Part 18

Keep silence, daughter of frivolity,--for Death is in that chamber! Startle not with echoing sound the strangely solemn peace. Death is here in spirit, watcher of a marble corpse,-- That eye is fixed, that heart is still,--how dreadful in its stillness! Death, new tenant of the house, pervadeth all the fabric; He waiteth at the head, and he standeth at the feet, and hideth in the caverns of the breast: Death, subtle leech, hath anatomized soul from body, Dissecting well in every nerve its spirit from its substance: Death, rigid lord, hath claimed the heriot clay, While joyously the youthful soul hath gone to take his heritage: Death, cold usurer, hath seized his bonded debtor; Death, savage despot, hath caught his forfeit serf; Death, blind foe, wreaketh petty vengeance on the flesh; Death, fell cannibal, gloateth on his victim, And carrieth it with him to the grave, that dismal banquet-hall, Where in foul state the Royal Goul holdeth secret orgies.

Hide it up, hide it up, draw the decent curtain: Hence! curious fool, and pry not on corruption: For the fearful mysteries of change are being there enacted, And many actors play their part on that small stage, the tomb. Leave the clay, that leprous thing, touch not the fleshly garment: Dust to dust, it mingleth well among the sacred soil: It is scattered by the winds, it is wafted by the waves, it mixeth with herbs and cattle, But God hath watched those morsels, and hath guided them in care: Each waiting soul must claim his own, when the archangel soundeth, And all the fields, and all the hills, shall move a mass of life; Bodies numberless crowding on the land, and covering the trampled sea, Darkening the air precipitate, and gathered scatheless from the fire; The Himalayan peaks shall yield their charge, and the desolate steppes of Siberia, The Maelström disengulph its spoil, and the iceberg manumit its captive: All shall teem with life, the converging fragments of humanity, Till every conscious essence greet his individual frame; For in some dignified similitude, alike, yet different in glory, This body shall be shaped anew, fit dwelling for the soul: The hovel hath grown to a palace, the bulb hath burst into the flower, Matter hath put on incorruption, and is at peace with spirit.

Amen,--and so it shall be:--but now, the scene is drear,-- Yea, though promises and hope strive to cheat its sadness; Full of grief, though faith herself is strong to speed the soul, For the partner of its toil is left behind to endure an ordeal of change. Dear partner, dear and frail, my loved though humble home,-- Should I cast thee off without a pang, as a garment flung aside? Many years, for joy and sorrow, have I dwelt in thee, How shall I be reckless of thy weal, nor hope for thy perfection?-- This also, He that lent thee for my uses in mortality, Shall well fulfil with boundless praise on that returning day: Behold, thou shalt be glorified: thou, mine abject friend, And should I meanly scorn thy state, until it rise to greatness? Far be it, O my soul, from thine expectant essence, To be heedless, if indignity or folly desecrate those thine ashes: Keep them safe with careful love; and let the mound be holy; And, thou that passest by, revere the waiting dead.

Naples sitteth by the sea, key-stone of an arch of azure, Crowned by consenting nations peerless queen of gaiety: She laugheth at the wrath of Ocean, she mocketh the fury of Vesuvius, She spurneth disease and misery and famine, that crowd her sunny streets: The giddy dance, the merry song, the festal glad procession, The noonday slumber and the midnight serenade,--all these make up her Life: Her Life?--and what her Death?--look we to the end of life,-- Solon, and Tellus the Athenian, wisely have ye pointed to the grave. For behold yon dreary precinct,--those hundreds of stone wells, A pit for a day, a pit for a day,--a pit to be sealed for a year: And in the gloom of night, they raise the year-closed lid,-- Look in,--for gnawing lime hath half consumed the carcases; Thus they hurl the daily dead into that horrible pit, The dead that only died this day,--as unconsidered offal! There, a stark white heap, unwept, unloved, uncared for, Old men and maidens, young men and infants, mingle in hideous corruption; Fling in the gnawing lime,--seal up the charnel for a year; For lo, a morrow's dawn hath tinged the mountain summit. O fair false city, thou gay and gilded harlot, Woe, for thy wanton heart, woe, for thy wicked hardness: Woe unto thee, that the lightsomeness of Life, beneath Italian suns, Should meet the solemnity of Death, in a sepulchre so foul and fearful.

