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A L W Y 
 
 A ROMANCE OF STUDY 
 
 X 
 
 BY- 
 
 TAMES CV MOFFAT 
 
 " Who will sh.O"w U.S any good?" — Psalm iv. 6. 
 
 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 
 
 770 Broadway, New York. 
 
-f^ %^\'^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 187s, BY 
 
 Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. 
 
 EDWARD O. JENKINS, 
 
 PRINTER AND 8TMRS0TYPER, 
 
 20 NORTH WILLIAM ST., N.Y. 
 
 ROBERT RUTTER, 
 BINDER, 
 84 BEEKMAN STREET, N.Y. 
 
TO 
 
 MARY B. MOFFAT 
 
 THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
 
 IN THE SPIRIT OF A 
 
 DEVOTIONAL AFFECTION. 
 
PROLOGUE. 
 
 I. 
 
 We welcome thee, Beloved, back to life, 
 
 From deepest shades and border of the grave, 
 The dubious and long-protracted strife 
 
 With Death's dread angel, to destroy or save, 
 
 Issues in victory. His pinions wave 
 No longer o'er thy couch. And as he flies, 
 
 With all the terrors which his presence gave. 
 Faintly the dawn of health begins to rise 
 Upon thy pallid cheek and in thy brightening eyes. 
 
 II. 
 
 Again we greet thee cheerily, and move 
 No more on tiptoe in thy darkened room. 
 
 Winter meanwhile has passed away. The grove 
 
 Has donned his Summer robes. The gardens bloom, 
 And birds flit by on glad and dazzling plume. 
 
 And life, exultant in her bright domain. 
 
 Welcomes thee, too, and calls thee to resume 
 
 Thy wonted place within the buoyant train 
 
 Which crowns with brilliant thought the glories of her 
 reign. 
 
 (s) 
 
6 PROLOGUE. 
 
 III. 
 Companion of my common cares so long, 
 
 And fellow-traveler on the paths of lore, 
 I joyful hail thee, in the voice of song. 
 
 While climbing slow from Acheronian shore, 
 
 With topics of our fond pursuits once more- 
 Pursuits which did with happier days entwine, 
 
 Ere life for us her hues autumnal wore. 
 Wisely my lay might public grace decline ; 
 But O how much to me that it should merit thine. 
 
INVOCATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 Ye who delight to mark the unfolding mind, 
 Whose bosoms throb in sympathy wich all 
 
 The aspirations, cares and joys that wind 
 Around the student in mysterious thrall, 
 Smile on my song. No fabled muse I call. 
 
 By inspiration of the heart alone 
 
 My humble narrative must stand or fall. 
 
 Nor boasts it aught to common favor known, 
 
 Ambition's arts or force, on battle-field or throne. 
 
 II. 
 
 The silent changes of the spirit's life, 
 
 Its unseen toil, its arduous flight and slow, 
 
 Passion and Reason's oft-recurring strife, 
 And dreary Doubt's intolerable woe, 
 Are not, alas ! the happy themes that know 
 
 The favor of the multitude, or bring 
 
 The higher meed which critic pens bestow. 
 
 Nathless, of such I would essay to sing, 
 
 Content that kindred lives confess the truthful string 
 
 (7) 
 
CANTO FIRST. 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 Canto I. — Alwyn's early love of knowledge — Susceptibility to in- 
 fluences of nature — Mountain scenery — The sea — Morning 
 among the hills — The sun — Summer noon — Atmospheric war 
 — Light and shade — Evening in the country — Divine bounty 
 in the adaptation of man and nature — Dawning sense of intel- 
 lectual power — Friends, Norman — Among the mountains alone 
 — Sympathy with animate nature — Forests, their effect on the 
 religious sentiment — Outlines in landscape — yEsthetic and 
 moral effect of mountains — Books as expository of nature — 
 Romance of fancy — Winter — Learning to turn the materials 
 oi nature and reading to the service of fancy — First question- 
 ing of causes — Alwyn begins to despise Norman's simple 
 Christian faith. 
 
ALWYN: 
 
 A ROMANCE OF STUDY. 
 
 I. 
 
 What recks to tell of birth and long descent ? 
 
 Is not the spirit from Jehovah sprung ? 
 Enough that Alwyn from his childhood bent 
 
 Him to the toils of knowledge, and among 
 
 The free wild mountains ^vas his fortune flung 
 Almost as free ; and lone, and far away 
 
 From all the bias of the babbling tongue, 
 His work conversed v/ith Nature, and his play 
 Was o'er the learned page to linger night and day. 
 
 II. 
 
 Nor yet unread the old inspired page 
 Of living fact writ by the hand of God, 
 
 And on its margin stamped, from age to age, 
 Too oft, alas ! in characters of blood, 
 With record of the path which man has trod. 
 
 Nor did the heavens, with light-bespangled train, 
 Of blessed lives the unprofaned abode, 
 
 Nor yet the seasons, in their changeful reign, 
 
 Their bounty and their wTath, roll over him in vain. 
 
12 ALWVJV. 
 
 III. 
 
 Yea, from the gates of childhood had he loved 
 The drama ever new by Nature spread 
 
 Among the hills and woods, where he had roved 
 Whither her beauties and her wonders led. 
 And fondly at her bounteous bosom fed, 
 
 Ere thought had started queries for the sense, 
 Or yet reflection was to feeling wed. 
 
 Unthinking of results to issue thence, 
 
 Incurring risk and toil, their own good recompense. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Where streamlets, rushing down the mountain side, 
 Leap in their giddy haste from lin to lin ; 
 
 And overhanging groves, in solemn pride 
 And mystic twilight, shut their chorus in 
 As with a temple, where the murmuring din, 
 
 With song of birds, half plaintive and half glad, 
 The worship speak of those who cannot sin, . 
 
 He oft would linger till their influence had 
 
 A kindred feeling wrought, as happy and as sad. 
 
 V. 
 
 Or when the angry winds raved through the glen. 
 Driving the stormy legions in their wrath. 
 
 On some high cliff, far from abodes of men, 
 Would he delight to watch the tempest's path. 
 As it swept on o'er mountain, lake, and strath, 
 
 With all its cloudy train in long array. 
 
 And the wild grace which Nature's fury hath. 
 
 Till he would long to leave his form of clay, 
 
 Rise on the warring winds, and mingle with the fray. 
 
ALIVVJV. 13 
 
 VI. 
 
 Or where the Atlantic breaks upon the shore, 
 
 Anon, in storm or calm might he be found. 
 Filling his soul with that harmonious lore 
 
 Taught by the Ocean's everwailing sound ; 
 
 Or gazing on the troubled billows, crowned 
 With snowy foam, or on the slumbering tide, 
 
 Whose feeble surges from the coast rebound 
 In dreamy murmurs low ; while far and wide 
 It seemed in the blue sky its distant bounds to hide. 
 
 VII. 
 
 When Summer morning crowned the hills with gold, 
 And stretched their lengthened shadows o'er the plain, 
 
 When early shepherd hastening to the fold, 
 Or mountain ranges of his wild domain, 
 Gave to the breeze his spirit-prompted strain, 
 
 'Twas to the enthusiast boy a draft of new 
 And sweeter life the highest peak to gain. 
 
 Whence all the varied landscape, bursting through 
 
 The lower twilight, lay like pictures to his view : 
 
 VIII. 
 The effulgent orb ascending from the deep 
 
 Of nether space, bathed in a flood of light, 
 The dewy uplands, which all night did weep 
 
 His absence, now rejoicing in the might 
 
 Of his returning, tenderly as bright, 
 Like gladdened Beauty smiling in her tears : 
 
 The obscure beyond,— skirts of retreating night 
 'Which still upon the western verge appears, 
 Like half-defeated foe, yet struggling with his fears. 
 
14 ALWYN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The snow-vv^hite mists along a hundred vales, 
 
 Slumbering in silence by their hidden streams, 
 And as the invading day their rest assails, 
 
 Slowly ascending on the advancing beams ; 
 
 While here and there some village coppice seems 
 An island in the flood of fleecy cloud, 
 
 Melting away before the warmth which teems 
 From yon triumphant orb, as if the proud 
 Earth had awoke from death and bondage of the shroud. 
 
 X. 
 
 The voice of many waters, shining rills, 
 Like living things in wilful song and play. 
 
 Which, by a thousand tiny falls, the hills 
 
 Pour down into the glens ; the ceaseless fray. 
 Where adverse streams do battle for the way, 
 
 Their graver rush united, and the roar 
 Of the fierce cataract, whose hoary spray 
 
 Is Nature's incense-cloud, and evermore 
 
 The distant river's dash upon its rocky shore ; 
 
 XI. 
 
 And rising with the day the sweeter notes, 
 
 Which draw their daily being from the sun, 
 The lark's clear matin hymn, which downward floats, 
 
 As if in joy from heaven already won ; 
 
 The long complaints, which o'er the mountains run. 
 From fleecy flocks descending from their lair. 
 
 And far below from labors re-begun, ^ 
 
 The sounds of human life, rising like prayer, 
 Blend into sweet accord upon the throbbing air. 
 
15 
 
 ALWYN. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Father of morning, all-beholding Sun, 
 
 Fountain of warmth and light, without thy ray 
 
 What were this earth but cold and barren stone ? 
 Thy glance her oceans and her streams obey. 
 Vital activity pursues thy way, 
 
 From morn till even, in meek dependence led. 
 Night is thy absence and thy presence day. 
 The storm is but the veiling of thy head, 
 
 And every birth of earth is by thy favor fed. 
 
 XIII. 
 The pride of Summer is thy steady gaze 
 
 Poured warm and loving from a genial sky ; 
 And Winter but thy long-averted face. 
 
 Worlds hang upon thy bounty, and with thy 
 
 Mute influence implicitly comply. 
 A wave of splendor and of new delight 
 
 Kindles around the zone beneath thine eye. 
 Earth hails thee master of m.aterial might, 
 With ever-swelling song and all the charms of sight. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When Nature, panting with excess of life, 
 
 Beneath the ripe luxuriance of noon, 
 Lavished her wealth on the broad landscape rife 
 
 With all the offspring of redundant June, 
 
 Where sighing groves with murmuring brooks commune. 
 Where meadows wave, or fields of ripening grain. 
 
 Vocal with insect being's drowsy tune. 
 Where listless herds bestrew the grassy plain 
 Would Alwyn quaff the scene, till very bliss was pain. 
 
l6 ALIVVJV. 
 
 XV. 
 But when, for many a long and burning day, 
 
 The latest cloud had disappeared on high, 
 And the white molten sun pursued his way 
 
 Across the surface of a brazen sky, 
 
 Bleaching the earth with unrelenting eye. 
 When withering pastures crumpled to the tread. 
 
 And brooks exhaled had left their channels dry, 
 With panting herds he to the shelter fled, 
 And looked for Nature's death, as if her source were dead. 
 
 XVI. 
 Nor with less awe beheld the Titan war 
 
 Of the returning clouds, so long exiled, 
 Their angry hosts assembling from afar 
 
 In masses on the low horizon piled, 
 
 Where glorious light, with darkness reconciled. 
 Rested upon their crests, their armor lined. 
 
 But lo ! they come, swift skirmishers and wild 
 Sweep o'er the sky, soon with the ranks combined, 
 And distant thunder rolls up solemnly behind. 
 
 XVII. 
 And heavy drops fall far apart and slow. 
 
 Each on the sand a momentary stain. 
 The winds leap forth — an ambuscade — and lo ! 
 
 The forest writhes and tosses as with pain. 
 
 The dust is swept in clouds along the plain. 
 Again the thunders issue their command. 
 
 And freely falls the cool refreshing rain, 
 Copious, but gentle, and with teeming hand 
 Pours down new stores of life upon the fainting land. 
 
ALIVVN. 17 
 
 XVIII. 
 Ye tranquil Summer days, whose breath is balm, 
 
 And soft as rising of the morning dew. 
 How little wot we that the child-like calm 
 
 Which fills the soul with confidence in you, 
 
 Is but a truce, the balance nice and true 
 Of such stupendous forces — deadly foes, ^ 
 
 Just waiting with the fatal aim in view- 
 Ready, when God permits, in strife to close. 
 Which shall this solid globe dissolve in mortal throes. 
 
 XIX. 
 But evening comes. And over flood and field 
 
 New changes in succession are displayed. 
 New outlines on the mountains stand revealed, 
 
 Along the landscape other tints arrayed. 
 
 Reversed the lights and shadows morning made. 
 And changed the style of all since morning shone. 
 
 Warmer the light and less severe the shade. 
 While over all steals a soft monotone. 
 Save where the gorgeous clouds have draped their mon- 
 arch's throne. 
 
 XX. 
 Shadows— magicians, at whose lifted wand 
 
 The landscape wakes, and lavish to the sense 
 Throws life and meaning sparkling o'er the land, 
 
 As kindles up the human countenance 
 
 To inspiration of intelligence — 
 Whence your strange alchemy, and by what sleight 
 Do gladness, beauty, grandeur, wait your glance, 
 The unsubstantial characters ye write 
 Along the otherwise unmeaning page of light ? 
 
l8 ALWYN. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The sun has set. His rays direct withdrawn, 
 Gently comes on the scene of day's decline, 
 
 The shadows all have blended on the lawn, 
 Far sounds the low of home-returning kine, 
 Shepherds to the high lair their flocks consign, 
 
 The half-reaped field the weary reapers leave, 
 Ten thousand insect-notes in choir combine, 
 
 The bird sleeps on the spray, and souls conceive 
 
 That grateful sense of rest v/hich hails descending eve. 
 
 XXII. 
 The day was full of wonders. And the night, 
 
 Falling in mystery on the fading view, 
 Concealed the wonders of the earth from sight 
 
 Only in heaven to open wonders new. 
 
 As with her dusky fingers she withdrew 
 The veil of light diffused, and from on high 
 
 Poured revelations of creation, through 
 The opened darkness, on the gazer's eye. 
 And filled with worlds of light the daily vacant sky. 
 
 XXIII. 
 And as he gazed, and thought of each bright star 
 
 As in itself a world,— for so much lore 
 Had reached his mountain home, — and tried afar 
 
 Through those stupendous distances to soar, 
 
 His laboring intellect recoiled before 
 Its own conception of the depths sublime 
 
 Beyond the bounds of earth's encircling shore, 
 And of the cold dead silence, through all time. 
 In which those orbs roll on their mighty pantomime. 
 
ALIVVN. 
 
 XXIV. 
 Yet Alwyn was no vacant looker-on, 
 
 No loitering child of affluence and ease, 
 Upon his lowly birth no honors shone, 
 
 Nor fortune sought his tender age to please. 
 
 But penury enforced her stern decrees. 
 Nor did the wise Creator's gracious will 
 
 His childhood from the primal curse release, 
 But aye with buoyant hope, more gracious still, 
 From some blest fount within, did all his being fill. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Exuberant flow of ever- gushing joy, 
 
 A mystery of the healthful heart and young, 
 
 Was his, of all the gifts of the Most High, 
 That which most fondly to the lovely clung. 
 And common earth with heavenly drapery hung, 
 
 Which, like the sun, all other things beheld 
 As dyed in hues of its own radiance sprung — 
 
 Gift which all other gifts of time excelled, 
 
 And grief from his young life effectively repelled. 
 
 XXVI. 
 Well has His work the mighty Maker made 
 
 In mechanism wonderful in man. 
 And all the parts by many members played 
 
 So harmonized into a common plan. 
 
 So blended soul and body into one. 
 That all the healthful frame with soul imbued. 
 
 Glorying in existence, its brief span 
 A full condensed millennium of good. 
 Bounds with exultant joy — impulsive gratitude. 
 
 19 
 
20 ALWYN. 
 
 XXVII. 
 Hear me, Benignant Author of my days, 
 
 Out of whose bounty all my being came, 
 In praiseful thanks for the glad life which plays 
 
 In these blue veins, for this material frame, 
 
 Without an organ weak or member lame. 
 Whose pleasures need nor artifice nor stealth. 
 
 More to my happiness than power or fame. 
 More than all treasures of redundant wealth. 
 And for a soul to feel this glorious joy of health. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 And to the woods and hills and running streams. 
 
 And fair, green grassy lawns his heart did burn 
 With overmastering love. And in the dreams. 
 
 Which Fancy conjured round him, did he turn 
 
 All to account of splendors which would scorn 
 The actual wealth of kings. And far above 
 
 The utmost bliss that all their power can earn. 
 Was his at large among the wilds to rove. 
 Yea, blest as a young bride in her first maiden love. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 How wonderful Thy bounty, mighty God, 
 So richly to endow the human soul. 
 
 Granting it o'er Thy universe -abroad 
 
 To rove and gather blessing from the whole. 
 Yea, to create, and pleasures to unroll 
 
 From that which never was and ne'er shall be. 
 And self-sufficing and above control 
 
 Of the gross substance, which we hear and see. 
 
 Of its own joys and woes to hold the master key. 
 
ALIVVN. 21 
 
 XXX. 
 
 And then, from time to time, a warmer fiam.e 
 
 Eclipsing other feelings of the hour, 
 Would rush exultant, thrilling through his frame. 
 
 The premonition of a coming power, 
 
 A strange, wild rapture glorying in the dower 
 Of God within himself, as greater far 
 
 Than all he prized the most in tree, or flower, 
 In hill, or plain, or sun, or distant star — 
 Voice of a pent-up gift he cannot yet unbar. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 This vague anticipation, whence and why, 
 
 This feeling that I cannot now, but shall, 
 This consciousness of energies that lie 
 
 Inactive in the spirit's arsenal ? 
 
 It came to Alwyn like the secret call 
 To the boy prophet ; but no Eli lay 
 
 Beside him in the temple, who could tell 
 That it was God who spake. In His own way 
 Did God Himself instruct His pupil, day by day. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 But one wise teacher had the Holiest given, 
 In wisdom and in knowledge far above 
 
 Her humble rank, rich in the lore of heaven— 
 A lovely mother, whose young heart of love 
 A few brief years with fondest effort strove 
 
 To mold his pliant soul to truth and God, 
 
 Of faith and hope and prayer a garment wove 
 "^For his defense on life's unsheltered road. 
 
 Then vanished with the call to a more blest abode. 
 
22 ALWYN. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 Nor were companions lacking — leal and true, 
 
 Though unsophisticated peasant hinds ; 
 They loved him well, although they never knew 
 
 His better life, the mystery that binds 
 
 External nature with concordant minds. 
 And oft they smiled at his impassioned love 
 
 Of such dead things as hills, and streams, and winds, 
 Nor was himself aware of aught above 
 Their thinking among whom his thoughts had learned 
 to move, 
 
 XXXIV. 
 And in young Norman found, if not a mate 
 
 To all his tastes, at least the complement 
 Of his affections. Upon neither sat 
 
 The burden of ambition. Well content. 
 
 In humble toil alike their days they spent. 
 Though far apart their mountain pastures lay, 
 
 And few their meetings ; yet with wonder blent, 
 Did Norman's love upon his neighbor stay — 
 The dreamy boy who had such weird-like things to say. 
 
 XXXV. 
 And Alwyn loved the lad, whose riper years 
 
 More than himself of common duties knew. 
 Who humbly practical,, as his compeers. 
 
 Saw more than they from Alwyn's point of view. 
 
 And more in him the practical seemed true, 
 Than in more practical and older men ; 
 
 But most his sweet affections gently drew 
 Kindred affection to himself again. 
 Yet ne'er did Alwyn feel so far away as then. 
 
ALWVN. 23 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Yet in his daily tasks among the lone 
 
 And pathless mountains, from the earliest ray 
 
 Of golden morning, till the last was gone 
 
 That warmed the evening sky, his Summer day 
 Passed far from sight of human life away. 
 
 Hills, streams, and rocks, and sighing trees became 
 To him society, and in the play 
 
 Of living things his heart would often claim 
 
 That sense of glad relief man's absence gave to them. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 Where herds intent upon the pasture grazed, 
 
 And nibbling sheep far o'er the mountain spread, 
 And hares limped by, and listening, stopped, and raised. 
 
 With ever-moving ear, the timid head. 
 
 And the wild deer came nigh with fearless tread, 
 And birds hung o'er him on the bending spray, 
 
 For hours would he recline beneath the shade, 
 And yield himself submissive to the sway 
 Of the unspoken laws those humbler lives obey. 
 
 XXXVIII. ; 
 
 Imbibing deep their inarticulate 
 
 Brute sympathies, with sympathy sincere ; 
 Pondering existence in that strange estate, 
 
 Where, without sense of duty, law, or fear 
 
 Of future ill, the living persevere 
 In filling the Creator's true intent. 
 
 He felt himself attracted to their sphere, 
 So humble, yet so free from all complaint, 
 Without a sin, and yet unconscious of restraint. 
 
24 ALWYN. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 And much he sought the forest dense and old. 
 
 A strange, unhuman charm resided there ; 
 And in the sombre twilight, damp and cold, 
 
 Which bade the venturous foot of man forbear, 
 
 He found attractions such as dangers wear. 
 An awful thought that the Almighty God, 
 
 Such as He reigned ere man was made, and ere 
 Christ was revealed, still had His dread abode 
 In those old shades, to him was like a wizard's rod. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Majestic trees, earth's ancient garniture, 
 Primeval forests, which so fondly cling 
 
 To the wild places, which your life secure 
 From the destroying enemy, ye bring 
 Conceptions of creation's early Spring, 
 
 Ere man's vicegerency had yet begun. 
 
 And when in herb, and stream, and living thing, 
 
 In heat, and cold, and cloud, and golden sun, 
 
 God solitary reigned, and all His will was done. 
 
 XLI. 
 Not without cause did self-reliant wills. 
 
 Who followed intuition as their guide, 
 In early times seek God among the hills, 
 
 And 'neath the forest spreading far and wide ; 
 
 Not without cause were altars multiplied 
 In the dim twilight of your ancient groves, 
 
 Where still a mystery seems to abide, 
 A presence which the sinful heart reproves. 
 And where the lonely foot in reverent silence moves. 
 
ALV/YN. 25 
 
 XLII. 
 And when I rest beneath your sighing boughs, 
 
 Till in your spirit all my own is clad, 
 Where passing zephyrs sound like solemn vows, 
 
 Forbidding still, as Nature once forbade, 
 
 Approach of ill, with music soft and glad. 
 By wild-birds carolled and by streamlets purled, 
 
 I feel as if I too had been half sad 
 To see the cloudy veil from Eden furled, 
 And love your dear old remnant of an earlier world. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Upon the outlines, which the mountain's crest 
 
 Boldly against the distant sky defined. 
 His oft-recurring gaze would fondly rest. 
 
 To variant affections, which combined 
 
 Therewith, all still and passively resigned ; 
 Held in the meshes of that mystic charm. 
 
 Which in its mastery o'er the human mind, 
 To soothe or to arouse, depress or warm, 
 .Lives in those soul-subiiuing boundaries of form. 
 
 XLIV. 
 What tranquil rest reposes in the sweep 
 
 Of curves re-entrant, what joy and pride 
 Soaring with those which boldly overleap 
 
 The finite, and the easy grace allied 
 
 With undulations which in life preside ; 
 The dull, depressing angle of the tomb, 
 
 The line direct with tiuth intensified, 
 All share in the' dominion lines assume 
 Over the realm of souls to joyfulness or gloom. 
 
26 ALWYN. 
 
 / 
 XLV. 
 And ye wild mountains, features of the globe^ 
 Which else in one dull curvature would lie, 
 Who weave the varying shadows which enrobe 
 Her mighty form with graphic drapery ; 
 Alone of all her scenes ye lift the eye ■ 
 And soul to what the better life beseems,— 
 The resting-place of clouds where Deity 
 By ancient men was held to veil His beams, 
 Patrons of modest vales and ever-laughing streams ; 
 
 XLVI. 
 Deep in whose bosom nestles weird Romance, 
 
 In many a solemn glade and dark ravine, 
 Where day can seldom send a fleeting glance ; • 
 
 Along whose sides the rolling mists convene, 
 
 Which fairy Fancy peoples with unseen 
 But potent elves, a baleful multitude ; 
 
 While soar your peaks in changeless light serene, 
 Heaven-scaling Titans ever unsubdued. 
 Lords of the picturesque in blended fair and rude. 
 
 XLVII. 
 Where were the poetry of earth without 
 
 Your myriad forms ? One universal plain, 
 One curve, forever bending round about 
 
 And downward from the eye, one vast domain 
 
 Of one idea, where the wearied brain 
 Could find no point of rest ; its lord, the soul, 
 
 Sunk in the ever midst, would seek in vain 
 To rise above the dreary flat, its whole 
 Conception, or conceive of any loftier goal. 
 
ALJVVN. 27 
 
 XLVIII, 
 'Twas not in sermon read from tree or brook, 
 
 Nor rounded sentiment well set and trim ; 
 'Twas not that objects to his fancy took 
 
 Such conscious forms as Art is pleased to limn, 
 
 Nor in their moral lay their charm to him. 
 It was enough to live within the reach 
 
 Of things so beautiful, and yield to dim 
 Delightful feelings which they mutely teach, 
 Unbroken to the yoke of logic or of speech. 
 
 XLIX. 
 He loved mute Nature, yet had loved less true, 
 
 But that he loved a brighter region more. 
 What fairy fictions, charming to pursue, 
 
 Forth day by day would fertile Fancy pour. 
 
