The Pilgrims of the Rhine. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон

being of the heart, our boyhood’s dream.

        The Psyche and the Eros ne’er have been,

          Save in Olympus, wedded!  As a stream

        Glasses a star, so life the ideal love;

        Restless the stream below, serene the orb above!

        Ever the soul the senses shall deceive;

        Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave:

        For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows!

        And Eden’s flowers for Adam’s mournful brows!

        We seek to make the moment’s angel guest

          The household dweller at a human hearth;

        We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest

          Was never found amid the bowers of earth.2

        Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring,

          Than sate the senses with the boons of time;

        The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing,

          The steps it lures are still the steps that climb;

        And in the ascent although the soil be bare,

        More clear the daylight and more pure the air.

        Let Petrarch’s heart the human mistress lose,

        He mourns the Laura but to win the Muse.

        Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine

        Delight the soul of the dark Florentine,

        Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice

        Awaiting Hell’s dark pilgrim in the skies,

        Snatched from below to be the guide above,

        And clothe Religion in the form of Love?*

          * It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in

            the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision

            of Heaven, he allegorizes Religious Faith.

IIIGENIUS, LIFTING ITS LIFE TO THE IDEAL, BECOMES ITSELF A PURE IDEA: ITMUST COMPREHEND ALL EXISTENCE, ALL HUMAN SINS AND SUFFERINGS; BUT INCOMPREHENDING, IT TRANSMUTES THEM.—THE POET IN HIS TWO-FOLD BEING,—THEACTUAL AND THE IDEAL.—THE INFLUENCE OF GENIUS OVER THE STERNESTREALITIES OF EARTH; OVER OUR PASSIONS; WARS AND SUPERSTITIONS.—ITSIDENTITY IS WITH HUMAN PROGRESS.—ITS AGENCY, EVEN WHERE UNACKNOWLEDGED,IS UNIVERSAL

        Oh, thou true Iris! sporting on thy bow

          Of tears and smiles! Jove’s herald, Poetry,

        Thou reflex image of all joy and woe,

          Both fused in light by thy dear fantasy!

        Lo! from the clay how Genius lifts its life,

          And grows one pure Idea, one calm soul!

        True, its own clearness must reflect our strife;

          True, its completeness must comprise our whole;

        But as the sun transmutes the sullen hues

          Of marsh-grown vapours into vermeil dyes,

        And melts them later into twilight dews,

          Shedding on flowers the baptism of the skies;

        So glows the Ideal in the air we breathe,

          So from the fumes of sorrow and of sin,

        Doth its warm light in rosy colours wreathe

          Its playful cloudland, storing balms within.

        Survey the Poet in his mortal mould,

          Man, amongst men, descended from his throne!

        The moth that chased the star now frets the fold,

          Our cares, our faults, our follies are his own.

        Passions as idle, and desires as vain,

        Vex the wild heart, and dupe the erring brain.

        From Freedom’s field the recreant Horace flies

        To kiss the hand by which his country dies;

        From Mary’s grave the mighty Peasant turns,

        And hoarse with orgies rings the laugh of Burns.

        While Rousseau’s lips a lackey’s vices own,—

        Lips that could draw the thunder on a throne!

        But when from Life the Actual GENIUS springs,

          When, self-transformed by its own magic rod,

        It snaps the fetters and expands the wings,

          And drops the fleshly garb that veiled the god,

        How the mists vanish as the form ascends!

        How in its aureole every sunbeam blends!

        By the Arch-Brightener of Creation seen,

          How dim the crowns on perishable brows!

        The snows of Atlas melt beneath the sheen,

          Through Thebaid caves the rushing splendour flows.

        Cimmerian glooms with Asian beams are bright,

        And Earth reposes in a belt of light.

        Now stern as Vengeance shines the awful form,

        Armed with the bolt and glowing through the storm;

        Sets the great deeps of human passion free,

        And whelms the bulwarks that would breast the sea.

        Roused by its voice the ghastly Wars arise,

        Mars reddens earth, the Valkyrs pale the skies;

        Dim Superstition from her hell escapes,

        With all her shadowy brood of monster shapes;

        Here life itself the scowl of Typhon3 takes;

        There Conscience shudders at Alecto’s snakes;

        From Gothic graves at midnight yawning wide,

        In gory cerements gibbering spectres glide;

        And where o’er blasted heaths the lightnings flame,

        Black secret hags “do deeds without a name!”

         Yet through its direst agencies of awe,

        Light marks its presence and pervades its law,

        And, like Orion when the storms are loud,

        It links creation while it gilds a cloud.

        By ruthless Thor, free Thought, frank Honour stand,

        Fame’s grand desire, and zeal for Fatherland.

        The grim Religion of Barbarian Fear

        With some Hereafter still connects the Here,

        Lifts the gross sense to some spiritual source,

        And thrones some Jove above the Titan Force,

        Till, love completing what in awe began,

        From the rude savage dawns the thoughtful man.

        Then, oh, behold the Glorious comforter!

          Still bright’ning worlds but gladd’ning now the hearth,

        Or like the lustre of our nearest star,

         

2

According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions, the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth, and its nest is never to be found.

3

The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributes of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of exuberant joy and everlasting youth.