Rest

The nation hath gone mad with action now.
Oh, many-troubled giant, with a heated brow,
And sultry heart, within whose wide
And lofty chambers stalketh Pride,
And hungry, pale Ambition, scenting power,
Wilt thou not let the wearied river steal
Through quiet hills for one short hour,
And dream, unvexed by the eager keel,
Of that sweet peace he knew in times of old,
When only Nature sat near him and roll'd
Her simple songs amid her flowery fold?
And let the forest lift some unshorn plumes
Amid the ancient glooms:
For this it pleads with trembling hands,
Appealing to far Heaven from all the invading hands!
And leave the mountains for a time untrod —
And thou shalt see
Their dumb, gray lips yet struggling to be free,
So that they may shout backward to the sea —
"We also know and reverence our Gon."
Oh, Titan, of the eagle-eye and growing pain!
Wilt thou not rest on Alabama's plain?
O'er Huron lean and let his mirror show,
Unruffled by thy fiery feet,
That harmonies of light yet fall below—
That Heaven and Earth may meet:
Sleep, sleep, thou wide-brow'd power,
In Florida's magnolian bower,
And where New England's pilgrim-feet were prest,
Or by Ohio's softly wandering wave;
Or in the dusk halls of Kentucky's cave,
Or on the flowery and broad prairies rest
Of Illinois and Indiana, — slumber, in the west!
Your eagles took their lordly ease
On folded wing,
After disporting with the braggart Breeze,
And Thunder, watching by his cloudy spring
Whose cool stream tumbled to the thirsty seas.
The birds went all asleep on their high rocks,
Nor ruffled a feather in the rude fire-shocks.
Millions, a lesson ye can learn from these.
And see, the great woods slumber, and the lake
No longer is awake
Beneath the stars, that nod and start with sleep
In their white-clou'ded deep:
Fitfully the moon goes nodding through
The valleys of the vapory blue,
And dreams, forgetting all her queenly ills,
Of angels sleeping on Elysian hills:
The drowsy lake,
So sweet is slumber, would not yet awake;
But — like an infant two years old,
Before whose closed eyes
Dreamily move the boys of paradise,
Singing their little psalms
Under the stately palms —
It stirreth softly lest rough motion might
Put out the moon's delicious light.
So rest! and Rest shall slay your many woes.
Is motion godlike? godlike is repose —
A mountain-stillness, of majestic might,
Whose peaks are glorious with the quiet light
Of suns, when Day is at his close.
Nor deem that quiet must ignoble be.
Jove laboured lustily once in airy fields;
And over the cloudy lea
He planted many a budding shoot
Whose liberal nature daily, nightly, yields
A store of starry fruit:
His labour done, the weary god went back
Up the broad mountain-track
To his great house; there he did wile away
With lightest thought a well-won holyday,
And all the powers croon'd softly an old tune,
Wishing their sire might sleep
Through all the sultry noon
And cold blue night; and very soon
They heard the awful thunderer breathing low and deep.
And in the hush that dropp'd adown the spheres,
And in the quiet of the awe-struck space,
The worlds learn'd worship at the birth of years:
They look'd upon their Lord's calm, kingly face,
And bade Religion come and kiss each starry place.
At least, I must have peace, afar from strife —
No motion save enough to leave me life.
And I shall lay me gently in a nook
Where a small bay the sluggish tide receives,
And, reading, hear some bland old poet's book
Shake delicate music from its mystic leaves,
While under drowsy clouds the dull waves go,
And echo softly back the melody in their flow.
Will ye not also lend your souls to Song?
Ye! of the land where Nature's noblest rhyme,
Niagara, sounds the myth of Time;
And where the Mississippi darkly goes
Amid the trembling woods,
Gloomily murmuring legends of the floods
That troubled space before the worlds arose
Or sleep. Why lose its wondrous world?
Look on its valleys, on its mountains look,
And cloudy streams;
Behold the arabesque land of dreams!
The golden mists are lazily curl'd;
And see in yonder glen,
Beside a little brook
Mid sleeping flocks, some sleeping men:
And one, who tries to watch, for danger's sake,
Nods and winks,
And vainly hums a tune to keep awake,
And now beside his brethren slowly sinks.
Ah, sleep like him! why lose its world '?
Now when the banners of the day are furl'd
And safely put away:
Now when a languid glory binds
The long dim chambers of the darkling west,
While far below yon azure river winds
Like a blue vein on sleeping Beauty's breast
Then, millions, rest or dream with me:
Let not the struggle thus forever be.
Not from the gold that wounded Earth reveals;
Not from your iron wheels
That vex the valleys with their thunder-peals;
Not from the oceans pallid with your wings;
Not from the power that labour brings —
The enduring grandeur of a nation springs.
The wealth may perish as a fleeting breath —
The banner'd armament may find a death
Deep in the hungry waters — and the crown
Of empire from your tall brows topple down:
But that which rains true glory o'er
The low or lofty, and the rich or poor,
Shall never die —
Daughter of Truth and Ideality,
Large Virtue towering on the throne of will!
The nations drink the heroic from her eye,
And march triumphing over every ill.
Therefore with Silence sometimes sit apart
From rude Turmoil, and dignify the heart:
And in that noble hour
All hates shall be forgotten, and sweet Love
Shall gently win us like a mild-eyed dove
That shames the storm to silence; and a power,
Unknown before, shall lap us in delight,
As troubled waves are soothed by starry night.
Then manhood shall forget the vengeful thought
In action's fierce volcano wrought;
The poor old man shall bow his snow-white head
To bless the past, forgiving all his wrongs;
And feel the breathing of his childhood's songs
Once more around him shed.
The weary slave shall rest upon the chain,
And woo to his shut eyes
The ardent aspect of his native skies —
The forms of wife and children once again
Watching for his return along the palmy plain
Nor in repose a tentless desert fear —
The gardenless wide waste of a blank heart:
Full many a rich oasis there shall start
Between horizons to illume and cheer:
Time's misty Nile shall slowly wander through
The slumberous plain that never knoweth storms;
Eternity's calm pyramidal forms
Shall meet our dreamy view,
Duskily towering mid the hazy blue,
And freezing contemplation in the giddy air.
Then all the weary myriads resting there —
Quiet beneath the hollow sky
As shapes that in a pictured landscape lie —
Shall know that bliss, that perfect, heavenly bliss
Which falls as moonlight music on a scene like this.