 And as Imagination learned to soar 
 Above the world of sense, the eye and ear 
 
 Quickened in their perceptions, and their lore 
 Accumulated and became more clear, 
 More beautiful itself and of a nobler sphere— 
 
 L. 
 
 Incipient impings of immortal mind. 
 
 Unconscious of itself and its estate. 
 Constrained by native bent to seek and find 
 
 Its greatest bliss wherein its gifts are great, 
 
 And, like its Maker, glory to create. ■ 
 And books, fair caskets where im^prisoned lie 
 
 Spirits familiar, who only wait 
 The turning of the leaf, by him whose eye 
 Can break the spell, to wake once more to life and joy, 
 
28 ALJVVN, 
 
 LI. 
 Guided to new excursions, opened out 
 
 New regions, where more varied pleasures spring, 
 And charmed away full many a weakening doubt, 
 
 Till Fancy rose on stronger, lighter wing, 
 
 O'er wider realms a clearer glance to fling, 
 And in his heart Romance her reign began, — 
 
 Mysterious attractions that will cling 
 To deeds of other days and life of man, 
 When deep through mystery wind the inklings of a plan. 
 
 LII. 
 And old and dingy volumes dyed in smoke, 
 
 Drawn from the shelf of many a cottage ben. 
 Would his prolonged attention oft evoke 
 
 While grazed his flock in silence o'er the glen. 
 
 A chalky pebble was his native pen, 
 A rock his tablet, and the printed line 
 
 His teacher and his only model, when 
 He longed in kindred manner to combine 
 Youth's ardent feelings with its vague and crude design. 
 
 LIII. 
 But when the blasts of Winter swept the hills 
 
 And piled the snow in w^reaths adown the vale, 
 Changed into silent stone the noisy rills, 
 
 Extinguishing the wildbird's joyous tale, 
 
 And filled the air with their own furious wail. 
 Severer toils befel his feeble years : 
 
 Yet not the less did his glad vision hail 
 The grandeur which in Nature's wrath appears, 
 , Her awfulness of gloom, and sadness of her tears. 
 
ALIVVN. 
 
 LIV. 
 Far from the world of meiij alike unknown 
 
 And without knowledge of them or their cares, 
 And seldom with companions, to his own 
 
 Still droughts and feelings left, un shaped by theirs, 
 
 And secret of his own, of their affairs 
 Inquisitive, he early sought to knov/ 
 
 All that the human heart in common shares, 
 Yet learned it only as a fairy show, 
 In all the magic light that distance can bestow. 
 
 LV. 
 
 And in. his reading it was Fancy still 
 Which marshalled all materials in place, 
 
 Led captive with her own fair hands the will, 
 Gathered his knowledge into her embrace. 
 And robed the whole with her own airy grace. 
 
 Much had he learned of knowledge deep and true. 
 Much laid to heart which time shall not efface, 
 
 Yet had been puzzled sore' to set in view 
 
 Of other eyes one fact of all the mass he knew. 
 
 LVI, 
 
 A happy reverence on his spirit lay 
 
 Like moonlight softened through a mellow haze, 
 Its source unseen, its object far away, 
 
 A simple happiness in prayer and praise, 
 
 A sense of duty drawn from earlier days ; 
 Without a question how God's work proceeds, 
 
 Wherefore He saves from sin, or by what ways, — 
 A pure blind faith all ignorant of creeds, 
 Which vaguely trusted One who for the guilty pleads. 
 
 29 
 
30 
 
 ALV/VN. 
 
 LVII. 
 Learning .to wield its earthly instrument 
 
 And grasp the fashion of material things, 
 The joyful spirit its young vigor lent 
 
 To every task which promised further springs 
 
 Of new sensation. In the bliss that clings 
 To the first intercourse of earth and soul 
 
 Fully repaid for all the toil it brings, 
 He garnered stores for future thought's control, 
 Though unrevealed the end, the means sufficed the whole. 
 
 LVIII. 
 But from the time when sacred Truth began 
 
 To unfold her glories to his wondering eye, 
 And partially unveil the hidden plan 
 
 Which sends the seasons o'er the changing sky, 
 
 And bids the sons of men their labor ply, 
 A more ennobling passion ruled his breast. 
 
 No longer mere impressions could supply 
 Sufficient answer to the spirit's quest, 
 Which in the light of truth alone could find its rest. 
 
 LIX. 
 One day — -a birthday of the mind to him — 
 
 One of those days, in any life but few, 
 When faint affections and impressions dim. 
 
 By long gestation slowly formed to new 
 
 Conceptions, burst m9,tured upon the view. 
 On the hill-side he lay, on the smooth green. 
 
 Where oaken boughs their Vv^avering shadows threw, 
 Far-off the sea, and pastures broad between, 
 Where spread his fleecy charge in safety o'er the scene. 
 
ALJVVN. 
 
 31 
 
 LX. 
 
 His book lay open by his side unread. 
 
 His thoughts were turned upon an inward page, 
 Whereon the questions and the fears were spread, 
 
 Which ever must, in every land and age, * 
 
 The anxious thoughts of thoughtful youth engage. 
 " Whence came this wondrous frame, these hills and streams, 
 
 Yon sea, the winds, the endless war they wage ? 
 Who made them ? Who sustains them ? Wherefore seems 
 All earth to love the sun, and quicken in his beams ? 
 
 LXI. 
 
 " The rivers never weary, even or morn, 
 
 On, on they flow, and ceaseless all night long. 
 
 Whence is their life, and wherein aTe they born ? 
 Who sends the clouds ? And what am I among 
 Material things so many and so strong ? 
 
 Yea, what is life, and whence its force and joy ? 
 What gave the ox his strength, the bird his song ? 
 
 Who taught the eagle's wing to soar on high. 
 
 And knew so well each humbler being to employ ? 
 
 LXII. 
 " And wherefore is there death ? And why the law 
 Whereby the young continually supply 
 The place of those v/hom age or force withdraw ? 
 Who made yon sun ? Who spread that lofty sky ? 
 Who carved those vales ? Who built the mountains 
 high ? 
 What are they made of ? How did they begin ? 
 
 Strangest of all, myself, yea, what am I ? 
 Not long ago I woke, as if v/ithin 
 Eternal night my sleep had co-eternal been. 
 
32 
 
 LXIII. 
 " A long, dark night behind me, and before 
 Impenetrable darkness yet to come ! 
 How have I slumbered into life ? No more. 
 *'Tis vain such depths with human line to plumb. 
 
 'Tis vain to question where all earth is dumb. 
 But this delightful waking, wherein blend 
 
 Both joys and sorrows, and of which the sum 
 Is ever-growing blessedness, must tend 
 To some most glorious issue, some exalted end. 
 
 LXIV. 
 " Is it to last forever — to remain 
 
 While God endures, or to return to sleep, 
 And never, never, never wake again. 
 
 While years on years their endless courses sweep ? 
 
 One thing I know, before me, dark and deep, 
 An awfulj vast eternity is spread. 
 
 And endless life or endless death I reap. 
 It baffles all my thinking." Struck with dread, 
 With wildly throbbing heart he rose and reeling head. 
 
 LXV. 
 What danger in himself could it forebode .'' 
 
 A vague, oppressive horror filled his mind. 
 And as along the mountain side he strode, 
 
 Seeking to toss his questions to the wind, 
 
 Insanity seemed striding on behind. 
 The emotion passed away ; but from that hour, 
 
 His style of thought was of another kind. 
 More trenchant it might be, of greater power. 
 But darkened with a care, whose clouds will ever lower. 
 
ALJVVN. 33 
 
 LXVI. 
 In vain the charms of nature lure his eye 
 
 To fill itself and rest in outward things, 
 In vain enchanting 'figures floating by 
 
 On Fancy's fairest, most voluptuous wings, 
 
 And ardent Sense her warmest magic flings 
 Over the living world. A nobler glow 
 
 Kindles his soul ; and in its holiest springs 
 The cause and mystery of life to know 
 Would he full gladly all the joys of sense forego. 
 
 LXVII, 
 
 A deeper gulf had opened now between 
 
 Him and his rustic peers ; that which divides, 
 
 With shadowy bounds, the unseen from the seen. 
 What new ambition in his life presides 
 Norman will never know. A master guides 
 
 The steps of Norman by another way 
 As lofty, as mysterious, one which hides 
 
 Itself as truly from the common day, 
 
 And to be seen demands, not less, a heavenly ray. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 Each had his revelation from on high ; 
 
 Yet neither saw the other's aim aright ; 
 Each is entranced by the new realms that lie 
 
 Unveiled before his spiritual sight. 
 
 And yet their joys their spirits disunite. 
 'Tv/as not blind faith, but knowledge, Alwyn sought ; 
 
 He loved his friend, but held his reason light ; 
 And yet, who knows but higher reason wrought 
 In him, whose mind possessed the feebler powers of 
 thought ? 
 
CANTO SECOND. 
 
ANALYSIS 
 
 Canto II. — Earnest pursuit of knowledge — Study of language — 
 Truth contained in a national tongue— Treasures of power 
 stored in it — Classic reading, Homer, father of romance — 
 Pindar, Greek lyric — Authors of Tragedy — Philosophers — 
 Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius — Horace, Cicero — Work of Greece 
 in the progress of human culture — Work of Rome — Place of 
 Cicero in that work, and its relation to that of Greece — Caesar, 
 his relation to the world's history. 
 
CANTO SECOND. 
 
 I. 
 
 To know himself, his being's source to know, 
 The speech of outward things to comprehend, 
 
 What duties from his true relations flow. 
 And whither all the streams of being tend, 
 With numerous queries which begin and end 
 
 In the vast field such boundaries include. 
 
 Henceforth were points whereon would Alwyn spend 
 
 Long, patient thought, aiming as best he could. 
 
 To reach by inward light all intellectual good. 
 
 II. 
 
 At first, 'twas but a vague, though strong desire 
 
 Which had not yet well ascertained its aim — 
 The half-decided kindling of the fire — 
 
 The reddening glow before it bursts in flame. 
 
 With reverence had he learned each honored name 
 Among the teachers of the world of old, 
 
 And expectation from their lofty fame. 
 Looked to their works as treasuries to hold 
 All wisdom which the mind of mortal can unfold. 
 
 (37> 
 
38 
 
 ALIVYN. 
 
 III. 
 Long labor, and from ruder labors won, 
 
 Unveiled the mysteries of their ancient speech — 
 Long labor yet, ere half the work was done, 
 
 Conferring treasures sense had failed to reach. 
 
 The unconscious depths of language, into which 
 He found compressed the heart life of a nation, 
 
 What it had suffered, what it had to teach, 
 Of its most shrinking secrets the confession, 
 Hidden by each, and yet by all embodied in expression, 
 
 IV. 
 Wondrous the wealth of living truth that lies 
 
 Deep in a national tongue, as in the earth 
 Unseen and inconceivable supplies 
 Of nourishment for vegetable birth — 
 The magnet stones of sorrow and of mirth, 
 The tillage of the wise. As earth bestows 
 
 On every plant all that its wants call forth, 
 So language, ere her noblest writers rose, 
 Had soared to all their heights and fathomed all their 
 woes. ' 
 
 V. 
 
 The grand ^olico-Ionian Greek - 
 
 Tuned the heroic harp to epic deeds. 
 The idiom v/hich laboring thinkers speak 
 
 Is ready framed for all that reasoning needs : 
 
 Expression which spontaneously proceeds 
 From earnest life is deep as life can be ; 
 
 And literature must follow where it leads 
 Through labyrinths of power mysteriously. 
 And Shakespeare finds in speech a greater still than he. 
 
ALJVVA^. ^g 
 
 VI. 
 The power of Truth — persuasive eloquence — 
 
 The mastery of assemblies — the command 
 Of nations ; in attack or in defence, 
 
 The weapon most effective for the hand 
 
 Of enemy, most trusty to withstand : 
 The gentlest touch to soothe the wounded heart, 
 
 The breath of love and friendship the most bland ; 
 All conquests made in science or in art 
 Are bound up in the gift which words to men impart. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And what were God to us without the Word — 
 The written Word — the message from on high? 
 
 A power inscrutable, unseen,- unheard ; 
 
 And all the hopes that cheer the Christian's eye, 
 Making it Christ to live, and gain to die, 
 
 Must have remained forever unrevealed. 
 A silent God were but an empty sky. 
 
 His truth unuttered, and Himself concealed, 
 
 What could His works of love, or hope, or pardon yield ? 
 
 VIII. 
 And what were man to man himself without 
 
 The marvellous legacy which words inclose — 
 The answers to inquiry and to doubt. 
 
 The story of his race, and how it rose, 
 
 The duties which its birth and life impose, 
 The local mother-tongue, with all its ov/n 
 
 Inheritance of memories, joys and woes, 
 As every gifted soul, in its own tone 
 Hears and records the events upon its pathway strewn ? 
 
40 
 
 ALJVVN, 
 
 IX. 
 
 And ever lame the effort to translate 
 
 The senthnent of long successive dteds : 
 The diction which experiences create 
 
 From the profoundest depths of life proceeds. 
 
 Such words are spells, are histories, are creeds ; 
 And he alone hears the reviving strains 
 
 Who feelingly the native symbol reads. 
 While meditation through deep learning drains 
 Thoughts of a type, which now in words alone remains. 
 
 X. 
 
 Thus, day by day, would the enraptured boy 
 
 Dwell on the strains of old Maeonides, 
 Drinking with new and still increasing joy 
 
 The intoxication of his harmonies. 
 
 Forever varying, like the voiceful seas ; 
 But to himself as true, as simple, grand. 
 
 What living interest v/armed the Epopees ! 
 What graphic art portrayed the Epic land ! 
 While Nature seemed to yield her sceptre to his hand. 
 
 XI. 
 To yield her sceptre, not to lead her slave, 
 
 Nor dictate copy, as to common men. 
 However great the merit it may have 
 
 Her writing to transcribe with faithful pen, 
 
 A greater gift was his, whose mighty ken 
 Revealed the Epic world — in the untrue 
 
 To Nature's rule and measure to retain 
 The charm of Nature, whereby men shall view 
 All Nature's life, in lives which Nature never knew. 
 
ALWVN. 4^ 
 
 XII. 
 A glorious world, a region all his own 
 
 Is that evolved in the great minstrel's song — 
 The land of Greece— but Greece in mythic dawn, 
 
 While gods enjoyed their paradise among 
 
 Her hills and streams, and when her men were strong 
 As thrice their number in historic days. 
 
 No earthly science educates his tongue. 
 The tale he tells, the pictures he portrays, 
 And all his power of verse, the gift a goddess pays. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 His heroes till the land, and sweep the seas 
 With potent touch, as kings might condescend 
 
 To vulgar toil,— and with an Ariel's ease- 
 Divine and human in their being blend ; 
 And in romance their glorious force they spend. 
 
 Yet such they are in sentmient and deeds 
 
 As Nature would have made them had she planned 
 
 Her wori in heroes ; and still thence proceeds 
 
 That wherein song's fair realm the realm of fact exceeds. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Father of glad Romance, first to suffuse 
 The airy fabrics of the brain with truth, 
 
 To school in measured art the Aryan muse, 
 And out of mythic tales the most uncouth 
 And wearisome, with all their depth in sooth, 
 
 To weave the web of Epic, and to take 
 Captive all ages of admiring youth ; 
 
 Founder of all that fiction, which can make 
 Itself such place in art as fact can never shake. 
 
42 ALWYN. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Theban eagle, in his sunward flight', 
 
 Alwyn pursued with charmed and eager eye, 
 . Whether through darkening clouds, eluding sight, 
 
 Or flashing out in evening's richest dye, 
 
 Or in eternal Truth's serenest sky 
 He soared in light, wooing the pure desire 
 
 From earth's renown to nobler things on high. 
 Then o'er its ashes mourned the Cean fire, 
 The wreck of Lesbian song, and Sappho's broken lyre. 
 
 XVI. 
 How the heart gladdens in its own bright dream 
 
 Of old vEolian and Doric song ! 
 Bathed in the beauty of that lyric stream, 
 
 Whose waves alone the history prolong, 
 
 All nature smiles ; that then were woe and wrong, 
 That then were irksome toils and cloudy days 
 
 We overlook. Like future to the young 
 So to the cla:sic taste the past conveys 
 Only the poet's world, the magic of his lays. 
 
 XVII. • 
 The joyous Melas seems to fill the air, 
 
 The buoyant music of a sunny clime, 
 And Elegy, her sister, not less fair. 
 
 With holy Dithyramb, in her sublime 
 
 Religious ecstacy, blend in the chime 
 Of choral chants, and festive melodies, 
 
 The voice of Hellas, in her golden prime. 
 And Ceos, Lesbos, Thebes and Sparta rise 
 In Fancy's fairest light, to Fancy's dazzled eyes. 
 
AL WYN. 43 
 
 XVIII. 
 To him whose study was the lone hillside, 
 
 Beneath the open firmament, among 
 The woods, the glens, the land-invading tide, 
 
 There seemed a tie of kindred to belong 
 
 To the great father of dramatic song 
 With agencies of Nature's mountain reign, 
 
 Whereby the wild, the beautiful, the strong, 
 Obeyed his wand, in vast serial train, 
 As if a Gothic sky had arched the Greek domain. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Yet Sophocles more deeply moved his heart 
 
 With pathos of a calmer, steadier glow — 
 The model symmetry of tragic art, 
 
 Where line on line, accumulative, slow, 
 
 Fate's dark decrees inevitable grow 
 Around the path of unsuspecting man 
 
 To all the agony of hopeless woe. 
 Borne on -the tide of law, the eternal plan 
 Of that almighty will, which mortals cannot scan. 
 
 XX. 
 The shrines of old Philosophy he sought. 
 
 And Xenophon's sweet page conned o'er and o'er. 
 How pure the lucid precepts which it taught, 
 
 And lofty was the object of its lore, 
 
 Fragments of heaven- descended truth it bore. 
 The being of an all-pervading One, 
 
 Whose mankind are, and whom they should adore;. 
 It taught in lines of light, but light tha,t shone 
 On the inquiring mind, as distant, cold and lone. 
 
44 
 
 ALJVVN. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 But aye, again, again, that charming flow 
 
 Of sentence calls the lingering student back. 
 Streams of Socratic dialogue bestow 
 
 Verdure and health upon their graceful track ; 
 
 And common sense, not here the common hack, 
 But minister of truth to noblest end, 
 
 Alike without redundancy or lack, 
 Does well its message to the heart commend, 
 Which has no scheme to build, no dogma to defend. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 And then on Plato's bolder wing he rose 
 To loftier flight, and more extensive view. 
 
 Where rays of purer intellect disclose 
 
 A fairer world, uncircumscribed and new. 
 And strains of eloquence the air imbue. 
 
 The faultless labors of the sacred Nine, 
 Whose harmonies the willing soul subdue. 
 
 How would he dwell upon the graceful line 
 
 In dalliance with truth, and reveries divine, 
 
 XXIII. 
 Now playing with a web of gossamer. 
 
 To which the breath of Zephyr were a shock, 
 Now soaring giddily to regions where 
 
 The glowing rays his waxen pinions mock ; 
 
 Then slowly, surely, as on living rock. 
 Ascending by the steps of argument ; 
 
 Or stooping some deep secret to unlock 
 Of thought or passion, while through the extent 
 Of all his range Delight still followed as he went. 
 
ALWVjV. 45 
 
 XXIV. 
 If down from cloudland to the solid earth 
 
 Wise Socrates the muse of Science drew, 
 Diviner Plato to her place of birth, , 
 
 From earth and clouds alike returned her view. 
 
 He who in God the prime ideas knew, 
 Must recognize, all dimly though it be. 
 
 In every type of thought and things, a true 
 Outgrowth of God ; and thus alone can see 
 Truth in her changeless forms from all eternity. 
 
 XXV. 
 But over much delusive radiance hung, 
 
 And much was far and indistinctly seen; 
 Conjecture to the fairest pictures clung. 
 
 And esoteric phrase would intervene, 
 
 To shade the meaning with its cloudy screen. 
 Though much of Deity, of men and things 
 
 Those wondrous volumes taught, yet more, I ween, 
 Was also faintly sketched to guide the wings 
 Of young inquiry on to more abundant springs. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 But more exhausting warfare did he Vv'age 
 
 With obstacles impeding human thought 
 And its expression, when Stagira's sage 
 
 Before the eye his sterner labors brought, 
 
 His cold analysis, his language caught 
 From Reason's purest stream, but brief, unkind. 
 
 So closely fitting the conceptions taught. 
 So unillustrative, the laboring mind 
 Shrank from the homage due to knowledge thus en- 
 shrined. 
 
46 ALIVVAT. 
 
 XXVIL 
 And yet in that inevitable grasp, 
 
 Which like a higher instinct seized on truth, 
 Holding it forth in unrelenting clasp. 
 
 As an anatomist the muscle — and in sooth 
 
 With just as little sentiment of ruth 
 Over its withered life — there was a new, 
 
 Peculiar charm for the inquiring youth, 
 Which long his deep laborious studies drew, 
 The tints, indeed, were cold, the drawing still was true. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 But even from truth so chilling, bald and hard, 
 
 He turned away at last in weariness, 
 The prelude of the philosophic bard 
 
 Luring his spirit with elate address. 
 
 And noble was that symphony, nor less 
 The grandeur of the whole ; but drear the gloom 
 
 Of soul-denying doctrines, which impress 
 Upon the heart a cold, dark awe of doom. 
 Of Godless, hopeless fate, and an eternal tomb. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 And yet was ever song more weirdly grand, 
 With. richer beauty in its flowing lines ? 
 
 Fragments of Eden in a desert land, 
 "Where desolation with luxuriance joins, 
 And Mirage draws her falsely fair designs — ■ 
 
 The weight and blackness of the thunder-cloud. 
 Edged v/ith the glory of the light which shines 
 
 From the deep hidden sun. How lowly bowed 
 
 Was heavenly song to theme of dust and death avowed ! 
 
ALIVVN. 
 
 XXX. 
 Brief time, Lucretius, in thy strange domain 
 
 Did the inquiring spirit choose to dwell. 
 Not all thy harmonies could long retain 
 
 The captive in the magic of their spell, 
 
 While to the soul no tale of life they tell- 
 Atoms and empty space, and cold and heat, 
 
 With appetence iastinctive to compel — 
 Are these the universe ? And must we greet 
 As father of our souls the lifeless bread we eat ? 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 The theory of Horace might be slim, 
 
 But if " insane," did not afflict him long. 
 And better far the fickle, weak or dim, 
 
 Than logical consistency among 
 
 Ideas boldly harmonized in wrong, 
 Compressed, distorted, without sense of ruth, 
 
 Into a system seeming fair and strong. 
 Fallacious snare of undiscerning youth. 
 By binding the untrue in common bonds with truth. 
 
 XXXII. 
 A wisdom his emancipate from cant. 
 
 From shiboleths and limits of the schools. 
 With shams and falsehoods gayly militant. 
 
 The praise of virtue and the scourge of fools. 
 
 Teaching in methods unapproached by rules, 
 Precise, yet flowing ; negligent, yet terse, 
 
 With genial fancy, which it never cools 
 The precepts of the sagest to rehearse. 
 Enrobing truth in fair concinnity of verse. 
 
 47 
 
48 ALIVVN. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 Far other was thy glory, Cicero, 
 
 Most fertile genius of the Roman name, 
 Whose glowing tones of eloquence bestow 
 
 But half thy green inheritance of fame. 
 
 Pure statesman hero, toiling to reclaim . 
 A sinking country and a vicious age, 
 
 Who lived a life scarce faction dared to blame. 
 And nobly died to stem the tyrant's rage. 
 Hail freedom's martyr, hail benign eclectic sage ! 
 
 XXXIV. 
 What wisdom in thy pen, from all the past 
 
 Culling the fruits matured, though sparsely sown. 
 From tomes at which even Study stands aghast. 
 
 And works whose grain of truth had else unknown 
 
 Gone to the grave to which themselves have gone ; 
 From labyrinthine systems all the good 
 
 Weaving into the beauty of thine own. 
 Enrobing virtue of the manliest mood, 
 In noblest, sweetest style that e'er reflection wooed. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 *Twas almost evidence of truths uproved 
 To find the richest thinker of old Rome 
 
 Grasping with fondness all that Plato loved. 
 For did not souls so nigh of kindred come 
 From the same regions of their pristine home ? 
 
 The Greek to dare the higher flights of mind. 
 Till his own subtle speech recoiled therefrom. 
 
 But thou, great Tully, wast by Heaven designed 
 
 An utterance of thy time, a voice for human kind. 
 
