Ode
If we should rake the bottom of the Sea
For its best treasures,
And heap our measures;
If we should ride upon the Winds, and be
Partakers of their flight
By day, and through the night,
Intent upon this business to find gold,
Yet were the story perfectly untold.
Such waves of wealth are rolled up in thy soul,
Such swelling Argosies,
Laden with Time's supplies;
Such pure, delicious wine shines in the bowl,
We could drink evermore,
Upon the glittering shore,
Drink of the Pearl-dissolvèd brilliant cup,
Be madly drunk, and drown our thirsting up.
This vessel richly chased about the rim,
With golden emblems is
The utmost art of bliss,
With figures of the azure Gods who swim
In the enchanted sea,
Contrived for deity,
Floating in rounded shells of purple hue,
The Sculptor died in carving this so true.
Some dry uprooted sapling we have seen,
Pretend to even
This grove of Heaven;
A sacred forest where the foliage green,
Breathes Music like mild lutes,
Or silver-coated flutes,
Or the concealing winds that can convey,
Never their tone to the rude ear of day.
Some weary-footed mortals we have found
Adventuring after thee;
They,—rooted, as a tree
Pursues the swift breeze o'er a rocky ground;
Thy grand, imperial flight,
Sweeping thee far from sight,
As sweeps the movement of a Southern blast,
Across the heated Gulf, and bends the mast.
The circles of thy Thought, shine vast as stars,
No glass shall round them,
No plummet sound them,
They hem the observer like bright steel wrought bars,
And limpid as the sun,
Or as bright waters run
From the cold fountain of the Alpine springs,
Or diamonds richly set in the King's rings.
The piercing of thy Soul scorches the thought,
As great fires burning,
Or sunlight turning
Into a focus; in its meshes caught
Our palpitating minds.
Show stupid like coarse hinds,
So strong and composite through all thy powers,
The Intellect divine serenely towers.
The smart and pathos of our suffering race
Bears thee no harm,
Thy muscular arm
The daily ills of living doth efface;
The sources of the spring
From whence thy instincts wing,
Unsounded by the lines of sordid day,
Enclosed with inlaid walls thy Virtue's way.
This heavy Castle's gates no man can ope,
Unless the lord doth will
To prove his skill,
And read the Fates hid in his horoscope;
No man may enter there,
But first shall kneel in prayer,
And to superior Gods orisons say,
Powers of old time, unveiled in busy day.
Thou need not search for men in Sidney's times,
And Raleigh fashion,
And Herbert's passion;
For us, they are but dry preservèd limes;
There is ripe fruit to-day
Hangs yellow in display,
Upon the waving garment of the bough;
The graceful Gentleman lives for us now.
Neither must thou turn back to Angelo,
Who Rome commanded,
And single-handed
Was Architect, Poet, and bold Sculptor too;
Behold a better thing,
When the pure mind can sing,
When true Philosophy is linked with verse,
When moral Laws in rhyme themselves rehearse.
In city's street, how often shall we hear,
It is a period,
Deprived of every God;
A time of Indecision, and doom 's near;
When foolish altereation
Threatens to break the nation,
All men turned talkers, and much good forgot,
With score of curious troubles we know not.
By this account their learning you shall read,
Who tell the story,
So sad and gory,
People that you can never seek in need;
The pigmies of the race
Who crowd the airy space,
With counterfeit presentments of the Man,
Who has done all things, all things surely can.
We never heard thee babble in this wise,
The age creator,
And clear debater
Of that which this good Present underlies;
Thy course is better kept,
Than where the dreamers slept,
Thy sure meridian taken by the sun,
Thy compass pointing true as waters run.
In vain, for us to say what thou hast been
To the occasion,
The flickering nation,
This stock of people from an English kin;
And he who led the van,
The frozen Puritan,
We thank thee for thy patience with his faith,
That chill delusive poison mixed for death.
So moderate in thy lessons, and so wise,
To foes so courteous,
To friends so duteous,
And hospitable to the neighbor's eyes;
Thy thoughts have fed the lamp
In learning's polished camp,
And who suspects thee of this well-earned fame,
Or meditates on thy renownèd name.
