i w w tfinmiiMi iii nnw ifnmmnnfflitii pirt^^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. :|h.p:^^^'fopsri5l,t I J/L f uaM .-' ^ UNITED STATES OF AMEMCA | THE MIRROR OF A MIND POEM ALGERNON SYDNEY LOGAN. Give me the glass and therein will I read. " King Richard II. NEW YORK PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 1875 Copyright ALGERNON SYDNEY LOGAN, 1S7S. THE MIRROR OF A MIND. CANTO FIRST. I. T3 RIGHT clouds which are the spirits of ^-^ the skies ! Even now, as ever, while ye soar above, On you the dying day has fixed his eyes With a last look of sympathy and love, — Fired by that gleam which through all time hath strove To light the soul from out its darkened isle ; — 4 The Mirror of a Mind. Ye are so pure, so heavenly, that ye move Like angels answering back day's fading smile, Though cold corporeal Earth is bathed in night the while. II. A melancholy splendor lights the peaks Of the wind-wafted mountains, where they rise, A jagged chain which the horizon streaks; Rearing a barrier which our sight defies ; Floating above the Infinite which lies Beyond the land of tribute to the mind. This glare of dissolution would disguise Day's death with lurid lustre, yet we find The Mirror of a Mind. 5 Each swift-receding ray grows less and less defined. III. Dim misty nothings on the horizon's verge, With weird significance rise one by one From the abode of shades ; and as they merge Like living letters range themselves upon The arras of the world, w^here now is shown The " Mene, Mene," of a monarch's might. The last faint glimmer lingering all alone, Slips like to water from the grasp of sight — Lost like the foam in ocean ; — Gray rolls on the night ! The Mirror of a Mind. IV. With feeble glimmer, through the deepening blue, The greater stars come slowly one by one ; The lesser follow, though at first but few. Yet brightening as new numbers still are shown ; Feeding upon the darkness which has grown Till all around is lost, save objects near ; And these recede till — now I am alone With the wide heavens, sparkling, flashing, clear — One world hath faded that a thousand may appear ! The Mirror of a Mind. 7 V. Ye stars, eternal children of the night ! Pale with a thousand vigils ! envious Time Hath passed beneath you in his withering flight, V Nor dared the awful infinites to climb From whence with undimmed eyes and mien sublime, For ages ye have watched man bowing down Beneath his load of misery and crime ; Yet drinking with his eyes your radiance thrown, To break his night of life, nor leave him Sorrow' s own. VI. Guardians and friends of man ! whose unseen hands 8 The Mirror of a Mind. Grasp the dim chains which check the mad career Of this our world, which through the gHt- tering bands Of stars would rush to chaos, till the clear Light of the sun would fade and disappear Across the airy desert : — not so now ; For Earth must carry each succeeding year, Dense with its fruits, and while ye gaze below, Move on with measured pace, nor ever swift nor slow. VII. Your very names are histories, and ye hold The brightest deeds of the past world on high, The Mirror of a Mind. 9 Which else were buried now all still and cold, Within that grave which doth forever lie, Waiting the present hour that passes by. Following Time's steps and drinking in his waste ; Ye have taught man to lisp Eternity. Oh, wildly flashing stars! the light ye cast Guides my mind backward, for ye are the endless Past ! VIII. And men do call thee dead, thou mighty Past! Thou father of our thoughts ! whence man derives lo The Mirror of a Mind. All that he knows — Let Time outstrip the blast ! He takes from others, to thee only gives ; Thou art the giant charioteer, who drives The magic car of the o'erpassing hour. Born at thy mandate, and which only lives To be thy food : Immortal changeless Power ! Thou art the light of life, brightest when tempests lower. IX. From darkness into darkness glides the hour, Inflicting change, yet changing 'neath the view — Apparelled from the mind — a magic power — A ghost to me, a harlequin to you — The Mirror of a Mind. ii A medium whose capricious falseness through Must come our light — a prism colorless, Yet shedding on each side a different hue ; Thus is the mind bewildered, nor can guess Whether grief, joy, be