ALivvm 
 
 XXXVI, 
 
 Within the limits of life's brief career, 
 Within the worldly range of Roman view, 
 
 Whoe'er proclaimed more cogently and clear 
 The purest practice of the good and true, 
 Or with a firmer hand exemplars drew 
 
 From life, life's joys and duties to display — 
 Alike in what from man to man is due, 
 
 And what the spirit to itself should pay — 
 
 Or lit with holier light its latest earthly day. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 But of the ultimate design in man, 
 
 His origin, his life beyond the grave. 
 And all that constitutes the Almighty plan 
 
 In virtuous being, or His will to save 
 
 The erring, though thy happy genius gave 
 The noblest views unaided reason might, 
 
 To nought of all belief unwavering clave. 
 The dafa lay removed from human sight. 
 In God's own councils hid, and in primaeval night. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 'Twas thine, great offspring of Hellenic sires, 
 From ruder efforts of the earlier time, 
 
 From scanty thought and ill-expressed desires, 
 From symbol-darkened fragments of sublime 
 And God-communicated truth to climb 
 
 To heights of science, where the sounds that rise 
 Confusedly from below, become a chime 
 
 Of perfect harmony, and to the eyes 
 
 The far-extended scene blent into beauty lies. 
 3 
 
 49 
 
50 
 
 ALJVVJV. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 And Plato. was thine own. His lofty mind 
 
 Toiling in truth, as in a diamond mine, 
 Yet clinging to it only as combined 
 
 With beauty and subservient to design 
 
 By chastest art described with touch divine, 
 Blest in imagination's richest dower, 
 
 The truest as the grandest type of thine. 
 Conferred the crown on thy peculiar power, — 
 Power that must wane, yet last till time's concluding hour. 
 
 XL. 
 Yea, Plato was thine own. In vain we seek 
 
 Among thy workmen in the world of thought 
 Another, who so verily the Greek 
 
 On Grecian woof so fair a tissue wrought, 
 
 Making all thine from whencesoever brought ; 
 Not he, who once in Oriental stole. 
 
 In Metapontum and Crotona taught, 
 Not Socrates, whose comprehensive soul 
 Embraced all human kind — possession of the whole ; 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Not Aristotle, only Greek by half — 
 
 A half, indeed, of Titan magnitude, 
 Yet only half — " The wheat without the chaff," 
 
 Retorts some dialectic, v/ell imbued 
 
 With mysteries of figure, term and mood ; 
 And justly so, were it enough to know, 
 
 And all were done when truth is understood ; 
 Yea, only Greek by half, Parnassus' snow. 
 Without his Delphic shrine and smiling vales below ; 
 
ALIVVN. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 Not Zeno, who despised thy love of art, 
 And wove a system inhumanely pure, 
 
 In which thy darling pleasures had no part, 
 Whose fetters for the honors they insure. 
 Thy haughty Roman masters might endure, 
 
 Believing thus their virtues to recall, 
 
 While monster vices failing still to cure — 
 
 But ill-befitting was its gloomy thrall 
 
 Thy gayer sons, who sought the beautiful in all ; 
 
 XLTII. 
 
 Not Epicurus, though a dearer name 
 
 To thy own children, and the Greek supreme 
 
 Deemed of Lucretius, who has clothed his fame 
 In colors of a splendor to beseem 
 The incarnation of an opium dream ; 
 
 Thou lovedst pleasure, but 'twas not to float 
 With eyes averted down the giddy stream. 
 
 Just blest enough to firmly fail to note 
 
 The dangers of the way and frailties of thy boat ; 
 
 XIJV. 
 Nay, not a name among the boasted seven, 
 
 Nor of the mystic Eleatic three. 
 Can claim that ethnic honor, proudly given 
 
 By grateful souls of thinking men in thee. 
 
 To him the sage of the Academy, 
 Whose plastic spirit, once for all defined 
 
 In shape for all succeeding time to see. 
 That fair philosophy which Grecian mind. 
 Though striving oft in vain, still natively designed. 
 
 51 
 
$2 ALIVYN. 
 
 XLV. 
 Far other was the work of lordly Rome. 
 
 Not hers to watch and wait the dawning thought, 
 Till troops of new and dazzling fancies come 
 
 From the deep bosom of preceding nought, 
 
 Or that dark chaos whence unseen are brought 
 The atoms of conception. Not in her 
 
 Was it that innate Beauty ever sought 
 For self-development, or dared to stir 
 Those springs of pure delight which new-born thoughts 
 confer. 
 
 XLVI. 
 Far other work — to conquer and to rule, 
 
 To stamp her impress on each neighboring land. 
 For this she culled from every Grecian school 
 
 Wisdom matured to guide her forceful hand, 
 
 And rifled every mystery of command, 
 To build a structure of enduring laws. 
 
 And government which should forever stand, 
 To force obedience and to v/in applause 
 On the foundation laid of Nature's deepest cause. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 Let others search for truth, and prove it true, 
 
 Her mighty arm was destined well to wield 
 The tempered weapon, while its edge was new, 
 
 In actual combat on the living field ; 
 
 Till even they by whom it was revealed. 
 Rejoiced submissive in that sovereign reign, 
 
 Which to their doctrines wider range could yield, 
 Beholding the results of studious pain 
 Diffused by Roman hands through all her vast domain. 
 
53 
 
 ALIVVN. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 Greek to discover, — Roman to diffuse, — 
 
 To bear the seeds of knowledge all abroad, 
 The brave protector of the Orient muse 
 
 Who opened up her Occidental road, 
 
 Enlarged the ancient bounds of her abode, 
 Till from the sands of Nubia to the Rhine, 
 
 And from the Tigris to the Atlantic flood 
 Learning and Rome beheld their arts combine 
 To soothe discordant wills and barbarous lives refine. 
 
 XLIX. 
 " And who with most effect," did Alwyn ask, 
 " Among the cohorts of Rome's mighty men, 
 In execution of this mental task, 
 Wielded the lucid philosophic pen, 
 Pursuing the far flight of Grecian ken 
 While winning pupils of the old and young ?" 
 
 Who but the same upon whose diction, when 
 Flowing in magic from his living tongue, 
 The listening thousands long in silent rapture hung ? 
 
 L. 
 
 Then was it not of appetence divine — 
 The inly felt commission from on high — 
 
 Which led great Tully to the greater shrine 
 Of Academic wisdom, to supply 
 Its practical defects from stores that lie 
 
 Scattered among the schools of every creed ? 
 Yea, such the guidance of the Eternal eye, 
 
 That all their toils to one result might lead. 
 
 And nations should confess the spirit's worth and need. 
 
54 ALIVVN. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Yet master, as he was of all the range 
 Of his own art and of his native tongue 
 
 Commanded, like a wizard, every change, 
 
 The grave, the gay, the gentle, and the strong, 
 And distant ages still his praise prolong ; 
 
 Was there not one a truer type of Rome, 
 In all her majesty of right and wrong. 
 
 Her law abroad and laxity at home. 
 
 Her lordly power to rule, as force to overcome ? 
 
 LII. 
 
 Not suddenly, but grandly, line by line. 
 Self-drawn did Caesar rise before his ken, 
 
 Clothed with the mastery of a gift divine, 
 By personal fascination to enchain. 
 To wield the might of armies, or the pen, 
 
 Or gather legislation in his hands, 
 
 Greatest of Romans, if not first of men. 
 
 Whose name still as the name of empire stands, 
 
 And still the living as the ancient world commands. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 Two masters, born in times not far apart, 
 
 Have to the world its highest culture lent. 
 One planted his commission in the heart. 
 
 The other in the forms of government. 
 
 And now, almost two thousand years are spent, 
 And still those mighty masters rule the same, 
 
 The world's best order follows their intent 
 And Ceesar still divides with Christ the claim. 
 And over against Christ's is ever Caesar's name. 
 
ALJVVN. 
 
 55 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Yet Caesar's power is waning, and must wane, 
 
 And Christ's the narrower once, expands meanwhile, 
 And will expand, though Caesar's must remain 
 
 Till Christ has vanquished violence and guile. 
 
 One or the other, in his several style? 
 Must rule where men are upright or refined. 
 
 With force or love our lives we reconcile. 
 Law or the gospel. The best human kind 
 Are Caesar's until Christ is in their hearts enshrined. 
 
CANTO THIRD. 
 
ANALYSIS 
 
 Canto III. — Alwyn seeks new sources of instruction — Removes 
 to the city — Connection with journalism — Dissatisfied with the 
 intellectual results— The university — Definite aims for proper 
 self-culture — Seeks facilities for studying the modern literature 
 of Continental Europe— -Rouen — French literature — German 
 — Italy — View of Tivoli — Traces of human antiquity — Their 
 effect upon the mind — Hebrew and Oriental literature — 
 English literature. 
 
CANTO THIRD. 
 
 I. 
 
 But Alwyn, while his zeal of learning sped 
 
 From source to source, perceived approaching lack, 
 
 When, at the pastor's shelves no longer fed, 
 He must submit to turn its ardor back, 
 And pace henceforward in the common track. 
 
 The buoyant heart which had led on so far, 
 Bounded once more into the new attack 
 
 On difficulty, in this joyous war, 
 
 Nor felt in " poverty unconquerable bar. " 
 
 II. 
 
 My native mountains, whose grey summits write 
 
 Their daring outlines on the azure sky, 
 I love the manly lessons ye indite, 
 
 The self-reliance and the purpose high, 
 
 The liberty of thought which ye supply. 
 But 'tis of God, not man ye have to teach. 
 
 And I would also learn of man, and try 
 Paths of instruction, which I cannot reach 
 Among your wilds, where all is strange to human speech. 
 
 (59) 
 
60 ALIVYN. 
 
 III. 
 
 " I love it not, the crowded^ murky town, 
 
 Yet there are treasures, which I fain would seize ; 
 
 And Learning there extends her laurel crown — 
 Though crowns I reck not, nor her bald degrees — 
 Baubles designed the shallow mind to please. 
 
 But much I long to sit at Learning's feet, 
 
 And drink her drafts of knowledge to the lees. 
 
 For this farewell each wild and calm retreat. 
 
 And welcome smoke and dust, the foul and noisy street. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " In thee, my own fair land of hill and plain, 
 Of fertile vales and shining peaks of snow, 
 
 I fain would find that intellectual gain. 
 
 If not, then elsewhere must my footsteps go, 
 For know I must all God will have me know. 
 
 To part with thee will cost me many a sigh. 
 But through my being burns a ceaseless glow, 
 
 Which is my life, and if it dies, I die, 
 
 And if unfed it lives, I burn eternally. 
 
 V. 
 " The daily journal is the people's king. 
 
 His ministers are princes. Their control, 
 Pervasive as the agencies of Spring, 
 
 And generative as they, as broad and full. 
 
 Insinuates itself into the soul, 
 And works its purpose by creating will, 
 
 And through the individual wields the whole. 
 In his vast court the lowliest place I'd fill, 
 Only to breathe that air of knowledge, good and ill." 
 
ALIVVJV, 6l 
 
 VI. 
 
 An humble choice ; but not an humble aim. 
 
 Where every athlete strips him for the race, 
 Talent asserts successfully her claim, 
 
 And bounds to higher and to higher place, 
 
 'Twixt high and low the distance to efface. 
 And sweep the adventitious out of view. 
 
 So Alwyn rose — and rose in public grace, 
 Into the columns of the journal threw 
 His own deep fervor, and his thinking bold and new. 
 
 VIT. 
 Scanty, at first, his skill of men, I ween, 
 
 But quick his tact in everything that lay 
 Before him, and of penetration keen, 
 
 He seized upon the topics of the day, 
 
 And dashed them off, in an impassioned way. 
 While young assurance passed for conscious might, 
 
 And needed only diction to array 
 The news that could be gleaned by ear or sight, 
 The public read and praised with wonder and delight. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Not that in truth or substance there was aught 
 
 In article of his elsewhere unknown ; 
 Nothing was there of reach or depth of thought, 
 
 The buoyancy of joyous life alone 
 
 Breathed through his style its warm and gladsome 
 Like the aroma of a precious wine, [tone, 
 
 Ineffable in all that was its own, 
 It filled the reader's heart with a benign 
 Delight, as if he too possessed the gift divine. 
 
^2 ' ALJVVN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Successful toil increase of toil incurred, 
 
 Duties fulfilled to higher duties led, 
 Until Necessity full often spurred 
 
 To effort which no gushing impulse fed, 
 
 A task not of the heart, but aching head. 
 The journal, which at first appeared a friend, 
 
 A messenger of what was to be said, 
 Became a monster despot, in the end. 
 Whose daily life by lives of men must be maintained. 
 
 X. 
 
 . Wearisome days have mounted up to years. 
 
 And where the lore wherein he hoped to bask ? 
 The toil remains, but not the joy that cheers, 
 
 When youthful ardor kindles every task ; 
 
 Gold has flowed in, for which he did not ask. 
 Knowledge of things which gave him no concern, 
 
 Mysteries of life he cared not to unmask ; 
 But all that knowledge he had hoped to earn 
 Seemed further now away and harder now to learn, 
 
 XI. 
 
 Before the world a teacher and a guide 
 
 Of national opinion, to advise 
 How men should think, and how they should provide 
 
 For public wants the adequate supplies, 
 
 He stands most painfully in his own eyes 
 Unfurnished with a knowledge of the laws 
 
 On which a people worthily relies, 
 And all unfit to labor in a cause 
 Which from profoundest truth its only safety draws. 
 
ALJVVN. 63 
 
 XII. 
 
 Disgusted with himself the more he felt 
 The grandeur of his work and its demands, 
 
 The uneasy spirit obstinately dwelt 
 
 Upon itself as wrong. The guilty bands- 
 Guilty to him — he severed from his hands. 
 
 How much he yet must know of living truth, 
 Of present times, their letters and their lands. 
 
 This work in doubt and crudities uncouth 
 
 Could but mislead the mass and squander fleeting youth. 
 
 XIII. 
 A true and earnest modesty, in league 
 
 With pride, from aught but perfect work restrained. 
 Ah, then, amid reaction and fatigue, 
 
 When effort had the vital forces drained. 
 
 And in his heart humiliation reigned, 
 The lowlier aims of Norman did not seem 
 
 Of such a nature as to be disdained. 
 At least pretence did not outrun esteem, 
 And promise was not more than practice could redeem, 
 
 XIV. 
 
 And was not Norman happy in his way, 
 
 Beloved by one whose warm affections shed 
 The purest light of life on every day. 
 
 Rejoicing in the work which earned his bread, 
 
 And with no higher cravings to be fed, 
 Save those of simple faith, by which he held 
 
 A life in Christ, his spiritual head. 
 Alwyn admired, and yet his heart rebelled — 
 By one strong ruling force all other force compelled. 
 
64 ALJVVJV. 
 
 XV. 
 " The holiest, as the highest act of man 
 
 Is to believe the truth, and well to know 
 Its circulation in the eternal plan 
 
 Of being. But in the inscrutably slow 
 
 And ponderous round by which the ages go, 
 I would explore likewise the written Word ; 
 
 If haply there some Logarithmic law 
 Solution of the complex all afford. 
 For me let this be love and friendship's sweet accord." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Within a lovely lawn of fair extent. 
 
 And through whose length a slumbrous river slept,. 
 Rose Halls where youth, on lofty themes intent. 
 
 It was presumed perpetual vigils kept. 
 
 No noisy fleets of trade that river swept ; 
 No cares distracting ventured to invade 
 
 The cloistered walks where Meditation stept. 
 
 But aye the hush of Sabbath stillness paid 
 
 Reverence to patient thought, which waiting loves the 
 
 shade. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Light galleys floated softly without sound 
 Between the banks of smoothly-shaven grass, 
 
 And bore, as if within enchanted ground, 
 Thinkers whose only work in life it was 
 To harness thoughts, instructed as they pass, 
 
 Into the service of the good and true ; 
 Readers who gather wisdom a.s a glass 
 
 Gathers the burning rays by steady view. 
 
 'Twas what Alwyn had dreamed, but more than Fancy 
 drew. 
 
ALWYN. 65 
 
 XVIII. 
 Upon an ancient gate-way dark and low 
 
 He read the word " Humility," and said, 
 " Most fit should I beneath that portal go, 
 
 As by humiliation hither led." 
 
 And soon through that " Of Labor " also sped, 
 He sought his own consent, with vain delay. 
 
 To pass the gate " Of Honor," ill bestead 
 With ignorance which filled him with dismay. 
 Till from his mind all thought of honor passed away. 
 
 XIX. 
 Of higher import far to him the care. 
 
 Had he acquired what manhood's duties crave, 
 The knowledge and the wisdom which prepare 
 
 To rightly use the gifts the Master gave ? 
 
 Harvests of ripened learning round him wave ; 
 Yet half it seems to him like doubling sound 
 
 Within a vast reverberating cave. 
 From the dark walls a thousand voices bound ; 
 And yet in all the tones of only one are found. 
 
 XX. 
 
 The College has its hero, whose great fame 
 Her younger sons like breath of life inhale. 
 
 And if the greater number miss the aim, 
 And not as his their blanching toils avail. 
 They drink, at least, the potion that makes pale. 
 
 The hero may be glorious in his way, 
 A Newton, or a Porson, yet entail. 
 
 By force of an involuntary sway, 
 
 A bondage which shall long the step of Truth delay. 
 
66 ALWYN. 
 
 XXI. 
 " Where knowledge is an instrument designed 
 
 To act on human life as formative — 
 Though oft v/ith bias obstinate and blind — 
 
 To plastic youth a purposed bent to give, 
 
 'Tis wisely urged by force competitive. 
 But why should I, not of the brotherhood, 
 
 Nor wishing ever by such skill to live, 
 Subject myself to methods thus pursued, 
 And sell my birthright so in every higher good ? 
 
 XXII. 
 " Beyond all estimate the truth here stored, 
 
 Beyond all praise the toiling minds, who earn 
 Its honors and who coin the massive hoard. 
 
 But what the College knows the youth must learn ; 
 
 Not how to estimate or to discern 
 Things independently. Correct and slow. 
 
 Bordered by banks of stone, direct and stern 
 As a canal, from centuries ago. 
 Its stream of thought flows on, as ever taught to flow. 
 
 XXIII. 
 " On the great map of human life the lines 
 
 Of latitude and longitude of powers 
 May cover all ; but no such law assigns 
 
 Identity to trees and fruits and flov/ers, 
 
 All gifted with their own respective dowers. 
 One sun to all his radiance must impart. 
 
 To all alike the falling of soft showers ; 
 And yet each kind grows by a different art. 
 So lives its proper gift in every human heart. 
 
ALIVVN. 6y 
 
 XXIV. 
 " That germ of higher life to scrutinize, 
 
 Its proper culture and its aims secure, 
 Distinct from what philosophers comprise 
 
 In laws of human nature, must insure 
 
 The highest good, and longest to endure. 
 For thus to follow nature is not sin. 
 
 The special gift is in itself most pure. 
 Sin is the common lot. Deeper within 
 The temple lies the law where virtue must begin. 
 
 XXV. 
 " Rouen stands queenly by the winding Seine, 
 
 And gathers gain, who once commanded praise, 
 All heedless of her mediaeval reign. 
 
 The warlike grandeur of her early days. 
 
 When knights, the themes of mighty minstrels' lays, 
 Trod her resounding streets, her stately halls. 
 
 Enough that England's gold her toil repays ; 
 The pride that native once within her walls 
 
 Reigned England's Conqueror, no busy head recalls. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 " And wherefore should she alway dream of eld, — 
 Of rule which never more she can command ? 
 
 Yea, let the empty by-gone be dispelled. 
 
 But why should here that virgin statue stand 
 With its condemning memories to brand 
 
 Thy reputation with unmanly crime ? 
 
 Then fell thy arm— the weapon from thy hand. 
 
 Here I arrest my steps. For here things chime 
 
 In with my mood for old, merging in present time." 
 
68 ALWYN. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Thus Alwyn flees afar — yea, far from all 
 Who ever knew him or his native speech. 
 
 Not that he hates mankind, but that the call, 
 Which ever seems within him to beseech, 
 Invites to ends no social labors reach. 
 " In this old capital of Normandie 
 
 111 seek again what lonely toil can teach. 
 
 The something above sense God grant to me 
 
 To rightly apprehend, the good in life to see." 
 
 XXVIII. 
 And now with clearer purpose to explore 
 
 The mines of thought, his ardent steps advance 
 From classic treasures of long garnered store, 
 
 To thy still growing fields, illustrious France. 
 
 Thy formal verse he measured with a glance, 
 Which not the pure Racine could long delay ; 
 
 But O, what rapture did his soul entrance 
 When o'er thy charming prose he held his way, 
 By the quiet mystic led, the Mentor of Cambray, 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 By lofty Massillon, from whence the view 
 
 Embraced two brother streams, far flowing on. 
 The broad and full Bosuet, and Bourdaloue 
 
 Direct and rapid as the Alpine Rhone ; 
 
 Rouseau, a fairy hill, but sad and lone ; 
 Pascal, a lake, pure mirror of the sky, 
 
 Cold Rochefoucauld in glittering crystals shone;. 
 Montesquieu, a vineyard rich and high ; 
 A garden Saint Pierre of many a lovely dye. 
 
ALWYN. 69 
 
 XXX. 
 
 And La Bruyere, and Vauvenargues, Duclos, 
 Were cultured farms and fields of waving grain, 
 
 And as a forest tossing to and fro 
 
 In changing winds along a mountain chain, 
 The numerous heroes of thy later reign ; 
 
 While many a castle, well defended, crowned 
 The rocky steeps, and awed the distant plain. 
 
 Wherein philosophy had early found 
 
 Congenial home, and still retained her vantage ground. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 And when his journey closed, the lingering strain 
 Which longest held possession of his ear, 
 
 Came from the pulpit. In her noblest reign, 
 The lettered muse of France, doomed to appear 
 Too oft the friend of error, chose to rear, 
 
 As if all future censure to disarm. 
 
 Her fairest structures polished and severe, 
 
 Pure as Athena's temple, of the warm 
 
 Gospel of Christ, in lines forevermore to charm. 
 
 XXXII. 
 Grateful we yield what admiration owes 
 
 To controversial fervor in Bosuet, 
 To solemn hopes, and Christian repose 
 
 In Flechier ; or higher tribute pay 
 
 To Art, where Nature chooses to obey 
 The wand of Massillon ; and for the true 
 
 Native and incommunicable sway, 
 The gift which Art, subserving, never knew. 
 Nature will fondly claim, with heart-throbs, Bourdaloue. 
 
70 
 
 ALWYAr. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 And then, with ardent, long expectant toil. 
 
 He climbed to other language heights, and viewed 
 The scene of Teuton warfare and turmoil. 
 
 Where scholars, critics, sophists urged the feud, 
 
 With erudition vast, and deep imbued 
 With theories the outer public's scorn. 
 
 In dreary tomes, laborious, shapeless, crude, 
 And yet from out that chaos saw, like morn, 
 A nation's literature in glad effulgence born — 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 A literature self-conscious from its birth, 
 
 Built up by critic skill, to order made. 
 By rule prescribed, and yet of native worth. 
 
 Racy and fresh in living truth arrayed, 
 
 Where wisely Art has come to Learning's aid, 
 And from the mystic depths of German mind 
 
 Called up a new Parnassus, and essayed 
 New forms, in which her products are defined, 
 And of the German heart the warmth and worth en- 
 shrined. 
 
 XXXV. 
 But onward still enthusiasm led, 
 
 Kindling by motion to a fiercer glow ; 
 Language itself assumed a charm that fed 
 
 The fervor of pursuit And still to know 
 
 Another and another, and to throw 
 Open another gate of thought became 
 
 A triumph and a joy, as if a foe 
 Were vanquished. And again to seek the same 
 Exultant sense of power was fuel to the flame. 
 
ALWVN. 71 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 Those two fair daughters of a Roman mother, 
 
 Who still her old inheritance retain, 
 Of majesty, the one, and grace, the other, 
 
 Beneath the skies of Italy and Spain, 
 
 Spread to his eye the wealth of their domain, 
 Rich in the fruits of music and of song : 
 
 One in the utmost life from iVrt can gain ; 
 The other, artless .truth and passion strong. 
 And wild adventure drawn from warfare practiced long. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 And thou, O Italy, though for the eye 
 
 A thousand charms thy varied land combines, 
 Thy ever-neighboring sea, and cloudless sky. 
 
 Thy fertile plains, traversed by graceful lines 
 
 Of elms that bend to wed the climbing vines. 
 Thy mountain ranges, and thy rushing streams. 
 
 Hast yet a magic which no form confines. 
 But breathing round one in delightful dreams. 
 More to the glowing heart than all the landscape seems. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 Above fair Tivoli the mountains rise 
 
 Shaggy and wild, and wavy lands below 
 Extend afar to the engirdling skies ; 
 
 While from her throne of rocks, like sheet of snow, 
 
 Her torrent river plunges, in its flow 
 Piercing the opposing ledge, and on its breath 
 
 Wearing, in joyous light, the Iris bow, 
 As into Stygian darkness, far beneath 
 The giddy, reckless wave descends, like life to death. 
 
ALJVVN. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 Her olive groves and green declivities, 
 
 Her sunny fields which feed the clustering vine, 
 Grottoes and glades, to which the herdsman flees, 
 
 And where his flocks at sultry noon recline, 
 
 Are threads in feeling's web that sweetly twine ; 
 And yet the eye will turn from all to rest 
 
 With fonder love upon yon Sibyl's shrine ; 
 Nor in its fair proportions find the best. 
 A dearer gift is there — Antiquity's bequest — 
 
 XL. 
 
 The gift of centuries, memory of a race 
 
 Whose deeds are lessons, and whom to admire 
 
 Is half the way to greatness. Thus we trace 
 The lines which Ruin's old domains inspire : 
 Here Horace mused, here Tully's soul of fire 
 
 Fed on new beauties, Csesar's march delayed, 
 And gay Catullus tuned his graceful lyre ; 
 
 Sallust his graphic pictures here portrayed, 
 
 And lonely musing, here the sad TibuUus strayed. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Then vague, but vast and glowing visions rise 
 Of manful Rome, invincible and free. 
 
