Palingenesis

In solemn precincts of the forest aisles
There is a wondrous gathering of life ;
And all the vacant dull monotony
Of netted wood softens mysteriously
To tender inarticulate prophecy,
A boundless budding, fluttering anon
As with green wings unfolding for a flight.
Now all my soul rejoices reverently
"Mid cool diffusion of a greening dim,
Kneels hearkening the still small voice of
God;
Nature from mouths of myriads new born
Anew revealing her eternal youth.

Lo ! all the champaign saturate with light,
Softly alive with magical green flames,
Grass blades commingling multitudinous
With daisies clustered, scattered, like to stars,
And kingcups floating buoyant everywhere ;
Now loose-limbed lambs push nestling to their mothers ;
Haunts of primrose and frail windflower rejoice ;
Till later, wandering by the brimming river,
I view horse-chestnut massy -foliaged
Lift, as with eager hands innumerous.
Up the blue morn an offering of flowers.
While hawthorns near, sunsmitten to the core.
Froth over in dumb ecstasy of bloom.
Silverly winds the river from afar.
Dim-frosted from its currents here and there.
With hazy tree-clusters impalpable
Rolled as a border ; nigh me vivid turf
Gleams to the edge, but fringing fair the path
Wave pliant sword-like rushes o'er the flood.
Feasting the eye with gliding opal light
Of water 'mong green pennons at their play ;
And there full soon the water-hen will brood
On rushes pulled and woven to a nest
In a rich twilight of mila emerald,
Feeling sweet motions under the warm breast,
Lulled with soft flicker of the wave below,
And gentle whispering of airs above.

Yet later, lo ! the frail acacia,
Steeping in light her soft, luxuriant hair.
Sensitive flushes like a lovely woman.
All conscious when a cloud moves off the sun ;
Her leafy clusters delicate as down
Seem self-sustaining, buoyant in blue air.
Move, as informed with some sweet sister spirit
Yielding a gentle unimperious will
To every mood of zephyr fantasy ;
Obtrudes not her soft presence on the sky,
Inlaying it with tender tracery ;
Seems there to dwell by loving sufferance,
Or primal right of native harmony
With mild dominion of warm summer air.

And no V I walk in fields of sheathed corn,
Sprent with the chamomile and scarlet poppy.
Through meads profound with grasses all aflower.
And sorrel hanging like a sanguine mist
Thwart lender grey horizons leagues away.
Broken by cumbrous cumulus of trees :
In coppices where roses float like moons.
Breathing warm air we breathe a breath of flowers.
Instinct with sunny songs of summer bird,
Dartling innumerous intertangling lines
From vernal glooms, or sparkling in a spray.

A rugged stile, with upper bar made smooth
And polished from how many horny hands
Of passing peasant, leads me to a slope
That lapses quietly, all pasture land
And wood and grain, save where upon my left
On level space abides a little church.
With golden vane aglister in the sun.
Ancient, grey-walled, a pent-roof in dusk tile
Rich red and weatherworn upon the tower,
A brow that shadows over slumbrous eyes
Of narrow window droused with eld and heat.
Thither I passed, and came where sleep the dcai." ;
Stonecrop and moss were on the buttresses,
And hart's-tongue sprouted in the creviced wall ;
Over the rude old woodwork of the porch
A dial 'mid the crumbling masonry
Shadowed the hour.
Upon a sunk headstone
Lichened, awry and low, with graven words
Worn wavering indefinite with time,
A very aged man, mute, motionless.
Reclined ; he leaned against another grave
That seemed less ancient ; in some withered leaves
His withered limbs were drooping heavily ;
His eyes were toward the heavenly distances,
Where ever and anon a paler wave
Passed over silky grasses of the field,
While tracts of land imbibed soft shadowing
From clouds that travelled in a gentle wind,
Effacing from the sight in yonder valley
His sober-vestured cot among the elms,
Restored awhile at unawares and still
With shining of warm sunlight in the place ;
So dawn to fade faint memories of his mind !

Then I approaching spake, addressing him :
" A lovely spot ! often you linger in it ? "
Vacant he looked as hearing not the words,
Or vaguely conscious of the sense they bore.
Then at the moment broke upon the air
A laughter of some children from the wood.
They came, their tiny hands full filled with flowers ;
The boy flung down his nosegay on a grave
In eager chase of some blue butterfly ;
The little girl for life and ecstasy
Twirled, leapt, and gushed with pleasure like a bird.

Then at the sight of these and at the sound.
Intelligence lit all the countenance
Of the old man ; he gazed and murmured low,
" Mine were like these, about the age of these."
These little children straying here to play
Seemed like unconscious sunbeams of the
Lord
To rouse dim memories in a human soul
Where all grew shadow, even as yonder beams
Revealed the nested village in the vale ;
Vet speedily the darkness closed again.

