Part 13

To-morrow, whispereth weakness: and To-morrow findeth him the weaker; To-morrow, promiseth conscience; and behold, no To-day for a fulfilment. O name of happy omen unto youth, O bitter word of terror to the dotard, Goal of folly's lazy wish, and sorrow's ever-coming friend; Fraud's loophole,--caution's hint,--and trap to catch the honest,-- Thou wealth to many poor, disgrace to many noble, Thou hope and fear, thou weal and woe, thou remedy, thou ruin, How thickly swarms of thought are clustering round To-morrow! The hive of memory increaseth, to every day its cell; There is the labour stored, the honey or corruption; Each morn the bees fly forth, to fill the growing comb, And levy golden tribute of the uncomplaining flowers: To-morrow is their care; they toil for rest to-morrow; But man deferreth duty's task, and loveth ease to-day.

To-morrow, is that lamp upon the marsh, which a traveller never reacheth; To-morrow, the rainbow's cup, coveted prize of ignorance; To-morrow, the shifting anchorage, dangerous trust of mariners; To-morrow, the wrecker's beacon, wily snare of the destroyer. Reconcile convictions with delay, and To-morrow is a fatal lie; Frighten resolutions into action, To-morrow is a wholesome truth: I must, for I fear To-morrow; this is the Cassava's food; Why should I? let me trust To-morrow,--this is the Cassava's poison.

Lo, it is the even of To-day,--a day so lately a To-morrow; Where are those high resolves, those hopes of yesternight? O faint fond heart, still shall thy whisper be, To-morrow, And must the growing avalanche of sin roll down that easy slope? Alas, it is ponderous, and moving on in might, that a Sisyphus may not stop it; But haste thee with the lever of a prayer, and stem its strength To-day: For its race may speedily be run, and this poor hut, thyself, Be whelmed in death and suffocating guilt, that dreary Alpine snow-wreath.

Pensioner of life, be wise, and heed a brother's counsel; I also am a beadsman, with scrip and staff as thou: Wouldest thou be bold against the past, and all its evil memories, Wouldest thou be safe amid the present, its dangers and temptations, Wouldest thou be hopeful of the future, vague though it be and endless? Haste thee, repent, believe, obey! thou standest in the courage of a legion. Commend the Past to God, with all its irrevocable harm, Humbly, but in cheerful trust, and banish vain regrets; Come to Him, continually come, casting all the Present at His feet, Boldly, but in prayerful love, and fling off selfish cares; Commit the Future to His will, the viewless fated future; Zealously go forward with integrity, and God will bless thy faith. For that, feeble as thou art, there is with thee a mighty Conqueror, Thy Friend, the same for ever, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow; That Friend, changeless as eternity, Himself shall make thee friends Of those thy foes transformed, yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow.

OF AUTHORSHIP.

Great is the dignity of Authorship: I magnify mine office; Albeit in much feebleness I hold it thus unworthily. For it is to be one of a noble band, the welfare of the world, Whose haunt is on the lips of men, whose dwelling in their hearts, Who are precious in the retrospect of Memory, and walk among the visions of Hope, Who commune with the good for everlasting, and call the wisest, brother, Whose voice hath burst the Silence, and whose light is flung upon the Darkness, --Flashing jewels on a robe of black, and harmony bounding out of chaos,-- Who gladden empires with their wisdom, and bless to the farthest generation, Doers of illimitable good, gainers of inestimable glory!-- We speak but of the Magnates, we heed none humbler than the highest, We take no count of sorry scribes, nor waste one thought upon the groundlings; Our eyes are lifted from the multitude, groping in the dark with candles, To gaze upon that firmament of praise, the constellated lamps of learning. Ever-during witnesses of Mind, undisputed evidence of Power, Goodly volumes, living stones, build up their author's temple; Though of low estate, his rank is above princes,--though needy, he hath worship of the rich, When Genius unfurleth on the winds his banner as a mighty leader. Just in purpose, and self-possessed in soul, lord of many talents, The mental Crœsus goeth forth, rejoicing in his wealth; Keen and clear perception gloweth on his forehead like a sunbeam, He readeth men at a glance, and mists roll away before him; The wise have set him as their captain, the foolish are rebuked at his presence, The excellent bless him with their prayers, and the wicked praise him by their curses; His voice, mighty in operation, stirreth up the world as a trumpet, And kings account it honour to be numbered of his friends.