 And of a gorgeous empire fierce, yet w^ise 
 To hold of wisest men the sovereignty, 
 And mold mankind for what they were to be ; 
 
 Visions of classic art and vandal wrong, 
 And of a wintry intervening sea — 
 
 Ages of discord, whence harmonious sprung 
 The elements of art, when art again was young. 
 
ALWVN. 73 
 
 XLII. 
 Earth holds a concord with the heart of man, 
 
 Her forms and hues and voices manifold, 
 All find their own dominion there and fan 
 
 Their kindred feelings. And the reign they hold 
 
 Is of a wealth unmeasured and untold- 
 And yet one footprint of a by-gone age, 
 
 One page of human history unrolled, 
 Is more to rouse emotion, or assuage, 
 Than all the assembled charms of Nature's heritage. 
 
 XLIIL 
 And then the native language of that book. 
 
 Now taught to speak in every human tongue, 
 Upon whose lessons he had learned to look 
 
 As from the councils of the Highest sprung, 
 
 Around his heart its inspiration flung, 
 That speech before whose venerable eld 
 
 Rome was of yesterday and Greece was young, 
 And yet the force within whose bosom held, 
 Is still unmarred by time, its mastery undispelled. 
 
 XLIV. 
 The rosy light, which half-reveals, half-veils 
 
 The graceful luxury of orient climes, 
 That magic of romance, which even tales 
 
 Of wild untruth, and arbitrary crimes 
 
 Into the heaven of Poetry sublimes, 
 Allured his toils, where novel regions teem^ 
 
 With thoughts unfixed by places, or by times, 
 Which floating in a mist of fancy seem 
 Like forms of cloudland bo.n, and wilful as a dream. 
 
 4 ■ 
 
74 
 
 ALIVVJV. 
 
 XLV. 
 And thus from land to land, day after day, 
 
 Enthusiasm rushed with joyous bound. 
 Not that his knowledge yet had seen the way 
 
 To that strange mystery, most to astound, 
 
 That all the loftiest, truest, most profound 
 Philosophy that ever man conceived 
 
 Is with the language which he speaks invvound, 
 That all his mind or prowess has achieved. 
 All he has loved, or hated, questioned or believed, 
 
 XLVI. 
 All he has been, as light upon the page 
 
 By photographic skill prepared, records 
 Itself in living speech from age to age : 
 
 Alwyn ransacked the gallery of words 
 
 For the more finite pictures it affords 
 Of fair conceptions drawn by greatest men. 
 
 And sooner than expected were those lords 
 Of languages subjected to his ken. 
 Few from all time the master-pieces of the pen. 
 
 XLVIL 
 Meanwhile had Springs and Autumns come and fled, 
 
 And youth had been by riper age replaced. 
 His native literature so long unread, 
 
 Which largely earlier studies had embraced, 
 
 Was less from memory than esteem effaced. 
 But when he bade a truce to that long war 
 
 In foreign fields, and former walks retraced. 
 It was with thoughts such as the traveler's are 
 When home again he greets, returning from afar. 
 
ALIVVJV, ;5 
 
 XLVIII. 
 " All hail, again, my native English tongue, 
 
 Thou comest on my ear so richly fraught 
 With melodies from life's deep fountains sprung, 
 
 And harmonies of feeling and of thought, 
 
 I seem to hear the voice of her who taught 
 My infant lips to shape themselves to thee. 
 
 Of those who in youth's giddy passions wrought 
 The work of love, of hate, of grief, of glee, 
 Of beauty's holy rest, or rapt solemnity. 
 
 XLIX. 
 Each word and accent has a tale to tell. 
 
 Like early friends met under foreign skies, 
 And as I yield me passive to thy spell. 
 
 Upon imagination's canvas rise 
 
 Their forms — the good, the beautiful, the wise — = 
 Who taught the aspiring soul its noblest aim. 
 
 Nor absent his who labored to devise 
 Temptation to its ruin, and whose name 
 Still kindles up disgust, or anger's keener flame. 
 
 L. 
 
 Nor does my spirit its own past career 
 
 Alone from thy resources thus repair. 
 The thoughts of millions fill thine atmosphere, 
 
 As warm and genial sunlight fills the air — ■ 
 
 Thine atmosphere in which the odors rare 
 Are poetry, and science is the gale, 
 
 And he who therein lives, though it may bear 
 At times miasma's transitory bale. 
 Knowledge and beauty must, as daily breath, inhale. 
 
76 ALJVVN. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Thou humblest thyself to every care, 
 
 The lowliest task to human labor known. 
 
 And in assuaging revelation where 
 
 Languish the poor, disease's victims groan. 
 Or conscience-stricken wretches would atone 
 
 For bitter guilt by self-condemning tale, 
 
 Hast thou the gates of utterance open thrown. 
 
 And where thy deep heart-searching meanings fail, 
 
 Where fail they ever must, what other can avail ? 
 
 LII. 
 But when a Hamlet's or Othello's woe 
 
 The pangs sublime of pandemonian king. 
 Immortal triumph o'er immortal foe, 
 
 Or the glad theme which ransomed spirits sing. 
 
 Demand the service of a bolder string, 
 As little do thy harmonies refuse. 
 
 Nay, rising buoyant as an angel's wing, 
 Where thy high argument its path pursues. 
 Thou soarest beyond the flight of Greek or Roman muse. 
 
 LIII. 
 What words like thine supply the fluent tongue 
 
 With instruments of winning eloquence. 
 Which, scattering to the winds the arts of wrong. 
 
 And sifting equally from the pretense 
 
 Of anarch and of despot honest sense. 
 Can charm into conviction, and inspire 
 
 That pure delight words can alone dispense. 
 When to high meaning chimes their lofty choir, 
 And Truth from Beauty draws new cogency and fire. 
 
ALWYN. 77 
 
 LIV. 
 Such was the sceptre by thy Wilberforce, 
 
 Thy Burke, thy Murray, and thy Canning swayed, 
 Till tyrants, yielding, smiled on Freedom's course, 
 
 And legal rapine in his rage was stayed. 
 
 And yet more glorious thy achievements made 
 In nations kindled to the heavenly call 
 
 By Whitefield's seraph tongue, and faith arrayed 
 In science and in eloquence, from all 
 The intellectual wealth of Chalmers and of Hall 
 
 LV. 
 And yet they say there's harshness in thy tone. — 
 
 It may beseem the vain who boast their lore 
 In other tongues, though smatterers in their own, 
 
 To vaunt the value of their foreign store, 
 
 And sneer at the capacious chords which pour 
 Alike the solemn organ notes that swell 
 
 The song of Paradise, the Lays of Moore,- 
 
 The Doric strains of Burns, and those that dwell 
 
 With Cowper, Coleridge, Scott, and Wordsv/orth's Druid 
 
 shell, 
 
 LVI. 
 
 Which from the warblings of unhappy Clare, 
 
 And the sweet minor of a Tannahill, 
 To fiercest wailings of sublime despair, 
 
 Which to the sweeping touch of Byron thrill 
 
 The bosom which they subjugate and fill 
 With all a Titan's suffering, command 
 
 The diapason of the heart and will ; 
 But elsewhere seeketh not the master's hand 
 For keys to speak the true, the lovely, or the grand. 
 
78 
 
 ALIVVN. 
 
 LVII. 
 Interpreter of free and ardent souls, 
 
 Wise in thy strength, unshackled by the fear 
 Of censorship, whose living thunder rolls 
 
 Majestically truthful and severe, 
 
 The foes of liberty to blast and sear — 
 The flaming sword of Chatham, Fox, and Brougham, 
 
 Nor less of him whose kindling words could rear 
 The standard of the free, dispel their gloom, 
 Could bid a nation live and men their rights assume. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Full true, thou hast thy discords, sharp and loud 
 (And so hath Heaven), against the hour of need. 
 
 On whomsoever bursts thy thunder-cloud 
 Has found thy wrath no opera chant indeed. 
 Nor set to measures of the " melting reed." 
 
 For every passion of the" human breast, 
 
 All trains of thought, however they proceed. 
 
 And every curious topic of inquest. 
 
 Thou hast a fitting garb and armor of the best. 
 
 LIX. 
 Grant me to know the treasures of thy reign. 
 
 To wield at will the wealth which they afford, 
 For every whim, conviction, joy, and pain. 
 
 Promptly to grasp thy well-befitting word ; 
 
 With thee to launch into the far explored 
 Yet boundless regions of the human soul, 
 
 I shall not envy Polyglotts their hoard, 
 Though fair the dormant pile. The full control 
 Of current life like thine transcends the boasted whole 
 
CANTO FOURTH 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 Canto IV. — Philosophy, its elevated place in human knowledge — 
 Founders of true philosophy, the world's indebtedness to them 
 — Early feelings after truth — Ambitious speculation a feature 
 of crude philosophy — The Ionian school, the Eleatic, Italic — 
 Socrates — Necessity of method — Its various aims — Why the 
 knowledge of truth is of vital importance towards making the 
 best of human nature — Man himse/f the central point of all 
 true philosophy — The self essentially the unseen element of 
 man's being — A present s^"// in relation to ail other human 
 selves — Its relations to God — Views of God, ^is duration — 
 Bewildering questions — A mathematical philosophy — The 
 transcendental — The tempest of controversy — A better philos- 
 ophy — The lesson of Socrates to be forever remembered — 
 Faith in nature — Gains from study of philosophy. 
 
CANTO FOURTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 " Divine Philosophy, to thee I bow, 
 
 And pay the reverence to thy labors due, 
 
 Co-agent of the written Word- For thou 
 Art revelation from Jehovah too, 
 Made to the patient student of the true. 
 
 As that unfolds the plans of heavenly grace 
 The great Creator's image to renew, 
 
 So led by thee, the spirit learns to trace 
 
 The way where wisdom leads our widely erring race. 
 
 II. 
 Though second to the Word, yea humbler far 
 
 Than inspiration of the poet seer. 
 And silent often where enquiries are 
 
 Of highest import, and the hopes most dear, 
 
 Transcending all the rest vouchsafed us here. 
 As, like the clouds of fertilizing rain, 
 
 Thy fruits spring where thou ceasest to appear, 
 So slanderers scout thee, while they reap the gain 
 Which at thy bounteous hand alone they can obtain. 
 4* (8 1) 
 
82 ALIVVN. 
 
 III. 
 How poor the good this mortal life could bring 
 
 From all its dormant stores, without thy aid ? 
 And feeble were the flight of fancy's wing, 
 
 If not upon thy steady pinion stayed. 
 
 So deep, so widely do thy works pervade 
 The social frame, that they who scarcely know 
 
 The meaning of thy name, and never made 
 Confession of the mental debt they owe, 
 Live by thy truths proclaimed thousands of years ago. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What gave their glory to the great of old ? 
 
 What made the Attic Greek and Roman great ? 
 Were not the Spartan and the Samnite bold 
 
 In equal warfare ? Whence their humbler fate ? 
 
 Philosophy debarred their ruder state, 
 They failed in purpose large, digested, clear. 
 
 In judgment, when to hasten, when to wait, 
 Or to subdue to any bond save fear, 
 All that their valiant hosts vanquished with sword and 
 spear 
 
 V. 
 Shortsighted counsels lost ; and prosperous war 
 
 Was only glorious bloodshed, and conferred 
 No other gain than rebel subjects are. 
 
 Conquests were but a gangrene — only stirred 
 
 A deadlier fire of vengeance, and deterred 
 The voluntary homage of the free. 
 
 Far otherwise the nobler states, which heard 
 And reverenced the counsels given by thee. 
 Built up a rule of which the world is proud to be. 
 
ALIVVN. 83 
 
 VI. 
 
 Each conquest was a fortress. The subdued 
 
 By force of arms, soon gloried in the fame 
 Of masters who bestowed substantial good, 
 
 While lending all the splendor of their name. 
 
 And allies with a free submission came, 
 A barbarous independence well to pay 
 
 For civil form and life, until the same 
 Spirit pervaded all beneath their sway. 
 And back upon its source came each reflected ray. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And where had b^en the boast of later times 
 But for the legacy of old bequeathed, — 
 
 The freedom of these occidental climes, 
 
 Arts of the south, which when the sword is sheathed, 
 Still blossom 'neath the genial fragrance breathed 
 
 From ancient genius ; or the learned brow 
 Still with the laurel of Apollo wreathed, 
 
 The legal codes to which the nations bow, 
 
 And debts of social forms, which never debts avow ? 
 
 VIII. 
 And what had been their legacy to leave. 
 
 But for their students of the true and fair? 
 Such as the tribes of Africa receive 
 
 From ancient times had fallen to our share. 
 
 Sweep from the world all that the Muses bare. 
 All that the sage, and poet-sage proclaimed, 
 
 The Hebrew schools, the songs that echoed there, 
 Those holiest words by human language framed,— 
 The moral lays which first the^Grecian mind enflamed, 
 
84 ALIVVJV. 
 
 IX. 
 
 The labors, with their aye perennial fruit, 
 . Of the profoundly, rightly thinking few. 
 Of Solon, of Pythagoras — the root 
 
 Whence many a stem of truth luxuriant grew, 
 
 Of wisest, patient Socrates, the true 
 Prometheus of our race, without his woes. 
 
 And of the minds his lucid genius drew, 
 Of Xenophon, of Plato, and of those 
 In Elis and Cyrene, and Megara who rose, 
 
 X. 
 
 Of Aristotle, of Carneades, 
 
 Of Zeno, of Panaetius, Cicero, 
 Of Paul, who taught the Christian mind to seize 
 
 That dialectic power the schools bestow, 
 
 The sons of Greek and Roman song, who owe 
 Their master-spell to truth and hope and trust, 
 
 Which only from Philosophy can flow. 
 With all their offspring, and this being must 
 Sink to the humblest joys of animated dust. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Yet, in thy realms of science many a way 
 
 Of devious but attractive error lies. 
 Thousands have found thy fields only to stray, 
 
 And ever seek, with misdirected eyes, 
 
 Not Truth, but deadly Falsehood in disguise. 
 And there are questions of the loftiest kind, 
 
 To which thy voice can render scant replies. 
 Thy lights are ever matched by shades behind. 
 And he who loves thee must not to thy faults be blind. 
 
ALIVVN. 85 
 
 XII. . 
 In that which Alwyn most had yearned to knov/, 
 • He still remained untaught. The skeptic's pen 
 Had labored much, not fruitlessly, to show 
 
 That ignorance must ever baulk the ken, 
 
 As time the being of the sons of men, 
 That life is but a dream, from which we ne'er 
 
 Awake, but ever, ever dream in vain, 
 Through mingled phantasms of joy and care, 
 Till back to nothingness our weary way we fare. 
 
 XIII. 
 And in the ancient lessons which he chose, 
 
 As primary, to open up his way, 
 Questions of darkest mystery arose. 
 
 And systems which pretended to display 
 ' Alike the growth of being and decay 
 And birth, where man finds nothing to adore. 
 
 Nothing to trust in, follow or obey. 
 Philosophy's young wings the wildest soar 
 Through realms inscrutable, with most ambitious lore. 
 
 XIV. 
 Ionian science boasted to declare 
 
 How things arose, and out of what they grew— 
 Of holiest water, fire, earth or air. 
 
 As each Sophistes from his fancy drew. 
 
 Italic wisdom held the guiding clew 
 To the bewildering labyrinth of things 
 
 In law, which harmonizing old and new. 
 Out of confusion fairest order brings, 
 Till in the joy of beauty, the glad cosmos rings. 
 
S6 ALWYN. 
 
 XV. 
 The Eleatic labored to enlist 
 
 The toil of thought in being sole and pure — 
 'The energy in which all things consist, 
 
 Of which they are, and by which they endure, 
 
 Which well to know is wholly to secure 
 The knowledge of the all. Nor wiser they, 
 
 In their own wisdom no less vainly sure, 
 Who built the worlds by their well ordered play 
 Of Atoms, leaving man to his own sovereign sway. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 " Hope not," the ancient sage Ephesian taught, 
 " For aught beyond this ever-rolling sphere. 
 Hopes of the perfect are but waste of thought, 
 
 And all we know must dwell forever here. 
 
 'Tis not progression which pervades the year, 
 But revolution. And as cycles roll. 
 
 The past must in the present reappear ; 
 By whom directed, to what distant goal, 
 'Tis vain to ask. A part embraces not the whole." 
 
 XVII. 
 Of Cyrenaics humbler the design 
 
 For human life, to set its pleasures free. 
 " The proudest temple is an empty shrine, 
 
 Elysium but the tale of Poesy, 
 
 For who has looked into Eternity, 
 Or who has come from Pluto's gloomy hall, 
 
 Or to discover the divine decree 
 Has overleaped Heaven's adamantine wall .? 
 Why doubt, or fear, or hope? Enjoy, and thou hast all." 
 
ALIVVN. 87 
 
 XVIII. 
 In vain the laboring spirit seeks repose 
 
 Upon the artifice of such replies. 
 Nor, though a purer life his creed bestows, 
 
 Much less in vain the Cynic's hope to rise 
 
 To all perfection of the good and wise 
 Through subjugation of the outer sense. 
 
 'Tis not enough thus to philosophize, 
 However craftily, if one commence 
 With fiction, for which all his craft fails of defence. " 
 
 XIX. 
 'Twere well to know of what all things were made ; 
 
 'Twere well into the primal cause to see, 
 To listen to the choral music played 
 
 By chiming spheres in heavenly harmony, 
 
 Were they within our reach, or could they be 
 Attained by bold conjecture. But if no 
 
 Amount of striving sets their secret free, 
 Were it not better to come down below. 
 And, with an humbler aim, make certain as we go ? 
 
 XX. 
 
 And there are higher interests than the stars 
 
 And elemental matter. And a cause 
 Identifying with itself effects debars 
 
 All access to a scrutiny of laws. 
 
 He first philosophized, who dared to pause 
 Where theorists began their daring flight. 
 
 To know himself, and whence his reason draws 
 Its cogency to guide the life aright. 
 So grew Socratic lore ; whence Plato's wider sight 
 
88 ALWYN. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Of that immortal destiny, which men 
 Instinctively for their own being claim. 
 . And yet, alas, how oft the master's pen 
 
 Becomes bewildered, and his reasons lame, 
 Just at the point where needed most to frame 
 
 The juncture of an argument, and where 
 The soul demands instruction, is his aim , 
 
 To entertain with Fancy's forms of air. 
 
 The student sighed to see how much was lacking there. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 But while long musing o'er the tangled skein, 
 
 A prior task loomed up before his view. 
 How should he well discriminate between 
 
 The right and wrong, the fanciful and true? 
 
 What method should the laboring mind pursue 
 To find the truth, and recognize it found ? 
 
 What alchemy distils it ? What the clew, 
 Which through the mazes of deception wound. 
 Leads surely to that end ? " And wherefore am I bound 
 
 XXIII. 
 " By force of inward law the truth to know ? 
 
 Yea, what is truth, and what is it to me ? 
 May not my life harmoniously flow 
 
 Conformable to all I hear and see. 
 
 Being by nature all that I should be. 
 And executing all that'mortal can, 
 
 Spontaneously, as upward grows the tree ? 
 Nature makes no mistakes. Then why should man, 
 Placed so much higher on the wise Creator's plan } " 
 
ALIVVN. 89 
 
 XXIV. 
 Let this reply suffice. Why question more ? 
 "-.Man is a ruler; and, like God, must rule 
 By right of law divine; or must deplore 
 
 Himself dethroned, debased — a broken tool, 
 
 Void of significance his life, and full 
 Of conscience-pangs. To regulate the laws 
 
 Of thousand instincts needs a higher school 
 Than instinct forms ; intelligence which draws 
 The weight of valid rule from power's profoundest cause. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 " Hence, deep upon the human soul impressed 
 
 Is the divine necessity to learn 
 The laws whereby alone it is addressed 
 
 To its life-task, and the command to earn. 
 
 Through life-unfolding study long and stern, 
 The poise of sovereignty, and sight whereby 
 
 The self-directing spirit may discern 
 The great exemplar of itself on high, 
 That it may rule with Him, and His just laws apply." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 How vast the care — the thinker's earliest woe — 
 To stand amid the thousand things of earth, 
 
 And feel that there is there what he must know, 
 If he would fill the purpose of his birth. 
 And yet possess no measure of their worth : 
 
 To think, and think, and ever think in vain ; 
 And when he looks for help, to find the dearth 
 
 Of clear and settled knowledge among men 
 
 Of what the spirit craves, or reason would attain. 
 
90 
 
 ALWYN. 
 
 XXVII. 
 " What, must I soar to the divine decree, 
 
 And take my method from the mind of God ? 
 Infallible, most doubtless, would it be, 
 
 Could science ever reach that lofty road. 
 
 Or shall I stoop to the material clod, 
 And gather up its tedious details, 
 
 That some far distant age may find a broad 
 Basis for truth, which nothing now avails. 
 And others may succeed, where all my labor fails ? 
 
 ■ XXVIII.. 
 *' Or were it not a better way to spin 
 
 One's method from creations of the brain ; 
 With some fair root of argument begin. 
 
 And thence deducing others, make all plain ? 
 
 Then need no toil be lavished out in vain, 
 To harmonize, defend, and to unfold 
 
 The mysteries of discord. Once constrain 
 The universe into a human mold. 
 And then its tale is one, consistent, easy told. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 " Nay, that were only to impose a scheme 
 
 Of cold deception on the inquiring soul. 
 Jarring and inconsistent they may seem. 
 
 But facts alone can guide me to my goal. 
 
 Patient I must be : yea, and must control 
 The. gift creative, and its daring pride. 
 
 And whether through the parts I reach the whole, 
 Or the divine idea is my guide. 
 Into humility ambition must subside — 
 
ALM^VJV. pi 
 
 XXX. 
 
 " Humility, the destined gate for all 
 
 Who in the spirit of true worship come 
 Before the shrine of Truth, forever shall 
 
 Forbid the haughty step. The lofty home 
 
 Of science rises gorgeously, like some 
 Majestic minster, spacious and aglow 
 
 With architectural wealth from base to dome, 
 But painful the approach, the portal low, 
 And lowly stoop must they would o'er the threshold go. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 " To know the truth is only from the Lord. 
 
 And he who well his own conceit denies, 
 Whether he listens to the written Word, 
 
 Or. gathers patiently the mute replies 
 
 Of nature, can alone secure the prize. 
 But human fashions, prejudice and pride 
 
 Envelop all with plausible disguise. 
 And they who follow them will find supplied 
 In the wide universe no central stay or guide." 
 
 XXXII. 
 Without a certain method to direct 
 
 Investigation, and to fix its bound. 
 Yea, far from any eye that could detect 
 
 The travail of his soul, would Alwyn sound 
 
 Depths within which all effort must be drowned. 
 Scheme after scheme he followed but to leave. ■ 
 
 And long he toiled, nor satisfaction found. 
 As touching what for truth he must receive. 
 And of himself and life, and God and heaven believe. 
 
92 
 
 ALlVViV. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 For 'twas of the originating cause 
 
 Of. things in heaven and earth he longed to know, 
 How they were framed, and by what sovereign laws 
 
 The various currents of their being flow ; 
 
 By what strong energy the living grow, 
 And why, when life o'er death has won the day, 
 
 It should again surrender to the foe ; 
 And how it ever can resume its sway 
 Over the ground thus lost, and wake^the dormant clay. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 " Myself am centre of all things to me. 
 
 All things are outward, only I within, 
 The depths of thought, not what T hear and see, 
 
 But what I am, and shall be, and have been. 
 
 All thoughts must end here, where all thoughts begin. 
 Yet, like a house of glass, from head to foot, 
 
 My body lets that outward world in, 
 While this myself sits chemist to transmute 
 Into the gold of thought the insensate and the brute. . 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 " This body mine — strange organism, too — 
 
 To outward and to inward both allied. 
 Myself alike to suffer and to do, 
 
 Yet not myself to reason or decide. 
 
 But where between it and myself divide ? 
 Myself ! I only change my point of view. 
 
 And then myself is on the outer side : 
 And I behold it, from a point as true, 
 A minister whom I must to my use subdue. 
 
ALIVYN. 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 " And yet this self, impalpable, unseen, 
 
 Which flits from soul to body, and anon. 
 
 Swifter than morning's night-dispelling sheen, 
 Plants in the soul her citadel alone — 
 Incorporate with either or with none, 
 
 Is, after all, the grand reality. 
 
 Whose laws are sciences. All that is known 
 
 Is but the sum of her capacity. 
 
 Of good the judge, yet source of all iniquity. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " The unseen is the master, whose mute will 
 The laboring limbs implicitly obey. 
 
 And yet I feel there is a greater still, 
 To whose invisible, mysterious sway 
 I owe allegiance, and whom to gainsay 
 
 Is to indite my own eternal woe. 
 
 But to that greater One the only way 
 
 Lies through my inner self, which well to know 
 
 Embraces all that man finds noblest here below. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 ' In man's own being is involved the mystery 
 
 Of all existence in things low and high. 
 Philosophies, all politics, all history 
 
 In embryo in every bosom lie. 
 
 While mankind lives its past can never die. 
 Its continuity no bar divides. 
 
 No age so ancient but its heir am I ; 
 Nay, one with it, and in me it abides. 
 One life of man rolls on its long successive tides. 
 