But now that wicket where I lately passed
Clicked and swung open, rendering access
To a young man and maiden in their prime;
But he first coming closed and held it shut
In sport against her, fastening the latch,
Insisting she must mount the neighbour stile
And he receive her into stalwart arms ;
So, coyly pleading, very soon she did,
Both laughing, crooning, and embracing close
When she was landed ; then with faces near.
He leaning with his arm about her waist,
She yielding fondly, blushing o'er with bliss.
These lovers went all bright and beautiful.
Threading their way among the grassy graves,
Here and there heedless treading over them.
Conversing, nor observing him who leaned
Upon the headstone facing them the while,
That very aged man, nor seeing me.

But once again these human lovers twain
Became unconscious sunbeams of the Lord
To rouse remembrance in a slumbering soul.
He gazed and murmured, " She and I like these
Passed here in other years — the very gate
We came by from the village ! this the church
Where twelve months after she and I were wed ;
And some few happy years we spent together ;
For she was very good — she lies below
Here where I sit ; 'tis warm and pleasant here ! "

After, I heard his uneventful tale
From others in the village where he dwelt.
He tilled these fields, or drove these laden wains,
Brown-chested in the sweltering hot summer:
Mounted on stacks he forced a long bright blade
Through dense hot hay, then trussed it for the mart ;
She came from Orchard, but a mile from hence,
Noted for flavour of its teeming apples.

Small store of learning cottagers may boast,
Yet well they love their gardens and their homes ;
And in their scanty intervals of toil
Not all unheard, unheeded doth our mother,
Nature, the holy mother of us all.
Speak to her children in their heart of hearts.
What though ye, F'ortune's favourites, may deem
Them as the maimed and deaf and dumb and blind
Of Nature's family, will ye profane
Presume to map and measure all the love,
Trickling through secret channels infinite,
Wherein a mother may impart herself,
Yearning out most to her unfortunates ?
They feel her fold, though they can ill explain
Aloud with finished phrasing what she means.
Ah ! not from callous heart or shallow soul,
Only from organ helpless with disuse,
Their filial love is inarticulate ;
While you, with your light pity and dull scorn.
Flout in them faults your very selves impose.
Listless disdaining to alleviate
By one least finger-touch the w eary load
Of doom the Father lays upon the sons.
That we may win free range of one another,
Nor live unloved in loveless solitude.

Behold these children sporting in the wood,
Stooping for flowers, inhaling all the summer !
Doth nature never call the little ones.
Lay ne'er a tender hand upon their hearts ?
Behold these lovers when they sit and dream
In yonder hollow, with the gambols light
Of woodland elves, men name sunshine and shadow,
Sliding about them in the fanning l;reeze,
All his clear future roseate with her,
And all her future melted into him !
Hath nature ne'er a message unto these ?
Only the world's inhuman votaries.
The dead-alive, tiie arrogant, the cold.
Are reprobate exiles and pariahs.
Shut out for aye from her maternal heart I
Since even the very dead she takes and hides —
Though these may never look upon her face !
Deep in her bosom, changing them to flowers
And foodful corn, and dear remembrances.
Refreshing hallowed life in many a soul,
Ceding as meadows feed from secret springs.

And yet 'tis human to lament awhile
Over the lapse of man's bewildering life !
Nature the mother to this ancient man
Called as she calls the little ones to-day ;
Nature the mother to this ancient man
Spake as she speaks to yonder lovers now !
And when the children of himself and her
Left them alone, how oft on Sabbath eves.
When hymns were silent in the rustic church.
He and she came to trim the little graves.
To pick germander and forget-me-not,
That bloomed about the children laid to sleep !
So when she left him verily alone,
And he to prayers came wearily without her.
When all were gone he knelt upon her sod,
Or dreamed with misted eyes in distances
Their guileless gaze had visited together.
Now sole survivor of his family.
Surviving all who loved him, all he loved,
Surviving even Love, yea, very Sorrow,
Sister to Love, survivor of himself.
He sits long summer hours upon the tomb.
Her lovely form long faded in the dust,
Her name faint wavering from the mossy stone.
Her memory nearly faded from his heart —
His heart that loved her — and he httle feels
Save a mere sense of comfort from the sun
About those piteous impotent shrunk limbs.
Only when these new shadows of an hour,
These children and these lovers, fleeting fly,
They rouse a momentary memory,
As one designless may awake some sound.
Brushing a lyre long disused in dust.

Still Nature speaks as when he was a child,
Still speaks as when he was a youthful lover ;
But these are vanished, yea, the man that was
Moulders away ; now little but the name
Remains of him — these remnants of a man,
How shall they heed, all Ijloodless dull and cold.
Her awful rapture of immortal youth?
So all about the stricken wife of Lot,
A living woman stiffening to stone,
Amid the glare of cities rolled in fire
And shocks of thunder subterranean.
In loud confusion swept the cavalcade
Of urgent richly vestured fugitives.
Husband and brother, camel-mounted slave.
Dwindling in her to murmur meaningless.

