The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot’s pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I’ve known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

  My darling, spell the words out. You may creep
    Across the syllables on hands and knees,
    And stumble often, yet pass me with ease
  And reach the spring upon the summit steep.
  Oh, I could lay me down, dear child, and weep
    These charr’d orbs out, but that you then might cease
    Your upward effort, and with inquiries
  Stoop down and probe my heart too deep, too deep!
  I thirst for Knowledge. Oh, for an endless drink
    Your goblet leaks the whole way from the spring–
  No matter, to its rim a few drops cling,
  And these refresh me with the joy to think
    That you, my darling, have the morning’s wing
  To cross the mountain at whose base I sink.

    The cooper o’ Cuddie cam’ here awa,
    And ca’d the girrs out owre us a’–
    And our gudewife has gotten a ca’
      That anger’d the silly gude-man, O.
    We’ll hide the cooper behind the door;
    Behind the door, behind the door;
    We’ll hide the cooper behind the door,
      And cover him under a mawn, O.

II.

    He sought them out, he sought them in,
    Wi’, deil hae her! and, deil hae him!
    But the body was sae doited and blin’,
      He wist na where he was gaun, O.

III.

    They cooper’d at e’en, they cooper’d at morn,
    ‘Till our gude-man has gotten the scorn;
    On ilka brow she’s planted a horn,
      And swears that they shall stan’, O.
    We’ll hide the cooper behind the door,
    Behind the door, behind the door;
    We’ll hide the cooper behind the door,
      And cover him under a mawn, O.

A JOB FOR PETE–AND FOR BERTRAM
The early days in December were busy ones,
certainly, in the little house on Corey Hill.  Marie
was to be married the twelfth.  It was to be a home
wedding, and a very simple one–according to
Billy, and according to what Marie had said it
was to be.  Billy still serenely spoke of it as a
“simple affair,” but Marie was beginning to be
fearful.  As the days passed, bringing with them
more and more frequent evidences either tangible
or intangible of orders to stationers, caterers,
and florists, her fears found voice in a protest.

“But Billy, it was to be a _simple_ wedding,”
she cried.

“And so it is.”

“But what is this I hear about a breakfast?”

Billy’s chin assumed its most stubborn squareness.

“I don’t know, I’m sure, what you did hear,”
she retorted calmly.

“Billy!”

Billy laughed.  The chin was just as stubborn,
but the smiling lips above it graced it with an
air of charming concession.

“There, there, dear,” coaxed the mistress of
Hillside, “don’t fret.  Besides, I’m sure I should
think you, of all people, would want your guests
_fed!_”

“But this is so elaborate, from what I hear.”

“Nonsense!  Not a bit of it.”

“Rosa says there’ll be salads and cakes and
ices–and I don’t know what all.”

Billy looked concerned.

“Well, of course, Marie, if you’d _rather_ have
oatmeal and doughnuts,” she began with kind
solicitude; but she got no farther.

“Billy!” besought the bride elect.  “Won’t
you be serious?  And there’s the cake in wedding
boxes, too.”

“I know, but boxes are so much easier and
cleaner than–just fingers,” apologized an anxiously
serious voice.

Marie answered with an indignant, grieved
glance and hurried on.

“And the flowers–roses, dozens of them,
in December!  Billy, I can’t let you do all this
for me.”

“Nonsense, dear!” laughed Billy.  “Why, I
love to do it.  Besides, when you’re gone, just
think how lonesome I’ll be!  I shall have to adopt
somebody else then–now that Mary Jane has
proved to be nothing but a disappointing man
instead of a nice little girl like you,” she finished
whimsically.

Marie did not smile.  The frown still lay
between her delicate brows.

“And for my trousseau–there were so many
things that you simply would buy!”

“I didn’t get one of the egg-beaters,” Billy
reminded her anxiously.

Marie smiled now, but she shook her head, too.

“Billy, I cannot have you do all this for me.”

“Why not?”

At the unexpectedly direct question, Marie
fell back a little.

“Why, because I–I can’t,” she stammered.
“I can’t get them for myself, and–and–”

“Don’t you love me?”

A pink flush stole to Marie’s face.

“Indeed I do, dearly.”

“Don’t I love you?”

The flush deepened.

“I–I hope so.”

“Then why won’t you let me do what I want
to, and be happy in it?  Money, just money,
isn’t any good unless you can exchange it for
something you want.  And just now I want pink roses
and ice cream and lace flounces for you.  Marie,”
–Billy’s voice trembled a little–“I never had a
sister till I had you, and I have had such a good
time buying things that I thought you wanted!
But, of course, if you don’t want them–”  The
words ended in a choking sob, and down went
Billy’s head into her folded arms on the desk
before her.

