Poems (Whitney)/A last dream
A LAST DREAM.
Three against one! Three giants it was plain—While I might scarcely dot our battle ground,Which glimmered east and west, and north and south,Farther than eye might see. But all the while,For I was sinewed by our God himself,I knew that I should conquer. And I quailedNo jot, who shudder now, even but to thinkWhat secret, deadly and remorseless waysThey took to break me. For one covered o'erWith his vast hand, heaven's gracious breadth of light,That terror-stricken in the ghastly fields,My heart might burst and die. One slowly suckedThe life blood at its fount; and from my brain The healthy vigor went, and in its placeThere was a motley whirl of fantasies,A dreadful dance of wicked things, that struckStrange gleams and painful lightnings through my lidsWhich still I saw upon the midnight snow,Mingling with pure auroras from the bergs,And meteors' silver flashes. And one—oneLoaded these limbs with dull, invisible chains,So subtilly imposed, so stern-and still,It seemed to lull the will into accord,And hoodwink all my soul with trust. But no!T rose, I strove with triple giant strength,And heaved, as earthquakes mountains from their shoulders,The settling weights away, and heard them slideInto that night of sound, that northward far,Where the white sea-gull flies, for leagues on leagues,Wraps in its shadowy arms the gleaming coast.Loathing and shuddering, at length I drewThe clinging fury from my heart—and lo! Not overhead, I think, nor from the east,Where the sun has its solemn, annual birth,Nor glazing the waste whiteness, nor unsheathingThe glaciers' keen swords,—but fine and still,And as it seemed, dilating from a seedOf light within,—light peaceful, broad and soft,Grew round me where I stood. And God, who watchedThe battle from his trembling depths of Night,In sign and seal of this my victory,Sends his calm angel here, who folds an armAbout and leads me safe, I ask not where,For heart and life are pillowed on his love.
Will any say, I yielded,—drawing nearThose lists of high renown, where the gaunt ThreeAnd I fought the dumb battle out, and leftNo trace in the blown, desert fields?—Nay, farBeyond the last low wall of crimson light,That struggles to hedge off with baby gleam,The insurging Dark,—where sits the sceptred cold Impassible and still, and the awed seaGroans only and upheaves in marble waves,When the black sleet-wind whispers, Mutiny!There is a shaft, as all the world may know,A monument of ice uptowering dimInto the heavens' crowned mystery—whereonAre graven with touches of the light, a name,And following that, a chronicle of deeds.And when the brief, high history makes end,The page of ice goes on—"And one day, Earth,Gray mother, bound with frost and torn with fire,Shall surely be redeemed by hero dust.Each sluggish, atom of her sphere, shall bloomNobly in human shape, and take the print,And do the mandate of a godlike will,Until her apotheosis be won.Dear then to her and to the silent Powers,And borne on their strong wings above defeat,And fear of mockery, all they who buildIn stern emprise a shrine for the Unseen; Making life poor to show how rich it is.Round them heaven's flaming currents stoop and play,And lap the stifling vapors of the world,Till the space freshens into festal depths;And Soul, before a royal mendicant,Pensioned of flesh along her dusky way,Goes forth with bounty to exultant crowds,With pulse of music ordering the winds,And trumpets blowing the eternal morn.And so to guard from loss and blight of TimeThe memory of such faith, and of a willThat thrilled our adamant from coast to coast,This pale resplendent pillar of the frost.Scores the dark, grasping air. But he who heldWithin his eyes, the sacred fire that piercedOur ancient mysteries, and laid them bareBehind their five-fold barriers, afarWins smiles from other heavens, and breathes the meedOf mighty toils—the insatiate sweet of rest." Be it then—rest. All round the scented coastFlashes the living sea; and on my browI feel the silken touches of strange winds;While overhead such light, and sumptuous blue,And rustle of great plumes! Still thought toils onIn memory:—and over me those wordsThat kindle the wild gleam around, throb out:And still I hear an under voice which says,That what we do is better than ourselves,Being held unto the service of His willBy the strong hand that fashioned us. Even so.But by that stair I climb to God at last,Trampling on ease and low usurping wants;And through innumerable spheres upreaching,And Nights and Days till I am lost in Him.