Within thy Book, the world is plainly set
Before our vision,
Thou keen Physician;
We find there wisely writ, what we have met
Along the dusty path,
And o'er the aftermath,
Where natures once world-daring held the scythe,
Nor paid to Superstition a mean tithe.
Great persons are the epochs of the race,
When royal Nature
Takes form and feature,
And careless handles the surrounding space;
The age is vain and thin,
A pageant of gay sin,
Without heroic response from the soul,
Through which the tides diviner amply roll.
The pins of custom have not pierced through thee,
Thy shining armor
A perfect charmer;
Even the hornets of Divinity,
Allow thee a brief space,
And thy Thought has a place,
Upon the well-bound Library's chaste shelves,
Where man of various wisdom rarely delves.—
When thou dost pass below the forest shade,
The branches drooping
Enfold thee, stooping
Above thy figure, and form thus a glade;
The flowers admire thee pass,
In much content the grass,
Awaits the pressure of thy firmest feet,
The bird for thee sends out his greetings sweet.
And welcomes thee designed, the angry Storm,
When deep-toned thunder
Steals up from under
The heavy-folded clouds, and on thy form
The lightning glances gay
With its perplexing ray,
And sweep across thy brow the speeding showers,
And fills this pageantry thy outward hours.
Upon the rivers thou dost float at peace,
Or on the ocean
Feelest the motion;
Of every Natural form thou hast the lease,
Because thy way lies there,
Where it is good or fair;
Thou hast perception, learning, and much art,
Propped by the columns of a stately heart.
From the deep mysteries thy goblet fills,
The wines do murmur,
That Nature warmed her,
When she was pressing out from must the hills,
The plains that near us lie,
The foldings of the sky,
Whate'er within the horizon there is,
From Hades' cauldron, to the blue God's bliss,
We may no more; so we might sing fore'er,
Thy Thought recalling,
Thus waters falling
Over great cataracts, from their lakes do bear,
The power that is divine,
And bends their stately line;
All but thy Beauty, the cold verses have,
All but thy Music, organ-mellowed nave.
For its best treasures,
And heap our measures;
If we should ride upon the Winds, and be
Partakers of their flight
By day, and through the night,
Intent upon this business to find gold,
Yet were the story perfectly untold.
Such waves of wealth are rolled up in thy soul,
Such swelling Argosies,
Laden with Time's supplies;
Such pure, delicious wine shines in the bowl,
We could drink evermore,
Upon the glittering shore,
Drink of the Pearl-dissolvèd brilliant cup,
Be madly drunk, and drown our thirsting up.
This vessel richly chased about the rim,
With golden emblems is
The utmost art of bliss,
With figures of the azure Gods who swim
In the enchanted sea,
Contrived for deity,
Floating in rounded shells of purple hue,
The Sculptor died in carving this so true.
Some dry uprooted sapling we have seen,
Pretend to even
This grove of Heaven;
A sacred forest where the foliage green,
Breathes Music like mild lutes,
Or silver-coated flutes,
Or the concealing winds that can convey,
Never their tone to the rude ear of day.
Some weary-footed mortals we have found
Adventuring after thee;
They,—rooted, as a tree
Pursues the swift breeze o'er a rocky ground;
Thy grand, imperial flight,
Sweeping thee far from sight,
As sweeps the movement of a Southern blast,
Across the heated Gulf, and bends the mast.
The circles of thy Thought, shine vast as stars,
No glass shall round them,
No plummet sound them,
They hem the observer like bright steel wrought bars,
And limpid as the sun,
Or as bright waters run
From the cold fountain of the Alpine springs,
Or diamonds richly set in the King's rings.
The piercing of thy Soul scorches the thought,
As great fires burning,
Or sunlight turning
Into a focus; in its meshes caught
Our palpitating minds.
Show stupid like coarse hinds,
So strong and composite through all thy powers,
The Intellect divine serenely towers.
The smart and pathos of our suffering race
Bears thee no harm,
Thy muscular arm
The daily ills of living doth efface;
The sources of the spring
From whence thy instincts wing,
Unsounded by the lines of sordid day,
Enclosed with inlaid walls thy Virtue's way.
