Into The Silent Land.

I.     "Oh for a pen of light, a tongue of fire,     That every word might burn in living flame     Upon the age's brow, and leave one name     Engraven on the future!    One desire     Fills every nook and cranny of my heart;     One hope - one sorrow - one belovd aim!     She whose pure life was of my life a part,     As light is of the day, could she inspire     My unmelodious muse, or tune the lyre     To diapasons worthy of the theme,     How would her joy put on its robes of light,     And nestle in my bosom once again,     As when life, like an Oriental dream,     Fanned by Arabian airs, glode down the stream     To music whose remembrance is a pain.     The foot of time might trample on my strain,     But could not quench its essence.    There was might,     And majesty, and greatness in the love     She blest me with - a blessing without stain,     And that was earthly; since her spirit-sight     Looked through the veil, and learned love's true delight,     Which sainted ministrants alone can prove     Who taste the waters of eternal love:     I pause to think how wonderful has grown     The love that was to me so wondrous here!     Chained as I am to this terrestrial sphere,     Groping my way through darkness, and alone,     Like a blind eaglet soaring towards the sun,     How would her full experience lift and cheer     The heart that never feels its duty done,     And with a girdle of pure light enzone     My flowery world of thought, and make it all her own."     Thus mused the Minstrel, for his heart was sad.     Death had bereaved him of his bride, while youth,     And looming years of future trust and truth,     Knit them together, till their souls were clad     With joy ineffable.    Love's great High Priest     Sacrificed in their hearts to Him that doeth     All things well; and such rare, perpetual feast     Of love and truth no mortals ever had,     To keep their memories green, their lives serene and glad,     He sat again within the quiet room,     Where Death had snapped one golden thread of life,     And the pale hand of Sickness, sorrow-rife,     Robbed the plump cheek of childhood of its bloom;     Where she, another Philomena, moved     Like a fond Charity - the coming wife     Ordained to crown his being: And he loved.     The future rose before him, joy and gloom;     For where the sunlight shone, there waved the sable plume.     And yet he failed not, for the coming pain;     The coming bliss would counterbalance all.     The sight prophetic that perceived the pall,     Looked far beyond for the celestial gain.     They do not truly love who cannot yield     The mortal up at the Immortal's call,     Or fail to triumph for the soul that's sealed.     His mind was strung to one harmonious strain:     To give when God should ask, and not resign in vain.     Love was to him life's chiefest victory;     He knew no greater, and he sought no less.     Like a green isle surrounded by the sea     That gives it health and vigour, so was he     The centre of love's sphere of perfectness;     He breathed its heavenly atmosphere; the key     That opened every chamber in love's court     Was in his hand; love's mystery was his sport,     He knelt within love's fane and worshipped there -     But not alone, for one was by his side     Whose love refined his being, filled the air     Of life's irradiated sky with light,     As the sun floods the heavens with a tide     Of renovating freshness, as the night     Is mellowed by the ample moon.     And hoping for the recompense     That would be theirs in life's approaching noon,     They built on hope's high eminence     Their airy palaces, whose magnificence     Surpassed the dreams that fancy drew,     So fair the promised land that lay within their view.     And here they lived; just within reach of heaven.     They could put forth their hands and touch the skies     That brooded o'er the walls of chrysolite,     The airy minarets, and golden domes     Of their new home, by Love, the Maker, given,     Steeped in his brightest dyes.     All nature opened up her ponderous tomes,     Whereby they had new knowledge and new sight,     Learned greater truths, and saw the paths of light,     Mosaic-paven, which to Duty led.     And there were secrets written overhead,     In burning hieroglyphs of thought,     From which they gleaned such lessons as are taught     Only to those whom heaven, in graciousness,     Lifts in her arms with a divine caress.     Earth, like a joyous maiden whose pure soul     Is filled with sudden ecstacy, became     A fruitful Eden; and the golden bowl     That held their elixir of life was filled     To overflowing with the rarest draught     Ever by gods or men in rapture quaffed;     Till from the altar of their hearts love's flame     Passed through the veins of the world, and thrilled     The soul of the rejoicing universe,     Which became theirs, and like true neophytes     They drained the sweet nepenthe, and love's rites     Wiped from their hearts all trace of the primeval curse.     The happy months rolled on; each wedded day     A bridal; and each calm and holy eve     Strewed with rare blessings all the sunny way     Through which they passed, with so divine a joy     That in his brain would meditation weave     Love's roses into garlands of sweet song,     To deck the brow of his devoted wife.     In this their El Dorado, no alloy     Mixed with the coinage of their wedded life;     The workmen in the mint an honest throng.     