Into that darkness blank and drear, By some prophetic feeling taught, I launch the bold, adventurous thought, Freighted with hope and fear;
As upon subterranean streams, In caverns unexplored and dark, Men sometimes launch a fragile bark, Laden with flickering fire,
And watch its swift-receding beams, Until at length they disappear, And in the distant dark expire.
By what astrology of fear or hope Dare I to cast thy horoscope! Like the new moon thy life appears; A little strip of silver light, And widening outward into night The shadowy disk of future years; And yet upon its outer rim, A luminous circle, faint and dim, And scarcely visible to us here,
Rounds and completes the perfect sphere;
A prophecy and intimation,
A pale and feeble adumbration,
Of the great world of light, that lies Behind all human destinies.
Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, Should be to wet the dusty soil With the hot tears and sweat of toil, To struggle with imperious thought, Until the overburdened brain, Weary with labor, faint with pain,
Like a jarred pendulum, retain Only its motion, not its power, Remember, in that perilous hour, When most afflicted and oppressed, From labor there shall come forth rest.
And if a more auspicious fate On thy advancing steps await, Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along Of the great army of the poor, O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor. Nor to thyself the task shall be Without reward; for thou shalt learn The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility;
As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue,
The secret of the sounding wire, And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. Thy destiny remains untold;
For, like Acestes' shaft of old, The swift thought kindles as it flies, And burns to ashes in the skies.
THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.
"October 9, 1845. Made a dash at The Occultation of Orion, which I think will turn out good. I have had several poetic mornings of late; and hope soon to have my volume ready. "October 11. Bad day for work. No glow or enthusiasm. Tried Orion, but with small success. Hoped to have finished it, but gave up in despair.
"October 14. Finished The Occultation of Orion, and read it to F. and E. before the ink was dry. The concluding lines, however, dropped into my brain in the evening, as I was coming down from my dressing-room." Elsewhere, Mr. Longfellow says: tronomically speaking, this title is incorrect; as I apply to a constellation what can properly be applied to some of its stars only. But my observation is made from the hill of song, and not from that of science; and will, I trust, be found sufficiently accurate for the present purpose." Published in Graham, November, 1845.
I SAW, as in a dream sublime,
The balance in the hand of Time.
O'er East and West its beam impended; And Day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight, While, opposite, the scale of Night Silently with the stars ascended.
Like the astrologers of eld, In that bright vision I beheld Greater and deeper mysteries. I saw, with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great Æolian lyre,
Rising through all its sevenfold bars,
From earth unto the fixed stars. And through the dewy atmosphere, Not only could I see, but hear, Its wondrous and harmonious strings, In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings, Where, chanting through his beard of snows, Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes, And down the sunless realms of space Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch This music sounded like a march, And with its chorus seemed to be Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east ; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast! His sword hung gleaming by his side, And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God,
Unharmed with naked feet she trod Upon the hot and burning stars, As on the glowing coals and bars, That were to prove her strength and try Her holiness and her purity.
Thus moving on, with silent pace, And triumph in her sweet, pale face, She reached the station of Orion. Aghast he stood in strange alarm! And suddenly from his outstretched arm Down fell the red skin of the lion Into the river at his feet.
His mighty club no longer beat The forehead of the bull; but he Reeled as of yore beside the sea, When, blinded by Enopion, He sought the blacksmith at his forge, And, climbing up the mountain gorge, Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.
Then, through the silence overhead, An angel with a trumpet said, "Forevermore, forevermore,
The reign of violence is o'er!" And, like an instrument that flings Its music on another's strings,
The trumpet of the angel cast Upon the heavenly lyre its blast, And on from sphere to sphere the words Reëchoed down the burning chords, - "Forevermore, forevermore,
The reign of violence is o'er!"
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