Marie sprang to her feet and cuddled the bowed
head in a loving embrace.

“But I do want them, dear; I want them all–
every single one,” she urged.  “Now promise me
–promise me that you’ll do them all, just as
you’d planned!  You will, won’t you?”

There was the briefest of hesitations, then came
the muffled reply:

“Yes–if you really want them.”

“I do, dear–indeed I do.  I love pretty
weddings, and I–I always hoped that I could
have one–if I ever married.  So you must
know, dear, how I really do want all those things,”
declared Marie, fervently.  “And now I must go.
I promised to meet Cyril at Park Street at three
o’clock.”  And she hurried from the room–and
not until she was half-way to her destination did
it suddenly occur to her that she had been urging,
actually urging Miss Billy Neilson to buy for
her pink roses, ice cream, and lace flounces.

Her cheeks burned with shame then.  But
almost at once she smiled.

“Now wasn’t that just like Billy?” she was
saying to herself, with a tender glow in her eyes.
It was early in December that Pete came one
day with a package for Marie from Cyril.  Marie
was not at home, and Billy herself went downstairs
to take the package from the old man’s
hands.

“Mr. Cyril said to give it to Miss Hawthorn,”
stammered the old servant, his face lighting up
as Billy entered the room; “but I’m sure he
wouldn’t mind _your_ taking it.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to take it, Pete, unless
you want to carry it back with you,” she smiled.
“I’ll see that Miss Hawthorn has it the very first
moment she comes in.”

“Thank you, Miss.  It does my old eyes good
to see your bright face.”  He hesitated, then
turned slowly.  “Good day, Miss Billy.”

Billy laid the package on the table.  Her eyes
were thoughtful as she looked after the old man,
who was now almost to the door.  Something
in his bowed form appealed to her strangely.  She
took a quick step toward him.

“You’ll miss Mr. Cyril, Pete,” she said pleasantly.

The old man stopped at once and turned.  He
lifted his head a little proudly.

“Yes, Miss.  I–I was there when he was
born.  Mr. Cyril’s a fine man.”

“Indeed he is.  Perhaps it’s your good care
that’s helped, some–to make him so,” smiled
the girl, vaguely wishing that she could say
something that would drive the wistful look from the
dim old eyes before her.

For a moment Billy thought she had succeeded.
The old servant drew himself stiffly erect.  In
his eyes shone the loyal pride of more than fifty
years’ honest service.  Almost at once, however,
the pride died away, and the wistfulness returned.

“Thank ye, Miss; but I don’t lay no claim to
that, of course,” he said.  “Mr. Cyril’s a fine
man, and we shall miss him; but–I cal’late
changes must come–to all of us.”

Billy’s brown eyes grew a little misty.

“I suppose they must,” she admitted.

The old man hesitated; then, as if impelled
by some hidden force, he plunged on:

“Yes; and they’ll be comin’ to you one of
these days, Miss, and that’s what I was wantin’
to speak to ye about.  I understand, of course,
that when you get there you’ll be wantin’ younger
blood to serve ye.  My feet ain’t so spry as they
once was, and my old hands blunder sometimes,
in spite of what my head bids ‘em do.  So I wanted
to tell ye–that of course I shouldn’t expect to
stay.  I’d go.”

As he said the words, Pete stood with head and
shoulders erect, his eyes looking straight forward
but not at Billy.

“Don’t you _want_ to stay?” The girlish voice
was a little reproachful.

Pete’s head drooped.

“Not if–I’m not wanted,” came the husky
reply.

With an impulsive movement Billy came
straight to the old man’s side and held out her
hand.

“Pete!”

Amazement, incredulity, and a look that was
almost terror crossed the old man’s face; then a
flood of dull red blotted them all out and left only
worshipful rapture.  With a choking cry he took
the slim little hand in both his rough and twisted
ones much as if he were possessing himself of
a treasured bit of eggshell china.

“Miss Billy!”

“Pete, there aren’t a pair of feet in Boston,
nor a pair of hands, either, that I’d rather have
serve me than yours, no matter if they stumble
and blunder all day!  I shall love stumbles and
blunders–if you make them.  Now run home,
and don’t ever let me hear another syllable about
your leaving!”

They were not the words Billy had intended
to say.  She had meant to speak of his long,
faithful service, and of how much they appreciated
it; but, to her surprise, Billy found her
own eyes wet and her own voice trembling, and
the words that she would have said she found
fast shut in her throat.  So there was nothing
to do but to stammer out something–anything,
that would help to keep her from yielding to
that absurd and awful desire to fall on the old
servant’s neck and cry.

“Not another syllable!” she repeated sternly.

“Miss Billy!” choked Pete again.  Then he
turned and fled with anything but his usual
dignity.