shades, or that which they profess. X. Joy is the very shadow of a smile, Sorrow the mere reflection of a frown, — Yet these themselves are shadows, and beguile The heart to deem the world without its own. He who would mine the silver that is thrown Forever by the moon upon the sea, — Floating upon a single spot alone, Yet drifting by your side eternally— 12 The Mirror of a Mind. He only from such dreams would forge reality. XI. From hoary infancy to hoary age, From trembling growth to tottering decay, From the mere blank to the o'erwritten page. From the green wood to ashes cold and gi*ay, From things unknown to things long past away, How small the span, how fleeting is the fire, How brief the gleam that falls upon our clay. How short the hour in which the heart's wild lyre Will vibrate to the winds of change, love hope, desire. The Mirror of a Mind, 13 XII. Why wander bone-strewed fields to meditate On human mutability ? why rove O'er sites of cities now depopulate, To feel how all things toward Destruction move ? Why muse on wormy, mould-filled skulls to prove How beauty, hope, joy, life, speed fast away ? An eye averted which did beam with love, A single frown — a smile but yesterday — More than all empires dead, speak change, decline, decay. 14 The Mirror of a Mind. XIII. Towards love's sun doth bliss, that butterfly, Soar on his fragile wing, nor knows the day Which viewed his birth shall see his bright plumes lie Dim in the dust ; a single snow-flake may Hurl him forever from his joyous way ; A single breath from out the northern heaven Will quench with stormy clouds the autum- nal ray ; And in an instant he is madly driven Down on some chilly stream, with pinions wrenched and riven. The Mirror of a Mind. 15 XIV. When Exultation bursts upon the soul, Crushing the barriers reared by years and pride ; When the hp curls— eye flashes; when Con- trol Reels backward tott'ring, and the long de- nied And boastful tongue pours forth what we would hide ; When to thy fellow-man thy heart grows warm, Grasp thy mind's tiller, trust not to the tide ! Moments of perfect bliss e'er bode us harm— The gentle sea gull's coming tells the wildest storm. 1 6 The Mirror of a Mind, XV. The boisterous sound and sweep of my own lyre Have caught me up and carried me away, Borne on the breath of an unquenched desire To slake the thirst for thought, and to allay Our aspirations for a purer ray Than that which we inherit : but my song Bids me return to whence my thoughts did stray — Years which came singly, but now form one throng — That atom of the Past which doth to me belong. The Mirror of a Mind. 17 XVI. I gaze into the camera of years, And there behold a scene of sleepless pain — Hopes ever walking hand in hand with fears, xAmbition scourging the reluctant brain. Trying to strengthen it with stripes in vain, Cursing the boy because not yet the man. And blighting his best efforts with disdain ; These tortured not by chance, but with a plan, And dimmed the deep-set spark which they would over-fan. XVII. But these came later, and still torture now ; My backward glances pass them, wanderin 2 1 8 The Mirror of a Mind. To meet one distant spot where lives a glow; As when around our pathway shadows cling, Far as the eye can reach the sunbeams fling Their lustre o'er some valley green and smooth. Sweet hour that drinks and tastes not of the spring ! Pure hour that hears and doubts not of the truth ! Fair hour of shapeless bliss, blest time of earliest youth ! XVIII. Joy is the whetstone of the scythe of Time — How early must our childhood wake to pain ! How soon must we be taught that thought is crime ! The Mirror of a Mind. 19 And strive with helpless hands, too oft in vain, To file in secret the oppressive chain. Which other minds upon our reason throw ; Seeking to prove with eager, nerveless brain, That what is said need not, for all, be so — Oh, this agony ! behold the dawn of woe ! XIX. But childhood waned, and as I older grew, My glance was upward, though I knew not why ; Above me Happiness the martlet flew ; I marked her pathway through the stormy sky. Enraptured with her pinions' gorgeous dye ; 20 The Mirroi'' of a Mind. And oft she faded from my straining sight, Oft in her wavering course swept swiftly nigh— I knew not she was footless, and her