For that, even to the best, the wise and pure and pious, Death, repulsive king, thine iron rule is terrible: Yea, and even at the best, in company of buried kindred, With hallowing rites, and friendly tears, and the dear old country church, Death, cold and lonely, thy frigid face is hateful, The bravest look on thee with dread, the humblest curse thy coming. Still, ye unwise among mankind, your foolishness hath added fears; The crowded cemetery, the catacomb of bones, the pestilential vault, With fancy's gliding ghost at eve, her moans and flaky footfalls, And the gibbering train of terror to fright your coward hearts. We speak not here of sin, nor the phantoms of a bloody conscience, Nor of solaces, and merciful pardon: we heed but the inevitable grave; The grave, that wage of guilt, that due return to dust, The grave, that goal of earth, and starting-post for Heaven.

Plant it with laurels, sprinkle it with lilies, set it upon yonder dewy hill Midst holy prayers, and generous griefs, and consecrating blessings: Let Sophocles sleep among his ivy, green perennial garlands, Let olives shade their Virgil, and roses bloom above Corinne; To his foster-mother, Ocean, entrust the mariner in hope; The warrior's spirit, let it rise on high from the flaming fragrant pyre. But heap not coffins and corruption to infect the mass of living, Nor steal from odious realities the charitable poetry of Death: It is wise to gild uncomeliness, it is wise to mask necessity, It is wise from cheerful sights and sounds to draw their gentle uses: Hide the facts, the bitter facts, the foul, and fearful facts, Tend the body well in hope, this were praise and wisdom: But to plunge in gloom the parting soul, that hath loved its clay tenement so long, This were vanity and folly, the counsel of moroseness and despair. Not thus, the Scythian of old time welcomed Death with songs; Not thus, the shrewd Egyptian decorated Death with braveries; Not thus, on his funeral tower sleepeth the sun-worshipping Parsee; Not thus, the Moslem saint lieth in his arabesque mausoleum; Not thus, the wild red Indian, hunter of the far Missouri, In flowering trees hath nested up his forest-loving ancestry; Not thus, the Switzer mountaineer scattereth ribboned garlands About the rustic cross that halloweth the bed of his beloved; Not thus, the village maiden wisheth she may die in spring, With store of violets and cowslips to be sprinkled on her snow-white shroud; Not thus, the dying poet asketh a cheerful grave,-- Lay him in the sunshine, friends, nor sorrow that a Christian hath departed!

Yea; it is the poetry of Death, an Orpheus gladdening Hadës, To care with mindful love for all so dear--and dead; To think of them in hope, to look for them in joy, and--but for its simple vanity,-- To pray with all the earnestness of nature for souls who cannot change. For the tree is felled, and boughed, and bare, and the Measurer standeth with His line; The chance is gone for ever, and is past the reach of prayer: For men and angels, good and ill, have rendered all their witness; The trial is over, the jury are gone in, and none can now be heard; Well are they agreed upon the verdict, just, and fixt, and final, And the sentence showeth clear, before the Judge hath spoken: Now,--while resting matter is at peace within the tomb, The conscious spirit watcheth in unspeakable suspense; Racked with a fearful looking-forward, or blissfully feeding on the foretaste, Waiting souls in eager expectation pass the solemn interval: They slumber not at death, but awaken, quickened to the terrors of the judgment; They lie not insensate among darkness, but exult, looking forward to the light: Idiotcy, brightening on the instant, when that veil is torn, Is grateful that his torpor here hath left him as an innocent: The young child, stricken as he played, and guileless babes unborn, Freed from fetters of the flesh, burst into mind immediate: Madness judgeth wisely, and the visions of the lunatic are gone, And each hasteneth to praise the mercy that made him irresponsible. For the soul is one, though manifold in act, working the machinery of brain, Reason, fancy, conscience, passion, are but varying phases; If, in God's wise purpose, the machine were shattered or confused, Still is soul the same, though it exhibit with a difference: Therefore, dissipate the brain, and set its inmate free, Behold, the maniacs and embryos stand in their place intelligent. That solvent eateth away all dross, leaving the gold intact: Matter lingereth in the retort, spirit hath flown to the receiver: And lo, that recipient of the spirits, it is some aerial world, An oasis midway on the desert space, separating earth from heaven, A prison-house for essences incorporate, a limbus vague and wide, Tartarus for evil, and Paradise for good, that intermediate Hadës.