Bertram called that evening.  When Billy
came to him in the living-room, her slender self
was almost hidden behind the swirls of damask
linen in her arms.

Bertram’s eyes grew mutinous.

“Do you expect me to hug all that?” he demanded.

Billy flashed him a mischievous glance.

“Of course not!  You don’t _have_ to hug
anything, you know.”

For answer he impetuously swept the offending
linen into the nearest chair and drew the girl
into his arms.

“Oh!  And see how you’ve crushed poor Marie’s
table-cloth!” she cried, with reproachful eyes.

Bertram sniffed imperturbably.

“I’m not sure but I’d like to crush Marie,”
he alleged.

“Bertram!”

“I can’t help it.  See here, Billy.”  He loosened
his clasp and held the girl off at arm’s length,
regarding her with stormy eyes.  “It’s Marie,
Marie, Marie–always.  If I telephone in the
morning, you’ve gone shopping with Marie.
If I want you in the afternoon for something,
you’re at the dressmaker’s with Marie.  If I call
in the evening–”

“I’m here,” interrupted Billy, with decision.

“Oh, yes, you’re here,” admitted Bertram,
aggrievedly, “and so are dozens of napkins,
miles of table-cloths, and yards upon yards of
lace and flummydiddles you call `doilies.’  They
all belong to Marie, and they fill your arms and
your thoughts full, until there isn’t an inch of
room for me.  Billy, when is this thing going to
end?”

Billy laughed softly.  Her eyes danced.

“The twelfth;–that is, there’ll be a–pause,
then.”

“Well, I’m thankful if–eh?” broke off the
man, with a sudden change of manner.  “What
do you mean by `a pause’?”

Billy cast down her eyes demurely.

“Well, of course _this_ ends the twelfth with
Marie’s wedding; but I’ve sort of regarded it as
an–understudy for one that’s coming next
October, you see.”

“Billy, you darling!” breathed a supremely
happy voice in a shell-like ear–Billy was not
at arm’s length now.

Billy smiled, but she drew away with gentle
firmness.

“And now I must go back to my sewing,”
she said.

Bertram’s arms did not loosen.  His eyes had
grown mutinous again.

“That is,” she amended, “I must be practising
my part of–the understudy, you know.”

“You darling!” breathed Bertram again; this
time, however, he let her go.

“But, honestly, is it all necessary?” he sighed
despairingly, as she seated herself and gathered
the table-cloth into her lap.  “Do you have to do
so much of it all?”

“I do,” smiled Billy, “unless you want your
brother to run the risk of leading his bride to
the altar and finding her robed in a kitchen
apron with an egg-beater in her hand for a
bouquet.”

Bertram laughed.

“Is it so bad as that?”

“No, of course not–quite.  But never have
I seen a bride so utterly oblivious to clothes as
Marie was till one day in despair I told her that
Cyril never could bear a dowdy woman.”

“As if Cyril, in the old days, ever could bear
any sort of woman!” scoffed Bertram, merrily.

“I know; but I didn’t mention that part,”
smiled Billy.  “I just singled out the dowdy
one.”

“Did it work?”

Billy made a gesture of despair.

“Did it work!  It worked too well.  Marie gave
me one horrified look, then at once and immediately
she became possessed with the idea that she
_was_ a dowdy woman.  And from that day to
this she has pursued every lurking wrinkle and
every fold awry, until her dressmaker’s life isn’t
worth the living; and I’m beginning to think
mine isn’t, either, for I have to assure her at
least four times every day now that she is _not_
a dowdy woman.”

“You poor dear,” laughed Bertram.  “No
wonder you don’t have time to give to me!”

A peculiar expression crossed Billy’s face.

“Oh, but I’m not the _only_ one who, at times,
is otherwise engaged, sir,” she reminded him.

“What do you mean?”

“There was yesterday, and last Monday, and
last week Wednesday, and–”

“Oh, but you _let_ me off, then,” argued
Bertram, anxiously.  “And you said–”

“That I didn’t wish to interfere with your
work–which was quite true,” interrupted Billy
in her turn, smoothly.  “By the way,”–Billy
was examining her stitches very closely now
–“how is Miss Winthrop’s portrait coming
on?”

“Splendidly!–that is, it _was_, until she began
to put off the sittings for her pink teas and
folderols.  She’s going to Washington next week, too,
to be gone nearly a fortnight,” finished Bertram, gloomily.

“Aren’t you putting more work than usual
into this one–and more sittings?”

“Well, yes,” laughed Bertram, a little shortly.
“You see, she’s changed the pose twice already.”

“Changed it!”

“Yes.  Wasn’t satisfied.  Fancied she wanted
it different.”

“But can’t you–don’t you have something to
say about it?”

