SCENE. _The Hill. The Student's Night-watch_.
How beautiful the night, through all these hours
Of nothingness, with ceaseless music wakes
Among the hills, trying the melodies
Of myriad chords on the lone, darkened air,
With lavish power, self-gladdened, caring nought
That there is none to hear. How beautiful!
That men should live upon a world like this,
Uncovered all, left open every night
To the broad universe, with vision free
To roam the long bright galleries of creation,
Yet, to their strange destiny ne'er wake.
Yon mighty hunter in his silver vest,
That o'er those azure fields walks nightly now,
In his bright girdle wears the self-same gems
That on the watchers of old Babylon
Shone once, and to the soldier on her walls
Marked the swift hour, as they do now to me.
Prose is the dream, and poetry the truth.
That which we call reality, is but
Reality's worn surface, that one thought
Into the bright and boundless all might pierce,
There's not a fragment of this weary real
That hath not in its lines a story hid
Stranger than aught wild chivalry could tell.
There's not a scene of this dim, daily life,
But, in the splendor of one truthful thought
As from creation's palette freshly wet,
Might make young romance's loveliest picture dim,
And e'en the wonder-land of ancient song,----
Old Fable's fairest dream, a nursery rhyme.
How calm the night moves on, and yet
In the dark morrow, that behind those hills
Lies sleeping now, who knows what waits?--'Tis well.
He that made this life, I'll trust with another.
To be,--there was the risk. We might have waked
Amid a wrathful scene, but this,--with all
Its lovely ordinances of calm days,
The golden morns, the rosy evenings,
Its sweet sabbath hours and holy homes,----
If the same hidden hand from whence these sprung,
That dark gate opens, what need we fear there?----
Here's wrath, but none that hath not its sure pathway
Upward leading,--there are tears, but 'tis
A school-time weariness; and many a breeze
And lovely warble from our native hills,
Through the dim casement comes, over the worn
And tear-wet page, unto the listening ear
Of our home sighing--to the _listening_ ear.
Ah, what know we of life?--of that strange life
That this, in many a folded rudiment,
With nature's low, unlying voice, doth point to.
Is it not very like what the poor grub
Knows of the butterfly's gay being?----
With its colors strange, fragrance, and song,
And robes of floating gold with gorgeous dyes,
And loveliest motion o'er wide, blooming worlds.
That dark dream had ne'er imaged!----
Ay, sing on,
Sing on, thou bright one, with the news of life,
The everlasting, winging o'er our vale.
Oh warble on, thy high, strange song.
What sayest thou?--a land o'er these dark cliffs,
A land all glory, where the day ne'er setteth----
Where bright creatures, mid the deathless shades,
Go singing, shouting evermore? And yet
'Twere vain. That wild tale hath no meaning here,
Thou warbler from afar. Like music
Of a foreign tongue, on our dull sense,
The rich thought wastes.--We have been nursed in tears,
Thro' all we've known of life, we have known grief,
And is there none in life's deep essence mixed?
Is sorrow but the young soul's garment then?----
A baby mantle, doffed forever here,
Within these lowly walls.
And we were born
Amid a glad creation!---then why hear we ne'er
The silver shout, filling the unmeasured heaven?----
Why catch we e'er the rich plume's rustle soft,
Or sweep of passing lyre! Our tearful home
Hung 'mid a gay, rejoicing universe,
And ne'er a glimpse adown its golden paths?----
Oh are there eyes, soft eyes upon us,
In the dark and in the day, shining unseen,
And everlasting smiles, brightening unfelt
On all our tears: News sweet and strange ye bring.
Hither we came from our Creator's hands,
Bright earnest ones, looking for joy, and lo,
A stranger met us at the gate of life,
A stranger dark, and wrapped us in her robe,
And bore us on through a dim vale.--Ah, not
The world we looked for,--for an image in.
Our souls was born, of a high home, that yet
We have not seen. And were our childhood's yearnings,
Its strange hopes, no dreams then,--dim revealings
Of a land that yet we travel to?----
But thou, oh foster-mother, mournful nurse,
So long upon thy sable vest we're leaned,
Thou art grown dear to us, and when at last
At yonder blue and burning gate
Thou yieldest up thy trust, and joy at last
In her own wild embrace enfolds us once, e'en
From the jewelled bosom of that dazzling one,
From the young roses of that smiling face,
Shall we not turn to thee, for one last glimpse
Of that wan cheek, and solemn eye of love,
And watch thy stately step, far down
This dim world's fading paths? Take us, kind sorrow!
We will lean our young head meekly on thee;
Good and holy is thy ministry,
Oh handmaid of the Halls thou ne'er mayst tread.
And let the darkness gather round that world,
Not for the vision of thy glittering walls
We ask, nor glimpse of brilliant troops that roam
Thine ancient streets, thou sunless city,--
Wrap thy strange pavillions still in clouds,
Let the shades slumber round thy many homes,
By faith, and not by sight, through lowly paths
Of goodness, sorrow-led, to thee we come.
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