 93 
 
94 
 
 ALIVVN. 
 
 XXXTX. 
 " All profitless were he whose life should fail 
 
 To use the present while its moments last ; 
 But that which lifts him highest on the scale 
 
 Of being is his knowledge of the past — 
 
 Capacity to apprehend the vast 
 Eternal purposes in life that lie, 
 
 But over which the veil of night is cast, 
 Save where God grants to patient learner's eye 
 The backward streaming rays of glory passing by. 
 
 XL. 
 
 " From inner life all higher life I learn. 
 
 Man is the only way to God for man, 
 
 For through himself alone can man discern 
 
 . Freedom divine, a ruler and a plan. 
 
 The infinite he may not — cannot scan, 
 
 Nor how the everlasting cycles run. 
 
 But in his nature sees the Holy One 
 
 More than the dew-drop images the sun. 
 
 And when God stooped to save, through man the work 
 
 was done." 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Yet on no other ground did Alwyn's guides 
 
 So miserably mock his studious care. 
 " God is the force which in all things resides, 
 
 Which germinates in earth and breathes in air." 
 " God," said another, " was the when and where 
 Development commenced its round of laws." 
 " God is the all, to make, destroy, repair, 
 Himself the mass, the change, effect and cause," 
 Or " God is man enlarged, as human fancy draws." 
 
ALIVVA^. 95 
 
 XLIL 
 " Duration is but one — an endless round 
 ' Without beginning. So the cause must be 
 Of all existence. Wheresoever found 
 
 Beginning is not that of Deity. 
 . Boundless is space and boundless too is He 
 Whose purposes to all its realm extend. 
 
 But space, existence, and eternity 
 I cannot doubt, nor can I comprehend. 
 So God, however known, all thinking must transcend. 
 
 XUll. 
 
 " But if, as some proclaim, there is no God, 
 Then that there is a God why did mankind 
 
 Ever begin to think ? Were thought a clod, 
 Or did brute matter do the work of mind. 
 Then why has ever thinking dust resigned 
 
 The credit of its thinking ? Why begin 
 And occupy, alone and uncombined, 
 
 All powers of reason, feeling, sense of sin. 
 
 Then think some other life for these to dwell within ? 
 
 XIJV. 
 
 *' Impossible to think an endless line 
 
 Of things which in themselves have each an end ; 
 Or that existence, of whate'er design, 
 
 Designed itself. Nor can I comprehend 
 
 How nought made something, or could ever tend 
 To anything ; nor better can conceive 
 
 How God does from eternity descend. 
 But in Him can implicitly believe, 
 And without Him can nought as rational receive." 
 
g6 ALWYN. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 'Tis little truly that of God we know ; 
 
 How little of His works which know Him not I 
 One ray among a thousand serves to throw, 
 
 Like sunlight through the leaves, a brilliant dot, 
 
 All else is darkness ; and the bounds of thought 
 To be extended slowly and with pain. 
 
 Yea, but the glory of our human lot 
 It is, however scanty, to retain 
 Some power of seeing God, exerted not in vain. 
 
 XLVI. 
 As lonely orphan thrown upon the town, 
 
 Without a friend to warn or to defend. 
 By many a darkling passage may go down 
 
 Before he learns that whereby to ascend, 
 
 Unknown the foes with whom he must contend ; 
 So Alwyn wandered in the world of thought. 
 
 Toiling for aims which human powers transcend, 
 Misled by errors speciously taught. 
 Or seeking truth, where truth is ever vainly sought. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 But rightly, wrongly, with or without pain, 
 The labor, it was not devoid of joy, 
 
 And in its issue, not always in vain ; 
 
 Though oft in the procession passing by 
 Before his fancy, men with earnest eye 
 
 Darkened as they went on, and sadder grew. 
 Some sank into the earth ; some chose to lie 
 
 Gazing on clouds. And some withheld their view 
 
 From ail except the lines which their own pencils drew. 
 
ALIVVJV. 
 
 97 
 
 XLVIII. 
 It was a daring scheme, and well designed, 
 
 To sum up human knowledge as a whole 
 In propositions brief and well- defined, 
 
 And thus decide what boundaries control 
 
 The labors and affections of the soul. 
 And men accepted it, and gravely deemed 
 
 That thought thereby had reached its utmost goal. 
 The stream they measured ; that from which it streamed, 
 Eluding measurement, to them as nothing seemed. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Yet they believed that they had fathomed all 
 
 The depths of human nature, and defined, 
 Down to the last that ever could befall 
 
 One of their race, the mysteries of mind. 
 
 And great philosophers at ease reclined 
 Upon their laurels, and serenely smiled 
 
 If any one but hinted that behind 
 Some gleaning of the harvest, straggling wild, 
 Might still be found unreaped, ungarnered and unpiled. 
 
 L. 
 
 Nay, all was done, the garner filled and barred. 
 
 Of what the reason could not and it could 
 The depths had been laid bare, even to the hard 
 
 And earthen floor on which all thinking stood. 
 
 They looked on all their work, and deemed it good. . 
 And what remained ? The heights of heaven to scale, 
 
 And measure God with the same puny rood. 
 Instruct Him where His strength can best avail, 
 And where His mighty arm is ever doomed to fail. 
 5 
 
98 ALWYJ^. 
 
 LI. 
 Their work seemed gospel, sober truth and sound, 
 
 Higher than Revelation to their age. 
 In it the standard of all truth they found, 
 
 In it the touchstone of the sacred page. 
 
 A futile war did pious churchmen wage 
 To save the Word, while siding with its foe, 
 
 And yielding all his postulates, engage 
 His argument too late to overthrow. 
 As if from upas-seed the wholesome date could grow. 
 
 LII, 
 The reign of Reason, emptily so-called, 
 
 Was but the rage of folly and insane 
 Ambition. The great toiling world, appalled, 
 
 Shrunk back upon her steps, as if again 
 
 To seek a refuge in the old and vain 
 Beliefs abandoned long. A stronger foe 
 
 Assailed the priests of Reason and their train, 
 When first from Konigsberg came down the blow 
 Which broke their idol's shrine, and laid his glories low. 
 
 LIII. 
 Fiercely and high the indignant shout arose, 
 
 A heretic had dared, profane and bold, 
 The weakness of their wisdom to expose? 
 
 And open richest mines of virgin gold 
 
 Beneath the hard foundations of the old 
 And boasted treasure-house. But time went on. 
 
 And onward still the revolution rolled. 
 Kindling the brave, and the less brave anon. 
 Till they who shrunk from truth by fashion's plea were 
 won. 
 
ALIVVN, ■ gg 
 
 LIV. 
 
 But vast as was the bullion of that mine, 
 
 Far from the use of human life it lay. 
 The hand of Fichte stamped it into coin, 
 
 And sent it forward in the light of day, 
 
 On its ennobling and enriching way ; 
 Set free the thinking soul and gave it range, 
 
 The objective universe bound to its sway, 
 And filled it with a mastery glad and strange. 
 For its own proper ends, o'er every force and change. 
 
 LV. 
 
 It was a glorious freedom from the bonds 
 
 Which souls so long had been condemned to wear ; 
 That true enlargement to which joy responds, 
 
 A lofty mount of varied prospects, where 
 
 Exhilaration panted on the air, 
 And a new life infused the thrilling veins. 
 
 Grant it a dream, 'twas one divinely fair. 
 And opening supernatural domains 
 In heaven and earth, in seas and hills and plains. 
 
 LVT. 
 
 The old philosophy was tried and doomed. 
 
 The inherent force of mind installed anew. 
 Imagination had her right resumed, 
 
 And feeling dawned once more into a true 
 
 Integral power. Disciples not a few 
 Followed his steps with scarce inferior sway. 
 
 Broad was the cloud-land which young Schelling drew, 
 G^and in its masses undefined and grey. 
 Unfolding life in death, and nurture in decay. 
 
100 ALWVJV. 
 
 LVII, 
 Hegel, with intuition strong and keen, 
 
 Pierced to the core of things, and grasped their mold, 
 Presumed by the unseen to judge the^seen. 
 
 And all its contents to describe and hold ; 
 
 The master-spirit most complete and bold, 
 Who framed for thoughtful Germany the new 
 
 Philosophy, which taking in the old, 
 And harmonizing all the structure, drew * 
 
 That confidence which should be granted to the true. 
 
 LVIII. 
 It moved a tempest o'er the world of thought, 
 
 From the deep heart of Germany, in France 
 And England with contending currents fought, 
 
 And many a stubborn rock of circumstance. 
 
 Which multitudes beheld with timid glance ; 
 And fields of earing grain and rustling corn 
 
 Were prostrate laid before its dread advance. 
 And clouds of. dust upon its wings were borne. 
 Yet health was in its train, and clearer shone the morn. 
 
 LIX. 
 And when it passed, the dust fell back to earth, 
 
 The angry thunders muttered to repose. 
 The prostrate maize received another birth. 
 
 And in the strength of richer life arose. 
 
 And breaking clouds did fairer heavens disclose. 
 The new philosophy, behind her blame. 
 
 Carried a truth to vanquish shallower foes. 
 Perhaps she fully earned her evil fame ; 
 But, through the Father's love, good of that evil came. 
 
AL WYN. lOI 
 
 LX. 
 
 Yet good all other than what men designed, 
 
 And all upon another level done, 
 More varied powers, and wider range of mind, 
 
 And ground for faith and hope were nobly won. 
 
 But of the structure thus so well begun, 
 The crowning members seemed of vapor made, 
 
 Flitting as mists beneath the morning sun. 
 New masters still new world-plans displayed, 
 Alike illusive all, and doomed alike to fade. 
 
 LXI. 
 The keynote of the universe, which holds 
 
 All its deep harmonies in true accord — 
 The master-plan, which in its grasp enfolds 
 
 Matter and law, infinity, the Word, 
 
 With all its branching lines of povfer explored, 
 To grasp in measurements of human thought. 
 
 Was the vast height to which the teacher soared. 
 What wonder if aspiring Reason wrought 
 Sometimes in vain, and back deceitful trophies brought.? 
 
 LXII. 
 
 Men, who could think the Cosmos thus revealed, 
 
 Squandered what seemed exhaustless wealth away. 
 That v/ealth a soberer purpose yet shall wield, 
 
 Which spendthrift Fancy shall not lead astray. 
 
 A new philosophy shall yet array 
 All truths the Transcendentalist can boast, 
 
 With all that hold their place from earlier day, 
 In harmony, one vast organic host 
 Of lessons old and new, which mankind value most. 
 
I02 ALIVVN. 
 
 LXIII. 
 
 Thank God for all the health was in the storm, 
 
 And thanks to God the storm is passed and gone. 
 O'er what it did to waste and to deform 
 
 'Twere profitless to grumble or bemoan. 
 
 Better it were did blessings come alone, 
 But if with war in all its dread array. 
 
 Still thanks to him by whom the good is done ,• 
 Nor thanks the less, if on the triumph day 
 The ranks were broken up, the weapons cast away. 
 
 LXIV. 
 But is this science — feeling in the dark, 
 
 Each for himself, the best that he can find, 
 Without a common principle or mark. 
 
 The sheaves of all the harvest field to bind. 
 
 Thus every workman after his own mind 
 Building his castle in the earth or air, 
 
 Out of the mass to which he has consigned 
 Some earlier structure no less proudly fair ? 
 Oh, speculation, what your settled truth, and where ? 
 
 LXV. 
 
 There is philosophy which smooths the path 
 To knowledge — lucid thinking of the wise — 
 
 There is philosophy, a rod of wrath. 
 In whose corrupt but specious disguise 
 The truth evaporates, and virtue dies. 
 
 There is philosophy, a verbal clothing 
 
 Of shallow thought, which at the surface lies, 
 
 And wastes its thin vitality in frothing— 
 
 Nonsense philosophy, which leads, at best, to nothing. 
 
ALIVVN, 103 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 How poorly learned the lesson— the rich dower, 
 Great son of Sophroniscus, left by thee— 
 
 That the best power of schemmg is not power 
 Of knowing, and however fair may be 
 The system reared by proud Philosophy 
 
 Beyond the limits of what man can know, 
 'Tis but a fabric" framed of phantasy. 
 
 Nor owns it aught of all the glittering show 
 
 Which was not carried up from soberer realms below. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 Unwavering faith in Nature, fullest trust 
 
 In common things, their kindred and their force. 
 
 In the pure truth of air, and light, and dust, 
 Must be the clew wherewith to thrid our course 
 Through mysteries of being. Sole resource 
 
 For erring man is to accept the hand 
 Of the great Author of the universe. 
 
 His only are the lessons to command 
 
 Conviction of all minds which truly understand. 
 
 LXVIII. 
 
 For that within us is not merely ours 
 
 Whereby we know, distinguish and combme. 
 
 From all eternity those glorious powers 
 Have energized the same in the divme 
 Nature, as now, with feebler force, in mine. _ 
 
 Down through duration have they urged their flight. 
 Filling the universe with their design. 
 
 And every work of God, unveiled to sight 
 
 Fits into human thought, as native, true, and right. 
 
I04 ALIVYN, 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 Well-ordered thinking seeing clearly through 
 
 The changing mass and outward forms of things, 
 
 Taking the everlasting from the new, 
 
 The growths of being from their vital springs. 
 To deathless principles its labor brings ; 
 
 And these builds into system by the law 
 Of mental nature's soundest reasonings. 
 
 So apprehend we God, with solemn awe, 
 • And thence, for human life, familiar lessons draw. 
 
 LXX. 
 
 The clearest thinkers, and the most profound. 
 
 Though far apart in time and place they be. 
 Think most alike. And on their wisest ground 
 
 With them the soberer multitude agree. 
 
 Thus ever with the great Hellenic three 
 Must all partake who think complete and true— 
 
 With the Lyceum or Academy, 
 Or him from whose pelucid springs they drew. 
 Thus, in the best, the old still animates the new. 
 
 « 
 
 LXXI. 
 And what did Alwyn of his labor gain, 
 
 His eager converse with the wise of old, 
 That lofty counsel, which so often ta'en 
 
 Night after night he would return to hold } 
 
 Gain of an intellectual wealth untold, 
 Of nobler worth to the immortal spirit 
 
 Than all the veins of Californian gold — 
 Treasures which perish not, which they inherit, 
 Who claim not on the right of geniture, but merit. 
 
ALIVVN. X05 
 
 LXXII. 
 
 Wide vision of the fair, material earth, 
 
 Perceptions of a new and varied kind, 
 Which, though of outward objects, have their birth 
 
 In unseen intercourse of mind with mind, 
 
 Conceptions of the heavenly spark enshrined 
 In human flesh, and in its types of things. 
 
 Which toil untutored dare not hope to find, 
 With feeling's tenderest glow and deepest springs, 
 And Reason's firmest tread, and Fancy's lightest wings. 
 
 LXXIII. 
 
 Rich mines of thought, yielding for daily use. 
 The current coin of virtues, lovely, pure, 
 
 The clue of principle for the abstruse, 
 And lenses to enlighten the obscure, 
 Far-reaching laws, which ever must endure, 
 
 The arbiters of pleasure and of pain, 
 
 To guide the reason and the heart assure. 
 
 While forms of beauty flitted round his brain, 
 
 Like birds of Paradise, in long succeeding train. 
 
 s* 
 
CANT'O FIFTH 
 
ANALYSIS 
 
 Canto V. — Spiritual conflicts — Alwyn enters upon religious in- 
 quiry through the gate of philosophy — Conflicting argumenta- 
 tions — Inspiration — Controversial expositors — Is there any- 
 thing to meet the spiritual cravings of the human mind better 
 than the Bible ? — Alwyn in search of it betakes himself to the 
 Deists— Early English Deists — Voltaire, what he effected — 
 The doctrine of Rousseau — Hume, nothing — Suicide of Deism 
 — Answers of the Bible to man's spiritual wants — Do heathen 
 religions answer better ? Vedic, Persic, Chinese ? Their re- 
 spective fruits reply — Alwyn's agitation of mind in these ques- 
 tions darkens into confusion and dread — He seeks refuge in 
 outward nature — Gains in spiritual warfare truthfully waged. 
 
CANTO FIFTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 Whoever would the heights of truth attain 
 Must pass the ordeal of doubt and dread, 
 
 Go out into the desert, and sustain 
 
 Temptations of the Devil, and must tread 
 Them under foot, crushing the serpent's head ; 
 
 Of his Own heart the treasures must explore, 
 And choose the guide by whom he will be led 
 
 By path or trodden or untrod before, 
 
 But once for all decide his aim to change no more. 
 
 II. 
 
 Such Sacred Writ declares the will of Heaven, 
 Such fate the nations to their great assign. 
 
 Such the example by the Saviour given. 
 The ordeal of temptation his divine 
 Being, though spotless, did not choose decline. 
 
 Through such a horror of great darkness all, 
 Predestined with a brighter ray to shine, 
 
 Must pass to their vocation. 'Tis the pall 
 
 Which covers, as with death, what life must not recall. 
 
 (109) 
 
no ALWYN. 
 
 III. 
 
 Young life is but a prelude. Now begins 
 The great dramatic action. Born again, 
 
 Victorious over weaknesses or sins 
 
 Are all the mightiest Vv^orkers among men — 
 The prophet heroes, whose far-seeing ken 
 
 Directs the march of ages. Moses knew 
 The trials of the desert ere his pen 
 
 The solemn wonders of Jehovah drew. 
 
 And through the wastes of doubt the faith of Luther 
 grew. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Men argue to convince, or to defend ; 
 
 They reach their thoughts by more mysterious ways. 
 Upon the silent steps of use depend 
 
 Opinions which fill up their common days ; 
 
 While intuition, with one fervid gaze, 
 Transcends the realm where common laborers plod ; 
 
 One deadly struggle with the Fiend displays 
 The painful path by hero footsteps trod. 
 Transforming to the heart one interview with God. 
 
 V. 
 But not through ecstacy of inner light, 
 
 Not by a miracle, nor in a dream, 
 Did Alwyn pass the boundaries of night 
 
 To meet the fervor of the rising beam. 
 
 Graver the toil, more distant the extreme 
 Assigned his weary feet, by teachers led 
 
 Who seemed the teachers of the truth to him. 
 Friends whom he loved, and books which he had read 
 With trust, across his way the dreary desert spread. 
 
ALIVVN. Ill 
 
 VI. 
 
 And thus, as every s^oul of man must stand, 
 Alwyn before the gates of science stood, 
 
 Left to himself, without a helping hand, 
 Surrounded by a boundless solitude, 
 As much alone, in choice of ill or good. 
 
 As if the earth were desert. He had known 
 In common cares what tender friendship could. 
 
 But life's great trials must be undergone 
 
 Where friends can never come, in the soul's depths alone. 
 
 • ■ VII. 
 
 'Twas not a conflict between work and play, 
 
 Nor yet for him had indolence a charm ; 
 But magic Art led in her witching sway 
 
 A spirit quick to know, a bosom warm 
 
 With genial love to every line and form 
 And hue of beauty ; while to learning still, 
 
 Whose varied work had done so much to arm 
 Him for life's war, he clung with grateful will. 
 And science could alone his highest wishes fill— 
 
 VIII. 
 
 His highest wishes to secure that truth 
 
 Which man from Nature in herself can wring. 
 Crude facts, in the habiliments uncouth, 
 
 In which from hard experiment they spring — 
 
 The crucible, the anvil, the harsh ring 
 Of formulas of logic moved disgust 
 
 To high-toned lore,^and Art, whose dainty wing 
 Spurns the slow feet which labor with the dust ; 
 Yet there he deemed must man repose his firmest trust. 
 
112 ALWVN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 'Twas not a matter which the will could solve 
 
 By simple choice ; as erst, when Greece was yoiing, 
 Did on the doubting Hercules devolve, 
 
 But one which earnest thought and purpose strong, 
 
 And self-examination practiced long, 
 And large attainment pondered deep and pressed 
 
 Into the very life, as right or wrong, 
 Alone can settle to the soul's behest 
 With judgment upon which the choice will ever rest. 
 
 X. 
 
 " But to that end, my soul herself must know, 
 The native purpose of her life must see — 
 
 What talents did the Almighty Lord bestow, 
 What must the occupancy of them be, 
 And how my wishes with my powers agree. 
 
 Science must find her origin and guide 
 
 As outward things reflect themselves in me. 
 
 And thus shall Art be the most truly tried, 
 
 And Learning's largest wealth most wisely be applied." 
 
 XI. 
 
 All true Philosophy must needs include 
 
 Intrinsically a religious soul. 
 Not, of necessity, as pure or good. 
 
 But such as energizes in the whole 
 
 Career, and gives in judgment at the goal. 
 And yet how oft, alike in new and old, 
 
 We feel a dark insidious control. 
 With the connected system, fold on fold 
 Enwrap us with its coils, all stealthily and cold. 
 
XII. 
 And oft, as Alwyn read, and thought and read, 
 
 The argument /Seemed sure, though into doubt 
 Leading the heart, bewildering as it led. 
 
 Something was wrong. But where, within, without. 
 
 In him, or in creation round about ? 
 Or in religion, as its tale was told ? 
 
 He sought to plant himself with trust devout 
 On Holy Scripture. But his faith, cajoled 
 By some strange hidden charm, though grasping, failed 
 to hold. 
 
 XIII. 
 And ever, as he felt for surer ground. 
 
 He lost the sense of that whereon he trod ; 
 While ever echoed from the dark profound 
 " Is this indeed the very word of God ? 
 
 Has that Almighty One, whose sovereign nod 
 Rules orbs and orbits with resistless sway, 
 
 Whose being through the universe abroad 
 Pervades all space, as light pervades the day, 
 Confided His decrees to creatures formed of clay ?" 
 
 XIV, 
 In vain he questions of the sacred leaves 
 
 By aid of speculations which pretend 
 That every heart the indwelling*God receives, 
 
 And all His attributes in each descend. 
 
 Not thus the mystery can be explained. 
 For then the prophet only wrote his own. 
 
 And who shall know when inspiration fanned 
 The lyric light and fire, and when alone 
 The bard's creative thought, the lyre's enrapturing tone ? 
 
114 ALWYN. 
 
 XV. 
 
 As in the dawn of Greece among the isles 
 
 W+iich gem the bosom of the ^Egean sea, 
 When there still reigned the beauty which beguiles 
 
 The captive spirit into ecstacy, 
 
 In moments of exalted reverie, 
 The bard held converse with the world unseen, 
 
 And glowing thoughts flashed into life which he . 
 Had labored not with argument to glean 
 From aught that previous life or outward things could 
 mean, 
 
 XVI. 
 Emotions dawned unsought, and visions came 
 
 In long array,, a world of living things, 
 And language kindled after them like flame. 
 
 While all unknown to him their several springs.* 
 
 He from the god, who o'er his climate flings 
 Its robe of beauty, deemed the treasure given, 
 
 Claimed inspiration for imaginings 
 For which his soul unconsciously had striven. 
 And hence Apollo's harp, the Muse, the poet's heaven. 
 
 XVII. 
 And should the prophet's inspiration be 
 
 Such as infused the Chian bard of old, 
 Or from fair Paros.sent the elegy. 
 
 Or taught the Lesbian melic art, or rolled 
 
 The dithyramb in many a doubling fold, 
 Though high the thought, melodious the line, 
 
 No claim upon conviction can he hold 
 Which he might not as well to Greece resign, 
 And David's, -Pindar's harp are equally divine. 
 
ALWVN. 115 
 
 XVIII. 
 With such array of questions to be solved, 
 
 The earnest seeker turned again, again, 
 To sage expounders, and in thought revolved 
 
 The divers viev/s and varying faith of men 
 
 Who drew from the same book their creeds ; and when 
 He saw their fierce and unforgiving zeal, 
 
 In life, in death, with voice, with sword and pen, 
 For doctrines of that book, dark doubts would steal 
 Upon him of its claims to govern or reveal. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Alas, that ministers of Truth should doom 
 
 To doubt the spirit longing to believe, 
 Or deepen question into sceptic gloom, 
 
 For those who of their sceptic questions grieve. 
 
 That disputants confuted may receive 
 The shackles of a faith that binds the will. 
 
 To Alwyn's heart the sense would ever cleave 
 Of guilt in thinking false. Nor could he still 
 That craving of the soul which truth alone can fill. 
 
 XX. 
 
 " If I must question Scripture, is there aught 
 
 Of greater certainty ? Has any mind 
 Seen deeper into Deity, and brought 
 
 To light instructions of a surer kind ? 
 
 To him would my convictions be resigned. 
 I must presume, if learned men and wise 
 
 Reject the Scripture, 'tis because they find 
 A better wisdom than within it lies 
 Elsewhere, \^ hich Reason neither questions nor denies; 
 
Il6 ALIVVJV. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 " Or questions less ; or otherwise they deem 
 Some argument refuting it in mass 
 
 As more than it entitled to esteem. 
 
 'Twere wisest then to learn from him who has 
 Possession of the truths which so surpass, 
 
 And thereby settle, once for all, the best. 
 Why suffer doubts my spirit to harass, 
 
 If truth accessible has stood the test .'* 
 
 I would it know forthwith, and there forever rest. 
 
 XXII. 
 " If mankind grows in wisdom as in age. 
 
 As men, judged wisest of the race, maintain. 
 In true development from stage to stage. 
 
 Truth must become progressively more plain. 
 
