Classic Poem

PARTI .

I

I F thou wert aught, Time-hallowed phantom, Muse!
Save the creation of immortal mind,
Here throned apart thy temple wouldst thou choose;
O never yet mid Ida's woods reclined,
Parnassian height, or Delphic shades enshrined,
Was a sublimer, worthier altar thine
Than where I stand, companion of the wind,
Cloud-folded on the stormy A PENNINE !
There where I feel thee linked with Nature's life and mine.

II

Athens of Italy! I gaze on thee
From Miniato's cypress-covered steep;
F LORENCE ! beneath me opening silently,
Thou liest 'mid thy olive groves in sleep:
Round thy grey towers the veil-like vapours sweep,
Softening thy beauty; hark! upon the air
The sounds of life swell from yon azure deep,
The full-toned bell throws music on the air,
A City's mighty heart is audibly throbbing there.

III

Thou who dost love thy human-kind, who feelest
Thou art in brotherhood of soul allied,
When from the crowd to solitude thou stealest,
Waste not thy passion by the mountain-side;
Go, gaze upon a city in its pride,
Then shalt thou feel thine own humanity;
The incarnate Son of Man for men who died
O'er Salem wept for their infirmity,
As life with all its woes oppressed his heart and eye.

IV

Spirit of Beauty! thou all visible
Soul of the universe, with eloquent hue
Colouring the forms that in our bosoms dwell
Reflecting thine, here thou dost kin renew
With man as when in Eden's youth he grew
Nearer the life-tree; when to him was shown
The harmonies of love he from thee drew;
On the blue mountains round is reared thy throne,
In the deep air we blend our breathings with thine own.

V

O thou loved land which still art Paradise!
Thou that embodiest the poet's dream;
Thou steeped as in a hyaline by skies
Of tenderest tincture, where the orient gleam
Of sunlight glorifies vale, wood, and stream,
Bright as the rays that call them into birth;
Where the corn, vine, and olive, laughing teem;
Where the broad rivers roll in voiceful mirth,
Where the Titanic-Alps gird thee from common earth.

VI

Lo, the idolatry of elder time,
The worship of all ages, mightiest Love,
Raising from earthlier self; through every clime
Adored, and bodied into form to prove
Our immortality, that vainly strove
To kindle in expression's voice the feeling
From the imaginative life that wove
To being that divinest form, revealing
All the vast heart has dreamed within its depths concealing.

VII

Form of ideal beauty, that doth keep
Watch o'er herself in silent ecstasy;
As when her shape was mirrored in the deep
Stilled by her presence; when the earth and sky
Confessed the tutelary deity,
Whose breath was life, whose spirit was repose;
Then when emerging from her shell, the eye
Saw, leaf-like, each expanded grace disclose,
Opening the central heart of the unfolded rose.

VIII

So stands in life the breathing goddess, bright
As with rays emanating from her head,
That crown her with a glory's hallowing light;
While on the aching eye and heart is shed
That sense of adoration which is fed
When language sinks beneath the spell we feel;
Beauty and purity with wings outspread,
Her brow o'er-shadow, calling us to kneel
To love that doth in us life's holiest fount reveal.

IX

But where art thou, Prometheus of the past,
Thou who didst animate that form divine?
Thy hand is in the dust of ages cast,
Yet shouldst not thou at fate's decree repine,
Thou who hast pedestalled within her shrine
Beauty, the form of nature's happiest mood;
Wrapt in her life we cease to think of thine;
Thus transient our human gratitude,
The giver still forgot, while ever grasped the good.

X

The Niobe, the majesty of grief,
Before whose presence awe-struck spirits bow;
Her voiceless sorrow asks not for relief;
Yet does that human attitude avow
The mother unforgot; her regal brow
Is raised to heaven imploringly in vain;
Her hand still guards her youngest hope that now
Her arm with passionate fondness would retain,
But, ere the robe enfolds, her latest love is slain.