flight Eternal, and I deemed she might, she could alight ! XX. Power, Envy, Hatred, sent their shadowy brood — Words, gestures, looks, the half indifferent air, Oppression unavowed yet understood. Assent equivocal, and praise most rare. The hint that all men all your talents share, The boundless praise of others your own knoll : The Mirror of a Mind. 21 Like phantom birds with brazen beaks, these tear The stoutest heart, and check the boldest soul. And with their poisoned wings blot out the distant goal. XXI. The marbles of the mind around me lie. Opinions, both my own and others, piled Confusedly in heaps ; from these I try A stately and consistent domx to build — A palace of the brain ; but feverish, wild, To work with me my heart I cannot tame. To fruitless toil it will not be beguiled : — 2 2 The Mirror of a Mind. Thought eats away the mind which has no aim — A hidden agony, a pain without a name. XXII. 'Tis night ; a youth is from his window leaning ; The moon and stars together slowly rise ; The scene upon his face prints not its mean- ing— The passing clouds, the moonlit, starry skies He sees not, though reflected in his eyes ; His ear receives, not hears the vesper chant : For he has found this truth which few^ can prize — The Mirror of a Mind. 23 That all substantial things for which men pant, Objects of sense, are air — our thoughts are adamant. XXIII. From my own past I gladly turn away ; Our life begins long after birth, and ends Too often ere we die, and I delay To seize each coming Present as it tends To form what I shall be, and ever bends The bow, and fits the arrow which belong Unto the morrow. Round me there extends A w^orld of beauty which demands my song — Tints, shadows, colors, rays, commingling in one throng. 24 The Mirror of a Mind. XXIV. For now sad Autumn with his plaintive flute Upon the hill-tops mournful ditties plays ; Tears doth he shed which stain his russet suit, Weeping the waste which yet he never stays, — Save when at times his march he still delays And toward the parted summer turns him round. With melancholy smile and longing gaze ; With red and yellow leaves his head is crowned. And ever as he walks some rustle to the ground. The Mirror of a Mind. 25 XXV. The time exalts the spirit while it grieves — Birth and decay in beauty ever vie — The sunless sunlight of the yellow leaves Lives everywhere, and mocks the cloudy sky ; Shedding o'er all the world a golden dye — The light of Desolation ; far and near, As setting suns defy mortality. On wood, and glen, and hill-side doth appear This smile amidst despair — bright sunset of the year. XXVI. The sunset of the year ! behold, the trees Like evening clouds grow brighter as we gaze ! 26 The Mirror of a Mind. Lit by an orb we see not ; by degrees Melting into a universal blaze ; Filling the upward eye with wild amaze, Which views these glories of the closing day — A shattered and strewed rainbow lines the ways — Till Autumn's later evening steals their ray, Leaving them spiritless, unlighted, cold and gray. XXVII. Red trees like torches light the Autumn's bier, Their leaves like sparks fall glowing to the ground ; The Mirror of a Mind. 27 The golden gleam that earlier did appear Hath passed away, and sad each sight and sound ; Dead leaves in heaps lie stiffening all around ; Mists rise where'er we gaze with motion slow ; While the faint warble of the distant hound Lingers upon the air with billowy flow, Soft, sweet, yet ominous — unfeeling, though so low. XXVIII. And as the woodland paths we slowly tread, A solitary leaf will often stray, Like to a ghost, from out the piles of dead. And roll before, as if to point the way 28 The Mirror of a Mind, Which we must follow — even to decay ; But glance above, and there behold the buds Of the next year — these are the unborn May, Which lives unnoticed in the weeping woods, And smiles at Winter's might, — his whirlwinds, snows and floods ! XXIX. All that through life we struggle to repress. All that unites us to the vile and low, All that would mock the soul and make it less, — These are Death's spoils — he never aims a blow At that which most we cherish ; but the prow The Mirror of a Mind, 29 Sees not the silvery wash that leaves the keel ; The only immortality we know, We by a kind of phantom memory feel — Gaze back on days unborn, and past the future steal. XXX. There is a faint perception in the mind. An unsubstantial goad which bids us climb ; Sometimes it seems a wish almost defined, Again a memory blurred by passing Time, Anon a half-read prophecy sublime ; And now it lights our living Hope of fame, Now seems the dim remembrance of a crime, 30 The Mirror of a Mind. Which strikes us ere we know from whence it came, And wakes a heavy throb, half sorrow and half shame. XXXI. Dim as the orb that joins the horned moon, Or meteors' trains which vanish in the sky ; Faint as the chimes of distant bells which swoon Upon the ear, or when they wearily Toil up against the blast, though flung from nigh. And scarce may reach us, breathless, feeble, slow ; As ineffective as the sunset's dye The Mirror of a Mind. 31 Tinting the chilly foam, or frost on snow, Or rain upon the ocean, sinking in its flow ; XXXII. Dim as the phantoms of our future years, That pass before sad childhood's dreamy eye, This spirit of the mind, as it appears Troubling the w^aters — but why multiply My images to paint the wind, or try By ghosts to show a something dimmer still — So thin that Time, Death, pass it scathe- less by — A might which makes the eye to flash and fill— The unessential shade, whom Sorrow cannot kill. 32 The Mirror of a Mind. XXXIII. All feel in youth this restlessness within, This pain which doth our life and aims im- peach ; We strive to fight the world in armour thin- Grasp at a fruit beyond our mortal reach, Miss it, and say it is not ; and then teach That life is vain, and naught on earth is warm. Concealing wounds that know nor balm nor leech ; But yet in some this spirit takes a form, And makes them stem the stream, and battle with the storm. The Mirror of a Mind. 33 XXXIV. Life's waves oft whelm our Hope, but ebbing soon, Behold, it gleams again in flickering lines ! Like the blurred image of the ocean moon In the wet sands, which tremulously shines. And with a buried lustre : The heart pines To flee from those who live chained to the car Of trifles ; but Ambition's blast inclines To waste at length the soul it bears afar — The soul, that rising spark, that fain would be a star. 3 34 The Mirroi^ of a Mind. XXXV. The vastest forms which rise within the soul, The mightiest children of the laboring mind, Can never reach Expression's earthly goal ; But wander restless, shadowy, undefined, Even beneath our gaze to melt inclined : Like Earth's gigantic, lonely shade are they ! Which even on the moon no rest may find. But from her breast is rudely torn away, Left buoyless in space, the Impalpable's dim prey. XXXVI. To follow these on leaden winofs ; to hem Our world-worn mantle with a cloth of gold ; The Mirror of a Mind, 35 To graft the ruddy rose upon a stem Now withering as it stands ; or to unfold The fallen leaf, and from its shape, though cold, Its fading color and its venous frame. Recall that beauty sinking fast to mould ; To spur" the mind which grows each day more tame — Behold the noblest life, the loftiest human aim ! XXXVII. Vain as the Tyrian cloak which the pale cloud Wraps round his wasting form at even — vain As castles in the fiery coals, whose proud 36 The Mirror of a Mind. Towers dissolve into an ashy rain — Vain as the memory of a smile when pain Tortures the writhing lip, this constant war 'Twixt soul and sense, this torture of the brain, This effort to outstrip the thing we are, Embodied in a sigh when gazing on a star. XXXVIII. Yet pity him who hath no war within — 'Tis vain to call our sleep philosophy ! The elemental jar, the noiseless din. This is the true, the only alchemy ; Which from the base alloys that men may see Spread far and near fuses the virgin gold : The Mirror of a Mind. 37 Yet oft the strain will shatter suddenly The crucible which would this fusion hold ; And thus the o'er-labored mind breaks long ere it be old. XXXIX. I fain would be my soul, which I am not — Which no man is — and yet which all should be ; But still 'tis comfort in our mortal lot, To set our soul before us, and to see Its beauties shine in wild sublimity ; Till admiration deepens into love, And love becomes absorption, and we flee Far from the trifling crowd, to dwell above, 38 The Mirror of a Mind. Though still our living shade