 And every step in thinking be a gain. 
 Why for instruction toilsomely descend 
 
 To the far depths of time, there to remain 
 In earlier progress, when I may command 
 The last results upon the level where I stand." 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Man was not constituted to repose 
 In unbelief. Essential to his peace 
 
 Is faith. Investigation cannot close 
 Until the struggling spirit win release 
 From bonds of doubt, and vacillation cease. 
 
 'Twill grasp at every semblance of the true. 
 Perceiving trust in the untrue decrease, 
 
 And Alwyn for support with ardor flew 
 
 To seize the mask of truth the Deist held to view. 
 
ALPVVN. iiy 
 
 XXIV. 
 And did he not a purer light receive 
 
 From reverential Herbert ? . Nothing more 
 Than the departing rays of daylight leave— 
 
 A twilight falling faint and fainter o'er 
 
 Succeeding toilers in that helpless lore, — 
 Twilight which darkened as the march went on. 
 
 Proud Bolingbroke a showy garment wore, 
 And much he boasted, lofty was the tone 
 Of his supreme contempt on Holy Scripture thrown. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 But daring ignorance betrayed itself 
 
 In ludicrous exposure to the eye 
 Fresh from inspection of what on the shelf 
 
 The noble lord had suffered long to lie. 
 
 Reckless assertions, which but few would try 
 To verify, among the few who could. 
 
 On which the haughty peer seemed to rely. 
 The careful scholar thoughtfully reviewed, 
 And left the noble lord in no respectful mood. 
 
 XXVI. 
 But he had ceased to blend men with the cause 
 
 Which they defend, and promptly did repair 
 To other sources, where extreme applause 
 
 Appeared to indicate more solid ware. 
 
 From France the loud acclaim, vt^hich rent the air, 
 Came in the tone of triumph. And it gave 
 
 To every breeze thy boasted name, Voltaire. 
 What though they crowned thee only for the grave, 
 Thou won'st the highest meed thy aged heart could 
 crave. 
 
Il8 ALIVVN. 
 
 XXVII. 
 With what a glow of joy did Alwyn bend 
 
 Over the vohimes of that far-famed man. 
 What might he not expect from him whose end 
 
 Was proud as the long, brilliant race he ran — 
 
 From him whom nations honored, and whom one 
 Adored and followed whereso'er he led, 
 
 Whose pen had matched the monarchies ; the plan 
 
 Of whose campaigns of innovation bred 
 
 Hope that the despot's rule, and falsehood's night had 
 
 fled. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 He looked expectant to the boasted chief. 
 
 The arguments that swayed a nation, must 
 Surely avail to lend his mind relief. 
 
 Alas, how feeble was that nation's trust. 
 
 Not Sodom's apple crumbling into dust 
 At touch of hungry pilgrim, not the reed 
 
 As shelter from' the tempest's angry gust, 
 So ill requite dependent in his need. 
 In theory how fair; how terrible. in deed. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 The pictured reign benign of Reason lay 
 Before the admiring eye. A fairy land, 
 
 Where all abuses should be swept away. 
 
 And Virtue, by the breath of Freedom fanned, 
 Should bloom in perfect beauty, 'neath the wand 
 
 Of the magician rose ; yet distant far. 
 And to be reached but by a bloody hand. 
 
 The present still was unrelenting war. 
 
 And his own Eden seemed to be the battle-car. 
 
ALJVVN. 119 
 
 XXX. 
 
 His power was to demolish, and his aim 
 
 To scathe and blast pretension. And right well 
 
 He occupied his talent- Sword and flame 
 Devoured around him, and his vengeance fell 
 Where Justice crushed did righteously rebel, 
 
 And reason claimed redress. But in the fight, 
 Led with such skill and valor, did he tell 
 
 The anxious souls he could so well excite 
 
 To hatred of the wrong, where they might find the right ? 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Yet deists had their architect of schemes. 
 And fair full oft were the designs he drew. 
 
 And such the tints in which he robed his themes, 
 That even they who felt constrained to view 
 The whole chimerical, half wished it true. 
 
 If ever truth from grace of style could grow. 
 Conviction from expression's force accrue. 
 
 The deist's faith prosperity should know 
 
 From thy constructive art and eloquence, Rousseau. 
 
 XXXII. 
 Then what the better wisdom he arrayed 
 
 Against the ancient Scripture ? " A divine 
 Foreseeing power, which is to be obeyed. 
 
 Of providence and purposes benign, 
 
 A life to come, and punishment condign 
 Of those who sin, and blessing for the jusL" 
 
 Is that the better way — thus to decline 
 A loving Saviour's grace, and blindly trust 
 A cold device of state, as loyal subject must.? 
 
120 ALIVVN. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 And yet there was a hero in the man, 
 
 Who, in a time of violence and lies, 
 When Church and State alike imposed their ban 
 
 On words that touched the hem of their disguise, 
 ^ When mankind's best, its truthful and its wise, 
 Were crushed to earth by privileged insolence, 
 
 Could strip Hypocrisy to common eyes, 
 And lay her bare in all her rank offence, 
 Unawed by vengeful Power's malignant recompense. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 Ah, gallant France, how deeply didst thou bleed 
 That freedom from untruth to realize ! 
 
 Shrunk not from mental toil nor daring deed. 
 Nor vast expenditure of sacrifice. 
 So thou might'st win the long-contested prize — 
 
 So reason might the mastery attain. 
 And rule in nature's true and simple guise 
 
 Emancipate from despots. And thy gain? 
 
 Writ upon Russian snows, and Leipsic's dreadful plain. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 To students of the truth must not the voice 
 Of even a nation be the sovereign guide, 
 
 Nor give a bias to conclusive choice. 
 It seems as if a matter must be tried 
 With fairness where so many minds decide. 
 
 But of the millions v/ho record the vote. 
 How few have ever, for one hour, relied 
 
 On Reason's light ? Some leading mind they quote, 
 
 Tread blindly in his steps, and speak his words by rote. 
 
ALIVVA\ ■ J2I 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 The multkude are creatures of their times. 
 
 And times that stir the waters of the mind, 
 Fertile alike in virtues a.nd in crimes, 
 
 Though times when noblest men their places find, 
 
 Oft bring to surface things of meanest kind, 
 And often public weakness, in its need, 
 
 Will blindly follow those, who also blind, 
 Are foremost but as far as they exceed 
 In wildness of design and recklessness of deed. 
 
 XXXVII, 
 A few strong thinkers, and the boldest first, 
 
 Are always found a nation's intellect; 
 They may be men accursed with the thirst 
 
 Of power and fortune, or they may reject 
 
 All selfish gain, the public to effect ; 
 But on those few the mass will still depend, 
 
 At least until their purposes are wrecked-— 
 Success must aye the favorite defend — 
 But if one leader sinks, another must ascend. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 Thus, in the suffrages that crowned Voltaire, 
 
 We read no real addition to the weight 
 Of his opinions. For the voters were 
 
 The populace, upon whose will that great 
 
 And active spirit held the rod of fate. 
 And not because their reasonings had proved 
 
 The justness of his views ; but from their state 
 
 Of natural dependence, as behooved 
 
 Them 'neath his clearer thought, and stronger will they 
 
 moved- 
 6 
 
122 ' ALIVYN. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 But Alwyn sought for truth, not domination, 
 
 Not exposition sole of the untrue 
 Could satisfy his ardent expectation, 
 
 Awakened by the crowds that leader drew. 
 
 No pleasantries could turn aside his view. 
 No satire the most witty, not the play 
 
 Of liveliest fancy, ever yielding new 
 Creations of amusement now could stay 
 The earnest heart, which sought, through doubt, its 
 darkling way. 
 
 XL. 
 One hope remained. Still might he not presume, 
 
 With him who bore the philosophic name, 
 The calm, the subtle, unimpassioned Hume, 
 
 On whom reposed such men of learned fame, 
 
 To find that best, so long his unseen aim ? 
 Ah, now, 'twas disappointment's deeper deep. 
 
 And ere to the concluding page he came, 
 He felt despair upon his spirit creep- 
 Defeat had led to rage, but sorrow chose to weep — 
 
 XLI. 
 To weep over the weakness of mankind, 
 
 His own discomfiture and hopes decayed. 
 The weakness of the wise, who could be blind 
 
 To the poor sophisms upon them played 
 
 By one whom their own theories had made 
 Of more importance than his argument, 
 
 Utterly void of any thing to aid 
 A troubled spirit, earnestly intent 
 To know that good in which this life were wisest spent. 
 
ALWYN. 123 
 
 XLII. 
 " Is this thy growth, Philosophy ? Have I 
 
 Come from the teachings of a distant age, 
 From Aristotle, Zeno, and' the high 
 
 Instructions of the Academic sage, 
 
 In fruitless speculation to engage 
 With barren doubt ? And is it thus appears 
 
 Thy champion most valiant war to wage ?" 
 In sooth, it was abundant cause for tears 
 That largely boasted gain of twice a thousand years. 
 
 XLIII. 
 And yet the world admired. The gift of style, 
 
 Easy and polished, although cold and thin, 
 A superficial age might well beguile ; 
 
 But what did learned doctors find therein 
 
 So hard to master, and so high to win. 
 So difficult to answer, where in wrong ? 
 
 'Tis easy, when with error all begin. 
 For the consistent false to seem the strong. 
 And over partial truth to boast the victory long. 
 
 XLIV. 
 'Twere profitless to further trace his way, 
 
 Pursued in hopelessness and closed in pain, 
 And followed but because no other lay 
 
 Before him yet more hopeful or more plain. 
 
 Among the honest theorists but vain. 
 Who built for France the systems crude and wild 
 
 Which only bore to ruin the mad train 
 Of headlong revolutionists, self-styled 
 Philosophers, until their words no more beguiled. 
 
124 ALIVVJV. 
 
 XLV. 
 For all alike evinced it their chief end 
 
 To overthrow conviction that the Word 
 Of God was in the Jewish books contained; 
 
 While futile every effort to afford 
 
 Instructions which more justly might accord 
 With human faith, and honestly unmask 
 
 The real replies to questions which the lord 
 Of this creation cannot choose but ask. 
 Their end was unbelief. And therein closed their task. 
 
 XLVI. 
 " Is unbelief the utmost, then, that man 
 
 Is destined to arrive at here below ? 
 And is he doomed to moral life, who can 
 
 No principle of moral judgment know ? 
 
 Does the Great Author of all justice throw 
 His creatures forth into a moral night. 
 
 And punish them for wandering? Does he show, 
 To guide their way, no ray of heavenly light, 
 Condemn them for the Vv^rong, and yet not teach the 
 . right.?" 
 
 XLVII. 
 Yet one bold fact was ever clear. Of all 
 
 The volumes out of which he counsel took, 
 The only one to fully meet the call 
 
 Of his inquiries was the Jewish book. 
 
 By what authority it dared to look 
 Into the heart and offer such replies. 
 
 Plain, searching to the spirit's inmost nook, 
 Must be determined in some other wise ; 
 But answers, true or false, it surely did comprise. 
 
ALWVN. 125 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 And then what mighty names, from age to age, 
 
 The history of its victories adorn, 
 The clear logician, the profoundest sage 
 Of independent reason, who would scorn 
 The sophist's empty trade, alike have worn 
 Themselves by toil to make its lessons clear, — 
 • But has not intellect the fetters borne 
 Of every creed ? And does the task appear 
 So easy to reject what youth has learned to fear ? 
 
 XLIX. 
 Did Solon's faith his native gods resign. 
 
 Or cancel rites he could not reconcile ? 
 Great minds have bent before Minerva's shrine, 
 
 Adored the Ganges and the sacred Nile, 
 
 Looked to Olympian peaks and Delo^ isle ; 
 Nay, upon Indian and Egyptian plains. 
 
 Prostrate to objects most obscene and vile, 
 Have poured the earnest prayer. What then remains ? 
 To grant the truth of all that intellect sustains ? 
 
 L. 
 " 'Tis little in the scale, when one would weigh 
 
 The worth of an opinion, right or wrong, 
 To have for either side the claim to lay 
 
 That it has been defended by the strong. 
 
 Not unto human power such rights belong. 
 The greatest minds have furthest gone astray. 
 
 And prejudices linger oft among 
 The clearest views, and wield a secret sway 
 Where freest will is strong, and would the least obey. 
 
126 ALIVVN. 
 
 LI. 
 
 " Reason alone must judge of true and false, 
 
 Each soul of man its own decision make. 
 And where it proves incompetent, nought else 
 
 Can here below the labor undertake. 
 
 Dreadful responsibility ! to stake 
 One's everlasting welfare on the chance 
 
 Of right conclusion, where so many wake 
 Too late to error and its recompense. 
 Yet here must knowledge end, here terminate advance. 
 
 LII. 
 
 " For grant the claim that the Supreme has given 
 
 A revelation to the sons of men, 
 Laden with wisdom and the grace of Heaven, 
 
 On which they safely may rely. What then ? 
 
 Which one is truly the inspired pen ? 
 Which is of God ? The Hebrew prophet's lore ? 
 
 Egyptian Thoth ? The sage whose prudent ken 
 The crowded millions of Sinim adore ; 
 Or who the Vedas sung, long lost in distant yore ? 
 
 LIII. 
 " Vain problem : * By their fruit shall they be known.' 
 A scheme professed of human blessing can 
 Evince a source divine by good alone 
 
 Performed in those who follow out its plan. 
 And what if critics, who the closest scan 
 These many works, should find them all divine ? 
 
 Must the Creator speak but once to man 
 And all His favor to one tribe confine ? 
 Must truths to falsehood turn whene'er they thus com- 
 bine ? 
 
ALJVVN. 127 
 
 LIV. 
 
 " Such were strange alchemy." So Ahvyn saw, 
 And soon abandoned the pursuit which no 
 
 Investigation could avail to draw 
 
 To fit conclusion. Whither should he go 
 To find the Sibyl's leaves ; or who can show 
 
 The books of Thoth ; or if one may ascend 
 To source of the Avesta, or to know 
 
 The fiaith in which the Vedic hymns were penned. 
 
 What hope that toil should thus attain a happier end ? 
 
 LV. 
 " Poorly adapted to such themes as these 
 
 Is the brief time to mortal works supplied. 
 To scrutinize the Sanscrit and Chinese 
 
 Is doubtless worth the scholar's honest pride ; 
 But if the truth was ever thus descried, 
 Its gain to human life must ill repay 
 
 The toil of finding, if so long applied, 
 It has not yielded other fruits to-day 
 Than those which China's hordes and Hindu castes dis- 
 play. 
 
 LVI. 
 "Is there a creed mankind can no^ believe ? 
 
 Or is there aught beyond the range of doubt ? 
 To smooth the way for what they would receive. 
 Or rule the truthful, when offensive, out. 
 There is no evidence men cannot scout. 
 Nature full oft beholds her facts denied, 
 
 Her hosts of demonstration put to rout. 
 Nor has the love of God a word supplied 
 On which the varying minds of men will not divide." 
 
128 ALWYN. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 Amid the agitation and unrest 
 
 Awakened by the winds of unbelief, 
 A gust of strange, wild joy would heave his breast — 
 
 A turbid exultation of relief — 
 
 A fierce vain-glory, bursting through the grief 
 Of failure, while he seemed to comprehend 
 
 Within the circle of his view the chief 
 Defenders of the Word, and in the end 
 Of proofs to see the want of all they would defend. 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Like a breakwater to the stormy main. 
 
 Would a strong argument sometimes restore 
 
 His faith ; until along the billowy plain 
 
 Rushed bolder lines of surge upon the shore, 
 And with defiance, and insultant roar. 
 
 Like charge of heroes hastening to the fray, 
 
 Would headlong o'er his strongest bulwarks pour, 
 
 Tossing in pride their feathery crests of spray. 
 
 And scattering his defence, like pebbles, on their way. 
 
 LIX. 
 "And who shall tell," he bitterly inquires, 
 " What are the certain seals of sacred writ? 
 How shall I know the doctrine God inspires. 
 And be prepared, as arbiter, to sit 
 In judgment on its virtues to outfit 
 My spirit for communion of the blest ? 
 
 Is there a mark on language to transmit 
 Its proof of birth in God ? Or does all rest 
 On subtler evidence, whose truth eludes my quest ? 
 
ALWYN. 129 
 
 LX, 
 
 * And by whose judgment were it safe to mete 
 
 The holy oracles of God withal ? 
 Nay, were men's unanimity complete, 
 
 Is there no doubt, while captive in the thrall 
 
 Of sinful nature, that what men may call 
 Most holy, with a view of truth so slim 
 
 As not to fully comprehend the small, 
 Will be received as holiest by Him 
 Whose eye pervades the vast, nor to the small is dim ? 
 
 LXI. 
 
 *' Then, let it pass how men began to be, 
 
 By whom created, on whatever wise. 
 Behold the sum of all his history, 
 
 He rules the creatures, and himself, and dies. 
 
 And whosoever curiously pries 
 Into what follows, or has gone before, 
 
 Will hear from the far distance, as replies, 
 The echoes of his questions. Nothing more 
 Has answered human call, from that mysterious shore. 
 
 LXII, 
 " There is no proof that there is aught to prove, 
 No certainty in evidence is shown. 
 For proof needs proof ; and then it must behoove 
 To find at last a place for umpire's throne." 
 Alwyn dismissed his queries with a groan. 
 To what result had boasted reason led } 
 
 To this grand truth that nothing can be known. 
 Earth was a blank, emotion's self was dead. 
 And round his hopeless soul a mental midnight spread. 
 6* 
 
I30 
 
 ALJVVN. 
 
 LXIII. 
 Pale with repeated vigils by the lamp, 
 
 And worn with cares, which sooner sap the flow 
 Of life's warm current than the deck, the camp, 
 
 Or any toil the animal can know — 
 
 Those sceptic clouds, which round the spirit throw 
 Their deepening shadows, until reason fails, 
 
 Where doubts on doubts, mysteries on mysteries grow, 
 To penetrate the uncertainty that veils 
 The sources of all peace, the life of God assails. 
 
 LXIV. 
 Into a grove of old and solemn gloom 
 
 He wandered heedless where his steps might wend, 
 So might he but escape the fearful doom 
 
 To which his reeling reason seemed to tend. 
 
 And holy Nature, like a loving friend. 
 Received him to her arm.s, and in his ear 
 
 Poured those sad, sighing tones, which best descend 
 Upon the troubled heart, to soothe and cheer. 
 While leaving undisturbed the solitude so dear. 
 
 LXV. 
 Turning his eyes on high, he gazed awhile 
 
 Along the spangled canopy of night, 
 Till those fair orbs that ever seem to smile 
 
 All tranquilly, untroubled by the blight 
 
 Of human hopes, as if their distant light 
 Were not created for a world of woe. 
 
 Insensibly shed on his mental sight 
 A portion of their own calm, steady glow 
 Unchanging in itself, though clouds may roll below. 
 
ALlVViV. 131 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 That spiritual war is always gain 
 
 Which manfully and truthfully is fought. 
 Defeat full oft, in battles of the brain, 
 
 Brings better spoil than ever victory brought. 
 
 The haughty triumph of successful thought 
 Parches with pride the surface of the soul. 
 
 Till sowing and all culture come to nought, 
 And sunshine without cloud enwraps the whole 
 In poverty of drought no sunshine can console. 
 
 LXVII. 
 
 'Tis sometimes well that weeping clouds should spread 
 
 Their gloomy pall across the beaming sky. 
 'Tis sometimes well, with aching heart and head, 
 
 That one should see his dearest prospects die. 
 
 Full oft the failures which our hopes deny, 
 Are forces of deep verity and right, 
 
 A barren confidence to mortify. 
 To drive the ploughshare, with relentless might, 
 Through life, and bring its best fertility to light. 
 
CANTO SIXTH; 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 Canto VI. — Philosophical studies, delightful as they are in them- 
 selves, are shorn of their highest profit if pursued to the 
 neglect of social duties — Alwyn turns from speculation to 
 practical things — Importance of sympathy with men to the 
 completeness of the individual— ^Certain doctrines proved by 
 having always actuated mankind — Human nature — Alwyn re- 
 volts from his experience in business life — Without a faith 
 established in God, he loses faith in man — Nature has lost her 
 former charms — A dream, sleep has her own world. 
 
CANTO SIXTH, 
 
 I. 
 
 For the rich flow of far-pervading thought, [hour, 
 
 Which comes strong, deep and clear, at midnight's 
 
 To patient thinking could the world be bought. 
 Who would conclude the purchase — for a power 
 O'er things of clay would sacrifice the dower 
 
 Of the All-wise, which constitutes him lord 
 
 Of unseen realms, from whose exhaustless store 
 
 Enjoyments nobler than earth can afford 
 
 More kindred to the soul are ever round him poured ? 
 
 II. 
 
 And yet there is a sadness in the bliss 
 * Even of those rushing thoughts, as if behind 
 There lay concealed a deeper source than this 
 
 Of intellectual triumph, which the mind 
 
 Dimly perceives far off, and undefined, 
 And knows to be essential to her peace, 
 
 But which she strives in vain to graSp and bind 
 Unto herself, till humbled efforts cease, 
 Despondency invades, and weary hopes decrease. 
 
 035) 
 
136 ALPVVN. 
 
 • 
 
 III. 
 
 For, with the multitude of thoughts that live 
 And have their active being among men, 
 
 O'er which the reason can avail to give 
 The practical dominion of the pen, 
 Dim forms of glorious truth will come, and then 
 
 Depart, as shadows of the clouds flit by, 
 'Neath Summer's sun, not to return again, 
 
 But fire the soul with rapture while they fly, 
 
 As harbingers of things to be revealed on high. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The mists of doubt, at times, will pass along, 
 
 And shade the ideal prospect for a day. 
 And he who seeks the truth may labor long, 
 
 Warring with countless errors on his way. 
 
 But persevering valor will repay 
 With triumph in the end ; while the hard toil 
 
 Expended in the war confers a sway 
 O'er powers of thought all future foes to foil, 
 For which alone 'twere well he spent the midnight oil. 
 
 V. 
 It is, indeed, a banquet of the soul, 
 
 Thus to transcend our prison-house of mold, 
 And as a portion merge in the great whole 
 
 Of spiritual being, and to hold . 
 
 Communion with the mighty minds of old, 
 And with the dwellers of the vast unseen 
 
 And sacred realms, where rest to man untold, 
 The plans of God, as if one stood between 
 Earth and the springs of all that shall be and has been. 
 
VI. 
 But man has duties to perform on earth. 
 
 And even the proudest efforts of his mind 
 Must take their turn with things of meaner birth. 
 
 Not wholly dust, nor all a soul, designed 
 
 To fill a middle place, where both combined 
 May share in equal tasks, he feels a call 
 
 To active labors, helpful to mankind : 
 Yet not beneath his heavenly source to fall. 
 Hard is his task who seeks to know and practice all. 
 
 VII. 
 The middle watch of night had now passed by. 
 
 When Alwyn turned him from the fruitless pain 
 Of reconciling what must ever lie 
 
 Unreconciled to him whose thoughts contain 
 Less than the universe. " 'Tis also vain 
 To trust to other eyes, when I may look 
 
 On the same sources, and perhaps to gain 
 A certainty whence these my teachers took 
 Their most bewildering doubts," he said, and shut his 
 book. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " The natural is real ; or, if not so, 
 
 As good as real to us, who ever lie 
 Under necessity in all we do, 
 
 Whatever we may- credit or deny. 
 
 Whatever ends we seek or means employ, 
 In every act and purpose, not insane. 
 
 To deal with it as such. And they who try 
 To treat it as unreal will try in vain. 
 Self-contradicted still, with all their care and pain. 
 
138 ALIVVN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 " And if it is impossible to live 
 
 Consistently with doubt, then doubt must be 
 Unreasonable ; and they who choose to give 
 
 Their confidence to Nature full and free, 
 
 With the demands of reason best agree. 
 Forces preceding reason guide our hands, 
 
 And dictate reason's fundamental plea. 
 And to submit to those constraining bands 
 Are all alike constrained by reason's own demands." 
 
 X. 
 
 Eut then arose, what oft arose before 
 In dim impression, now in clearest light, 
 
 What to the moral being ever more 
 
 Import than question of the true and right. 
 Yet taking both within their range of sight, 
 
 The solemn heights of Duty. " What am I, 
 Amid these wonders of creative might, 
 
 And what the part assigned me by the High 
 
 And Holy One, who writes His will in earth and sky ? 
 
 XI. 
 
 " Mighty is fruf/i — the everlasting law 
 
 Of God's own nature, and thereby the key 
 
 To all the world of mysteries that draw 
 Existence from His purpose — and to be 
 Conformed to which is right ; but of the three 
 
 Duty is ours ; for us must ever span 
 
 The sum of highest knowledge. Well to see, 
 
 Backward and forward and throughout, the plan 
 
 Of one's own work, and do it, must be ever most to man. 
 
ALIVVN, 139 
 
 'XII. 
 Deep study and much reading had supplied 
 
 Knowledge, though partial, of the highest things. 
 That theoretic learning, to which pride 
 
 Of intellect forever fondly clings, - 
 
 Alwyn had quaffed at its profoundest springs. 
 But true experience, though a path less smooth, 
 
 Has much to teach that reading never brings. 
 For to the warm imaginings of youth 
 A transcendental haze enrobes the simplest truth. 
 
