Classic Poem

BY OTWAY CURRY .

'Tis Autumn. Many, and many a fleeting age
Hath faded since the primal morn of Time;
And silently the slowly journeying years,
All redolent of countless seasons, pass.

The Spring-time wakes in beauty, and is fraught
With power to thrill the leaping pulse of Joy,
And urge the footsteps of ideal Hope
With flowery lightness on. In peerless day
Resplendent Summer garlandeth the world;
And Contemplation through her sky serene
Ascends unwearied, emulous to lead,
To marshal, and to proudly panoply
The votaries of Ambition as they rise.
These with their gilded pageants disappear,
And vestal Truth leads on the silent hours
Of Autumn's lonely reign. The weary gales
Creep o'er the waters, and the sunbrown plains,
Oft whispering as they pass a long farewell
To the frail emblems of the waning year,
The drooping foliage, and the dying leaves.
This is the time for care; to break the spell
Of ever-fabling Fancy; to contrast
The evanescent beams of earthly bliss
With the long, dread array of deepening ill.
The ills of life are twofold: those which fall
With lead-like weight upon the mortal clay,
Are transient in their kind; for the frail dust
Ere long shall blend with the innumerous sands,
And atoms of the boundless universe,
Absorbed in the unfelt, unconscious rest
Of lifeless, soulless matter, without change, —
Save when the far-off period shall arrive
Of shadowy nothingness.

The deadlier ills
That tinge existence with unbroken gloom,
Are lost to melioration, for they hold
The ever-during spirit in their grasp,
And in their kind a withering permanence.
To linger in unrest — to be endowed
With high aspirings, endless, limitless!
On Thought's unshackled pinions to outride
The air-borne eagles of the Appenines:
To pierce the surging depths of endless space;
To revel in the stalwart fervidness
Of its careering storms! to sweep sublime
Through the far regions of immensity,
Then fall astounded from the dreaming height,
And wake in wildering durance. These are things
That well may dim the sleepless eyes of care.
And thou, too, Friendship, pilgrim-child of heaven!
The balm that brings the spirit sweet relief
From the keen sungs of sorrow and despair,
'Tis thine to give: yet the deep quietude
Of the bereaving tomb hath shrouded oft
The morning-prime of beings formed for thee, —
A truth well imaged forth in the sad tale
Of one who mouldereth now in lowly dust.

His soul was fraught with the undying fire
Of seraph Poesy; and he would joy
To cull the flowers from her bright coronal
To gem the brilliant hours. The smiling fields,
The happy homes of men, the verdant plains,
And the lone wilderness, were beauteous all!
And all seemed one vast altar, and the sky
Seemed one vast canopy, the living dome
Of Fame's eternal temple: and the stars,
Her bright, attendant spirits, in his view
Upheld her crowns and garlands. He would climb
The towering cliff, to sit alone and gaze
Upon the wide, blue sea; to hear the mild
Incessant breaking of the murmuring waves —
The endless requiem of the elder world —
And from its billowy chime his spirit drew
Primeval inspiration. Human life
Seemed bland, and beautiful; for on his brow
No breeze had wantoned, save the genial air
Of its unshaded morning. Love had thrown
Its magic round him, and his heart beat high
With rich and pure affection. Happiness
Pervaded all existence; and her smile
Serene, the dreamer fondly deemed would brave
The storms of time forever. Life wore on,
And those bright visions faded, and gave place
To pain and grief: — and he lay down and slept
A long, long sleep: — a sleep, which neither voice
Of youth, nor age, nor childhood's buoyant tread,
Nor Pride's unfaltering footstep in the sheen
Of Manhood's glorious noonday, e'er shall break.
The wintry winds swept round him, but their chill,
Congealing blight the sleeper could not know.
The swiftly changing seasons sped away,
And the bright, burning sunlight flashed upon
His lone, and silent mansion; but its deep,
And gelid gloom, the sunbeam might not gild.

Years followed years away: and when there came
A child of sorrow to his nameless grave,
The waving, rustling grass of deep, bright green,
Was blended with the early, transient bloom
Of Spring's wild blossoms o'er him. She knelt down
And wept, for she had been in by-gone days
The idol of his love; the changed — the lost —
Still almost beautiful, though sorrowing years,
And pain, and sin, had dimm'd her shining brow.

*****

And they are resting side by side within
The guileless grave, in death's calm union joined,
Whose bond no storm can sever.