“Oh, yes, of course; and she claims she’ll
yield to my judgment, anyhow.  But what’s the
use?  She’s been a spoiled darling all her life, and
in the habit of having her own way about everything.
Naturally, under those circumstances,
I can’t expect to get a satisfactory portrait,
if she’s out of tune with the pose.  Besides, I will
own, so far her suggestions have made for
improvement–probably because she’s been happy
in making them, so her expression has been good.”

Billy wet her lips.

“I saw her the other night,” she said lightly.
(If the lightness was a little artificial Bertram did
not seem to notice it.)  “She is certainly–very
beautiful.”

“Yes.”  Bertram got to his feet and began to
walk up and down the little room.  His eyes were
alight.  On his face the “painting look” was king.
“It’s going to mean a lot to me–this picture,
Billy.  In the first place I’m just at the point in
my career where a big success would mean a lot
–and where a big failure would mean more.
And this portrait is bound to be one or the other
from the very nature of the thing.”

“I-is it?” Billy’s voice was a little faint.

“Yes.  First, because of who the sitter is, and
secondly because of what she is.  She is, of course,
the most famous subject I’ve had, and half the
artistic world knows by this time that Marguerite
Winthrop is being done by Henshaw.  You can
see what it’ll be–if I fail.”

“But you won’t fail, Bertram!”

The artist lifted his chin and threw back his
shoulders.

“No, of course not; but–”  He hesitated,
frowned, and dropped himself into a chair.  His
eyes studied the fire moodily.  “You see,” he
resumed, after a moment, “there’s a peculiar,
elusive something about her expression–”
(Billy stirred restlessly and gave her thread so
savage a jerk that it broke)“–a something
that isn’t easily caught by the brush.  Anderson
and Fullam–big fellows, both of them–didn’t
catch it.  At least, I’ve understood that neither
her family nor her friends are satisfied with _their_
portraits.  And to succeed where Anderson and
Fullam failed–Jove!  Billy, a chance like that
doesn’t come to a fellow twice in a lifetime!”
Bertram was out of his chair, again, tramping
up and down the little room.

Billy tossed her work aside and sprang to her
feet.  Her eyes, too, were alight, now.

“But you aren’t going to fail, dear,” she cried,
holding out both her hands.  “You’re going to
succeed!”

Bertram caught the hands and kissed first one
then the other of their soft little palms.

“Of course I am,” he agreed passionately,
leading her to the sofa, and seating himself at her
side.

“Yes, but you must really _feel_ it,” she urged;
“feel the `_sure_’ in yourself.  You have to!–to
doing things.  That’s what I told Mary Jane yesterday,
when he was running on about what _he_
wanted to do–in his singing, you know.”

Bertram stiffened a little.  A quick frown came
to his face.

“Mary Jane, indeed!  Of all the absurd names
to give a full-grown, six-foot man!  Billy, do, for
pity’s sake, call him by his name–if he’s got
one.”

Billy broke into a rippling laugh.

“I wish I could, dear,” she sighed ingenuously.

“Honestly, it bothers me because I _can’t_ think
of him as anything but `Mary Jane.’  It seems
so silly!”

“It certainly does–when one remembers
his beard.”

“Oh, he’s shaved that off now.  He looks
rather better, too.”

Bertram turned a little sharply.

“Do you see the fellow–often?”

Billy laughed merrily.

“No.  He’s about as disgruntled as you are
over the way the wedding monopolizes everything.
He’s been up once or twice to see Aunt Hannah
and to get acquainted, as he expresses it, and once
he brought up some music and we sang; but he
declares the wedding hasn’t given him half a show.”

“Indeed!  Well, that’s a pity, I’m sure,”
rejoined Bertram, icily.

Billy turned in slight surprise.

“Why, Bertram, don’t you like Mary Jane?”

“Billy, for heaven’s sake!  _Hasn’t_ he got any
name but that?”

Billy clapped her hands together suddenly.

“There, that makes me think.  He told Aunt
Hannah and me to guess what his name was, and
we never hit it once.  What do you think it is?
The initials are M. J.”

“I couldn’t say, I’m sure.  What is it?”

“Oh, he didn’t tell us.  You see he left us to
guess it.”

“Did he?”

“Yes,” mused Billy, abstractedly, her eyes on
the dancing fire.  The next minute she stirred and
settled herself more comfortably in the curve
of her lover’s arm.  “But there! who cares
what his name is?  I’m sure I don’t.”

“Nor I,” echoed Bertram in a voice that he
tried to make not too fervent.  He had not
forgotten Billy’s surprised:  “Why, Bertram, don’t
you like Mary Jane?” and he did not like to call
forth a repetition of it.  Abruptly, therefore, he
changed the subject.  “By the way, what did
you do to Pete to-day?” he asked laughingly.
“He came home in a seventh heaven of happiness
babbling of what an angel straight from the sky
Miss Billy was.  Naturally I agreed with him
on that point.  But what did you do to him?”

