| |
| Rich. [reading]. “IN silence, and at night, the Conscience feels | |
| That life should soar to nobler ends than Power.” | |
| So sayest thou, sage and sober moralist! | |
| But wert thou tried? Sublime Philosophy, | |
| Thou art the Patriarch’s ladder, reaching heaven, | 5 |
| And bright with beckoning angels—but, alas! | |
| We see thee, like the Patriarch, but in dreams, | |
| By the first step, dull-slumbering on the earth. | |
| I am not happy!—with the Titan’s lust | |
| I woo’d a goddess, and I clasp a cloud. | 10 |
| When I am dust, my name shall, like a star, | |
| Shine through wan space, a glory, and a prophet | |
| Whereby pale seers shall from their aëry towers | |
| Con all the ominous signs, benign or evil, | |
| That make the potent astrologue of kings. | 15 |
| But shall the Future judge me by the ends | |
| That I have wrought, or by the dubious means | |
| Through which the stream of my renown hath run | |
| Into the many-voiced unfathom’d Time? | |
| Foul in its bed lie weeds, and heaps of slime, | 20 |
| And with its waves—when sparkling in the sun, | |
| Ofttimes the secret rivulets that swell | |
| Its might of waters—blend the hues of blood. | |
| Yet are my sins not those of Circumstance, | |
| That all-pervading atmosphere, wherein | 25 |
| Our spirits, like the unsteady lizard, take | |
| The tints that color, and the food that nurtures? | |
| O! ye, whose hour-glass shifts its tranquil sands | |
| In the unvex’d silence of a student’s cell; | |
| Ye, whose untempted hearts have never toss’d | 30 |
| Upon the dark and stormy tides where life | |
| Gives battle to the elements,—and man | |
| Wrestles with man for some slight plank, whose weight | |
| Will bear but one, while round the desperate wretch | |
| The hungry billows roar, and the fierce Fate, | 35 |
| Like some huge monster, dim-seen through the surf, | |
| Waits him who drops;—ye safe and formal men, | |
| Who write the deeds, and with unfeverish hand | |
| Weigh in nice scales the motives of the Great, | |
| Ye cannot know what ye have never tried! | 40 |
| History preserves only the fleshless bones | |
| Of what we are, and by the mocking skull | |
| The would-be wise pretend to guess the features. | |
| Without the roundness and the glow of life | |
| How hideous is the skeleton! Without | 45 |
| The colorings and humanities that clothe | |
| Our errors, the anatomists of schools | |
| Can make our memory hideous. | |
| I have wrought | |
| Great uses out of evil tools, and they | 50 |
| In the time to come may bask beneath the light | |
| Which I have stolen from the angry gods, | |
| And warn their sons against the glorious theft, | |
| Forgetful of the darkness which it broke. | |
| I have shed blood, but I have had no foes | 55 |
| Save those the State had; if my wrath was deadly, | |
| ’T is that I felt my country in my veins, | |
| And smote her sons as Brutus smote his own. | |
| And yet I am not happy: blanch’d and sear’d | |
| Before my time; breathing an air of hate, | 60 |
| And seeing daggers in the eyes of men, | |
| And wasting powers that shake the thrones of earth | |
| In contest with the insects; bearding kings | |
| And brav’d by lackies; murder at my bed; | |
| And lone amidst the multitudinous web, | 65 |
| With the dread Three, that are the Fates who hold | |
| The woof and shears—the Monk, the Spy, the Headsman. | |
| And this is power? Alas! I am not happy. [After a pause. | |
| And yet the Nile is fretted by the weeds | |
| Its rising roots not up; but never yet | 70 |
| Did one least barrier by a ripple vex | |
| My onward tide, unswept in sport away. | |
| Am I so ruthless then that I do hate | |
| Them who hate me? Tush, tush! I do not hate; | |
| Nay, I forgive. The Statesman writes the doom, | 75 |
| But the Priest sends the blessing. I forgive them, | |
| But I destroy; forgiveness is mine own, | |
| Destruction is the State’s! For private life, | |
| Scripture the guide—for public, Machiavel. | |
| Would fortune serve me if the Heaven were wroth? | 80 |
| For chance makes half my greatness. I was born | |
| Beneath the aspect of a bright-eyed star, | |
| And my triumphant adamant of soul | |
| Is but the fix’d persuasion of success. | |
| Ah!—here!—that spasm!—again!—How Life and Death | 85 |
| Do wrestle for me momently! And yet | |
| The King looks pale. I shall outlive the King! | |
| And then, thou insolent Austrian—who didst gibe | |
| At the ungainly, gaunt, and daring lover, | |
| Sleeking thy looks to silken Buckingham, | 90 |
| Thou shalt—no matter! I have outliv’d love. | |
| O beautiful, all golden, gentle youth! | |
| Making thy palace in the careless front | |
| And hopeful eye of man, ere yet the soul | |
| Hath lost the memories which (so Plato dream’d) | 95 |
| Breath’d glory from the earlier star it dwelt in— | |
| Oh, for one gale from thine exulting morning, | |
| Stirring amidst the roses, where of old | |
| Love shook the dew-drops from his glancing hair! | |
| Could I recall the past, or had not set | 100 |
| The prodigal treasures of the bankrupt soul | |
| In one slight bark upon the shoreless sea; | |
| The yoked steer, after his day of toil, | |
| Forgets the goad, and rests: to me alike | |
| Or day or night—Ambition has no rest! | 105 |
| Shall I resign? who can resign himself? | |
| For custom is ourself; as drink and food | |
| Become our bone and flesh, the aliments | |
| Nurturing our nobler part, the mind, thoughts, dreams, | |
| Passions, and aims, in the revolving cycle | 110 |
| Of the great alchemy, at length are made | |
| Our mind itself; and yet the sweets of leisure, | |
| An honor’d home far from these base intrigues, | |
| An eyrie on the heaven-kiss’d heights of wisdom.— | |
| [Taking up the book. | 115 |
| Speak to me, moralist!—I ’ll heed thy counsel. | |
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