Then the myriad years rolled on :
Over earth convulsion came,
Scathed or by the comet's flame :
By waves whelmed, or rent asunder,
Or by earthquake, frost, or thunder:
Darkness covered, or light shone
O'er that wreck of death and life,
Of wild agony and strife :
Till within a later age,
Rose a man with aspect sage,
And beneath the open air,
Looking round with thoughtful eyes
Found those sharp fresh rain-prints there :
And he gazed with staid surprise,
And joy veiled in soberest guise,
Then in phrase sedate and wise,
Showed how light a thing might give
The fixed impresses that live.
POET-thus be thy endeavour ;
As the rain-drift from the sky
Let thy verse fall heedlessly:
Do thy work, but do it well:
Know that which thou hast to tell,
Then forget thy song for ever!
Pass thou onward, be as not:
Voice of feeling and of power,
Never sunk in dust forgot;
Nature's self as man doth crave
Resurrection from the grave!
Though thy slumber none shall waken,
Though thy races fade like grass,
Though earth's kingdoms shall be shaken,
Thy existence shall not pass:
On a day and on an hour
Shall thy rayless Star be crowned:
Shall thy foot-prints thus be found:
See thy work be such as thou
Dost not blush to harbour now.
THE days, the flowing days!
How have they sped
From that bright eminence of far-off youth,
Suffused with rays about it shed
From God and truth.
The days, the rushing days,
How are they flying by me now,
While I look inwardly nor dare avow
All they took from me, all they gave ;
They that in life's orient hours
Lapsed, forgot, unheeded by,
Cast upon the stream like flowers;
As if, flower-like, they could die,
As if they could find a grave!
Nor bore each within their birth
The breath of immortality :
Nor each an accusing Spirit,
To tell all we did inherit
Of redeeming good or ill,
When they upwards fled from earth
Their great mission to fulfil.
The days, the blessed days
Of boyhood! let me yet confess,
While I may, my thankfulness
For the joys they gave and took :
The faiths which they confirmed or shook;
For alas! they were no dream,
No passed vision that doth seem,
Yet is not, but the sublime
Reality whose life was time;
But the ever fresh and young,
And growing children sent from God,
That have each a prophet-tongue :
Or rather emanating rays
From the fountain presence fleeing,
Of the one Almighty Being;
The Cherubim and Seraphim:
The knowledge and the love,
That have their dwelling-place above,
That come and go from Him.
The days, the mid-way days:
For ever from us fled
The orient where youth trod
Fervently, while overawed
By the spirits of the dead,
That in those uncounted hours,
Mingled their large life with ours,
Ere descent to miry ways
Left in us abiding stains
That tainted our bosom's core :
Ere we felt convention's chains
That the impulsive heart restrains;
Passion that the soul betrays,
And concealment with it brings;
The remorse the soul that wrings,
Ere that holy feeling be
Deadened into apathy,
And our conscience strives no more.
The days, the evening days!
Sated when we left the feast,
When the revelry hath ceased.
But we weary, we are worn,
With life's weight that we have borne,
And our pilgrim's weeds are torn.
Bonds that bound the soul are riven,
And the clearer prescience given,
With the peace, foretaste of heaven.
But our day is overcast ;
There is One behind, hath stood
A Shadow, but he hath not passed!
And we yet may reach the good:
We may grasp the prize, alas,
As we stretch our hopeful hands,
Shaken out are our last sands!
And the life-oppressed breath
Ceases, in that pause was death
And we sleep beneath the grass :
But the days, the rushing days,
Wind-like
pass us if they
Knew how vainly had been wasted
The cup held, we had but tasted,
Ere for ever snatched away.
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