The banquet, and the lovely guests of youih
With dewy coronal on smooth white brows.
And mirth and song, and goblets of rich wine,
Have vanished from his soul, and all the lights,
Save only one abortive, piteous
Fitful illuming dimly storied wall,
Still struggling with an incubus of Gloom,
That feeds secure, encroaching evermore.
Devouring slow the pale remains of life.

Ah ! God hath lent to us the loveliest thing
Of all rare splendours in his treasury,
And we poor senseless children of a day
Take it how lightly, toss and trample it,
Until He whispers, Give it me again !
iXoiv will I lend it to another life.
Then first we look upon the thing we hold,
And lo ! it is the jewel of our youth.
Ah ! then we clutch it with a miser's clutch.
We peer within it, lift it up to light,
Search out some golden casket for the gem ;
Turning all cold to hear his awful voice
Quiet repeating, Give it me again.

Behold we dally in a dreamful doze.
Afloat in listless splendour of a water,
That loves inhaling glory from fair isles
Sunnily laving ; when we closed our eyes.
Our boat still floated in its own mild gleam,
Among white swans and balmy breathing airs ;
Yet now we pale reluctantly to note
That we have drifted in our summer dream
All unforeboding among scenes of change :
Some chilling shadow rufHes the sweet river,
And troubles clear serenity of heaven.
We rouse aff"righted — lo ! the current flies ;
Yonder the shores lie dubious in haze ;
Yonder a cold mist smothers all the stream ;
Pale while we peer, there ominously booms
From forth the gloom some roaring of a fall !

Arise, my soul ! adore the inevitable ;
For Death is that inevitable shadow,
That ever follows in the ways of life.
Yea, we who live are needed as we are,
Nor in aught vary from our destiny ;
And they who die are needed as they are.
Fulfilling uses more mysterious,
Yet alike necessary and Divine.
Brothers, arise ! leave wails effeminate ;
Confront and praise the inevitable law ;
To-morrow travails with a doom Divine ;
Glory and triumph in Humanity :
Stand by your guns, make sharp your cutlasses ;
Do battle for the brotherhood of man !

Full soon shall Life with gliding lips Divine
Blow through a fresher, greener reed than ours,
And fling us to the earth well worn with use.
So be it. Lord ; yea, teach us to rejoice ;
Some human music never shall be mute ;
Yon spheres can roll thee vaster harmonies !
Yea, if Thou breathe but on a point of dust,
The same shall thrill and falter into Man ;
Yea, from the clash of systems and of worlds
Shall flame a superhuman light of souls.
Innumerable motes from gloom to gloom
Passing alive in one white beam from Thee !

Nature, refreshed, unwearied, every spring
Awakes to bodings inarticulate.
As from a myriad mouths of budding boughs,
Tuning her instrument, and preluding
Her full triumphant symphony of summer,
And autumn's deep tempestuous ocean hymn;
Her paean hymeneal of blent lives
Of sea, and mountain-storm, and swinging pine;
Forest that rings with acclamation rare
From beast, and bird, and myriad living things,
Tumultuous leaves and ecstasies of bloom ;
With man, a reed through whom the Hidden
One
Breathes forth this anthem of the Universe !

Lead then, O year, thy bright procession forth,
Light clouds along cserulean clear skies,
And revels of fair flowers along the earth.
Dancing to softest music of mild airs,
Simmer of rills in sunny summer showers.
Mingled with flutes and flageolets of birds !
Roll tides of glory round about our dead.
Dead in the deep recurrence of thy smile,
Dead in the rhythmic breathing of thy breast !
O season ! as with the blare of trumpet-call
Shock all the blood of every youthful thing
To bound for battle and sublime emprise ;
Prick to endeavour, gird us to endure ;
Inform with winged seeds all aml)ient airs,
Inform all creatures with a hallowed heat,
Dissolve them languorous in sweet desire,
Yea, flush them full with dear delicious fire !
Inform the spiritual air of souls
With serviceable knowledge and device,
With germs of generous impulse and resolve,
With deed the fruit, and fantasy the flower ;
Speed the career of human destiny !
Abase, O Lord ! vain individual wills ;
Our puny aims, our lives ephemeral,
Replunge them in thy calm Eternity !
We kneel abashed in thine immensity,
Who revelled erst within thy light Divine.
Still for a few more years insatiate
Of living, loving, learning, suffering;
Hungry for all thy wondrous loveliness
In earth and air, in woman and in man ;
When we are old, or weary and well spent,
Letting thy rush of racers thunder by.
And cower in thy smile perennial.
Draw troubled breath regarding in thy face
Of never to be moved serenity —
Resume our being. Thou who art alone,
And live for ever in the lives of all !