John Marr and Other Poems Part 14

The sun has gone down in a shower; Buried in clouds the face of the moon; Tears stand in the eyes of the starry skies, And stand in the eyes of the flowers; And streams of tears are the trickling brooks, Coursing adown the mountains.-- Departed the pride, and the glory of Mardi: The vaunt of her isles sleeps deep in the sea.

Fast falls the small rain on its bosom that sobs,-- Not showers of rain, but the tears of Oro.

GOLD

We rovers bold, To the land of Gold, Over the bowling billows are gliding: Eager to toil, For the golden spoil, And every hards.h.i.+p biding.

See! See!

Before our prows' resistless dashes The gold-fish fly in golden flashes!

'Neath a sun of gold, We rovers bold, On the golden land are gaining; And every night, We steer aright, By golden stars unwaning!

All fires burn a golden glare: No locks so bright as golden hair!

All orange groves have golden gus.h.i.+ngs; All mornings dawn with golden flus.h.i.+ngs!

In a shower of gold, say fables old, A maiden was won by the G.o.d of gold!

In golden goblets wine is beaming: On golden couches kings are dreaming!

The Golden Rule dries many tears!

The Golden Number rules the spheres!

Gold, gold it is, that sways the nations: Gold! gold! the center of all rotations!

On golden axles worlds are turning: With phosph.o.r.escence seas are burning!

All fire-flies flame with golden gleamings!

Gold-hunters' hearts with golden dreamings!

With golden arrows kings are slain: With gold we'll buy a freeman's name!

In toilsome trades, for scanty earnings, At home we've slaved, with stifled yearnings: No light! no hope! Oh, heavy woe!

When nights fled fast, and days dragged slow.

But joyful now, with eager eye, Fast to the Promised Land we fly: Where in deep mines, The treasure s.h.i.+nes; Or down in beds of golden streams, The gold-flakes glance in golden gleams!

How we long to sift, That yellow drift!

Rivers! Rivers! cease your goings!

Sand-bars! rise, and stay the tide!

'Till we've gained the golden flowing; And in the golden haven ride!

THE LAND OF LOVE

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Whence e'er ye come, where'er ye rove, No calmer strand, No sweeter land, Will e'er ye view, than the Land of Love!

Hail! voyagers, hail!

To these, our sh.o.r.es, soft gales invite: The palm plumes wave, The billows lave, And hither point fix'd stars of light!

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Think not our groves wide brood with gloom; In this, our isle, Bright flowers smile: Full urns, rose-heaped, these valleys bloom.

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Be not deceived; renounce vain things; Ye may not find A tranquil mind, Though hence ye sail with swiftest wings.

Hail! voyagers, hail!

Time flies full fast; life soon is o'er; And ye may mourn, That hither borne, Ye left behind our pleasant sh.o.r.e.

Poems From Clarel

DIRGE

Stay, Death, Not mine the Christus-wand Wherewith to charge thee and command: I plead. Most gently hold the hand Of her thou leadest far away; Fear thou to let her naked feet Tread ashes--but let mosses sweet Her footing tempt, where'er ye stray.

Shun Orcus; win the moonlit land Belulled--the silent meadows lone, Where never any leaf is blown From lily-stem in Azrael's hand.

There, till her love rejoin her lowly (Pensive, a shade, but all her own) On honey feed her, wild and holy; Or trance her with thy choicest charm.

And if, ere yet the lover's free, Some added dusk thy rule decree-- That shadow only let it be Thrown in the moon-glade by the palm.

EPILOGUE _If Luther's day expand to Darwin's year,_ _Shall that exclude the hope--foreclose the fear?_

Unmoved by all the claims our times avow, The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of shade; And comes Despair, whom not her calm may cow, And coldly on that adamantine brow Scrawls undeterred his bitter pasquinade.

But Faith (who from the scrawl indignant turns) With blood warm oozing from her wounded trust, Inscribes even on her shards of broken urns The sign o' the cross--_the spirit above the dust!_

Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate-- The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of h.e.l.l; Science the feud can only aggravate-- No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell: The running battle of the star and clod Shall run forever--if there be no G.o.d.

Degrees we know, unknown in days before; The light is greater, hence the shadow more; And tantalized and apprehensive Man Appealing--Wherefore ripen us to pain?

Seems there the spokesman of dumb Nature's train.

But through such strange illusions have they pa.s.sed Who in life's pilgrimage have baffled striven-- Even death may prove unreal at the last, And stoics be astounded into heaven.

Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill-resigned-- Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind; That like the crocus budding through the snow-- That like a swimmer rising from the deep-- That like a burning secret which doth go Even from the bosom that would h.o.a.rd and keep; Emerge thou mayst from the last whelming sea, And prove that death but routs life into victory.