O Death, what art thou? a Lawgiver that never altereth, Fixing the consummating seal, whereby the deeds of life become established: O Death, what art thou? a stern and silent usher, Leading to the judgment for Eternity, after the trial-scene of Time: O Death, what art thou? an Husbandman, that reapeth always, Out of season, as in season, with the sickle in his hand: O Death, what art thou? the shadow unto every substance, In the bower as in the battle, haunting night and day: O Death, what art thou? Nurse of dreamless slumbers Freshening the fevered flesh to a wakefulness eternal: O Death, what art thou? strange and solemn Alchymist, Elaborating life's elixir from these clayey crucibles: O Death, what art thou? Antitype of Nature's marvels, The seed and dormant chrysalis bursting into energy and glory. Thou calm safe anchorage for the shattered hulls of men,-- Thou spot of gelid shade, after the hot-breathed desert,-- Thou silent waiting-hall, where Adam meeteth with his children,-- How full of dread, how full of hope, loometh inevitable Death: Of dread, for all have sinned; of hope, for One hath saved; The dread is drowned in joy, the hope is filled with immortality! --Pass along, pilgrim of life, go to thy grave unfearing, The terrors are but shadows now, that haunt the vale of Death.

OF IMMORTALITY.

Gird up thy mind to contemplation, trembling inhabitant of earth; Tenant of a hovel for a day,--thou art heir of the universe for ever! For, neither congealing of the grave, nor gulphing waters of the firmament, Nor expansive airs of heaven, nor dissipative fires of Gehenna, Nor rust of rest, nor wear, nor waste, nor loss, nor chance, nor change, Shall avail to quench or overwhelm the spark of soul within thee!

Thou art an imperishable leaf on the evergreen bay-tree of Existence; A word from Wisdom's mouth, that cannot be unspoken; A ray of Love's own light; a drop in Mercy's sea; A creature, marvellous and fearful, begotten by the fiat of Omnipotence. I, that speak in weakness, and ye, that hear in charity, Shall not cease to live and feel, though flesh must see corruption; For the prison-gates of matter shall be broken, and the shackled soul go free, Free, for good or ill, to satisfy its appetence for ever: For ever,--dreadful doom, to be hurried on eternally to evil,-- For ever,--happy fate, to ripen into perfectness--for ever!

And is there a thought within thy heart, O slave of sin and fear, A black and harmful hope, that erring spirit dieth? That primal disobedience hath ensured the death of soul, And separate evil sealed it thine--thy curse, Annihilation? Heed thou this; there is a Sacrifice; the Maker is Redeemer of His creature; Freely unto each, universally to all, is restored the privilege of essence: Whether unto grace or guilt, all must live through Him, Live in vital joy, or live in dying woe: Death in Adam, Life in Christ; the curse hung upon the cross: Who art thou that heedest of redemption, as narrower than the fall? All were dead,--He died for all; that living, they might love; If living souls withhold their love,--still, He hath died for them. Eve stole the knowledge; Christ gave the life: Knowledge and life are the perquisites of soul, the privilege of Man: Mercy stepped between, and stayed the double theft; God gave; and giving, bought; and buying, asketh love: And in such asking rendereth bliss, to all that hear and answer, For love with life is heaven; and life unloving, hell.

Creature of God, His will is for thy weal, eternally progressing; Fear not to trust a Maker's love, nor a Saviour's ransom: He drank for all,--for thee, and me,--the poison of our deeds; We shall not die, but live,--and, of His grace, we love. For, in the mysteries of Mercy, the One fore-knowing Spirit Outstrippeth reason's halting choice, and winneth men to Him: Who shall sound the depths? who shall reach the heights? Freedom, in the gyves of fate; and sovereignty, reconciled with justice.