Billy smiled.

“Nothing–only engaged him for our butler
–for life.”

“Oh, I see.  That was dear of you, Billy.”

“As if I’d do anything else!  And now for
Dong Ling, I suppose, some day.”

Bertram chuckled.

“Well, maybe I can help you there,” he hinted.
“You see, his Celestial Majesty came to me
himself the other day, and said, after sundry and
various preliminaries, that he should be `velly
much glad’ when the `Little Missee’ came to
live with me, for then he could go back to China
with a heart at rest, as he had money `velly
much plenty’ and didn’t wish to be `Melican
man’ any longer.”

“Dear me,” smiled Billy, “what a happy
state of affairs–for him.  But for you–do you
realize, young man, what that means for you?
A new wife and a new cook all at once?  And you
know I’m not Marie!”

“Ho! I’m not worrying,” retorted Bertram
with a contented smile; “besides, as perhaps
you noticed, it wasn’t Marie that I asked–to
marry me!”

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
       Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
  Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
       Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
  Search narrowly the lines!–they hold a treasure
       Divine–a talisman–an amulet
  That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure–
       The words–the syllables! Do not forget
  The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
       And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
  Which one might not undo without a sabre,
       If one could merely comprehend the plot.
  Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
       Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
  Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
       Of poets by poets–as the name is a poet’s, too.
  Its letters, although naturally lying
       Like the knight Pinto–Mendez Ferdinando–
  Still form a synonym for Truth–Cease trying!
       You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

  _No more!_ alas, that magical sad sound
    Transforming all! Thy charms shall please _no more_–
  Thy memory _no more!_ Accursed ground
    Henceforward I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
  O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
    “Isola d’oro! Fior di Levante!”

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, –
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, “But the forty?
Did they come back no more?”

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller’s eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.

Nec tantum prodere vati,
Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in unam
Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot saecula pectus.
LUCAN, Phars. v. 176.

How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,
With lips of lurid blue,
The other glowing like the vital morn,                              
When throned on ocean’s wave
It breathes over the world:
Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!

Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,                          
To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
Steal like dark streams along a field of snow,                   
Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed
In light of some sublimest mind, decay?
Nor putrefaction’s breath
Leave aught of this pure spectacle
But loathsomeness and ruin?–                                       
Spare aught but a dark theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers
Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids
To watch their own repose?                                          
Will they, when morning’s beam
Flows through those wells of light,
Seek far from noise and day some western cave,
Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds
A lulling murmur weave?–                                           
Ianthe doth not sleep
The dreamless sleep of death:
Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
Or mark her delicate cheek                                          
With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
Outwatching weary night,
Without assured reward.
Her dewy eyes are closed;
On their translucent lids, whose texture fine              
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
With unapparent fire,
The baby Sleep is pillowed:
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom’s stainless pride,                                        
Twining like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound?
‘Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps
Around a lonely ruin                                                
When west winds sigh and evening waves respond
In whispers from the shore:
‘Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves
The genii of the breezes sweep.                              
Floating on waves of music and of light,
The chariot of the Daemon of the World
Descends in silent power:
Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud
That catches but the palest tinge of day                
When evening yields to night,
Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
Its transitory robe.
Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light         
Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
Their wings of braided air:
The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car
Gazed on the slumbering maid.
Human eye hath ne’er beheld                                  
A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
As that which o’er the maiden’s charmed sleep
Waving a starry wand,
Hung like a mist of light.
Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds 
Of wakening spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
Maiden, the world’s supremest spirit
Beneath the shadow of her wings
Folds all thy memory doth inherit                                
From ruin of divinest things,
Feelings that lure thee to betray,
And light of thoughts that pass away.
For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
The truths which wisest poets see                                
Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
Rewarding its own majesty,
Entranced in some diviner mood
Of self-oblivious solitude.

Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;            
From hate and awe thy heart is free;
Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
For dark and cold mortality
A living light, to cheer it long,
The watch-fires of the world among.                            

Therefore from nature’s inner shrine,
Where gods and fiends in worship bend,
Majestic spirit, be it thine
The flame to seize, the veil to rend,
Where the vast snake Eternity                                      
In charmed sleep doth ever lie.

All that inspires thy voice of love,
Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,
Or through thy frame doth burn or move,
Or think or feel, awake, arise!                                     
Spirit, leave for mine and me
Earth’s unsubstantial mimicry!

It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame
A radiant spirit arose,
All beautiful in naked purity.                                      
Robed in its human hues it did ascend,

Disparting as it went the silver clouds,
It moved towards the car, and took its seat
Beside the Daemon shape.

