Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint, Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd ;- Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree- There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space. I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun: O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! The woman of a thousand summers back, Upon his town, and all the mothers brought His beard a foot before him, and his hair For such as these?"-"But I would die," said she. "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!"-" Alas!" she said, Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, THE TWO VOICES. A STILL Small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be ?" Then to the still small voice I said: "Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made." To which the voice did urge reply: "To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie. "An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk: from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. "He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew." I said, "When first the world began, Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man. "She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast." Thereto the silent voice replied: "Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide. "This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse. "Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres ?" It spake, moreover, in my mind: "Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind." Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all." To which he answer'd scoffingly: "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who 'll weep for thy deficiency? "Or will one beam be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell'd in the world of sense ?" I would have said, "Thou canst not know," But my full heart, that work'd below, Again the voice spake unto me: "Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely, 't were better not to be. "Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think but thou wilt weep." I said, "The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance. "Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev'n yet." But he: "What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake ?" I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know "And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, "Yet," said the secret voice, "some time Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early rime. "Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven's starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night. "Not less the bee would range her cells, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells." I said that "all the years invent. Each month is various to present The world with some development. "Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower How grows the day of human power?" "The highest-mounted mind," he said, "Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead. "Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main? "Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town? "Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet. "Thou hast not gained a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite. ""T were better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek. "Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, A healthy frame, a quiet mind." I said, "When I am gone away, 'He dared not tarry,' men will say, Doing dishonor to my clay." "This is more vile," he made reply, "To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die. "Sick art thou-a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still. "Do men love thee? Art thou so bound "Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, "Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest flights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. "Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines. "I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow. "If straight thy tract, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like; "And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower "Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.” "O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die? "I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds. "I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven: "Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream; "But heard, by secret transport led, Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head "Which did accomplish their desire, Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire. "He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' curs'd and scorn'd, and bruised with stones : "But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face." The sullen answer slid betwixt: "Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, The elements were kindlier mix'd." I said, "I toil beneath the curse, "And that, in seeking to undo "Or that this anguish fleeting hence, "Consider well," the voice replied, "Will he obey when one commands? Or answer should one press his hands? He answers not, nor understands. "His palms are folded on his breast: There is no other thing express'd But long disquiet merged in rest. "His lips are very mild and meek: Tho' one should smite him on the check, And on the mouth, he will not speak. "His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonor to her race "His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honor, some to shame,-But he is chill to praise or blame. "He will not hear the north-wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave. "High up the vapors fold and swim: About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgetteth him." "If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. "The sap dries up: the plant declines. A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs? "I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew. "From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept. "The simple senses crown'd his head: 'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said, 'We find no motion in the dead.' "Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease? "Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense? "He owns the fatal gift of eyes, "Here sits he shaping wings to fly: "That type of Perfect in his mind "He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, "The end and the beginning vex "He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would. |