No wonder, then, that with go fine a bliss     Informing every fibre of his brain,     His thoughts begat impressions such as this;     Linking their lives together with a chain     Of melody as rare as some divine refrain:         Like dew to the thirsty flower,             Like sweets to the hungry bee,         Is love's divinest dower,         Its tenderness and power,             To thee, dear Wife! to thee.         Like light to the darkened spirit,             Like oil to the turbid sea,         Like truthful words to merit,         Are the blessings I inherit             With thee, dear Wife! with thee.         Afar in the distant ages,             Soul-ransomed, and spirit-free,         I'll read all being's pages,         Unread by mortal sages,             With thee, dear Wife! with thee.     None but the happy heart could carol thus;     A feather stolen from Devotion's wing,     To keep as a memento of the time     When earth met heaven, in life's duteous     And prayerful journey towards the shadowy clime;     Ere they descended from their height sublime,     Where at Love's well-filled table, banqueting,     They sat, and watched the first glad year,     Earthlike, revolving round the sun     Of their true life.    Within that sphere     Was the new Eden.    One by one     The precious moments dropped like golden sands,     And formed the solid hours.    No perilous strands     Delayed life's blissful current, as it sped     Through flowery realms with blue skies overhead,     To songs and laughter musically sweet,     As if all sorrow had forever fled;     And idylls, sung with cheerful tone,     Haunted the calm, enchanted zone     That hemmed them in,     Where, like a stately queen,     Sate Peace, beatified, serene,     The guardian, heaven-sent, of this their fair demesne:                      -    -    -     LOVE'S ANNIVERSARY.     Like a bold, adventurous swain,     Just a year ago to-day,     I launched my bark on a radiant main,     And Hymen led the way:     "Breakers ahead!" he cried,     As he sought to overwhelm     My daring craft in the shrieking tide,     But Love, like a pilot bold and tried,     Sat, watchful, at the helm.     And we passed the treacherous shoals,     Where many a hope lay dead,     And splendid wrecks were piled, like the ghouls     Of joys forever fled.     Once safely over these,     We sped by a fairy realm,     Across the bluest and calmest seas     That were ever kissed by a truant breeze,     With Love still at the helm.     We sailed by sweet, odorous isles,     Where the flowers and trees were one;     Through lakes that vied with the golden smiles     Of heaven's unclouded sun:     Still speeds our merry bark,     Threading life's peaceful realm,     And 'tis ever morn with our marriage-lark,     For the Pilot-Love of our safety-ark     Stands, watchful, at the helm.     II.     A beautiful land is the Land of Dreams,     Green hills and valleys, and deep lagoons,     Swift-rushing torrents and gentle streams,     Glassing a myriad silver moons;     Mirror-like lakelets with lovely isles,     And verdurous headlands looking down     On the Neread shapes, whose smiles     Were worth the price of a peaceful crown.     We clutch at the silvery bars     Flung from the motionless stars,             And climb far into space,             Defying the race     Who ride in arial cars.     We take up the harp of the mind,     And finger its delicate strings;             The notes, soft and light             As a moonbeam's flight,     Departing on viewless wings.     Afar in some fanciful bower,     Some region of exquisite calm,     Where the starlight falls in a gleaming shower,             We sink to repose             On our couch of rose,     Inhaling no mortal balm.     The worlds are no longer unknown,     We pass through the uttermost sky,             Our eyelids are kissed             By a gentle mist,             And we feel the tone             Of a calmer zone,     As if heaven were wondrous nigh.     A fanciful land is the Land of Dreams,     Where earth and heaven are clasping hands;             No heaven - no earth,             But one wide, new birth,     Where Beauty and Goodness, and human worth,     Make earth of heaven and heaven of earth;     And angels are walking on golden strands.     And the pearly gates of the universe     Of mind and fancy, opening     To the touch of the dainty finger-tips     Of elegant Peris with rose-bud lips,     Delicate, weird-like sounds are born     From the amber depths of odorous morn,     And spirits of beauty and light rehearse         Such strains as the young immortals sing,                 When the souls of the blest                 Are borne to their rest,     On luminous pinions of light serene     To the fragrant bowers of evergreen;     O'er the rosy plains, where the dying hours     Are changed by a spell to celestial flowers,     Where the skies have a hue no name can express,     For the tone of their passionate loveliness         Surpasseth all human imagining.     Such was their beautiful Dream of Life;             Each stern reality softened down;     Earth seemed to have ended her age of Strife,             And Harmony reigned, her olive crown     Besting on the Parian brow             Of the fair victor, like the gleam     Of the silvery moon on waves that flow             Thoughtfully down the summer stream.     Such was their earnest Dream of Life!     