Obedient to the sweep of aery song,                       
The mighty ministers
Unfurled their prismy wings.
The magic car moved on;
The night was fair, innumerable stars
Studded heaven’s dark blue vault;                          
The eastern wave grew pale
With the first smile of morn.
The magic car moved on.
From the swift sweep of wings
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew;              
And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain’s loftiest peak
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now far above a rock the utmost verge
Of the wide earth it flew,                                          
The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
Frowned o’er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot’s stormy path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous ocean lay.                                              
Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot’s fiery track,
And the grey light of morn
Tingeing those fleecy clouds                                      
That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
The chariot seemed to fly
Through the abyss of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,                                   
And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.

As they approached their goal,
The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth            
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
In the black concave of heaven
With the sun’s cloudless orb,
Whose rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot’s swifter course,            
And fell like ocean’s feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel’s prow.

The magic car moved on.
Earth’s distant orb appeared                                        

The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,
Whilst round the chariot’s way
Innumerable systems widely rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever varying glory.                                              
It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,
And like the moon’s argentine crescent hung
In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed
A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea
Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed       
Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire,
Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed
Bedimmed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! here                                              
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose involved immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.
Yet not the lightest leaf                                           
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee,–
Yet not the meanest worm.
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,
Less shares thy eternal breath.                              
Spirit of Nature! thou
Imperishable as this glorious scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.

If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the shore of the immeasurable sea,                  
And thou hast lingered there
Until the sun’s broad orb
Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,
Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold
That without motion hang                                       
Over the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,
Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet
Above the burning deep:                                         
And yet there is a moment
When the sun’s highest point
Peers like a star o’er ocean’s western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam
Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea:         
Then has thy rapt imagination soared
Where in the midst of all existing things
The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.

Yet not the golden islands
That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,           
Nor the feathery curtains
That canopy the sun’s resplendent couch,
Nor the burnished ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight                                    
As the eternal temple could afford.
The elements of all that human thought
Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join
To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught
Of earth may image forth its majesty.                  
Yet likest evening’s vault that faery hall,
As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome;
And on the verge of that obscure abyss                
Where crystal battlements o’erhang the gulf
Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse
Their lustre through its adamantine gates.

The magic car no longer moved;
The Daemon and the Spirit                                     
Entered the eternal gates.
Those clouds of aery gold
That slept in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy,
With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;            
While slight and odorous mists
Floated to strains of thrilling melody
Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.

The Daemon and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement,            
Below lay stretched the boundless universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That limits swift imagination’s flight.
Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion,
Immutably fulfilling                                                
Eternal Nature’s law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony.
Each with undeviating aim                                     
In eloquent silence through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.–

Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.
Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,
Strange things within their belted orbs appear.        
Like animated frenzies, dimly moved
Shadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes,
Thronging round human graves, and o’er the dead
Sculpturing records for each memory
In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,            
Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell
Confounded burst in ruin o’er the world:
And they did build vast trophies, instruments
Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold,
Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls      
With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,
Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained
With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,
The sanguine codes of venerable crime.
The likeness of a throned king came by.                    
When these had passed, bearing upon his brow
A threefold crown; his countenance was calm.
His eye severe and cold; but his right hand
Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw
By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart                 
Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes,
A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.
With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks
Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by.
Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,            
Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues
Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly,
Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies
Against the Daemon of the World, and high
Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,   
Serene and inaccessibly secure,
Stood on an isolated pinnacle.
The flood of ages combating below,
The depth of the unbounded universe
Above, and all around                                             

Necessity’s unchanging harmony.

O happy Earth! reality of Heaven!
To which those restless powers that ceaselessly
Throng through the human universe aspire;
Thou consummation of all mortal hope!                               
Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will!
Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time,
Verge to one point and blend for ever there:
Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!
Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime,                         
Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come:
O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!

Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams,
And dim forebodings of thy loveliness,
Haunting the human heart, have there entwined        
Those rooted hopes, that the proud Power of Evil
Shall not for ever on this fairest world
Shake pestilence and war, or that his slaves
With blasphemy for prayer, and human blood
For sacrifice, before his shrine for ever                         
In adoration bend, or Erebus
With all its banded fiends shall not uprise
To overwhelm in envy and revenge
The dauntless and the good, who dare to hurl
Defiance at his throne, girt tho’ it be                             
With Death’s omnipotence. Thou hast beheld
His empire, o’er the present and the past;
It was a desolate sight–now gaze on mine,
Futurity. Thou hoary giant Time,
Render thou up thy half-devoured babes,–                    
And from the cradles of eternity,
Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep
By the deep murmuring stream of passing things,
Tear thou that gloomy shroud.–Spirit, behold
Thy glorious destiny!