niongst soul- less men may move. XL. And if my spirit to this impulse yields ; 'Tis humbly, not elated, nor confused; For I gazed long upon the snowy fields Which I must tread, before my feet were loosed From out their native valley; and I mused On icy winds, or e'er I sought to climb : The penalty of pain is not refused — He who would leave the sunny vale of time, Takes for warm human joys the coldly fair Sublime. The Mirror of a Mind. 39 XLI. I write that they who follow me may say, Not, "this he wrote',' but "this indeed he was^' " This is the life his soul lived day by day." Men's best thoughts come unmarshalled, with- out class ; And I but ope the door for mine to pass From my own mind into the open air. To my own being I but hold a glass. Which shows each changing look, or dark, or fair — This Mirror paints the new, yet holds the old still there. 40 The Mirror of a Mind, XLII. Noteless I sing— What life was ever planned ? What thought e'er sent a herald far before ? Who would hold water in an iron band? In one straight line do streamlets ever pour From their slight spring down to the ocean's shore ? Why from a thousand flowers round me massed In wildest beauty choose but three or four? Or from the marble features of the Past Hand to posterity a rigid death-like cast? XLIII. Scenes with their thoughts, thoughts with their vanished scenes — The Mirror of a Mind. 41 All that within me has been most concealed From blight and mildew — all that living means — What to my real self has most appealed, — These I would garner here into one yield, The humble harvest of my human clay ; But Time before us mows in our own field, And what Time cuts, Oblivion stacks away. Reaping what men have sown and tended night and day. XLIV. My heart is throbbing with a great design — To catch the spirit of a journeying mind, And that my own ; that where I hope or pine, Struggle, enjoy, or fondly gaze behind. 42 The Miri^or of a Mind. Another, following, too, may pause and find Fresh food for feeling : here I seek to show Sculptures of thoughts and feelings ne'er defined ; Such hopes, like moonlight sparkles upon snow, Flash with a light from heaven, yet still remain below. XLV. Yet shall the spirit cease to seek for fame. When flame shall point to earth instead of heaven. Joys shall bedeck a life without an aim When on the restless clouds by whirlwinds driven, Eternal flowers bloom : vet there are Q-iven The Mwror of a Mind. 43 No words to paint that which the soul still strives To seize and render palpable ; but even He who in his own being deeply dives, Oft finds no beauty there — yet still believes it lives. XLVI. Pure Presence ! that dost have thy daily haunt Within the glitt'ring fleecy Alpine snow ; Whose radiant smile comes floating down aslant From out the Autumn sunset's hazy glow ; Thou spirit of ideal beauty! slow To penetrate the heart — why hast thou made 44 The Mirror of a Mind. No fixed abode in mortal bosom, though Thy form is ever seen by rock and glade? Thou art the ghost of Joy, that flittest but to fade. XLVII. The night walks forth, and through the mists of heaven Swino:s her dim lantern which we call the moon ; While racing clouds around the link are driven, Through the white masses swift she makes it scoon ; But holds it motionless to gaze, as soon As the dank vapors pass : the air is chill , The Mirror of a Mind. 45 The cricket chirps, then sinks into a swoon — Perchance his last ; the cedars dark and still, Untiring sentinels ! seem outposts on the hill. XLVIII. The white frost gleams around, the phantom snow, Which lives but as the breath when blown on glass — Cold child of morning, dying in the glow Of the high sun! for often as ye pass, Ye see him cowering low where the crisp'd grass — Is shadowed by some object — all is gone 46 The Mirror of a Mind. That marked him for a king — his realm which was The world, is shrunk into this spot alone — Until the sun creeps round, — and the pale sprite is flown. XLIX. The thin-armed and long-fingered naked trees, Like weird anatomies start on the sight; They come, we know not whence, by twos and threes, And seem the magic of a single night. Why do they strip 'gainst Winter's icy might, The cloaks they wore when June was all too warm ? They do but doff their mantles for the fight! The