Classic Poem

At Salem was the law. The holy land
Its orient terrace by the ocean reared
And thereon walked the Holy One, at cool
Of the world's morn; there visible state He kept:
At Salem was the law on stone inscribed:
But over all the world, within man's heart
The unwritten law abode, from earliest time
Upon our being stampt, nor wholly lost:
Men saw it, loved it, praised — and disobeyed.
Therefore the conscience, whose applausive voice
Their march triumphant should have led with joy
To all perfection, from a desert pealed
The Baptist's note alone: " Repent, repent " ;
And men with song more flattering filled their ears.
Yet still the undersong was holy! long —
Though cast on days unblest, though sindefiled —
The mind accepted, yea, the heart revered,
That which the will lacked strength to follow. Conscience,
Her crown monarchal first, her fillet next
Snatched from her sacred brows, a minstrel's wreath
Assumed, and breathed in song her soul abroad;
On outcast duty's grave she with her tears
Dropt flowers funereal of surpassing beauty,
With reason walked, the right path indicated,
Though her imperative voice was heard no more;
Nor spake in vain. Man — fallen man was great,
Remembering ancient greatness; hymn and tale
Held each some portion of dismembered truth,
Severely sung by poets wise and brave.
They sang of justice, God's great attribute
With tragic buskin and a larger stride
Following the fated victim step by step:
They sang of love crowning the toils of life:
Of joy they sang; for joy, that gift divine,
Primal and winged creature, with full breath
Through all the elastic limbs of Grecian fable
Poured her redundant life, the noble tongue
Strong as the brazen clang of ringing arms
With resonance of liquid sounds enriching
Sweet as the music-laughter of the Gods:
Of heavenly pity prophet-like they sang;
And feeling after good though finding not,
Of Him that good not yet in flesh revealed
By ceaseless vigil's tears, and lifted palms,
And yearnings infinite and unrepressed,
A separate and authentic witness bore,
Thus was the end foreshown; thus error's cloud
Turned forth its silver lining on the night.
Thus too — for us at least a precious gift,
Dear for the love it grasped, by all it lacked
Sternly made bold vainglorious thoughts to chide, —
Wisdom shone forth, but not for men unwise:
Her beams but taint the dead; Men's guilt and woe
She proved, and her own helplessness confessed.
Such were her two great functions. Woe to those
Who live with art for faith, and bards for priests!
These are supplanted: Sense their loftiest hopes
Will sap: and fiends usurp their oracles;

Olympian dreams, farewell! your spell is past;
I turn from you away, from Eros' self,
From heavenly beauty on thy crystal brow
Uranian Venus, starred in gentlest light;
From thee, Prometheus, chained on Caucasus,
Lo from thee, sad wanderer o'er the earth;
From thee, great Hercules, the son of heaven,
And of humanity, held long in pain;
Heroic among men, by labours tried,
Descending to the shades and leading thence
The lost; while infant still, a serpent-slayer;
In death a dread and mystic sacrifice:
From thee, more high than all, from thee, Apollo!
Light of the world whose sacred beam, like words,
Illustrated the forehead of the earth,
Supreme of harmonists, whose song flowed forth
Pure from that light; great slayer of the Serpent
That mocked thy mother; master of that craft
Helpful to anguished flesh; oracular;
Secretly speaking wisdom to the just;
Openly to the lost from lips despised
Like thy Cassandra's flinging it to waste —
Phaebus Apollo! here at thy chief shrine
From thee I turn; and stern confession make
That not the vilest weed yon ripple casts
Here at my feet, but holds a loftier gift
Than all the Grecian legends! Let them go —
Because the mind of man they lifted up,
But corruptible instincts left to grovel
On Nature's common plane, yea, and below it;
Because they slightly healed the people's wound,
And sought in genial fancy, finite hopes,
Proportioned life and dialectic art,
A substitute for virtue; and because
They gave for nothing that which faith should earn,
Casting the pearls of Truth 'neath bestial feet;
Because they washed the outside of the cup,
And dropped a thin veil o'er the face of Death;
Because they neither brought man to his God,
Nor let him feel his weakness — let them go!
Wisdom that raises not her sons is folly;
Truth in its unity alone is Truth.