Glassing life's fictions on a phantom stream:To-day, in glory all the world is clad—
Wherefore, O Man?—because thy heart is glad.
To-morrow, and the self-same scene survey—
The same! Oh no—the pomp hath pass'd away! Wherefore the change? Within, go, ask reply— Thy heart hath given its winter to the sky! Vainly the world revolves upon its pole;— Light—Darkness—Seasons—these are in the soul!
II.
"Trite truth," thou sayest—well, if trite it be,
Why seek we ever from ourselves to flee?
Pleased to deceive our sight, and loath to know,
We bear the climate with us where we go!
To that immense Bethesda, whither still
Each worse disease seeks cures for every ill;
To that great well, in which the Heart at strife,
Merges its own amidst the common life—
Whatever name it take, or Public Zeal,
Or Self-Ambition, still as sure to heal—
From his sad hearth his sorrows Ruthven bore;
Long shunn'd the strife of men, now sought once more.
Flock'd to his board the Magnates of the Hour
Who clasp for Fame its spectre-likeness—Power!
The busy, babbling, talking, toiling race—
The Word-besiegers of the Fortress—Place!
Waves, each on each, in sunlight hurrying on,
A moment gilded—in a moment gone;
For Honours fool but with deluding light—
The place it glides through, not the wave, is bright![B] The means, if not his ends, with these the same, In Ruthven, Party hail'd a Leader's name! Night after night the listening Senate hung On that roused mind, by Grief to Action stung! Night after night, when Action, spent and worn, Left yet more sad the soul it had upborne; The sight of Home the frown of Life renew'd— The World gave Fame and Home a Solitude!
III.
And Constance? sever'd from a husband's side,
No heart to cherish, and no hand to guide,
Still, as if ev'n the very name of wife
Drew her soul upward into loftier life,
The solemn sense of woman's holiest tie
Arm'd every thought against the memory.
'Mid shatter'd Lares stood the Marriage Queen—
As on a Roman's hearth, with marble smile serene:
New to her sight that galaxy of mind
Which moves round men who light and guide their kind,
Where all shine equal in their joint degrees
And rank's harsh outlines vanish into ease.
As Power and Genius interchange their hues
So genial life the classic charm renews;
Some Scipio's wit a Terence may refine,
Some Cæsar's pomp exalt a Maro's line—
The polish'd have their flaws, but least espied
Amongst the polish'd is the angle pride;
And, howsoever Envy grudge their state,
Their own bland laws democratize the great.
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