The Spirit saw                                                      
The vast frame of the renovated world
Smile in the lap of Chaos, and the sense
Of hope thro’ her fine texture did suffuse
Such varying glow, as summer evening casts
On undulating clouds and deepening lakes.                          
Like the vague sighings of a wind at even,
That wakes the wavelets of the slumbering sea
And dies on the creation of its breath,
And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits,
Was the sweet stream of thought that with wild motion    
Flowed o’er the Spirit’s human sympathies.
The mighty tide of thought had paused awhile,
Which from the Daemon now like Ocean’s stream
Again began to pour.–

To me is given
The wonders of the human world to keep-                  
Space, matter, time and mind–let the sight
Renew and strengthen all thy failing hope.
All things are recreated, and the flame
Of consentaneous love inspires all life:
The fertile bosom of the earth gives suck                    
To myriads, who still grow beneath her care,
Rewarding her with their pure perfectness:
The balmy breathings of the wind inhale
Her virtues, and diffuse them all abroad:
Health floats amid the gentle atmosphere,                  
Glows in the fruits, and mantles on the stream;
No storms deform the beaming brow of heaven,
Nor scatter in the freshness of its pride
The foliage of the undecaying trees;
But fruits are ever ripe, flowers ever fair,                   
And Autumn proudly bears her matron grace,
Kindling a flush on the fair cheek of Spring,
Whose virgin bloom beneath the ruddy fruit
Reflects its tint and blushes into love.

The habitable earth is full of bliss;                               
Those wastes of frozen billows that were hurled
By everlasting snow-storms round the poles,
Where matter dared not vegetate nor live,
But ceaseless frost round the vast solitude
Bound its broad zone of stillness, are unloosed;             
And fragrant zephyrs there from spicy isles
Ruffle the placid ocean-deep, that rolls
Its broad, bright surges to the sloping sand,
Whose roar is wakened into echoings sweet
To murmur through the heaven-breathing groves       
And melodise with man’s blest nature there.

The vast tract of the parched and sandy waste
Now teems with countless rills and shady woods,
Corn-fields and pastures and white cottages;
And where the startled wilderness did hear                   
A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,
Hymmng his victory, or the milder snake
Crushing the bones of some frail antelope
Within his brazen folds–the dewy lawn,
Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles                 
To see a babe before his mother’s door,
Share with the green and golden basilisk
That comes to lick his feet, his morning’s meal.

Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail
Has seen, above the illimitable plain,                              
Morning on night and night on morning rise,
Whilst still no land to greet the wanderer spread
Its shadowy mountains on the sunbright sea,
Where the loud roarings of the tempest-waves
So long have mingled with the gusty wind                            
In melancholy loneliness, and swept
The desert of those ocean solitudes,
But vocal to the sea-bird’s harrowing shriek,
The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm,
Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds                         
Of kindliest human impulses respond:
Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem,
With lightsome clouds and shining seas between,
And fertile valleys resonant with bliss,
Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave,                             
Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore,
To meet the kisses of the flowerets there.

Man chief perceives the change, his being notes
The gradual renovation, and defines
Each movement of its progress on his mind.                        
Man, where the gloom of the long polar night
Lowered o’er the snow-clad rocks and frozen soil,
Where scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost
Basked in the moonlight’s ineffectual glow,
Shrank with the plants, and darkened with the night;   
Nor where the tropics bound the realms of day
With a broad belt of mingling cloud and flame,
Where blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere
Scattered the seeds of pestilence, and fed
Unnatural vegetation, where the land                              
Teemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease,
Was man a nobler being; slavery
Had crushed him to his country’s blood-stained dust.

Even where the milder zone afforded man
A seeming shelter, yet contagion there,                           
Blighting his being with unnumbered ills,
Spread like a quenchless fire; nor truth availed
Till late to arrest its progress, or create
That peace which first in bloodless victory waved
Her snowy standard o’er this favoured clime:                
There man was long the train-bearer of slaves,
The mimic of surrounding misery,
The jackal of ambition’s lion-rage,
The bloodhound of religion’s hungry zeal.

Here now the human being stands adorning                  
This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind;
Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,
Which gently in his noble bosom wake
All kindly passions and all pure desires.
Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,             
Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal
Dawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness gift
With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks
The unprevailing hoariness of age,                                  
And man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene
Swift as an unremembered vision, stands
Immortal upon earth: no longer now
He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling
And horribly devours its mangled flesh,                            
Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream
Of poison thro’ his fevered veins did flow
Feeding a plague that secretly consumed
His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind
Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief,                          
The germs of misery, death, disease and crime.
No longer now the winged habitants,
That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,
Flee from the form of man; but gather round,
And prune their sunny feathers on the hands                  
Which little children stretch in friendly sport
Towards these dreadless partners of their play.
All things are void of terror: man has lost
His desolating privilege, and stands
An equal amidst equals: happiness                                   
And science dawn though late upon the earth;
Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;
Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,
Reason and passion cease to combat there;
Whilst mind unfettered o’er the earth extends                  
Its all-subduing energies, and wields
The sceptre of a vast dominion there.