Rare is the worthiness of authorship: I justify mine office; Albeit fancies weak as mine credit not the calling. For it addeth immortality to dying facts, that are ready to vanish away, Embalming as in amber the poor insects of an hour; Shedding upon stocks and stones the tender light of interest, And illumining dark places of the earth, with radiance of classic lustre. It hath power to make past things present, and availeth for the present in the future, Delivering thoughts, and words, and deeds, from the outer darkness of oblivion. Where are the sages and the heroes, giants of old time?-- Where are the mighty kings, that reigned before Agamemnon?-- Alas they lie unwept, unhonoured, hidden in the midnight: Alas, for they died unchronicled: their memorial perished with them. Where are the nobles of Nineveh, and mitred rulers of Babylon? Where are the lords of Edom, and the royal pontiffs of Thebais? The golden Satrap, and the Tetrarch,--the Hun, and the Druid, and the Celt? The merchant princes of Phœnicia, and the minds that fashioned Elephanta? Alas, for the poet hath forgotten them; and lo! they are outcasts of Memory; Alas, that they are withered leaves, sapless and fallen from the chaplet of fame. Speak, Etruria, whose bones be these, entombed with costly care,-- Tell out, Herculaneum, the titles that have sounded in those thy palaces,-- Lycian Xanthus, thy citadels are mute, and the honour of their architects hath died; Copan and Palenque, dreamy ruins in the West, the forest hath swallowed up your sculptures; Syracuse,--how silent of the past!--Carthage, thou art blotted from remembrance! Egypt, wondrous shores, ye are buried in the sand-hills of forgetfulness! Alas,--for in your glorious youth Time himself was young, And none durst wrestle with that Angel, iron-sinewed bridegroom of Space; So he flew by, strong upon the wing, nor dropped one failing feather, Wherewith some hoary scribe might register your honour and renown. Beyond the broad Atlantic, in the regions of the setting sun, Ask of the plume-crowned Incas, that ruled in old Peru,-- Ask of grand Caziques, and priests of the pyramids in Mexico,-- Ask of a thousand painted tribes, high nobility of Nature, Who, once, could roam their own Elysian plains, free, generous, and happy, Who, now, degraded and in exile, having sold their fatherland for nought, Sink and are extinguished in the western seas, even as the sun they follow,-- Where is the record of their deeds, their prowess worthy of Achilles, Nestor's wisdom, the chivalry of Manlius, the native eloquence of Cicero, The skill of Xenophon, the spirit of Alcibiades, the firmness of a Maccabæan mother, Brotherly love that Antigone might envy, the honour and the fortitude of Regulus? Alas, their glory and their praise have vanished like a summer cloud; Alas! that they are dead indeed; they are not written down in the Book of the living.

High is the privilege of Authorship: I purify mine office; Albeit earthy stains pollute it in my hands. For it is to the world a teacher and a guide, Mentor of that gay Telemachus; Warning, comforting, and helping,--a lover and friend of Man. Heaven's almoner, Earth's health, patient minister of goodness, With kind and zealous pen, the wise religious blesseth: Nature's worshipper, and neophyte of grace, rich in tender sympathies, With kindled soul and flashing eye, the poet poureth out his heartful: Priest of truth, champion of innocence, warder of the gates of praise, Carefully with sifting search laboureth the pale historian: Error's enemy, and acolyte of science, firm in sober argument, The calm philosopher marshalleth his facts, noting on his page their principles. These pour mercies upon men; and others, little less in honour, By cheerful wit and graphic tale refreshening the harassed spirit. But, there be other some beside, buyers and sellers in the temple, Who shame their high vocation, greedy of inglorious gain; There be, who fabricating books, heed of them meanly as of merchandise; And seek nor use, nor truth, nor fame, but sell their minds for lucre: O false brethren! ye wot indeed the labour, but are witless of the love; O lying prophets, chilled in soul, unquickened by the life of inspiration!-- And there be, who, frivolous and vain, seek to make others foolish, Snaring youth by loose sweet song, and age by selfish maxim; Cleverly heartless, and wittily profane, they swell the river of corruption: Brilliant satellites of sin,--my soul, be not found among their company. And there be, who, haters of religion, toil to prove it priestcraft, Owning none other aim nor hope, but to confound the good: Woe unto them! for their works shall live; yea, to their utter condemnation: Woe! for their own handwriting shall testify against them for ever.