This heavy Castle's gates no man can ope,
Unless the lord doth will
To prove his skill,
And read the Fates hid in his horoscope;
No man may enter there,
But first shall kneel in prayer,
And to superior Gods orisons say,
Powers of old time, unveiled in busy day.
Thou need not search for men in Sidney's times,
And Raleigh fashion,
And Herbert's passion;
For us, they are but dry preservèd limes;
There is ripe fruit to-day
Hangs yellow in display,
Upon the waving garment of the bough;
The graceful Gentleman lives for us now.
Neither must thou turn back to Angelo,
Who Rome commanded,
And single-handed
Was Architect, Poet, and bold Sculptor too;
Behold a better thing,
When the pure mind can sing,
When true Philosophy is linked with verse,
When moral Laws in rhyme themselves rehearse.
In city's street, how often shall we hear,
It is a period,
Deprived of every God;
A time of Indecision, and doom 's near;
When foolish altereation
Threatens to break the nation,
All men turned talkers, and much good forgot,
With score of curious troubles we know not.
By this account their learning you shall read,
Who tell the story,
So sad and gory,
People that you can never seek in need;
The pigmies of the race
Who crowd the airy space,
With counterfeit presentments of the Man,
Who has done all things, all things surely can.
We never heard thee babble in this wise,
The age creator,
And clear debater
Of that which this good Present underlies;
Thy course is better kept,
Than where the dreamers slept,
Thy sure meridian taken by the sun,
Thy compass pointing true as waters run.
In vain, for us to say what thou hast been
To the occasion,
The flickering nation,
This stock of people from an English kin;
And he who led the van,
The frozen Puritan,
We thank thee for thy patience with his faith,
That chill delusive poison mixed for death.
So moderate in thy lessons, and so wise,
To foes so courteous,
To friends so duteous,
And hospitable to the neighbor's eyes;
Thy thoughts have fed the lamp
In learning's polished camp,
And who suspects thee of this well-earned fame,
Or meditates on thy renownèd name.
Within thy Book, the world is plainly set
Before our vision,
Thou keen Physician;
We find there wisely writ, what we have met
Along the dusty path,
And o'er the aftermath,
Where natures once world-daring held the scythe,
Nor paid to Superstition a mean tithe.
Great persons are the epochs of the race,
When royal Nature
Takes form and feature,
And careless handles the surrounding space;
The age is vain and thin,
A pageant of gay sin,
Without heroic response from the soul,
Through which the tides diviner amply roll.
The pins of custom have not pierced through thee,
Thy shining armor
A perfect charmer;
Even the hornets of Divinity,
Allow thee a brief space,
And thy Thought has a place,
Upon the well-bound Library's chaste shelves,
Where man of various wisdom rarely delves.—
When thou dost pass below the forest shade,
The branches drooping
Enfold thee, stooping
Above thy figure, and form thus a glade;
The flowers admire thee pass,
In much content the grass,
Awaits the pressure of thy firmest feet,
The bird for thee sends out his greetings sweet.
And welcomes thee designed, the angry Storm,
When deep-toned thunder
Steals up from under
The heavy-folded clouds, and on thy form
The lightning glances gay
With its perplexing ray,
And sweep across thy brow the speeding showers,
And fills this pageantry thy outward hours.
Upon the rivers thou dost float at peace,
Or on the ocean
Feelest the motion;
Of every Natural form thou hast the lease,
Because thy way lies there,
Where it is good or fair;
Thou hast perception, learning, and much art,
Propped by the columns of a stately heart.
From the deep mysteries thy goblet fills,
The wines do murmur,
That Nature warmed her,
When she was pressing out from must the hills,
The plains that near us lie,
The foldings of the sky,
Whate'er within the horizon there is,
From Hades' cauldron, to the blue God's bliss,
We may no more; so we might sing fore'er,
Thy Thought recalling,
Thus waters falling
Over great cataracts, from their lakes do bear,
The power that is divine,
And bends their stately line;
All but thy Beauty, the cold verses have,
All but thy Music, organ-mellowed nave.
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