Our creeds are not less vain; our sleeping life still dreams; The present, like the past, Passes in joy and sorrow, love and shame; Truth dwells as deep; wisdom is yet a name; Life still to death flies fast; And the same shrouded light from the dark future gleams. Spirits of vale and hill, of river and of ocean,— Over the earth be president again; And dance upon the mountain and the main In view of mortal eyes: Love us, and be beloved, with the Old Time's devotion! JOHN STERLING. 1806-1844. DEDALUS. Wail for Dædalus, all that is fairest ! Shapes whose beauty is truest and rarest, Statues bend your heads in sorrow: Ye that glance amid ruins old, That know not a past nor expect a morrow, By sculptured cave and speaking river, Yet are thy visions in soul the grandest Ever thy phantoms arise before us, Our loftier brothers, but one in blood; By bed and table they lord it o'er us, With looks of beauty and words of good. Calmly they show us mankind victorious Thy toil has won them a god-like quiet; Thou hast wrought their path to a lovely sphere; Their eyes to peace rebuke our riot And shape us a home of refuge here. For Dædalus breathed in them his spirit; The gifts and blessings bestow'd on these. But ah! their wise and graceful seeming Dædalus! thou from the twilight fleèst Which thou with visions hast made so bright; And when no more those shapes thou seèst, Wanting thine eye they lose their light. Even in the noblest of Man's creations, Wail for Dædalus, Earth and Ocean! Wail for Dædalus! awful Voices From earth's deep centre mankind appal. Seldom ye sound, and then Death rejoices: For he knows that then the Mightiest fall. WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS. 1806-1870. THE LOST PLEIAD. Not in the sky, Where it was seen, Nor on the white tops of the glistening wave, Nor in the mansions of the hidden deep (Though green And beautiful its caves of mystery) Shall the bright watcher have A place, and as of old high station keep. Gone! gone! O, never more to cheer The mariner who holds his course alone On the Atlantic, through the weary night With the sweet fixedness of certain light Vain! vain ! Hopeful most idly then shall he look forth, Howe'er the North Doth raise his certain lamp when tempests lower, He sees no more that perish'd light again; And gloomier grows the hour Which may not, through the thick and crowding dark, Restore that lost and loved One to her tower. He looks, the shepherd on Chaldea's hills Tending his flocks,— And wonders the rich beacon doth not blaze, And from his dreary watch along the rocks Still wondering as the drowsy silence fills And lone, Where its first splendours shone, Shall be that pleasant company of stars : How should they know that death Such perfect beauty mars? And, like the earth, its common bloom and breath, Fallen from on high, Their lights grow blasted by its touch, and die,— All their concerted springs of harmony Snapp'd rudely, and the generous music gone. A strain, a mellow strain Of wailing sweetness, fill'd the earth and sky: That one of the Selected Ones must die, The hope heart-cherish'd is the soonest lost; NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 1807-1867. TWO WOMEN. The shadows lay along Broadway, Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet, And call'd her good as fair : She kept with care her beauties rare For her heart was cold to all but gold, Now walking there was One more fair, A slight Girl, lily pale; And she had unseen company To make the spirit quail : 'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn And nothing could avail. No mercy now can clear her brow For this world's peace to pray : For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air, Her woman's heart gave way: But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven By man is cursed alway. |