Pure is the happiness of Authorship: I glorify mine office; Albeit lightly having sipped the cup of its lower pleasures. For it is to feel with a father's heart, when he yearneth on the child of his affections; To rejoice in a man's own miniature world, gladdened by its rare arrangement. The poem, is it not a fabric of mind? we love what we create: That choice and musical order,--how pleasant is the toil of composition! Yea, when the volume of the universe was blazoned out in beauty by its Author, God was glad, and blessed His work; for it was very good. And shall not the image of his Maker be happy in his own mind's doing, Looking on the structure he hath reared, gratefully with sweet complacence? Shall not the Minerva of his brain, panoplied and perfect in proportions, Gladden the soul and give light unto the eyes, of him the travailing parent? Go to the sculptor, and ask him of his dreams,--wherefore are his nights so moonlit? Angel faces, and beautiful shapes, fascinate the pale Pygmalion: Go to the painter, and trace his reveries,--wherefore are his days so sunny? Choice design, and skilful colouring, charm the flitting hours of Parrhasius: Even so, walking in his buoyancy, intoxicate with fairy fancies, The young enthusiast of authorship goeth on his way rejoicing: Behold,--he is gallantly attended; legions of thrilling thoughts Throng about the standard of his mind, and call his Will their captain; Behold,--his court is as a monarch's; ideas, and grand imaginations Swell, with gorgeous cavalcade, the splendour of his Spiritual State; Behold,--he is delicately served: for oftentimes, in solitary calmness, Some mental fair Egeria smileth on her Numa's worship; Behold,--he is happy; there is gladness in his eye, and his heart is a sealed fountain, Bounding secretly with joys unseen, and keeping down its ecstasy of pleasure!

Yea: how dignified, and worthy, full of privilege and happiness, Standeth in majestic independence the self-ennobled Author! For God hath blessed him with a mind, and cherished it in tenderness and purity, Hath taught it in the whisperings of wisdom, and added all the riches of content: Therefore, leaning on his God, a pensioner for soul and body, His spirit is the subject of none other, calling no man Master. His hopes are mighty and eternal, scorning small ambitions: He hideth from the pettiness of praise, and pitieth the feebleness of envy. If he meet honours, well; it may be his humility to take them: If he be rebuked, better; his veriest enemy shall teach him. For the master-mind hath a birthright of eminence; his cradle is an eagle's eyrie: Need but to wait till his wings are grown, and Genius soareth to the sun: To creeping things upon the mountain leaveth he the gradual ascent, Resting his swiftness on the summit only for a higher flight. Glad in clear good-conscience, lightly doth he look for commendation; What, if the prophet lacketh honour? for he can spare that praise: The honest giant careth not to be patted on the back by pigmies; Flatter greatness, he brooketh it good-humouredly: blame him,--thou tiltest at a pyramid: Yet, just censure of the good never can he hear without contrition; Neither would he miss one wise man's praise, for scarce is that jewel and costly: Only for the herd of common minds, and the vulgar trumpetings of fame, If aught he heedeth in the matter, his honour is sought in their neglect. Slender is the marvel, and little is the glory, when round his luscious fruits The worm and the wasp and the multitude of flies are gathered as to banquet; Fashion's freak, and the critical sting, and the flood of flatteries he scorneth; Cheerfully asking of the crowd the favour to forget him: The while his blooming fruits ripen in richer fragrance, A feast for the few,--and the many yet unborn,--who still shall love their savour.