If then, as annihilate by sin, the soul was ever forfeit, Godhead paid the mighty price, the pledge hath been redeemed: He from the waters of Oblivion raised the drowning race, Lifting them even to Himself, the baseless Rock of Ages. None can escape from Adam's guilt, or second Adam's guerdon: Sin and death are thine; thine also is interminable being: Let it be even as thou wilt, still are we ransomed from nonentity, The worlds of bliss and woe are peopled with immortals: And ruin is thy blame; for thou, the worst, art free To take from Heaven the grace of love, as the gift of life: Yet is not remedy thy praise; for thou, the best, art bound In self, and sin, and darkling sloth, until He break the chain: None can tell, without a struggle, if that chain be broken; Strive to-day,--one effort more may prove that thou art free! Here is faith and prayer, here is the Grace and the Atonement, Here is the creature feeling for its God, and the prodigal returning to his Father. But, behold, His reasonable children, standing in just probation, With ears to hear, neglect; with eyes to see, refuse: They will not have the blessing with the life, the blessing that enricheth Immortality; And look for pleasures out of God, for heaven in life alone: So, they snatch that awful prize, existence void of love, And in their darkening exile make a needful hell of self.

Therefore fear, thou sinner, lest the huge blessing, Immortality, Be blighted in thine evil to a curse,--it were better he had not been born: Therefore hope, thou saint, for the gift of Immortality is free; Take and live, and live in love; fear not, thou art redeemed! The happy life, that height of hope, the knowledge of all good, This is the blessing on obedience, obedience the child of faith: The miserable life, that depth of all despair, the knowledge of all evil, This is the curse upon impenitence, impenitence that sprung of unbelief. God, from a beautiful necessity, is Love in all He doeth, Love, a brilliant fire, to gladden or consume: The wicked work their woe by looking upon love, and hating it: The righteous find their joys in yearning on its loveliness for ever.

Who shall imagine Immortality, or picture its illimitable prospect? How feebly can a faltering tongue express the vast idea! For consider the primæval woods that bristle over broad Australia, And count their autumn leaves, millions multiplied by millions; Thence look up to a moonless sky from a sleeping isle of the Ægæan, And add to these leaves yon starry host, sparkling on the midnight numberless; Thence traverse an Arabia, some continent of eddying sand, Gather each grain, let none escape, add them to the leaves and to the stars; Afterward gaze upon the sea, the thousand leagues of an Atlantic, Take drop by drop, and add their sum, to the grains, and leaves, and stars; The drops of ocean, the desert sands, the leaves, and stars innumerable, (Albeit, in that multitude of multitudes, each small unit were an age,) All might reckon for an instant, a transient flash of Time, Compared with this intolerable blaze, the measureless enduring of Eternity!

O grandest gift of the Creator,--O largess worthy of a God,-- Who shall grasp that thrilling thought, life and joy for ever? For the sun in heaven's heaven is Love that cannot change, And the shining of that sun is life, to all beneath its beams: Who shall arrest it in the firmament,--or drag it from its sphere? Or bid its beauty smile no more, but be extinct for ever? Yea, where God hath given, none shall take away, Nor build up limits to His love, nor bid His bounty cease; Wide, as space is peopled, endless as the empire of heaven, The river of the water of life floweth on in majesty for ever!

Why should it seem a thing impossible to thee, O man of many doubts, That God shall wake the dead, and give this mortal immortality? Is it that such riches are unsearchable, the bounty too profuse? And yet, what gift, to cease or change, is worthy of the King Almighty? For remember the moment thou art not, thou mightest as well not have been; A millennium and an hour are equal in the gulph of that desolate abyss, annihilation: If Adam had existed till to-day, and to-day had perished utterly, What were his gain in length of a life, that hath passed away for ever? No tribute of thanks can exhale from the empty censer of nonentity; The Giver, with His gift reclaimed, is mulcted of all praise.

Tell me, ye that strive in vain to cramp and dwarf the soul, Wherefore should it cease to be, and when shall essence die? It is,--and therefore shall be, till just obstacle opposeth: Show no cause for change, and reason leaneth to continuance. The body verily shall change; this curious house we live in Never had continuing stay, but changeth every instant: But the spiritual tenant of the house abideth in unalterable consciousness, He may fly to many lands, but cannot flee himself. The soil wherein ye drop the seed, by suns or rains may vary; But the seed is the same; and soul is the seed; and flesh but its anchorage to earth.

