And now so still! This, Cicero, is thy heart;
I hear it beating through each purple line.
This is thyself, Anacreon--yet, thou art
Wreathed, as in Athens, with the Cnidian vine.
I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold,
Thy spirit meets me in the haunted ground!--
Sublime and eloquent, as while, of old,
'It flamed and sparkled in its crystal bound;'
These _are_ yourselves--your life of life! The Wise
(Minstrel or Sage) _out_ of their books are clay;
But _in_ their books, as from their graves, they rise,
Angels--that, side by side, upon our way,
Walk with and warn us!
Hark! the World so loud,
And they, the Movers of the World, so still.
What gives this beauty to the grave? the shroud
Scarce wraps the Poet, than at once there cease
Envy and Hate! 'Nine cities claim him dead,
Through which the living Homer begged his bread!'
And what the charm that can such health distil
From withered leaves--oft poisons in their bloom?
We call some books immoral! _Do they live?_
If so, believe me, TIME hath made them pure.
In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace--
God wills that nothing evil shall endure;
The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole,
As the dust leaves the disembodied soul!
Come from thy niche, Lucretius! Thou didst give
Man the black creed of Nothing in the tomb!
Well, when we read thee, does the dogma taint?
No; with a listless eye we pass it o'er,
And linger only on the hues that paint
The Poet's spirit lovelier than his lore.
None learn from thee to cavil with their God;
None commune with thy genius to depart
Without a loftier instinct of the heart.
Thou mak'st no Atheist--thou but mak'st the mind
Richer in gifts which Atheists best confute--
FANCY AND THOUGHT! 'Tis these that from the sod
Lift us! The life which soars above the brute
Ever and mightiest, breathes from a great Poet's lute!
Lo! that grim Merriment of Hatred;--born
Of him,--the Master-Mocker of mankind,
Beside the grin of whose malignant spleen
Voltaire's gay sarcasm seems a smile serene,--
Do we not place it in our children's hands,
Leading young Hope through Lemuel's fabled lands?--
God's and man's libel in that foul Yahoo!--
Well, and what mischief can the libel do?
O impotence of Genius to belie
Its glorious task--its mission from the sky!
Swift wrote this book to wreak a ribald scorn
On aught the Man should love or Priest should mourn--
And lo! the book, from all its ends beguiled,
A harmless wonder to some happy child!