So then, humbly with his God, and proudly independent of his fellows, Walketh, in pleasures multitudinous, the man ennobled by his pen: He hath built up, glorious architect, a monument more durable than brass; His children's children shall talk of him in love, and teach their sons his honour: His dignity hath set him among princes, the universe is debtor to his worth, His privilege is blessing for ever, his happiness shineth now, For he standeth of that grand Election, each man one among a thousand, Whose sound is gone out into all lands, and their words to the end of the world!

OF MYSTERY.

All things being are in mystery; we expound mysteries by mysteries; And yet the secret of them all is one in simple grandeur: All intricate, yet each path plain, to those who know the way; All unapproachable, yet easy of access, to them that hold the key: We walk among labyrinths of wonder, but thread the mazes with a clue; We sail in chartless seas, but behold! the pole-star is above us. For, counting down from God's good will, thou meltest every riddle into Him, The axiom of reason is an undiscovered God, and all things live in His ubiquity: There is only one great secret; but that one hideth everywhere; How should the infinite be understood in Time, when it stretcheth on ungrasped for ever? Can a halting Œdipus of earth guess that enigma of the universe? Not one: the sword of faith must cut the Gordian knot of nature.

God, pervading all, is in all things the mystery of each; The wherefore of its character and essence, the fountain of its virtues and its beauties. The child asketh of its mother,--Wherefore is the violet so sweet? The mother answereth her babe,--Darling, God hath willed it. And sages, diving into science, have but a profundity of words; They track for some few links the circling chain of consequence, And then, after doubts and disputations, are left where they began, At the bald conclusion of a clown, things are because they are. Wherefore are the meadows green, is it not to gratify the eye? But why should greenness charm the eye? such is God's good will. Wherefore is the ear attuned to a pleasure in musical sounds, And who set a number to those sounds, and fixed the laws of harmony? Who taught the bird to build its nest, or lent the shrub its life, Or poised in the balances of order the power to attract and to repel? Who continueth the worlds, and the sea, and the heart, in motion? Who commanded gravitation to tie down all upon its sphere?-- For, even as a limestone cliff is an aggregate of countless shells, One riddle concrete of many, a mystery compact of mysteries, So God, cloud-capped in immensity, standeth the cohesion of all things, And secrets, sublimely indistinct, permeate that Universe, Himself; As is the whole, so are the parts, whether they be mighty or minute, The sun is not more unexplained than the tissue of an emmet's wing.

Thus then, omnipresent Deity worketh His unbiassed mind, A mind, one in moral, but infinitely multiplied in means: And the uniform prudence of His will cometh to be counted law, Till mutable man fancieth volition stirring in the potter's clay: God, a wise father, showeth not His reasons to His babes; But willeth in secresy and goodness: for causes generate dispute: Then we, His darkling children, watch that invariable purpose, And invest the passive creature with its Maker's energy and skill: Therefore, they of old time stopped short of God in idols, Therefore, in these latter days, we heed not the Jehovah in His works. Mystery is God's great name; He is the mystery of goodness: Some other, from the hierarchs of heaven, usurped the mystery of sin. God is the King, yea even of Himself; He crowned Himself with holiness; The burning circlet of iniquity another found and wore. God is separate, even from His attributes; but He willed eternally the good; Therefore freely, though unchangeably, is wise, righteous, and loving: But ambition, open unto angels, saw the evil, flung aside from the beginning, It was Lucifer that saw, and nothing loathed those black unclaimed regalia, So he coveted and stole, to be counted for a king, antagonist of God, But when he touched the leprous robes, behold! a cheated traitor.

For self-existence, charactered with love, with power, wisdom, and ubiquity, Could not dwell alone, but willed and worked creation. Thus, in continual exhalation, darkening the void with matter, Sprang from prolific Deity the creatures of His skill. And beings living on His breath, were needfully less perfect than Himself, Therefore less capable of bliss, whereat His benevolence was bounded; So, to make the capability expand, intensely progressive to eternity, He suffered darkness to illustrate the light, and pain to heighten pleasure: To heap up happiness on souls He loved, allowed He sin and sorrow, And then to guilt and grief and shame, He brought unbidden amnesty: Sinless, none had been redeemed, nor wrapt again in God: Sorrowless, no conflict had been known, and Heaven had been mulcted of its comfort: Yea, with evil unexhibited, probationary toils unfelt, Men had not appreciated good, nor angels valued their security. Herein, to reason's eye, is revealed the mystery of goodness, Blessing through permitted woe, and teaching by the mystery of sin.