Mirror of a Mind. 47 Like ships they furl their sails before the storm, Which whistles madly by, but cannot do them harm. The dreamy days of silence and of haze. Making death dear to the enraptured mind, Have passed away, and now where'er we gaze The distances are rigid and defined ; Wind-spouts, like water-spouts, become en- twined With the thick dust, and bear it to the sky; November doth the maniac winds unbind, Who with transparent fingers twirl on high 48 The Mirror of a Mind. The bare, bleak, rugged limbs, — so white, so cold, so dry. LI. Times are there when the senses fail and sink, And when Thought's walls around contract- ing seem Till our world narrows to a cell ; we shrink Into our altered selves; we know we dream. And strive to wake, yet cannot; not one gleam Of light our present, past, and future hold; All life seems vain, our toil we folly deem, Forgetting we have felt, and are not old — The Mirror of a Mind. 49 Then rise within the mind these longings manifold : LII. Something to feel before the heart grows hard ; Something to think with which no doubting strives ; Something to sing ne'er sung by mortal bard ; Something to see which perfect fulness gives, And wakes no longing which the spirit rives, — As do the ocean, star, cloud, sunset, bird; Something to love incarnate, which yet lives 50 The Mirror of a Mind. All undefiled by touch, or thought, or word — Mind cannot all suffice, still Nature will be heard. The Mirror of a Mind, 51 CANTO SECOND. I. Within the drooping vine the wind doth hnger, Straying across its mystic warp and woof ; The rain keeps tapping with his fairy finger, In sad monotony upon the roof ; While the faint plash of a retreating hoof Flings back upon the ear its wat'ry sound. I gaze into the gloom from all aloof, Save the all-potent nothings spread around — 52 The Mirror of a Mind. Silence and night, mere voids, which 3^et wake thoughts profound. II. Silence, who hath not felt thy thrilling power, When having spoken with a cheerful air To one we deemed near by at twilights hour, We found that thou alone wert waiting there ! Or listening for dead feet upon the stair — E'en though we know them buried, and the wreath Our hands have hung — 'tis thine to wake despair ; The Mirror of a Mmd, 53 Life fears thee, for thy true home is be- neath — All know thee for the mate, companion, friend of Death. III. Night, thou art Death! inwoven with his might ; Darkness doth ever sit in dying eyes ; Lo! the dead planets are bereft of light — Their bloodless corpses stiffen in the skies — Rivers their veins, deeps seas their arteries. Solid and still ; there doth thy presence keep Death incorruptible : thy gentlest guise Folds us in tender arms, and soothes our sleep — 54 The Mirr^or of a Mind. Then softly beckons Death upon our souls to creep. IV. But to the waking, velvet-footed Night Raises the veil which wraps all things by day, Save those which brush against us, and a li^ht Streams o'er the Past, — and truth is in its ray! A moment gone is full as far away As ages past — Time is a whole — years be But suppositions framed for human clay; Like lines of latitude upon the sea, All helpless to divide the waters rolling free. The Mirror of a Mind, 55 V. We move between two mighty doors of glass, Future before us, clearer Past behind ; We pine, we long these narrow bounds to pass, Which though transparent all our move- ments bind ; The view before most pains the gazing mind. For that strange sadness which doth over- spread The world, we chiefly in the future find — Sighs breathed forth o'er a Future which is dead. The Mirror of a Mind, . Outweigh the fleeting tears which for the Past are shed. VI. To know the flood is still itself the ebb ; To see in the scarce budding rose deca}^ ; To feel that yarn is lacking for the web Of our ideal life ; to view the ray- Fade from one face while unborn shadows gray There fall ; to meet an unembodied woe ; To see our soul o'er-tftired in our clay — Such is the Future ! felt by us e'en now, As the pale victim feels the yet ungiven blow. The Mirror of a Mind, 57 VII. The waters of the shadowy fount of Time Flow silently and softly glide away; A sphynx's head it is which none may climb, Darkness within which never felt a ray; We only see the tingeless current play, Nor e'er may know how much remaineth there. Whole civilizations of man's monstrous day Are but the hours; whose clock upon the air Flings forth its clangless strokes, which all to count despair. 