 XIII. 
 The agony of long-protracted doubt 
 
 And toilsome study oftentimes restrain 
 And chill the feelings. Yet if truth shines out 
 
 They burst forth fresh, rejoicing in her train. 
 
 But he who would direct from nature gain 
 And read the science of the human heart, 
 
 Shall often be compelled to suffer pain 
 That will not lightly from his soul depart, 
 Lasting as wisdom's ground, and as the price of Art. 
 
 XIV. 
 For he must feel, not merely sympathize, 
 
 In all the common joys and pains of men. 
 Nay, not their petty whims must he despise, 
 
 Share in their follies and regrets, and then 
 
 Study must still be wedded to his ken, 
 The springs of action rightly to unfold. 
 
 But he who trusts to the recluse's pen, 
 Which can but aid, shall never see unrolled 
 One tithe of the great truths in human nature told. 
 
140 ALWVN. 
 
 XV. 
 To Alwyn's mind 'twas observation solely 
 
 Which now appeared as hopeful. "'Surely he 
 Who looks on Wisdom's working and on folly, 
 
 And treasures up whate'er the lesson be, 
 
 Must the first springs of human action see, 
 And learn the secrets of this wondrous frame, 
 
 Where God is sovereign and where man is free. 
 The cause of suffering and the source of blame, 
 Life's various motives, and their ever common aim." 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Such were the hopes in whose deceitful light 
 He now the outline of his course designed. 
 
 Fields, as it seemed to him, unreaped, but white 
 Unto the harvest, opened to his mind, 
 Fruitful of expectations from mankind. 
 . And the romance, which buoyant Fancy threw 
 Over adventure yet untried, combined 
 
 With all to lend attraction to the view. 
 
 Which now before him lay, unlimited and new. 
 
 XVII. 
 " Have not the martyred multitudes that lie 
 
 Along the pathway of two thousand years. 
 Confirmed the creed for which they chose to die ? 
 
 Or have they vainly shed their blood and tears. 
 
 Endured privation, vanquished human fears. 
 And triumphed over death ? Nay, let me found 
 
 My faith upon the basis which appears 
 Sustained by evidence so large and sound. 
 Man knows no higher faith, and faith no higher ground." 
 
ALWYN. • 141 
 
 XVIII. 
 Thus pondering long the doctrines and the views 
 
 Which crowded for admission on his sight, 
 'Mong which he carefully declined to choose, 
 
 Dreading the dubious contest for the right, 
 .Yet turning each in many a varied light, 
 A calmer, hopeful feeling soothed his breast. 
 
 Shedding a ray across his mental night 
 Which ceased not yet the landscape to invest. 
 For rest was not obtained, but only hope of rest. 
 
 XIX. 
 But hope of rest was grateful. And it came 
 
 Upon his heart as falls the evening dew 
 On Summer's thirsty leaves, until the flame 
 
 Of a returning noonday shall renew 
 
 The scorching gaze which all its moisture drew. 
 No longer now in intellectual pride. 
 
 Seeking to win a self-determined view. 
 He only seeks a creed that can provide 
 For his o'erlabored mind, a bold, unwavering guide. 
 
 XX. 
 
 " Why earth was formed, and why the heavens outspread 
 ^ With all the wonders of unbounded space, 
 Why glow those distant orbs, and wherefore sped 
 By hand unseen along their mighty race } 
 And what unchanging purposes embrace 
 All their stupendous cydes in one whole. 
 Binding unerringly each to his place — 
 Ten thousand suns and systems to one pole, 
 Round which as single orbs their many orbits roll, 
 
142 ALPVVN. 
 
 XXL 
 " No mind of man can know. Nor shall I waste 
 
 My days and years in toil to ascertain 
 The inscrutable. Each being has been placed 
 
 Where circumstances of themselves explain 
 
 The duties which the Maker chose to ordain. 
 Enough for me thus much of His design 
 
 To comprehend. All further quest restrain. 
 Follow the dictates of this heart of thine, 
 Formed by the heavenly v/ill, its voice must be divine. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 '' The most consoling creed must be the true, 
 As most accordant to the inward voice. 
 
 And for the human race, what all pursue 
 Must be the highest object of its choice, 
 In which its Author bids it to rejoice. 
 
 Shall the Almighty raise His arm to make. 
 And fail in any method He employs ? 
 
 Whatever present aspect things may take, 
 
 The works of God are good, and for His glory's sake." 
 
 XXIII. 
 And thus did Alwyn launch into the sea 
 • Of worldly business eagerly to drown 
 The craving of his inner life, and free 
 
 Himself from questions which had settled down 
 
 Upon his spirit a perpetual frown. 
 Where all appeared successfully to fare 
 
 In search of gold, of office, or renown. 
 Might he not hope to find his modest share 
 Of temporal success — relief from inward care ? 
 
ALIVVJV. 
 
 XXIV. 
 His early years of literary life, 
 
 Though marked with earnest labor and success, 
 Had never entered on the fiercer strife 
 
 Which surges through the gates of business. 
 
 A young enthusiasm fired him, less 
 For topics which his rapid pen employed, 
 
 Than intellectual earnings to possess, 
 Which earth confers not. And, although enjoyed, 
 The work had always in it something of a void. 
 
 XXV. 
 And still, as many see, he only saw 
 
 The outward show, triumphant march of gain. 
 Saw not the working of the eternal law. 
 
 Which by its tense and ever-instant strain 
 
 Hardens the heart and mollifies the brain- 
 Saw not beneath the city's upper crust, 
 
 What misery its inner depths contain, 
 Knew not how far successful business must, 
 In being true to self, be inhumanely just. 
 
 XXVI. 
 All things appeared in light of his new creed, 
 Were estimated as they stood' that test. 
 " Whether in speculation or in deed, 
 
 What makes man happiest must be the best." 
 Such seemed his haven now. And for the rest — 
 His intellectual toils had proved but wrecks. 
 " Men of the world," he said, " seem ever blest 
 With buoyant hearts, which no such questions vex, 
 And reach life's aim without a doctrine to perplex." 
 
 143 
 
144 ALIVYN. 
 
 XXVII. 
 How many thus, from childhood to the grave, 
 
 Expend their days in varying mistake, 
 In trying from the ever passing wave 
 
 Of temporal life the spirit's thirst to slake. 
 
 The immaterial in us craves to make 
 An immaterial and eternal gain. 
 
 We proffer it the present ; and awake 
 To wonder that it seems to crave in vain, 
 Its voice misunderstood, with all our care and pain. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 Dreading to tread again the dismal coast 
 
 Of rational despair, in which so late 
 The chart and compass of his course were lost, 
 
 He shuts out speculation and debate 
 
 To meefplain business in its own estate. 
 To fill its duties, and to bear its load, 
 
 To gather facts of human life, and wait 
 On human nature's practicable mode 
 Of teaching truth, and then rest in the good bestowed. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Knowledge of human nature, worth to man 
 The bravest strife by human spirit striven, 
 
 Is open deemed to all, who only can 
 Behold or listen, as the chance is given, 
 To basest men by crawling motives driven. 
 
 To know the being in God's image made, 
 
 And filled with an immortal life from heaven, 
 
 Must one go down where selfish aims degrade, 
 
 And read the solemn lesson by the light of trade } 
 
ALIVVA\ 
 
 XXX. 
 Human nature, form of the ideal, 
 
 The loftiest being by conception traced, 
 Embodying in itself the living real 
 
 Of all with which ideal life is graced, 
 
 Image of God, though broken and defaced, 
 Though stained with earth, polluted in the mire, 
 
 Still; that which shall be finally replaced 
 In holiness, and elevated higher 
 In majesty divine than the angelic choir : 
 
 XXXI. 
 True human nature, to which men can add 
 
 Nothing but more and better of the same, 
 When thinking of the attributes of God : 
 
 So vast in apprehension, high in aim, 
 
 So sensitive to favor or to blame ; 
 Whom holiness befits, and moral wrong 
 
 Stains by its touch ; and whom it would defame 
 To praise with highest praises that belong 
 To any other one earth's habitants among ; 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Yea, human nature, like all other things, 
 
 Best known where in its best condition found, 
 
 Best analyzed when at it purest springs, 
 Ought to be studied upon holy ground. 
 Where least the bias of false lights surround. 
 
 So should we praise its being not the less 
 That sins and errors do so much abound. 
 
 Not it, but its defects do they express, 
 
 For none can sin who are not made for holiness- 
 7 
 
 145 
 
146 ALWVJV. 
 
 XXXIII. -/ 
 But Alwyn, like the many, thought the gross 
 
 Of human life, the wicked and the low, 
 Especially denuded of the gloss 
 
 Of artificial covering, must show 
 
 The truth of human nature ; and to know 
 That mystery, in all its breadth and force, 
 
 He rushed with new-enkindled zeal to throw 
 Himself into the channel of its course, 
 And seek in human life inquiry's last resource. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 Alas ! in rush of business, day by day. 
 
 In nights of care, the waste of all for gain, 
 So often gathered but to melt away ; 
 
 The selfishness, the narrowness, the drain 
 
 Upon the poor, their labors and their pain, 
 To feed rapacious purses ; and the round 
 
 Of deepening crimes and vices, which retain 
 Both high and low in wretchedness, he found 
 All nobler aims of life and better feelings drowned, 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 And in their pleasures what a depth of woe, 
 
 What hearts made desolate and souls destroyed ; 
 What blooming hopes of early life laid low. 
 
 And smiling homes o'erclouded, darkened, void ; 
 
 A sacrifice that Moloch might have cloyed, 
 Offered forever, that the pleasure sought 
 
 By selfish men might daily be enjoyed. 
 And selfishness itself was sold and bought. 
 Yet ever in its gains came wretchedly to nought. 
 
ALIVVjV. 
 
 H7 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 And Alwyn wearied of that bickering life 
 Whose fair externals had allured him most, 
 
 Its grovelling, toiling, temporalizing strife 
 For fleeting pleasures at a lasting cost, 
 In which the care-vexed multitude was tossed. 
 
 From conscience had he earned no respite. 
 And his respect for human nature lost, 
 
 And in that loss lost all. The fairest light 
 
 Of hope and love and God all vanished from his sight. 
 
 XXXVTI. 
 Then while he wept in spirit for the dead. 
 
 And saw the wicked prosper by their wrong, 
 Amid the ruins of his hopes he said, 
 " Alas, and if this wretched human throng 
 
 Be the true lord to whom the zones belong, 
 The native growth of atoms, then the right 
 
 Is but a fiction ; are they not the strong 
 Who always rule, in truth and love's despite ? 
 In vain does Justice plead, v/hen unsustained by might." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 Blackness of darkness on his spirit fell, 
 
 Extinguishing all purpose, all desire. 
 What had a chance-created world to tell ? 
 
 What revelation could a heaven inspire 
 
 The necessary birth of frost and fire ? 
 But wherefore then so passionately pray 
 " My God, my God," impelled by something higher 
 Than all that life and argument can say ? 
 Poor self-conflicting soul, where shall it find a stay ? 
 
140 
 
 AL WYN. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Nature had taught of nature— nothing more. 
 
 Philosophy had led to darkest doubt. 
 Knowledge of human nature only bore 
 
 The fruit of disappointment. For without 
 
 Sight of its loftier ends, the most devout 
 Philanthropy could only turn to gall. 
 
 Science alone seemed certain. But about 
 Man's origin, his place, and purpose, all 
 Was silent as the grave, and gloomy as its pall. 
 
 XL. 
 
 Men may be doubted, and the doubt a gain ; 
 
 But without faith in man there can be none 
 In God ; and they who trust not God remain 
 
 As infidel to man. And he alone 
 
 Who loves his brother man, already known, 
 Can love the God unseen but by the blest. 
 
 And faith and love alike have ever grown 
 From the conviction, natively impressed, 
 That all things, good 'and ill, are ordered for the best. 
 
 XLI. 
 But Alwyn's soul, embittered by the view 
 
 Of life thus taken, earthy, cold, and sad, 
 Although a timorous love clung to a few, 
 
 Revolted from the race, in whom he had 
 
 Found in the main, the selfish and the bad. 
 But now necessity had firmly wound 
 
 Her coils about him ; and the life he led, 
 Though hated, with a spell like that around 
 The gaming-table, still with chains of iron bound. 
 
ALJVVN, i^g 
 
 XLII. 
 
 In surging turmoil and the heat of crowds, 
 
 The inner life withdraws herself from sight, 
 Shrinks from unsympathizing gaze, and shrouds 
 
 Her form in shades of artificial night. 
 
 As in the smoke and fury -of the fight 
 The ranks succeed or fail, they know not why, 
 
 So, in the business war, where wrong with right, 
 Where true and false in desperate conflict vie. 
 Is not the place to pause with introverted eye. 
 
 XLIII. 
 By him alone, who stands apart and views 
 
 The scene, where cares and passions seethe and boil, 
 And with a living sympathy pursues 
 
 The tide alike in flow and in recoil. 
 
 Without submitting to their rude turmoil. 
 Or yielding to their crimes, by him alone 
 
 Who reads his own heart with a patient toil 
 Is human nature deepest, largest known. 
 'Tis from above the most impartial light is thrown, 
 
 XLIV. 
 Is there still healing in the lonely wild, 
 
 Where man is but a visitor, and rare ? 
 Its inspiration filled him when a child ; 
 
 And shall its blessed agency repair 
 
 The blight which social life has oft to bear ? 
 The eager spirit half its light relumed 
 
 At thought of days so lovely and so fair. 
 But Nature had of late for him assumed 
 Such moods as those to which he had himself been 
 doomed. 
 
150 ALWVN. 
 
 XLV. 
 As, seen from Lauterbrunnen's watery vale, 
 
 The sunset glories of the proud Jungfrau 
 Dissolve by chilling changes ghastly pale, 
 
 As dies the light along the mountam's brow ; 
 
 So die the charms which earthly scenes endow, 
 When of the rays of hopeful fancy shorn ; 
 
 And Alwyn fruitless sought m nature now 
 The fellowship she gave to life's bright morn, 
 Saw but a pallid corpse — a painted scene outworn. 
 
 XLVI. 
 They who would climb the dazzling mountain's crown, 
 
 Must often pass where avalanches lower, 
 And from successive summits must go down, 
 
 To climb again, full many a weary hour ; 
 
 So the ascent of intellectual power 
 And truth is oft appalling to the view. 
 
 Gulfs yawn beneath, and precipices tower, 
 Efforts seem lost 'twere fruitless to renew. 
 And yet the path of toil and doubt may be the true. 
 
 XLVII. 
 But there was still another, stranger life. 
 
 Lying away behind that conscious scene. 
 When, all withdrawn from day's harassing strife. 
 
 The soul's unconscious being woke serene. 
 
 Again he rambled o'er the pastures green. 
 Or lightly scaled the airy mountain wall. 
 
 And he was once again, as he had been 
 In happy boyhood, ignorant of all 
 That thinking which had turned the fruit of thought to gall. 
 
ALWYN. 151 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Again the honest earth yielded to him 
 
 The joys of earlier days. The laughing rill 
 
 Played v/ith the grassy lawn along its brim. 
 The shadowy forest slumbered on the hill, 
 And silent herds did dreamy pastures fill. 
 
 Again his limbs did the light winds invest 
 
 Fresh from the gleaming sea. But all was still, 
 
 And, in another light than sunshine drest. 
 
 Breathed of a holier realm of purity and rest 
 
 • XLIX. 
 Then changed the scene, like a dissolving view. 
 
 Earth disappeared. Distinctly, as if nigh, 
 One sainted form before his vision grew. 
 
 Well-known and dearly loved ; but far and high, 
 
 On bended knee, in pure and crystal sky, 
 Which slowly opened round her, and displayed 
 
 Glories of light ineffable, which lie 
 Where never shades of earthly day invade. 
 And the angelic ranks round the white throne arrayed. 
 
 L. 
 
 And still that one beloved on bended knee 
 
 All silent seemed. And silent all around 
 The throne of God ; in awful silence He. 
 
 Meanings were uttered, but gave forth no sound. 
 
 Nearer ! O nearer ! But his lim.bs were bound. 
 And then words seemed into his heart to pour, 
 
 As having through no outward organ found 
 Their way, and with deep tenderness implore, 
 In tones his childhood knew, now heard on earth no more. 
 
152 ALWYN. 
 
 LI. 
 Of him they spake, his dangers still below, 
 
 In doubts, temptations, weaknesses, and sin ; 
 Pleaded the sad inheritance of woe, 
 
 With which the purest of mankind begin, ' 
 
 The grace, which e'en the guiltiest may win, 
 And earnestly for him that grace besought. 
 
 Alwyn heard no reply ; but felt within 
 As if upon a beam of glory brought, 
 A glow of blessedness, the light of holier thought. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Again the scene dissolved. And as he lay 
 
 By the vast ocean's shore, a face drew near 
 Out of the darkness, lighted by no ray 
 
 But from itself. Clearer and yet more clear. 
 
 Of heavenly beauty, holy and severe, 
 Changing to tender, loving, did it seem. 
 
 Till forth stood every feature — O how dear ! 
 But the bliss perished in its own extreme. 
 He woke, and pondered long the strange ecstatic dream. 
 
 LIII. 
 Within herself the human spirit lives 
 
 A life all separate from what appears. 
 Though to the world of men her toil she gives, 
 
 'Tis when forgetting them and self she rears 
 
 Her fairest works, weaves her own joys and fears, 
 And calls around her with most potent sway 
 
 The grand realities of higher spheres. 
 Which with the self-forgetful soul delay ; 
 But fleet at slightest touch of consciousness away. 
 
CANTO SEVENTH. 
 
ANALYSIS. 
 
 Canto VII. — Alwyn, after all his studies, in a state of spiritual 
 darkness, desolate, despondent — Pardoners of sin — He returns 
 to his native land — The Minster church — The service — Dis- 
 appointed, he strolls thoughtfully through the city — En- 
 counters the friend of his youth in destitution — Recital of a 
 lowly Christian's afflictions — They profoundly interest Alvv^yn's 
 feelings — In the course of continuing to aid his friend, he is led 
 to relieve suffering in others — Becomes acquainted with other 
 persons similarly employed — Learns to hold them in esteem — • 
 And to think of Jesus, in whose spirit they profess to act, in a 
 new light — Weighs in his meditations the benevolence and self- 
 sacrifice of Jesus — Through love to His person begins to feel 
 the comfort of confidence in His truth — His meditations swell 
 into a hymn to Christ — Epilogue. 
 
CANTO SEVENTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 V/hat is there great in all our mortal years, 
 In all that can by human skill be known ? 
 
 The far-off mighty dwindles as it nears, 
 And earnest seekers after truth bemoan 
 
 __ Their purpose baffled and their hopes o'erthrown. 
 
 Ah ! how much labor and exhausting pain, 
 What wear of soul, that never can be shown, 
 
 Must often be endured to make the gain 
 
 Of vital truth, which one bright moment might attain ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Why should so many of transcendent power 
 In long unrest their anxious days expend, 
 
 Inquiring ever till their latest hour, 
 Only to be inquirers at the end — 
 Such wealth of thinking to the grave descend, 
 
 Without one step of progress on the whole ? . 
 Must each new life upon itself depend 
 
 And leave no help for a succeeding soul 
 
 The better to attain the all-desired goal ? 
 
 (155) - 
 
156 ALWYN, 
 
 III. 
 'Twas not that fortune had refused to crov/n 
 
 Alwyn's industrial toil with competence, 
 But all life's Spring and Summer now had flowii; 
 
 And yet the good he sought at such expense 
 
 Of peace, of human love and severance, 
 Enlightened not his sad and lone abode. 
 
 All other gains were heartless recompense ; 
 
 Yea, all the best by learning's hand bestowed, 
 
 While life-exhausting search had failed of peace with 
 
 God. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Friendships it had not been his care to make. 
 
 To lone pursuits his hermit youth he paid. 
 x\nd if his lips the words of kindness spake, 
 
 'Twas often that a happy temper made 
 
 It pieasanter than rudeness to be said. 
 While positive attainments satisfiedj 
 
 While life was new and hope her plans arrayed, 
 While daily study daily joy supplied 
 He little recked what man or granted or denied. 
 
 V. 
 While fortune smiles and mental stores increase, 
 
 The services of friendship may be brief. 
 But ill can hermit self-sustain her peace 
 
 With disappointment, failure, unbelief. 
 
 'Tis true, her ear may virtuously be deaf 
 To hollow phrase of smooth-tongued sons of cant ; 
 
 But to the smile of kindliness, that chief 
 Of all the gifts of time, 'twere false to vaunt 
 A disregard or hate, or glory in its want. 
 
ALPFVJV. 157 
 
 VI. 
 By knowing had he hoped to reach the sure 
 
 System of causes — the eternal bond 
 Betwixt the work and Maker — the secure 
 
 Step from creation into that beyond, 
 
 Which should to his most solemn wish respond, 
 And learn with clearness all the aim of prayer, 
 
 And all a sure salvation, which his fond 
 Devotion craved with ever anxious care. 
 But every path had ended in " no thoroughfare." 
 
 VII. 
 Could not his soul the wealth of nature fill ? 
 
 No charm was lacking in the earth or sky. 
 And where he lived had Art, with curious skill, 
 
 Long labored, not in vain, to multiply 
 
 All that could bless the heart through ear and eye. 
 And men and women, in their liquid tongue, 
 
 Confessed their sins, and trusted the reply 
 Which pardoned them. And wide, to old and young. 
 To good and bad, the gates of heaven were open flung. 
 
 VIII. 
 "And wherefore not accept the easy grace, 
 
 Which may be had without this toil of mind ? 
 If some good priest's decision can efface 
 
 The guilt Vv'ith which my spirit is combined. 
 
 Why not let heart and conscience be resigned ? 
 If there are men who will insist to bear 
 
 Responsibility of such a kind, 
 Why may I not on them devolve my care, 
 And leave to them the robe it is their choice to wear.? 
 
158 ALIVVN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 But, ah ! the soul that sinneth it shall die. 
 
 One drop of poison may dissolve forever 
 My hold on life, and all its bonds untie ; 
 
 So must one sin from holy being sever, 
 
 To be rejoined by human effort never. 
 The laws of nature are the thoughts of God, 
 
 All changeless and unerring. Like a river 
 They hasten to their goal. He bears the load 
 Of sin who sins ; and he alone must stem the flood. 
 
 X. 
 
 And whosoever dares to pardon sin 
 
 In others only aggravates his own. 
 The guilty spirit must retain within 
 
 Its discord with all else that God has done. 
 
 And if aught for that discord can atone 
 It must be something competent to change 
 
 Creation's nature, to assume the throne 
 Of monarchy divine, and rearrange 
 The universe, and causes from effects estrange. " 
 
 XI. 
 
 As hunted stag, survivor in the chase, 
 
 Seeks wearily the lair fiom which he rose ; 
 
 So wearily did Alwyn now retrace 
 His steps, to find at last a sad repose 
 Where young success her charms did first disclose. 
 
 Not dead to cares of science and of lore, 
 A loftier care absorbed his life than those. 
 
 And till its calls are met, none evermore 
 
 Can to his heart a throb of quickening zeal restore. 
 
ALWYN. I^Q 
 
 XII. 
 
 To height sublime a stately fabric rose, 
 Solemn, yet light, and in its grandeur fair, 
 
 Where studious Art had labored to dispose 
 Her ponderous masses with the subtlest care, 
 That all might seem to rise and none to bear. 
 
 In lightly springing arches, to the eye 
 I^ike gossamer suspended in mid air, 
 
 And lines and spires all pointing to the sky, 
 
 As if to guide the soul to its true home on high. 
 
 XIII. 
 The giddiest mind the solemn portal awes, 
 
 The worshiper, ere entering, bends low 
 Upon its threshold stone in reverent pause, 
 Till words of prayer in muttered accents flow 
 And sprinklings symbolical bestow 
 A sanctity consistent with the place. 
 
 And then proceeds with motion grave and slow, 
 With humbled aspect and a muffled pace. 
 As if 'twere holy ground which those proud aisles em- 
 brace. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Vast mullioned windows on the assembly threw 
 
 A sober light, like the departing ray 
 Of Summer's eve, in many tinted hue 
 
 Saddening the lively brilliancy of day. 
 
 And from the v/alls stood forth, in long array, 
 Full many a sculptured form of snowy white 
 
 Like angels hovering on their heavenly way. 
 And dwelling fondly on the pleasing sight, 
 Ere back to holier scenes they urge their upward flight. 
 
l6o ALWYN, 
 
 XV. 
 
 Lofty and dim the far discerned roof 
 
 Wrought of the branching arches and the lines 
 
 Which indicate in complicated woof, 
 
 The ogive paths, where arc to arc inclines, 
 And of the tracery of sculptured vines, 
 
 And acorn-bearing oak, appeared to spring 
 
 From native growth, as when -the grove combines 
 
 Her leafy arcade of the elm-tree's wing 
 
 With all its load of fair retainers clustering. 
 
 XVI. 
 The altar, built of marble and of gold. 
 
 Lit by symbolic tapers, rose on high 
 Where graceful waving clouds of incense rolled 
 
 Their sweetly-smelling savor to the sky. 
 
 Signs of the death the Saviour chose to die 
 Stood forth in pride to Calvary unknown. 
 
