Good lead us ever to strife,
And wherever they lead us, the Fiend will pursue.
And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length)
The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength!7
So long as Man fancies that Fortune will live,
Like a bride with her lover, united with Worth;
For her favours, alas! to the mean she will give—
And Virtue possesses no title to earth!
That Foreigner wanders to regions afar,
Where the lands of her birthright immortally are!
So long as Man dreams that, to mortals a gift,
The Truth in her fulness of splendour will shine;
The veil of the goddess no earth-born may lift,
And all we can learn is—to guess and divine!
Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form?
The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm!
O, Noble Soul! fly from delusions like these,
More heavenly belief be it thine to adore;
Where the Ear never hearkens, the Eye never sees,
Meet the rivers of Beauty and Truth evermore!
Not without thee the streams—there the Dull seek them;—No!
Look within thee—behold both the fount and the flow!
THE WORDS OF BELIEF
Three Words will I name thee—around and about,
From the lip to the lip, full of meaning, they flee;
But they had not their birth in the being without,
And the heart, not the lip, must their oracle be!
And all worth in the man shall for ever be o'er
When in those Three Words he believes no more.
Man is made FREE!—Man, by birthright, is free,
Though the tyrant may deem him but born for his tool.
Whatever the shout of the rabble may be—
Whatever the ranting misuse of the fool—
Still fear not the Slave, when he breaks from his chain,
For the Man made a Freeman grows safe in his gain.
And VIRTUE is more than a shade or a sound,
And Man may her voice, in this being, obey;
And though ever he slip on the stony ground,
Yet ever again to the godlike way.
Though her wisdom our wisdom may not perceive,
Yet the childlike spirit can still believe.
And a GOD there is!—over Space, over Time,
While the Human Will rocks, like a reed, to and fro,
Lives the Will of the Holy—A Purpose Sublime,
A Thought woven over creation below;
Changing and shifting the All we inherit,
But changeless through all One Immutable Spirit!
Hold fast the Three Words of Belief—though about
From the lip to the lip, full of meaning they flee;
Yet they take not their birth from the being without—
But a voice from within must their oracle be;
And never all worth in the Man can be o'er,
Till in those Three Words he believes no more.
THE MIGHT OF SONG
A rain-flood from the mountain-riven,
It leaps, in thunder, forth to Day,
Before its rush the crags are driven—
The oaks uprooted, whirl'd away—
Aw'd, yet in awe all wildly glad'ning,
The startled wanderer halts below;
He hears the rock-born waters mad'ning,
Nor wits the source from whence they go,—
So, from their high, mysterious Founts along,
Stream on the silenc'd world the Waves of Song!
Knit with the threads of life, for ever,
By those dread Powers that weave the woof,—
Whose art the singer's spell can sever?
Whose breast has mail to music proof?
Lo, to the Bard, a wand of wonder
The Herald8 of the Gods has given:
He sinks the soul the death-realm under,
Or lifts it breathless up to heaven—
Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion
Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.
As, when the halls of Mirth are crowded,
Portentous, on the wanton scene—
Some Fate, before from wisdom shrouded,
Awakes and awes the souls of Men—
Before that Stranger from ANOTHER,
Behold how THIS world's great ones bow—
Mean joys their idle clamour smother,
The mask is vanish'd from the brow—
And from Truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurl'd,
Fly all the craven Falsehoods of the World!
So, rapt from every care and folly,
When spreads abroad the lofty lay,
The Human kindles to the Holy,
And into Spirit soars the Clay!
One with the Gods the Bard: before him
All things unclean and earthly fly—
Hush'd are all meaner powers, and o'er him
The dark fate swoops unharming by;
And while the Soother's magic measures flow,
This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antæus, the Son of Earth,—so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,—so the soul contends in vain with evil—the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antæus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy, (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth's offspring,) when bearing it from earth itself, and stifling it in the higher air.
Hermes.
