On the deep's foam, amidst its hollow roar
Call'd up to sunlight by his fantasy!—
And, when the shining desert-mists that wore
The lake's bright semblance, have been all pass'd by,
The pilgrim sinks beside the fountain-wave,
Which flashes from its rock, too late to save.
Or if we live, if that, too dearly bought
And made too precious by long hopes and fears,
Remains our own; love, darken'd and o'erwrought
By memory of privation, love, which wears
And casts o'er life a troubled hue of thought,
Becomes the shadow of our closing years,
Making it almost misery to possess
Aught, watch'd with such unquiet tenderness.
Such unto him, the Bard, the worn and wild,
And sick with hope deferr'd, from whom the sky,
With all its clouds in burning glory piled,
Had been shut out by long captivity,
Such, freedom was to Tasso!—As a child
Is to the mother, whose foreboding eye
In its too radiant glance, from day to day
Reads that which calls the brightest first away.
And he became a wanderer—in whose breast
Wild fear, which, e'en when every sense doth sleep,
Clings to the burning heart, a wakeful guest,
Sat brooding as a spirit, raised to keep
Its gloomy vigil of intense unrest
O'er treasures, burdening life, and buried deep
In cavern-tomb, and sought, through shades and stealth,
By some pale mortal, trembling at his wealth!
But woe for those who trample o'er a mind—
A deathless thing!—They know not what they do,
Or what they deal with!—Man perchance may bind
The flower his step hath bruised; or light anew
The torch he quenches; or to music wind
Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew!
But, for the soul!—Oh! tremble, and beware
To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there!
For blindness wraps that world!—our touch may turn
Some balance, fearfully and darkly hung,
Or put out some bright spark, whose ray should burn
To point the way a thousand rocks among!
Or break some subtle chain, which none discern,
Though binding down the terrible, the strong,
Th' o'ersweeping passions! which to loose on life,
Is to set free the elements for strife!
Who then to power and glory shall restore
That which our evil rashness hath undone?
Who unto mystic harmony once more
Attune those viewless chords?—There is but One!
He that through dust the stream of life can pour,
The Mighty and the Merciful alone!
—Yet oft his paths have midnight for their shade—
He leaves to man the ruin man hath made!F. H.