58 The Mirror of a Mind. VIII. Its motion Is so slow, and our slight time Of watching is so short, we cannot see The fated hand the enormous dial climb And point the hour; and thus men dif- ferently Compute the point man stands on — none agree ; Some see him young, some bowed with sinking age ; And while they fight the hand moves con- stantly ; Each calls as witness History's yellow page, Which cheats philosophy, and mocks the groping sage. The Mirror of a Mind, 59 IX. The hour is late, yet ere I take my rest Let us look forth upon the earth and sky ; The cold rain ceases — flowers it once had blessed — It wets their bier, yet mocked their agony; Great furling clouds on unseen masts go by; A rainbow which the wayward moon hath wrought. Like to a spirit's smile gleams forth on high- Ghost of a ghost, translucent aeronaut. Beauty more beautiful, an unimprisoned thought ! 6o The Mirror of a Mind, X. Deep the clear azure of the midnight sky, Dark even to blackness, fathomless and blind As seas that never heard the leadsman's cry; The full meridian moon the trees behind, Ringless and rayless, white, cold, hard, de- fined, Blanches the meadows glistening bleak and bare, Like fields of snow; a thin ethereal wind Hastens the moon-lit clouds, so ghostly fair — White, glittering, pinnacled, the icebergs of the air! The Mirror of a Mind, 6i XL There is a spot where oft my steps are bent, Where giant rocks to press the earth are seen With the deep, heavy, lost abandonment Of an eternal slumber; and they lean, And seem as nodding o'er the flickering sheen Of a slight rill, which hastens on below 'Twixt mossy stones ; while many an ever- green Stretches his muffled arms with movements slow, As if to stay the stream, and hush its boisterous flow. 62 The Mirror of a Mind. XII. Stern hemlocks up the dark and craggy steep Stand balanced on the rocks, and feeding seem Upon the soHd stone ; while slowly creep Pale sunbeams through their tops, and softly dream Far o'er the polished laurel leaves, and gleam Like moonlight on the waters. Seasons pass. And leave no foot-prints on the rocks and stream In this self-centred vale; a mind it has The Mirror of a Mind, 63 Which takes no colors from the world's surrounding mass. XIII. When in her em'rald cloak fair Spring appears, Kindling a world to love with soft young eyes, All timidly this spot alone she nears — The firs and laurels changing not their dyes, Wave back a wintry answer; Autumn flies, Shouting of changes — -still are they unmoved; The ice sprite wanders by the stream, and tries To bridge the waters, and, though vain 'tis proved, 64 The Mirror of a Mind. Plants piers along the banks fantastically grooved. XIV. Here thoughts ideal, free, untinted, clear. Live ever in the shade, and ere my feet Have reached the glen, my steps they seem to hear. And from the green in shadowy guise to greet My coming to this wild and feared retreat ; For some do say a sprite of darksome mood Doth haunt the spot, whom many dread to meet, — Yet spirit there is none within the wood, Save the poor tortured shade, the ghost of Solitude. The Mirror of a Mind. 65 XV. Eleven thousand years must slowly pass, And a new star illumes the northern pole ! And shall not Nature then be as she was Ere man began her glories to control? Where then the toil-worn artificial whole, Commerce and trade, stilts of mans petty pride ? Rivers 'twixt grassy banks may nobly roll, Where smoky cities now their meadows hide, And trout leap in the streams by factories deeply dyed. 66 The Mirror of a Mind. XVI. Primeval forests lurk beneath the plough, To rise once more at Solitude's command, Pushed back, not conquered, as when strong winds blow With transient force the tides from off the land, — Soon to return and sweep across the sand, With greater violence the more •dela3Td : Silence and Loneliness are still at hand. Though vain our search by stream, and hill, and glade ; We deem them ever found, when lo ! 