Might be made to live again.
Of Humanity’s sad story,
How their hand should turn the page,
And the ancient primal glory,
Fling upon this latter age.

How with Godlike aspirations,
Up the souls of men would climb,
Till the fallen, enslavéd nations
Trod in rhythmic march sublime;
Reaching heights the people knew not,
Till their Prophet Leaders led—
Bathed in light that mortals view not,
While the spirit life lies dead.

How the pallid sons of labour,
They should toil, and toil to raise,
Till a glory, like to Tabor,
Once again should meet earth’s gaze.
How the poor, no longer keeping
Count of life alone by groans,
With the strong cry of their weeping,
Start the angels on their thrones.

Ah! that vision’s bright ideal,
Must it fade and perish thus?
Must its fall alone be real?
Are its ruins trod by us?
Ah! they dreamed an Eldorado,
Given not to mortal sight;
Yet the souls that walk in shadow,
Still bend forward to its light.

Earnest dreamers, sooth we blame not
If ye failed to reach the goal—
If the glorious Real came not
At the strong prayer of each soul.
By the path ye’ve trod to duty,
Blessings yet to man may flow,
Though the proud and stately beauty
Of your structure lieth low.

Low as that which Salem mourneth,
On Moriah’s holy hill;
While the heathen proudly scorneth,
Yet the wrecks are glorious still:
Like the seven columns frowning,
On the desert city down;
Or the seven cedars crowning
Lofty Lebanon.

Poet wanderer, hast thou bent thee
O’er such ruins of the soul?
Pray to God that some Nepenthe
May efface that hour of dole.
We may lift the shrine and column,
From the dust which Time hath cast;
Choral chants may mingle solemn,
Once again where silence passed;

But the stately, radiant palace,
We had built up in our dreams,
With Hope’s rainbow‐woven trellis,
And Truth’s glorious sunrise beams;
Our aims of towering stature,
Our aspirations vain,
And our prostrate human nature
Who will raise them up again?