O Christian, whose chastened curiosity loveth things mysterious, Accounting them shadows and eclipses of Him the one great light, Look now, satisfied with faith, on minds that judge by sense, And, dull from contemplating matter, take small heed of spirit. Toiling feebly upward, their argument tracketh from below, They catch the latest consequent, and prove the nearest cause: What is this? that a seed produced a seed, and so for a thousand seasons; Ascend a thousand steps, thy ladder leaveth thee in air: Thou canst not climb to God, and short of Him is nothing; There is no cause for aught we see, but in His present will. Begin from the Maker, thou carriest down His attributes to reptiles, The sharded beetle and the lizard live and move in Him: Begin from the creature, corruption and infirmity mar thy foolish toil, Heap Ossa on Olympus, how much art thou nearer to the stars? It is easy running from a mountain's top down to the valleys at its foot, But difficult and steep the laborious ascent, and feebly shalt thou reach it: Yet man, beginning from himself, that first deluding mystery, Hopeth from the pit of lies to struggle up to truth; So, taxing knowledge to its strength, he pusheth one step further, And fancieth complacently that much is done by reaching a remote effect: Then he maketh answer to himself, as a silly nurse to her little one, Evading, in a mist of words, hard things he cannot solve; Till, like an ostrich in the desert, he burieth his head in atoms, Thinking that, if he is blind, no sun can shine in heaven.

Therefore cometh it to pass, that an atheist is ever the most credulous, Snatching at any foolish cause, that may dispel his doubts; And, even as it were for ridicule, a spectacle for men and angels, The captious and cautious unbeliever is of all men weakest to believe: Cut from the anchorage of God, his bark is a plaything of the billows; The compass of his principle is broken, the rudder of his faith unshipped: Chance and Fate, in a stultified antagonism, govern all for him; Truth sprang from the conflict of falsities, and the multitude of accidents hath bred design! Where is the imposture so gross, that shall not entrap his curiosity? What superstition is so abject, that it doth not blanch his cheek? Whereof can he be sure, with whom Chaos is substitute for Order? How should his silly structure stand, a pyramid built upon its apex?-- Yea, I have seen grey-headed men, the bastard slips of science, Go for light to glow-worms, while they scorn the sun at noon: Men, who fear no God, trembling at a gipsy's curse, Men, who jest at revelation, clinging to a madman's prophecy!

There is a pleasing dread in the fashion of all mysteries, For hope is mixed therein and fear; who shall divine their issues? Even the orphan, wandering by night, lost on dreary moors, Is sensible of some vague bliss amidst his shapeless terrors; The buoyancy of instant expectation, spurring on the mind to venture, Overbeareth, in its energy, the cramp and the chill of apprehension. There is a solitary pride, when the heart, in new importance, Writeth gladly on its archives, the secrets none other men have seen: And there is a caged terror, evermore wrestling with the mind, When crime hath whispered his confession, and the secrets are written there in blood: The village maiden is elated at the tenderly confided tale: The bandit's wife with sickening fear guessed the premeditated murder: The sage, with triumph on his brow, hideth up his deep discovery; The idlest clown shall delve all day, to find a hidden treasure.

For mystery is man's life; we wake to the whisperings of novelty: And what, though we lie down disappointed? we sleep, to wake in hope. The letter, or the news, the chances and the changes, matters that may happen, Sweeten or embitter daily life with the honey-gall of mystery. For we walk blindfold,--and a minute may be much,--a step may reach the precipice; What earthly loss, what heavenly gain, may not this day produce? Levelled of Alps and Andes, without its valleys and ravines, How dull the face of earth, unfeatured of both beauty and sublimity: And so, shorn of mystery, beggared in its hopes and fears, How flat the prospect of existence, mapped by intuitive foreknowledge. Praise God, creature of earth, for the mercies linked with secresy, That spices of uncertainty enrich the cup of life; Praise God, His hosts on high, for the mysteries that make all joy; What were intelligence with nothing more to learn, or heaven, in eternity of sameness?