Poems (Blind)/To Hope
For works with similar titles, see To Hope.
TO HOPE.
Oh come, thou power divine, Thou lovely spirit with the wings of light,And let thy dewy eyesShed their sweet influences on my soul;Oh let me hear thy voice,Whose sound thrills with a keener, deeper bliss,Than the shrill jubilance the bird of joyPours on the air!Or the child babblings of the gladsome rillWhen, issuing first from out its mossy couchIn venturesome delight, it frisks in gleeAdown the hoary mountain, silver-fraught. Oh come!Where I do lie drenched in my bitter tears,And drowning in dejection: haunted byThe pale gaunt fears that spectre-like rush forthIn shadowy swarms from out the brain's black cells,Like glaring madmen in confusion 'scapedFrom out their dens, whirling with shambling limbsIn whooping dances through the startled dusk,And pouncing wildly on my shiv'ring soul,Where in her hour of weakness prostrate sheDoth palpitate in terror, like a deer,That hunted by the swift pursuing hounds,Wounded and bleeding, sinks upon the ground,While with hoarse croaks the ravening birds of preyWheel close and closer, darkening all the air. But thou,—Come breathe upon me with thy balmy breath,Like a young wind, born in the rosed east,That leapeth boy-like from the lap of morn,To blow the land all clear from crouching fogs:to hope Thus drive thou hence the phantoms; cleanse my soul!Thou sweet enchantress, with the magic spells!Wails there a heart, lone on the populous earth,—Like a weak infant lost within the nightThat crieth piteously in helplessness,And pusheth its blind limbs with gestures scaredAgainst the gloom,—Then with an airy footfall glidest thouGently anigh, as softly as a cloud,When one alone in crimson glory slidesAlong the twilight sky: tak'st the bewildered thingInto thine arms, thy fair and downy arms,And rock'st it on thy bosom-singing lowAn old, old song, old as the flowers that bloom,And like them ever young; till dreams rise up,Like cool white mists from out the heart of hills,And lie dew-sweet upon it in its sleep!
Sits there an orphan girl with sunken cheeks,And red-rimmed eyes, high up beneath the leads, Stitching with aching fingers all the nightBeside the meagre flame, to earn her bread,And feed with scanty fuel the low fireOf life, while the shrill blastDashes the rain against the rattling panes,And down the chimney roars with smoke and wet;—Then comest thou, with memories all dimAnd faint, with beauty from the childish years,Transposing them into the time to comeWith a new lustre of the full-grown heart.Where the bare walls stood with a hungry stare,The golden cornfields, weighed down by their wealth,Sway to and fro; purling the brook flows on;And, like a bit of sky drawn down by love,Wilds of forget-me-nots run riot round;And meadows scent the air; and lowing kineAre driven home; and silver geese hiss loudWithin the pools; and childhood's silver laughsRing o'er the green like chimes of silver bellsIn the clear atmosphere; and through green boughs Curls up the smoke from many a thatchd roof,Flushed all the land with roseate floods of eve,While large and full glows low the harvest moon,There as through homely fields she lightly walks,And one is by her side, and whispers low,And thine, oh hope! the future's kindling glow.
Rocks there a sailor on a reeling ship,That staggers blindly like a brain-struck man,Around the staring cliffs!While the wild blast, the fiddler of the deep,Wakes such mad music on his shrieking stringsThat the fierce elements in huge delightVault from their torpor, rearing giant heights!Ha! The maned billows from abysmal deepsLeap like live Alps, and catch the tearing cloudsThat dizzy haste along the wilds of sky;Tossing them round in labyrinthic whirlsTo the witch light of lightning, and the roarOf thunder, in its crashing clattering fall. Yea, while the ocean yawneth for its prey,Yelling with starved jaws around the hull,Man's sole frail guardian from the fangs of death, Thou softly float'st,Like to the dove that bore the olive branchAcross the waste of waters, to his side. . . .No longer sees he then the wide wild sea,No longer hears he the tempestuous blast:But where the cottage leans against the cliff,The evening star shedding its peace adown,He lifts the latch, and with one bound of joyHe stands in the low room, beside the hearth,Where sits his winsome wife, and rocks her babeWith lullabies; and heaving one big sobHe strains her to his breast, her whom he thoughtOn this side of the grave to see no more!Then does she take him by the hand, and leadsHim round from cot to cot, where with round cheeksHis children lie, sleep-flushed, 'twixt snow-white sheets; And snatching up the youngest in his arms,With an untameable emotion, weepsHis kisses on him, till it opens wideLarge dream-dew'd eyes, and lisps with cherry mouth,"Oh, Dada, Dada !”That thou dost for him!