Mild is the slow necessity of death:
The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp,
Without a groan, almost without a fear,                             
Resigned in peace to the necessity,
Calm as a voyager to some distant land,
And full of wonder, full of hope as he.
The deadly germs of languor and disease
Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts                      
With choicest boons her human worshippers.
How vigorous now the athletic form of age!
How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!
Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care,
Had stamped the seal of grey deformity                             
On all the mingling lineaments of time.
How lovely the intrepid front of youth!
How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts,
Fearless and free the ruddy children play,                         
Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows
With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,
That mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom;
The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,
There rust amid the accumulated ruins                              
Now mingling slowly with their native earth:
There the broad beam of day, which feebly once
Lighted the cheek of lean captivity
With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines
On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:                           
No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair
Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes
Of ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds
And merriment are resonant around.

The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more                        
The voice that once waked multitudes to war
Thundering thro’ all their aisles: but now respond
To the death dirge of the melancholy wind:
It were a sight of awfulness to see
The works of faith and slavery, so vast,                            
So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing!
Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall.
A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death
To-day, the breathing marble glows above
To decorate its memory, and tongues                            
Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms
In silence and in darkness seize their prey.
These ruins soon leave not a wreck behind:
Their elements, wide-scattered o’er the globe,
To happier shapes are moulded, and become               
Ministrant to all blissful impulses:
Thus human things are perfected, and earth,
Even as a child beneath its mother’s love,
Is strengthened in all excellence, and grows
Fairer and nobler with each passing year.                 

Now Time his dusky pennons o’er the scene
Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past
Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:
Thy lore is learned. Earth’s wonders are thine own,
With all the fear and all the hope they bring.            
My spells are past: the present now recurs.
Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains
Yet unsubdued by man’s reclaiming hand.

Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,
Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue                       
The gradual paths of an aspiring change:
For birth and life and death, and that strange state
Before the naked powers that thro’ the world
Wander like winds have found a human home,
All tend to perfect happiness, and urge                      
The restless wheels of being on their way,
Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,
Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal:
For birth but wakes the universal mind
Whose mighty streams might else in silence flow     
Thro’ the vast world, to individual sense
Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape
New modes of passion to its frame may lend;
Life is its state of action, and the store
Of all events is aggregated there                                 
That variegate the eternal universe;
Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,
That leads to azure isles and beaming skies
And happy regions of eternal hope.
Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on:                      
Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk,
Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom,
Yet spring’s awakening breath will woo the earth,
To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,
That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,   
Lighting the green wood with its sunny smile.

Fear not then, Spirit, death’s disrobing hand,
So welcome when the tyrant is awake,
So welcome when the bigot’s hell-torch flares;
‘Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,                
The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep.
For what thou art shall perish utterly,
But what is thine may never cease to be;
Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen
Love’s brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,
Mingling with freedom’s fadeless laurels there,
And presaging the truth of visioned bliss.
Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene
Of linked and gradual being has confirmed?
Hopes that not vainly thou, and living fires   
Of mind as radiant and as pure as thou,
Have shone upon the paths of men–return,
Surpassing Spirit, to that world, where thou
Art destined an eternal war to wage
With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot       
The germs of misery from the human heart.
Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe
The thorny pillow of unhappy crime,
Whose impotence an easy pardon gains,
Watching its wanderings as a friend’s disease:             

Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy
Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,
When fenced by power and master of the world.
Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind,
Free from heart-withering custom’s cold control,       
Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.
Earth’s pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,
And therefore art thou worthy of the boon
Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep
Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,             
And many days of beaming hope shall bless
Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.
Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch
Light, life and rapture from thy smile.                          

The Daemon called its winged ministers.
Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car,
That rolled beside the crystal battlement,
Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness.
The burning wheels inflame                                          
The steep descent of Heaven’s untrodden way.
Fast and far the chariot flew:
The mighty globes that rolled
Around the gate of the Eternal Fane
Lessened by slow degrees, and soon appeared              
Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs
That ministering on the solar power
With borrowed light pursued their narrower way.
Earth floated then below:
The chariot paused a moment;                                        
The Spirit then descended:
And from the earth departing
The shadows with swift wings
Speeded like thought upon the light of Heaven.

The Body and the Soul united then,                                  
A gentle start convulsed Ianthe’s frame:
Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed;
Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained:
She looked around in wonder and beheld
Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch,                         
Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love,
And the bright beaming stars
That through the casement shone.