 And the beloved Mother bent her eye. 
 With the benignity a god might own, 
 On the adoring crowds who knelt before her throne. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 The ministering priests before the shrine 
 
 Bending in ranks of seemliest array, 
 The silent multitude, whose souls combine 
 
 Their ceremonial services to pay ; 
 
 The solemn sweetness of the chanted lay, 
 Lending expression to their thoughts of prayer, 
 
 And the broad music-flood whose upward way 
 All thoughts, all feelings on its current bare. 
 With living beauty filled the glad resounding air. 
 
ALIVVN. l6l 
 
 XVIII. 
 If aught can please the Lord in worship paid, 
 
 If aught His mind to mercy can dispose, 
 It must be here." And " Here," the inquirer said, 
 " The best that man of God and duty knows 
 
 May I not learn ?" But still the question rose, 
 Has God required this offering at our hands ? 
 
 Can all this pride of human taste unclose 
 The prison doors of sin, or break her bands ? 
 Who knows that this is what Almighty God demands ?" 
 
 XIX. 
 Night was descending as he turned away, 
 
 Deep musing of the pompous worship there, 
 And of the multitudes who thronged to pay 
 
 Their grand devotions in that incensed air, 
 
 With graceful attitudes and well-toned prayer. 
 Behind him full the swell of music came, 
 
 From lofty windows poured the tinted glare, 
 And high the minster rose, as if to claim 
 Of heaven a hearing in her own proud name. 
 
 XX. 
 
 Alwyn withdrew with languid steps and slow. 
 
 His early confidence of power was gone. 
 All goodness seemed to be but hollow show, 
 
 And earnestness possessed by vice alone. 
 
 His heart, was cold and passive as a stone. 
 But jibing fiends ran riot in his brain. 
 
 With bitterest scoff 'on all religion thrown, 
 And helplessness sought refuge in disdain 
 Of all that reason proved so helpless to explain. 
 
l62 ALIVVN. 
 
 XXI. 
 From the enclosed and consecrated ground 
 
 Slowly emerging to the crowded street, 
 He wandered on in hopelessness profound, 
 
 Nor hearing, seeing, caring where his feet 
 
 Might carry him, so might it be retreat 
 From bootless thinking. Sounds of rage and woe 
 
 Aroused him from his. reverie to greet 
 Haunts which the outskirts of the city strew, 
 Like wrecks upon the shore of its cold ebb and flow. 
 
 XXII. 
 He paused a moment thoughtfully, and then 
 
 Resumed his way with no^v awakened ear 
 And eye. The lower sufferings of men. 
 
 Who never mounted high enough to fear 
 
 His fears, thus loudly clamorous and near, 
 Usurped his thoughts, and mixed them with a new 
 
 Train of reflections not more glad or clear. 
 Till as the thinning city sparser grew 
 Melting into the country, and the outward view 
 
 XXIII. 
 Peered into dreary darkness cold and void. 
 
 He slowly turned his footsteps to retrace. 
 And truths, which for a time his mind enjoyed, 
 
 Recurring doubts fast hastening inio place 
 
 Might have been suffered wholly to efface, 
 As others of the kind, but that a low 
 
 Cabin beside him drew his* earnest gaze. 
 Whence issued weeping and the words of woe 
 Subdued to tenderness such quarters seldom know. 
 
ALWVN. J63 
 
 XXIV. 
 He entered. 'Twas one solitary room, 
 
 But ill-supplied with aught designed to stay 
 A want of nature. And that squalid gloom 
 
 The humbler haunts of poverty display 
 
 Was deepened by the sorrowful array 
 Of children weeping for the recent dead, 
 
 From whom a mother had been borne away 
 That day her body in the dust was laid, 
 And sleep had their first night of desolation fled. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The father stands beside him. And his eye. 
 Though sunk with suffering and dim with tears, 
 
 Is calm, and though his face is worn, a high 
 Composure rests upon it. He appears 
 A workman of the humbler class who nears 
 
 The even of life. And yet the hoary lock 
 Upon his brow was not the gift of years. 
 
 Full well the work of years can sorrow mock. 
 
 And though the spirit bear, the body owns the shock. - 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 Alwyn, in presence of a sacred grief, 
 
 Felt that the step of stranger ought to pause. 
 
 But the fond hope of yielding that relief 
 
 Which, even if nothing could remove the cause, 
 Might yet alleviate ; and that which draws 
 
 The heart of man to man in times of pain. 
 
 The consciousness of right, the heart's applause, 
 
 Soon reassured him, and called up again 
 
 Stronger the generous impulse, as its course seemed plain. 
 
l64 ALIVVJV. 
 
 XXVII. 
 But as he looked upon that countenance, 
 
 Worn as it was with suffering, it did seem 
 As if a recognition warmed the glance, 
 
 Like something half-remembered from a dream ; 
 
 Nay, can it be — is life so brief a gleam — 
 The Norman whom he loved ia early days, 
 
 The Norman of his more mature esteem, 
 Long lost to sight ? And is it thus always 
 That Providence the good of holy men repays ? 
 
 XXVIII. 
 Not words alone answered his kind address, 
 
 But a warm look of heartfelt gratitude, 
 A joy in grief, which words could not express. 
 
 But found its goal swifter than language could. 
 
 The spirit, long by crushing ills subdued. 
 Clung to the hand of sympathy. As friends 
 
 Together in the shade of death they stood, 
 In that confiding conference which bends 
 By sympathy of grief to love's most holy ends. 
 
 XXIX. 
 " The Lord is good. The inflictions of his rod 
 
 Are mixed with mercy. I should cease to grieve 
 My need of help when an Almighty God 
 
 Is always near my trials to relieve. 
 
 Yet once it had distressed me to receive 
 The gift of charity, which now I take 
 
 With humbled feelings, striving to believe. 
 Though out of hopelessness my bosom ache. 
 That yet for all, my hands some faint return shall make. 
 
ALIVVJV, 
 
 165 
 
 XXX. 
 
 * The comforts of the rich we never knew. 
 
 And yet when first our little home we made, 
 'Twas full of happiness between us two. 
 
 For then my work was steady and well paid. 
 
 And careful hands at home did wisely aid. 
 So things went on, for many years the same, 
 
 Full of contentment. But the rod was laid 
 Upon me at the last. For sickness came 
 And tarried with me long, and left me weak and lame, 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 " Then business failed. My labor's worth decreased. 
 
 Still, we could live, though suffering many a want. 
 But times grew worse, and all employment ceased. 
 
 The little saving better days had lent. 
 
 Though husbanded with care, was quickly spent. 
 And, though at aught my hands could do I wrought, 
 
 And had I thus found work had been content, 
 Such gains were seldom found, and dearly bought. 
 And many a day passed by when toil was vainly sought. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 " Then, one by one, our household things were sold, 
 
 A scanty meal and seldom to obtain. , 
 
 Our comfortable home grew bare and cold ; 
 
 And even there we could not long remain. 
 
 This hut received us with our little train 
 Of helpless sufferers. And I may confess 
 
 I wept in secret tears of heartfelt pain. 
 When we had reached this point of our distress. 
 She murmured not, but bowed with gentle cheerfulness. 
 
1 66 ALIVVJV. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 ". And when I saw her laboring to give 
 
 An air of comfort to this woeful place, 
 And when we hardly had the means to live, 
 
 Still striving to maintain a cheerful face, • 
 
 I cannot tell my anguish. But the trace 
 Of suffering grew deeper- Week by week 
 
 I saw her health was giving way apace. 
 She always spoke in words resigned and meek. 
 But when she slumbered, oft her tears have wet my cheek. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 " The Winter now set in. And many a day 
 I've left her with these little children here. 
 
 In cold and hunger, and in the essay 
 
 To earn something, traveled far and near. 
 Offering my labor for the humblest cheer. 
 
 Yet fruitlessly. And when the evening came. 
 Without the means to wipe away a tear. 
 
 Or meet my starving family's silent claim. 
 
 Returned to feel a grief no tongue of man can name. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 " Sometimes a kinder Providence would aid 
 
 My efforts, yet I could not but behold 
 What inroads on her health were daily made 
 
 By silent anguish, hunger, damp and cold. 
 
 And when I fondly to my heart would fold 
 Her wasted form, my bitter tears would flow 
 
 Even as her own, from ills no help consoled. 
 But most of all that one so good should know 
 Such destitution and such depths of hopekss woe. 
 
ALIVVN. 167 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 " But no, not hopeless. That I should not say. 
 
 For hope was to her spirit ever true. 
 That was a light went with her all the way, 
 
 And nearer to the end the brighter grew, 
 
 And when around her dying bed we drew, 
 We heard no words of sadness or dismay. 
 
 And in her eye, as seeing clearly through, 
 And out beyond into a better day, 
 A world so calm and deep of holy meaning lay." 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 The words were strange to Alwyn. " Wherefore such 
 A wondrous gratitude to the Most High, 
 
 Which not those sorest sufferings could touch ? 
 And why with such a heart should this man lie 
 Under the wrath which passes others by ? " 
 
 He would have said. But such an hour must be 
 Sacred to feelings which another eye 
 
 Should not in their outgoing lightly see. 
 
 He hastened his adieu to leave the full heart free. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 But often did he tread the path again 
 
 To that low cabin. For in doing good, 
 In kindly minist'ring to want and pain, 
 
 Had he discovered peace, which never could 
 
 Be won from Learning in her holiest mood, 
 A bliss which all might share. And yet, alas ! 
 
 How ill so rich a vein is understood, 
 The heart's best treasures trodden like the grass 
 By pleasure-seeking crowds, who lose the good they pass. 
 
l68 ALJVVN. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 Of rectitude in such a course, or of 
 
 The pleasure he awakened or enjoyed 
 He listened not for doubts, por for the scoff 
 
 Which callous unbelief might have employed. 
 
 However his reflections were annoyed 
 With questionings, his actions were most clear. 
 
 And from that dreary, intellectual void — • 
 Unbroken save by consciousness of fear — 
 The task which could relieve was to his spirit dear. 
 
 XL. 
 
 A page of life had opened to his mind. 
 
 Which his philosophy had never taught, 
 And though to much his reason yet was blind, 
 
 With lessons of a high instruction fraught, 
 
 Not all in one perusal to be caught. 
 The plans of God are of such vast extent 
 
 As not to be embraced by human thought 
 Without long patience and a spirit bent 
 To study all the ways of their development. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 And, day by day, the duty self-imposed. 
 But from an impulse he would not gainsay, 
 
 A spring of intellectual health disclosed. 
 
 The approving thought of something done to stay 
 The course of suffering, served to allay 
 
 Despondency which had of late imbued 
 The current of his reasonings. The array 
 
 Of argument, which fair embattled stood 
 
 Against existence fled before one act of good. 
 
ALIVVJV. 
 
 169 
 
 XLII. 
 But wherefrom came this practical belief 
 
 In the reality of all these deeds ? 
 Had he not followed Reason as his chief, 
 
 And reached the end to which that chieftain leads, 
 
 Annihilation of all hopes and creeds? 
 Then wherein can the evidence consist 
 
 From which a confidence so full proceeds ? 
 He feels an independent power enlist 
 His energies ere Doubt can rally to resist— 
 
 XLIII. 
 A power as native to the human heart, 
 
 As sovereign, too, as Reason's proudest reign, 
 In the economy of life whose part 
 
 Is to supply what Reason must restrain— 
 
 The sole producer in the mind's domain, 
 Who unobtrusively forever toils; 
 
 And, even when her crafty rival's chain 
 ' Is wound about her limbs, who quietly foils 
 His labored skill in fence, and carries off the spoils. 
 
 XLIV. 
 
 Instinctive faith—native impulsive trust- 
 In all the impressions by the sense conveyed, 
 
 As broad realities of being, must 
 Be prior to all reasoning, and laid 
 As law imperative to be obeyed 
 
 By all who think aright. New life awoke 
 Within him as he saw. No more dismayed, 
 
 He listened to the language nature spoke, 
 
 And on his soul again the light of knowledge broke. 
 8 
 
I/O 
 
 ALIVVN, 
 
 XLV. 
 
 'Twas not that any doubt had been dispelled, 
 
 For none had yet been solved. But he had found 
 In the dark waters which around him swelled, 
 
 At last a footing upon solid ground. 
 
 He sinks no more, though gloomy depths surround. 
 His work of charity, which daily sought 
 
 From love of man, not truth, became a sound 
 Instructor in philosophy, and taught, 
 Despite the skeptic's creed, the highest things of thought. 
 
 XLVI. 
 And often, too, with Norman as his guide, 
 
 New realms of destitution he explored, 
 For suffering with bounty to provide 
 
 With ever open hand and kindly word, 
 
 And where his own means failed him, to record 
 Its worthy objects for benevolence, 
 
 And to neglected industry afford 
 The path of labor and its recompense, 
 Became to him a joy, a new-discovered sense. 
 
 XLVII. - 
 And then at times, as on his couch he lay 
 
 And sleep delayed before the healthful cares 
 Which with so warm an interest filled his day, 
 
 He thought of Christ, and of His midnight prayers, 
 
 And how He loved the poor and their affairs 
 Took to His bosom ; and the toils and death 
 
 To which He gave Himself to lighten theirs. 
 And learned to know through more of love than faith 
 The self-denying man — the man of Nazareth. 
 
ALJVVN. 
 
 i;i 
 
 XLVIII. 
 And it did seem to him that he had found 
 
 Both men and women, who from door to door 
 Carried their works of charity around 
 
 Among the lowly dwellings of the poor, 
 
 Who were like Jesus — like in that they wore 
 No badge of goodness, and that self-denied, ' 
 
 With meekness the perversities they bore 
 Of those to whom their charities applied, 
 In mercy's mighty power o'ermastering hate and pride. 
 
 XLIX. 
 And then his wondrous doctrine of love 
 
 Stood forth in that new light with meaning new. 
 It was the chain descending from above, 
 
 Which sentient being to one centre drew — 
 
 God's free necessity— a law of true 
 Compassion, not to be confined within 
 
 Love to the lovely, whose best gains accrue 
 To those, whom otherwise no love could win, 
 The poor, debased, and outcast children of sin. 
 
 L. 
 
 It rose before him as the sovereign good 
 
 The mystery of human happiness — 
 Nor human only. " Is there aught that could 
 
 The purest of angelic natures bless 
 
 If destitute of love ? Or to express 
 The truth in heaven's own language, God is love ; 
 
 Nqr to be good and blessed can be less. 
 And wbo for suffering mortals ever strove 
 Like Christ to plant on earth the exotic from above ? 
 
i;2 ALWYN. 
 
 LI. » 
 
 " Then Christ historical, as God or man, 
 Or both united, is alone the true 
 Messiah of our happiness, who can 
 Capacity for holy love renew. 
 To Him the heart of suffering man is due. 
 Yea, Blessed Master, whatsoe'er the creeds 
 Define of Thee, I would repose my view 
 Upon Thy truth of love sustained by deeds. 
 Thine eye that weeps for sin, Thy yearning heart that 
 bleeds. 
 
 LII. 
 *' Nor His the touch of human life to shun, 
 To seek in purity a plea for pride. 
 His tenderest words. His mightiest works, begun 
 In fierce temptation, were full oft applied 
 To publican and sinner, nor denied 
 To Magdalene repentant, whom the rest 
 
 Of her own gentle sex would spurn aside. 
 More than unsoiled, outgoing virtue bless'd 
 Where'er His footsteps moved, and every ill repress'd. 
 
 LIII. 
 " And who shall estimate the weight of woe 
 _The gospel of that holy One hath stayed. 
 How it hath soothed the mourner, lit the glow 
 Of hope, where hope had long ago been dead. 
 Hath filled the poor with gladness, and arrayed 
 The meek with power, and deem it not a plan 
 
 For man's salvation, and most wisely laid, 
 Or doubt that He, with whom the work began. 
 In whose rich love it sprang, was man — yet more than 
 man ? 
 
ALWVJV. j^^ 
 
 LIV. 
 *' A gentle heart with tenderness o'erflowing, 
 
 With sympathy for every human ill, 
 An intellect of boundless grasp, all-knowing, 
 
 Discerning to the very depths of will, 
 
 Which soared above all reach of human skill. 
 Whose wisdom none could fathom, and whose words 
 
 Remain prolific of high meaning still ; 
 Whose simplest lesson more of truth affords 
 Than all that ethic lore of Grecian sage records. 
 
 LV. 
 
 " A man who without learning or ripe years, 
 
 Poor, and with lowly rank to weigh him down, 
 Who as an humble peasant youth appears 
 
 Above philosophers of old renown ; 
 
 Yea, teaching solemn verities unknown 
 To Socrates and Plato, after all 
 
 Wherewith old age the work of lore could crown— 
 A man who erred not in the great or small, 
 Transcends all human greatness since the primal fall. 
 
 LVI. 
 " To whom shall he be likened ? To the wise, 
 
 The learned, or the gifted, or the good ? 
 To heroes of ambition and emprise ? 
 - To men who have persuaded or subdued, 
 
 And bent the will of nations to their mood ? 
 It dawns upon us in a light divine. 
 
 The mighty stature at which Jesus stood 
 Above all other men in power benign. 
 In grandeur of effect and wisdom of design." 
 
174 
 
 ALIVVN. 
 
 LVII. 
 As meditating thus one night he lay, 
 
 And many a tranquil hour of late had sped 
 In thoughts that held such unpretending sway, 
 
 These words of Jesus came into his head, 
 
 With light and comfort through his spirit shed, 
 '* That God so loved the world." It was not new ; 
 
 A hundred times had he that language read ; 
 But now a meaning rose upon his view, 
 Which evidenced itself triumphantly as true- 
 
 LVIII. 
 " God loved the world — so loved it that He gave 
 
 His well beloved Son to human grief, 
 To human toil, to suffering and the grave. 
 
 That He, their mighty Substitute and Chief, 
 
 From all their ills procuring full relief, 
 Might make them partners in his blest abode. 
 
 God loved the world ! Whate'er of unbelief 
 May touch the fact, the doctrine is a broad, 
 A tender, godlike offspring of the heart of God. 
 
 LIX. 
 
 " What heathen priest, what brain of sinful man 
 
 Could ever dream — did ever dare to dream 
 That the Almighty and most Holy One 
 
 Loves sinners, all unlovely as they seem 
 
 To one another, and must be to Him . 
 Abhorring sin, and takes their guilt away ? 
 
 Ah ! This is gospel — in itself a beam 
 Of heavenly light, it signals brighter day, 
 On which no night shall fall, nor saddening cloud delay. 
 
ALIVV.V. 1^5 
 
 LX. 
 
 " Christ is the truth. The truth in Him alone 
 Stoops to the level of poor human thought. 
 
 The primal truth, whose central radiance shone 
 Upon the birth of time, is ever fraught 
 With all that time contains. And He who wrought 
 
 Creation's work, is truth as well as might. 
 
 And what He gave His work, His gospel taught — 
 
 The truth which shows all other truth aright, 
 
 And brings heaven, life and immortality to light. 
 
 LXl. 
 
 " Self-humbled Son of God, atoning lamb, 
 
 Who once for men descended from Thy throne, 
 
 How shall I praise Thee, sinful as I am, 
 
 All holy as Thou art ? Through Thee alone 
 Is God to man in love and mercy known. 
 
 In Thy commands all duty lies enshrined, 
 
 From beauty's full perfection hast Thou shone, 
 
 Thyself more fair than form of human kind. 
 
 And Thou alone hast peace to calm the troubled mind. 
 
 LXIL 
 
 ^ How ill we comprehend Thy Word of life. 
 
 And what laborious helplessness we prove, 
 What wars we wage, what unavailing strife 
 
 Within our souls to take Thy hand of love. 
 
 Not by the path of learning must they move, 
 Not by the light of human wisdom see. 
 
 Who would secure the wisdom from above. 
 Humbler the way, and briefer far must be — 
 Faith of the docile heart, which rests alone on Thee. 
 
lye ALWYN, 
 
 LXIII. 
 " How lofty Thy humility became, 
 
 Without reserve for earthly honors made. 
 No title of their gift adorned Thy name, 
 
 No party lines along the nation spread 
 
 Lent to Thy work their adventitious aid. 
 Lowly Thy birth among the lowliest poor, 
 
 Lowly Thy life, and on Thy people's head 
 Rested the shade of fortune most obscure. 
 And Galilee had learned in patience to endure. 
 
 LXIA^ 
 " And yet what transformations have been v/rought 
 
 By Thy so humble life upon mankind ; 
 Hard-hearted men made tender, word and thought, 
 
 The once polluted chaste, the coarse refined, 
 
 The timid valiant, and the 'wavering mind 
 Fixed to one lofty puipose. That which sums 
 
 Up air the best in human life designed, 
 And all the grace that blesses happiest homes 
 Spring up along the path by which Thy mercy comes. 
 
 LXV. 
 "For Thee has Genius wreathed the bay and palm, 
 
 For Thee the sv^^eetest harps on earth been strung, 
 Expectant harmonies of Hebrew psalm. 
 
 And pre-ordained prophetic pseons sung. 
 
 For Thee, before Thy wondrous birth, Thy young 
 And virgifi mother raised the adoring strain. 
 
 For Thee the gates of heaven were open flung, 
 And hymning angels, in long choral train, 
 Issued with glorious song to hail Thy earthly reign. 
 
ALWVN. 177 
 
 LXVI. 
 
 " A chorns worthy of a heavenly choir, 
 
 A hymn to go resounding through all time, 
 Announced Thy birth in spirit of a higher 
 
 Degree of being, and a loftier clime. 
 
 Thy Life laborious, suffering, yet sublime, 
 In singleness, severity of aim, 
 
 Though brief, and closed in early manhood's prime, 
 Beyond all measure of mere mortal fame, 
 An epic grander far than mind of man could frame. 
 
 LXVII. 
 " x\nd ever since, Thy love, and living faith 
 
 In Thee have filled believing souls with light, 
 Their life with hopeful labor, and their death 
 With joy of hope, then dawning into sight. 
 To Thee the prisoners, at dead of night. 
 Prayed and sang praises. And the lowly few, 
 
 Shunning offence to heathen law or might, 
 Ere busy worldlings woke, would press the dew 
 To meet in prayer with those whose equal love they 
 knew, 
 
 LXVTII. 
 " And sing a hymn to Christ. And still of Thee 
 The lonely singers in the long, drear night 
 Of error chanted sad, but lovingly. 
 And, as the Holy Spirit, in despite 
 Of jangling discords, tuned the heart aright. 
 Telling self-tortured men of glad reward. 
 
 Spreading all heaven to Damian's ravished sight, 
 And speaking love, where earthly love was barred. 
 To the worn mind and gentle heart of Saint Bernard. 
 
1 78 ALWVJV. 
 
 LXIX. 
 
 " The tongue of Greece revived again in Thee, 
 For Thee Old Latin vowed her latest strains. 
 
 And first of recent powers to issue free 
 From medieval and barbaric chains 
 The harp that for the Lord its art retains. 
 
 And civil culture waking from the dead, 
 Did to Thy glory pay her earliest gains, 
 
 In arts and learning on Thy gospel fed, 
 
 Whence a new morning's dawn along the nations spread. 
 
 XLX. 
 
 " And to the race of man, immersed in sin, 
 
 Enslaved to its imperious control, 
 Harassed by foes without, and foes within, 
 
 As if a leaguered nature were the whole 
 
 Inheritance of every human soul. 
 And woe were all that Nature had to give, 
 
 Christ has appointed a triumphant goal, 
 And by His sovereign grace reformative. 
 Has rendered human life a glorious life to live. 
 
 LXXI. 
 
 " O Nature, in the light of heavenly love. 
 How rise thy beauties more divinely fair. 
 
 The light comes more benignly from above. 
 And inspiration fills the buoyant air. 
 More charming tints thy hills and valleys wear. 
 
 For God now meets me tenderly among 
 The scenes to which I also kindred bear. 
 
 Would that His worship I might aye prolong 
 
 With love's pure incense breathed from censer of sweet 
 song." 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 Fain would my lay, beloved, once again 
 Revert to thee — for thee it woke alone— 
 
 With praise to thee would close its latest strain. 
 Though never more to hear the loving tone 
 Of thy melodious voice the tribute own, 
 
 Nor see the smile thy radiant cheek illume. 
 The garland wove not many days agone, 
 
 In the fond hope to crown thy ripened bloom, 
 
 With heavy heart I bring, and lay it on thy tomb. 
 
 (179) 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Canto II. Stanza s.-^ollco-lonian. By this phrase I do not mean to imply that 
 Epic Greek was composed of ^olic and Ionic ; but that it is most characteristically 
 marked by features afterwards appropriated by those dialects. 
 
 Stanza i4.-Romance did not prosper in subsequent classic times. It is therefore 
 the more remarkable that the Odyssey is one of the purest specimens of romance 
 in existence. 
 
 Stanza 17 -Great as the loss suffered by all departments of ancient literature in 
 crossing the desert of the Middle Ages, perhaps none is more to be regretted than 
 that which has befallen Greek Lyric poetry. Its remains glow with natural feeling, 
 and fill the imagination with the suggestive beauty which pertains to fragments 
 of perfected art. 
 
 Stanza 31.— Horace, Odes I. 34. 
 Canto III. Stanza sS.-Some of the imagery in this stanza was taken from an anony- 
 mous book of travels called " Rome in the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 Stan-^a .7 -For the American Revolution the people were prepared by a deep 
 setse of wrong inflicted on them ; but the words of Patrick Henry nerved them 
 for the crisis. 
 
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