Wanders the patriot on a stranger shore,An exile from the land he loved too well:Within his heartThe festering wound a thankless nation strikes,When cloud-capp'd by its ignorance and fear,And goaded on by spurring king and priest,Like a mad dog it turns and bites the handStretched out to heal.He sees his friends fall off like rotten leavesThat scrambling flee the tempest-girted oak;He sees the enemies he boldly braved,Forging the red-hot slanders wherewithalTo scorch his writhing soul! Alone in the wide world, alone he stands; Alone, save where beyond the roaring seas His mother weeps, and weeps, oh God! through him. Then, blowing from dead deserts the simoom Of doubt breathes on him, with its killing breath, With'ring the flower of faith, the groves of youth, And buffering his heart on cruel waves Of wind, e'en like a quiv'ring autumn leaf. Oh, is it strange?That in the midnight, on the dark there grow Pale faces sweating blood, and vwrapped in shrouds, Turning reproachful eyes upon his eyes, And asking dumbly, "Wherefore did we die, And spill the wine-filled goblets of our youth On barren soil that will not teem with birth?" That brides, like broken lilies whirled along By arrowy streams, glide past and sadly sob, "Thou'st mowed us down, and mowed us down in vain!"That infants thrill the silence with their wail, "Why are we fatherless, if fatherlandIs still denied?" And that his heartstrings quakeWith sobs of mothers' hearts that hopeless break?Strange that his purpose, that did seem so fair,With a white blaze of light around her head,Which fell like orient beams on nations' brows,Should wane before his terror-stricken eyes?And that in direst agony of soulHis noble nature tott'ring on her base,Should question if his deeds were rightful deeds?Stirred up by God's own living breath, or pushedBy hot ambition's ravenous desire?And if the aim that drew were but a dreamBy which his visionary youth was mocked,As travellers in the desert by the shineOf fair false waters?—At that torturing thoughtSmells of cold graves struck damp upon his brow,Till his wild eyes grew void, and limp his limbs,And he had dropped resistless in the jawsOf madness or of death! Hadst thou not come, perennial presence! brightAs Phosphorus in the dim morning skies!And poured thy morning sunbeams on his heart,And blown thy morning breezes on his soul,Till freshly born the world, and on him smiledWith eyes as tender as his mother's were,When sowing love upon his cradled self.Then back plucked he his purpose, fixed it firmIn iron steadfastness upon his soul,And called on faith, where with upturned eyesAbove the clouds she treads the mountain peaks,And on that love, which boundless as the sky,Stretches o'er all mankind its azured vault.Then rose he, set his trustful eyes on high,And set his heart among the lowly born:For in the vasty glimmerings of the dawnHe saw such visions of the things to be,Such heights of being ascended, and such loveAnd justice throning on the seats of men,That with unflagging steps he calmly trod The walks of martyrdom! Oh, crown his browsWith buds of those full summers of the race!
Mourns there an aged mother, lying lowUpon the lowly grave,Round which the autumn moans her mournful dirge,And shivering cadence of the shrunken leavesKeeps saddest measure with the wailing wind;While the pale glimm'rings of the waning moonFall in cold tears upon the unknown tomb,Beneath whose sod, washed by the ghastly mists,Lies he, her one sole flower, that on the breastOf life bloomed for her all the days and nights;In the midsummer of his lusty lifeDevoured by that grim beast, whose reeking breathIs saturated with the blood of man—The twin of pestilence—the foul firstbornOf her who spinneth in the nether gloomThe phantasms that turn mad the brains of men, And him whose savage lusts and greedy soulWould make his footstool on the necks of men!Oh here, even here like a stray beam of lightThat glides unscared in sacred tendernessAcross the heavy vapours, brooding blindIn shapeless masses o'er a joyless tarnDeep sunk in mountains,—even here the gleamOf thy gold hair makes music in the dark,Cradlest the head of grief on thy warm breast,Whisperest in tones sweeter than honeycombOf that new heaven where death shall be no more,Nor grief, nor crying, neither shall there beMore pain; for former things have passed away.And with thy wings of light around her soul,And with thy dewy eyes upon her heart,Death takes her gently like a cherubimBy the shrunk hand, and leads her to her rest.***** Oh Hope! thou consolation of the soul!Flash forth, and like a sun strike on the cloudsOf dull despondency, that pour their rainIn showers upon the sad heart's shivering soil;Flash forth, and force each drop e'en as it fallsTo glass thy loveliness, and on the cloudFrowning in dumb defiance, paint such bloomEtherial, that its blackness but becomesA foil on which thy brightness brighter beams,Till spanned with rainbow-glory the sad soulGlistens in glimmering smiles through all her tears,And life shone through by white eternity,Circled with calm as by a covenant,Is born in beauty of the bitter tears,Like Aphrodite from the salt sea waves.