The machine may be broken, and rust corrode the springs: but can rust feed on motion? Worms may batten on the brain: but can worms gnaw the mind? Dynamics are, and dwell apart, though matter be not made; Spirit is, and can be separate, though a body were not: Power is one, be it lever, screw, or wedge; but it needeth these for illustration: Mind is one, be it casual or ideal; but it is shown in these. The creature is constructed individual, for trial of his reasonable will, Clay and soul, commingled wisely, mingled not confused: As power is not in the spring, till somewhat give it action, So, until spirit be infused, the organism lieth inergetic.

Or shalt thou say that mind is the delicate offspring of matter, The bright consummate flower that must perish with its leaf? Go to: doth weight breed lightness? is freedom the atmosphere of prisons? When did the body elevate, expand, and bud the mind? Lo, a red-hot cinder flung from the furnaces of Ætna,-- There is fire in that ash; but did the pumice make it? Nay, cold clod, never canst thou generate a flame, Nay, most exquisite machinery, nevermore elaborate a mind: Rather do ye battle and contend, opposite the one to the other; Till God shall stop the strife, and call the body colleague.

Garment of flesh, and art thou then a vest, so tinged with subtle poison, (Maddening tunic of the centaur,) as to kill the soul? Not so: fruit of disobedience, rot in dissolution, as thou must,-- The seed is in the core, its germ is safe, and life is in that germ: Moreover, Marah shall be sweetened; and a Good Physician Yet shall heal those gangrene wounds, the spotted plague of sin: He, through worldly trials, and the separative cleansing of the grave, Shall change its corruptible to glory, and wash that garment white.

Still, is the whisper in thy heart, that oftenest the bed of death Seemeth but a sluggish ebb, of sinking soul and body? Mind dwelling, long-time, sensual in the chambers of the flesh, May slumber on in conscious sloth, and wilfully be dulled: But is it therefore nigh to dissolution, even as the body of this death? Ask the stricken conscience, gasping out its terrors; Ask the dying miser, loth to leave his gold; Ask the widowed poor, confiding her fatherless to strangers; Ask the martyr-maid, a broken reed so strong, That weak and tortured frame, with triumph on its brow!-- O thou gainsayer, the finger of disease may seem to reach the soul, But it is a spiritual touch, sympathy with that which aileth: Pain or fear may dislocate and shatter this delicate machinery of nerves; But madness proveth mind: the fault is in the engine, not the impetus: Dissipate the mists of matter, lo, the soul is clear: Timour's cage bowed it in the dust; but now it goeth forth a freedman.

Yet more, there is reason in moralities, that the soul must live; If God be king in heaven, or have care for earth. Can wickedness have triumphed with impunity, or virtue toiled unseen? Shall cruelty torture unavenged, and the innocent complain unheard? Is there no recompense for woe, must there be no other world for justice,-- No hope in setting suns of good, nor terror for the evil at its zenith? How shall ye make answer unto this; a just God prospering iniquity, Wisdom encouraging the foolish, and goodness abetting the depraved!

Yet again; mine erring brother, pardon this abundance of my speech, Yield me thy candour and thy charity, listening with a welcome: For, even now, a thousand thoughts are trooping to my theme; O mighty theme, O feeble thoughts! Alas! who is sufficient? Judge not so high a cause by these poor words alone, For lo, the advocate hath little skill: pardon and pass on: Certify thyself with surer proofs; fledge thine own mind for flight; Think, and pray; those better proofs shall follow on with holy aspiration. Yet in my humbler grade to help thy weal and comfort, Thy weal for this and higher worlds, and comfort in thy sickness, Suffer the multitude of fancies, walking with me still in love; But tread in fear, it is holy ground,--remember, Immortality!

Wilt thou argue from infirmities, thine abject evil state, As how should stricken wretched man indeed exist for ever: The brutal and besotted, the savage and the slave, the sucking infant and the idiot, The mass of mean and common minds, and all to be immortal?-- Consider every beginning, how small it is and feeble: Ganges, and the rolling Mississippi sprung of brooks among the mountains; The Yew-tree of a thousand years was once a little seed, And Nero's marble Rome, a shepherd's mud-built hovel: A speck is on the tropic sky, and it groweth to the terrible tornado; An apple, all too fair to see, destroyed a world of souls: A tender babe is born,--it is Attila, scourge of the nations! A seeming malefactor dieth,--it is Jesus, the Saviour of men!