Oft I remember those whom I have known In other days, to whom my heart was led As by a magnet, and who are not dead, But absent, and their memories overgrown With other thoughts and troubles of my own, As graves with grasses are, and at their head The stone with moss and lichens so o'erspread, Nothing is legible but the name alone.
And is it so with them? After long years, Do they remember me in the same way, And is the memory pleasant as to me?
I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay, And yet the root perennial may be.
HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
As Seleucus narrates, Hermes describes the principles that rank as wholes in two myriads of books; or, as we are informed by Manetho, he perfectly unfolded these principles in three myriads six thousand five hundred and twenty-five volumes....
...Our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes.--IAMBLICUS.
Still through Egypt's desert places Flows the lordly Nile, From its banks the great stone faces Gaze with patient smile.
Still the pyramids imperious Pierce the cloudless skies, And the Sphinx stares with mysterious, Solemn, stony eyes.
But where are the old Egyptian Demi-gods and kings?
Nothing left but an inscription Graven on stones and rings.
Where are Helios and Hephaestus, Gods of eldest eld?
Where is Hermes Trismegistus, Who their secrets held?
Where are now the many hundred Thousand books he wrote?
By the Thaumaturgists plundered, Lost in lands remote;In oblivion sunk forever, As when o'er the land Blows a storm-wind, in the river Sinks the scattered sand.
Something unsubstantial, ghostly, Seems this Theurgist, In deep meditation mostly Wrapped, as in a mist.
Vague, phantasmal, and unreal To our thought he seems, Walking in a world ideal, In a land of dreams.
Was he one, or many, merging Name and fame in one, Like a stream, to which, converging Many streamlets run?
Till, with gathered power proceeding, Ampler sweep it takes, Downward the sweet waters leading From unnumbered lakes.
By the Nile I see him wandering, Pausing now and then, On the mystic union pondering Between gods and men;Half believing, wholly feeling, With supreme delight, How the gods, themselves concealing, Lift men to their height.
Or in Thebes, the hundred-gated, In the thoroughfare Breathing, as if consecrated, A diviner air;And amid discordant noises, In the jostling throng, Hearing far, celestial voices Of Olympian song.
Who shall call his dreams fallacious?
Who has searched or sought All the unexplored and spacious Universe of thought?
Who, in his own skill confiding, Shall with rule and line Mark the border-land dividing Human and divine?
Trismegistus! three times greatest!
How thy name sublime Has descended to this latest Progeny of time!
Happy they whose written pages Perish with their lives, If amid the crumbling ages Still their name survives!
Thine, O priest of Egypt, lately Found I in the vast, Weed-encumbered sombre, stately, Grave-yard of the Past;And a presence moved before me On that gloomy shore, As a waft of wind, that o'er me Breathed, and was no more.
TO THE AVON
Flow on, sweet river! like his verse Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse Nor wait beside the churchyard wall For him who cannot hear thy call.
Thy playmate once; I see him now A boy with sunshine on his brow, And hear in Stratford's quiet street The patter of his little feet.
I see him by thy shallow edge Wading knee-deep amid the sedge;And lost in thought, as if thy stream Were the swift river of a dream.
He wonders whitherward it flows;
And fain would follow where it goes, To the wide world, that shall erelong Be filled with his melodious song.
Flow on, fair stream! That dream is o'er;He stands upon another shore;
A vaster river near him flows, And still he follows where it goes.
PRESIDENT GARFIELD
"E venni dal martirio a questa pace."
These words the poet heard in Paradise, Uttered by one who, bravely dying here, In the true faith was living in that sphere Where the celestial cross of sacrifice Spread its protecting arms athwart the skies;And set thereon, like jewels crystal clear, The souls magnanimous, that knew not fear, Flashed their effulgence on his dazzled eyes.
Ah me! how dark the discipline of pain, Were not the suffering followed by the sense Of infinite rest and infinite release!
This is our consolation; and again A great soul cries to us in our suspense, "I came from martyrdom unto this peace!"MY BOOKS
Sadly as some old mediaeval knight Gazed at the arms he could no longer wield, The sword two-handed and the shining shield Suspended in the hall, and full in sight, While secret longings for the lost delight Of tourney or adventure in the field Came over him, and tears but half concealed Trembled and fell upon his beard of white, So I behold these books upon their shelf, My ornaments and arms of other days;Not wholly useless, though no longer used, For they remind me of my other self, Younger and stronger, and the pleasant ways In which I walked, now clouded and confused.
MAD RIVER
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
TRAVELLER
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, Mad River, O Mad River?
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er This rocky shelf forever?
What secret trouble stirs thy breast?
Why all this fret and flurry?
Dost thou not know that what is best In this too restless world is rest From over-work and worry?
THE RIVER
What wouldst thou in these mountains seek, O stranger from the city?
Is it perhaps some foolish freak Of thine, to put the words I speak Into a plaintive ditty?
TRAVELLER
Yes; I would learn of thee thy song, With all its flowing number;And in a voice as fresh and strong As thine is, sing it all day long, And hear it in my slumbers.
THE RIVER
A brooklet nameless and unknown Was I at first, resembling A little child, that all alone Comes venturing down the stairs of stone, Irresolute and trembling.