Was it some angel, with jealous eye,     Seeing such love beneath the sky     As never yet in world or star,     Or spheral height, that reached so far     'Twas never beheld by mortal sight,     Or elsewhere, save in highest heaven,     Was duly earned, or truly given,     That leagued with the usurper, Death,     To quench the light that shone so bright     That in all the earth there was not a breath     So foul as to change their day to night?     Alone! alone!    Oh, word of fearful tone!     Well might the moon withhold her light,     The stars withdraw from human sight,     When Love was overthrown.     The Minstrel's heart how changed!     Love's principalities,     O'er which he reigned supreme,     Usurped by earth's realities;     The realm through which he ranged     Become a vanished dream!     And yet he sung, as sings     The dying swan that droops its wings     And drifts along the stream:                      -    -    -     THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW PANE.     A joy from my soul's departed,     A bliss from my heart is flown,     As weary, weary-hearted,     I wander alone - alone!     The night wind sadly sigheth     A withering, wild refrain,     And my heart within me dieth     For the light in the window pane.     The stars overhead are shining,     As brightly as e'er they shone,     As heartless - sad - repining,     I wander alone - alone!     A sudden flash comes streaming,     And flickers adown the lane,     But no more for me is gleaming     The light in the window pane.     The voices that pass are cheerful,     Men laugh as the night winds moan;     They cannot tell how fearful     'Tis to wander alone - alone!     For them, with each night's returning,     Life singeth its tenderest strain,     Where the beacon of love is burning -     The light in the window pane.     Oh, sorrow beyond all sorrows     To which human life is prone:     Without thee, through all the morrows,     To wander alone - alone!     Oh, dark, deserted dwelling!     Where Hope like a lamb was slain,     No voice from thy lone walls welling,     No light in thy window pane.     But memory, sainted angel!     Rolls back the sepulchral stone,     And sings like a sweet evangel:     "No - never, never alone!     True grief has its royal palace,     Each loss is a greater gain;     And Sorrow ne'er filled a chalice     That Joy did not wait to drain!                          -    -    -         "Man must be perfected         By suffering," he said;     "And Death is but the stepping-stone, whereby         We mount towards the gate         Of heaven, soon or late.     Death is the penalty of life; we die,         Because we live; and life         Is but a constant strife     With the immortal Impulse that within         Our bodies seeks control -         The time-abiding Soul,     That wrestles with us - yet we fain would win.         And what? the victory         Would make us slaves; and we,     Who in our blindness struggle for the prize         Of this illusive state         Called Life, do but frustrate     The higher law - refusing to be wise."         Rightly he knew, indeed,         Earth's brightest paths but lead     To the true wisdom of that perfect state,         Where Knowledge, heaven-born,         And Love's eternal morn,     Awaiteth those who would be truly great.         With what abiding trust         He rose from out the dust,     As Death's swift chariot passed him by the way;         No visionary dream         Was his - no trifling theme -     The Soul's great Mystery before him lay:                          -    -    -     THE SOUL.     All my mind has sat in state,     Pond'ring on the deathless Soul:     What must be the Perfect Whole,     When the atom is so great!     God!    I fall in spirit down,     Low as Persian to the sun;     All my senses, one by one,     In the stream of Thought must drown.     On the tide of mystery,     Like a waif, I'm seaward borne,     Ever looking for the morn     That will yet interpret Thee,     Opening my blinded eyes,     That have strove to look within,     'Whelmed in clouds of doubt and sin,     Sinking where I dared to rise:     Could I trace one Spirit's flight,     Track it to its final goal,     Know that 'Spirit' meant 'the Soul,'     I must perish in the light.     All in vain I search, and cry:     "What, O Soul, and whence art thou?"     Lower than the earth I bow,     Stricken with the grave reply:     "Wouldst thou ope what God has sealed -     Sealed in mercy here below?     What is best for man to know,     Shall most surely be revealed!"     Deep on deep of mystery!     Ask the sage, he knows no more     Of the soul's unspoken lore     Than the child upon his knee!     Cannot tell me whence the thought     That is passing through my mind!     Where the mystic soul is shrined,     Wherewith all my life is fraught?     Knows not how the brain conceives     Images almost divine;     Cannot work my mental mine,     Cannot bind my golden sheaves.     Is he wiser, then, than I,     Seeing he can read the stars?     I have rode in fancy's oars     Leagues beyond his farthest sky!     Some old Rabbi, dreaming o'er     The sweet legends of his race,     Ask him for some certain trace     Of the far, eternal shore.     No.    The Talmud page is dark,     Though it burn with quenchless fire,     And the insight must pierce higher,     That would find the vital spark.     O, my Soul! be firm and wait,     Hoping with the zealous few,     Till the Shekinah of the True     Lead thee through the Golden Gate.