The Pilgrims of the Rhine | Page 5

Space hath no record where the mist hath been. Boots it to us if
Shakspeare erred like man? Why idly question that most mystic life?
Eno' the giver in his gifts to scan; To bless the sheaves with which thy
fields are rife, Nor, blundering, guess through what obstructive clay
The glorious corn-seed struggled up to day.

V.
THE IDEAL IS NOT CONFINED TO POETS.--ALGERNON
SIDNEY RECOGNIZES HIS IDEAL IN LIBERTY, AND BELIEVES
IN ITS TRIUMPH WHERE THE MERE PRACTICAL MAN COULD
BEHOLD BUT ITS RUINS; YET LIBERTY IN THIS WORLD
MUST EVER BE AN IDEAL, AND THE LAND THAT IT
PROMISES CAN BE FOUND BUT IN DEATH.
But not to you alone, O Sons Of Song, The wings that float the loftier
airs along. Whoever lifts us from the dust we are, Beyond the sensual
to spiritual goals; Who from the MOMENT and the SELF afar By
deathless deeds allures reluctant souls, Gives the warm life to what the
Limner draws,-- Plato but thought what godlike Cato was.* Recall the
Wars of England's giant-born, Is Elyot's voice, is Hampden's death in
vain? Have all the meteors of the vernal morn But wasted light upon a
frozen main? Where is that child of Carnage, Freedom, flown? The
Sybarite lolls upon the martyr's throne. Lewd, ribald jests succeed to
solemn zeal; And things of silk to Cromwell's men of steel. Cold are

the hosts the tromps of Ireton thrilled, And hushed the senates Vane's
large presence filled. In what strong heart doth the old manhood dwell?
Where art thou, Freedom? Look! in Sidney's cell! There still as stately
stands the living Truth, Smiling on age as it had smiled on youth. Her
forts dismantled, and her shrines o'erthrown, The headsman's block her
last dread altar-stone, No sanction left to Reason's vulgar hope, Far
from the wrecks expands her prophet's scope. Millennial morns the
tombs of Kedron gild, The hands of saints the glorious walls rebuild,--
Till each foundation garnished with its gem, High o'er Gehenna flames
Jerusalem! O thou blood-stained Ideal of the free, Whose breath is
heard in clarions,--Liberty! Sublimer for thy grand illusions past, Thou
spring'st to Heaven,--Religion at the last. Alike below, or
commonwealths or thrones, Where'er men gather some crushed victim
groans; Only in death thy real form we see, All life is bondage,--souls
alone are free. Thus through the waste the wandering Hebrews went,
Fire on the march, but cloud upon the tent. At last on Pisgah see the
prophet stand, Before his vision spreads the PROMISED LAND; But
where revealed the Canaan to his eye?-- Upon the mountain he ascends
to die.
* What Plato thought, and godlike Cato was.--POPE.

VI.
YET ALL HAVE TWO ESCAPES INTO THE IDEAL WORLD;
NAMELY, MEMORY AND HOPE.--EXAMPLE OF HOPE IN
YOUTH, HOWEVER EXCLUDED FROM ACTION AND
DESIRE.--NAPOLEON'S SON.
Yet whatsoever be our bondage here, All have two portals to the
phantom sphere. What hath not glided through those gates that ope
Beyond the Hour, to MEMORY or to HOPE! Give Youth the
Garden,--still it soars above, Seeks some far glory, some diviner love.
Place Age amidst the Golgotha,--its eyes Still quit the graves, to rest
upon the skies; And while the dust, unheeded, moulders there, Track
some lost angel through cerulean air.
Lo! where the Austrian binds, with formal chain, The crownless son of
earth's last Charlemagne,-- Him, at whose birth laughed all the violet
vales (While yet unfallen stood thy sovereign star, O Lucifer of
nations). Hark, the gales Swell with the shout from all the hosts, whose

war Rended the Alps, and crimsoned Memphian Nile,-- "Way for the
coming of the Conqueror's Son: Woe to the Merchant-Carthage of the
Isle! Woe to the Scythian ice-world of the Don! O Thunder Lord, thy
Lemnian bolts prepare, The Eagle's eyry hath its eagle heir!" Hark, at
that shout from north to south, gray Power Quails on its weak,
hereditary thrones; And widowed mothers prophesy the hour Of future
carnage to their cradled sons. What! shall our race to blood be thus
consigned, And Ate claim an heirloom in mankind? Are these red lots
unshaken in the urn? Years pass; approach, pale Questioner, and learn
Chained to his rock, with brows that vainly frown, The fallen Titan
sinks in darkness down! And sadly gazing through his gilded grate,
Behold the child whose birth was as a fate! Far from the land in which
his life began; Walled from the healthful air of hardy man; Reared by
cold hearts, and watched by jealous eyes, His guardians jailers, and his
comrades spies. Each trite convention courtly fears inspire To stint
experience and to dwarf desire; Narrows the action to a puppet stage,
And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage. On the dejected brow and
smileless cheek, What weary thought the