I know life better! when thou’rt older grown
I’ll tell thee—it is needful to be
known—
Of the pursuit of wealth—art,
power; the cost.
That it is folly, nothingness: that shame
For glory is oft thrown us in the game
Of Fortune; chances where the soul is
lost.
The soul will change. Although of everything
The cause and end be clear, yet wildering
We roam through life (of vice and error
full).
We wander as we go; we feel the load
Of doubt; and to the briars upon the road
Man leaves his virtue, as the sheep its
wool.
Then go, go pray for me! And as the prayer
Gushes in words, be this the form they bear:—
“Lord, Lord, our Father! God,
my prayer attend;
Pardon! Thou art good! Pardon—Thou
art great!”
Let them go freely forth, fear not their fate!
Where thy soul sends them, thitherward
they tend.
There’s nothing here below which does not find
Its tendency. O’er plains the rivers wind,
And reach the sea; the bee, by instinct
driven,
Finds out the honeyed flowers; the eagle flies
To seek the sun; the vulture where death lies;
The swallow to the spring; the prayer
to Heaven!
And when thy voice is raised to God for me,
I’m like the slave whom in the vale we see
Seated to rest, his heavy load laid by;
I feel refreshed—the load of faults and
woe
Which, groaning, I drag with me as I go,
Thy winged prayer bears off rejoicingly!
Pray for thy father! that his dreams be bright
With visitings of angel forms of light,
And his soul burn as incense flaming wide,
Let thy pure breath all his dark sins efface,
So that his heart be like that holy place,
An altar pavement each eve purified!
C., Tait’s Magazine
PRELUDE TO “THE SONGS OF TWILIGHT.”
("De quel non te nommer?")
[PRELUDE, a, Oct. 20, 1835.]
How shall I note thee, line of troubled years,
Which mark existence in our little span?
One constant twilight in the heaven appears—
One constant twilight in the mind of man!
Creed, hope, anticipation and despair,
Are but a mingling, as of day and night;
The globe, surrounded by deceptive air,
Is all enveloped in the same half-light.
And voice is deadened by the evening breeze,
The shepherd’s song, or maiden’s
in her bower,
Mix with the rustling of the neighboring trees,
Within whose foliage is lulled the power.
Yet all unites! The winding path that leads
Thro’ fields where verdure meets
the trav’ller’s eye.
The river’s margin, blurred with wavy reeds,
The muffled anthem, echoing to the sky!
The ivy smothering the armed tower;
The dying wind that mocks the pilot’s
ear;
The lordly equipage at midnight hour,
Draws into danger in a fog the peer;