'tis but their shade. The Mirror of a Mind. 67 XVII. I would not sing man's downfall, for the sake Of Feeling's glorious sun, whose disc im- mense. Broke to a million fragments, still must make In man's divided bosom dark and dense. Its scattered home — collectless, unintense : Yet shall these close extremes ne'er cease to be. Things of pure intellect and things of sense. Whose mien would make you deem they easily Could wear Orion's belt, or toast you with the sea ? 68 The Mirror of a Mind. XVIII. Beholding man, as man around we see, We wonder Death will touch so mean a thing — That they who never saw reality, Who o'er pure Nature tawdry drapings fling, Shall e'er behold the universal king. The sole controller of life's hidden fire, — From the cupped flowers, the dimples of the Spring, To systems whom no weight of time can tire, Who yet beneath his frown pale, sicken, faint, expire. The Mirror of a Mind. 69 XIX. Yet wonder not, for they are trodden down Like eyeless worms, that see not the quick stamp Which makes them earth again: Behold the town ! This populous waste, these airy nothings' lamp — Here flit the worldlings who the spirit damp. Their flesh bedizened but their soul in rags! With voices unimpelled by mind they cramp Too timid nature— these unsightly snags Stick on life's boiling stream, and curse it that it lao-s ! 70 The Mii^ror of a Mind, XX. Who gazes through a single skyhght pane Deems all heaven darkened by the smallest cloud ; So they that bend beneath the world's cold chain, Crushed to the damp mould by their unseen load, Know of no sun save the faint ray bestowed Through their dim, distant loop hole — nay ; arise ! Rend ye your bonds, the universe endowed With flower-decked earth and star-emblazoned skies. Were for one free-born soul too small a Paradise ! The Mirror of a Mind. yi XXI. Perspective rules the country of the mind, Even as the outer world which meets the eye, Far mountains there look low and undefined, Though their gigantic summits pierce the sky ; And heaps of sand, so that they be but nigh, Poor handfuls at the mercy of all winds. Blot out the landscape, and seem far more high; And thus mere nearness ever cheats and blinds Him who doth gaze on life, and naught but trifles finds. 72 The Mirror of a Mind, XXII. Yet there are minds which like to Alpine lakes, Reflect far-distant mountains ; for though they Must image back the green leaves of the brakes Which line the margin ; though a shadow stray Across their mirror; though the light oar's spray, Or darting fish, or swallow's wing, or stone Thrown by an idler their smooth surface fray. The Mirror of a Mind. 73 Still far below those awful snows are shown, Which though they pass the clouds, the lake beholds alone. XXIII. As many weathers as a tombstone feels, Missing no change, day, evening, night, or dawn. So many impulses the mind conceals ; The youngest motive hath the greatest brawn ; One influence a thousand more will spawn, And all pull different ways, till hearts grow cold ; Their strength still lasting till our ow^n is gone : — 74 The Mirror of a Mind. How can the world so many feelings hold? Who can resist them best? The timid, not the bold. XXIV. The timid ! they who dread their human clay — Who when the world's vast allied armies come, To burn their fertile fields, their souls to slay. Retreat, present no front, and save their home ; All others trust to a redoubt of foam : The timid ! they who guard their inward eye. Lest it by accident a moment roam The Mirror of a Mind. 75 From where 'tis fixed upon their star on high— These slowly, humbly plod the pathway to the sky. XXV. The genie of the lamp which burns within Will never leave unanswered him who calls; But first bar out the world's unmeaning din, And in the starry and gem-lighted halls Of thy own mind, — in silence which appalls, Yet wakes thy better being,— there alone- While from thy eye a tear of rapture falls, And thy loose locks by midnight winds are blown, 7.6 The Mirror of a Mind. Rub thou thy tahsman, and call its spirits down. XXVI. And when the genie comes, as come he will, Ask for far sight most distant Truth to see, Sitting upon her adamantine hill. Cloud-wrapped, unworshipped, voiceless; wea- rily Swaying a realmless sceptre, though she be True queen of earth, source of all beauty there : — Ask for a heart that will not ever flee From feelings' touch, and slowly melt in air ; Such first would cheat mankind, at last' bring dull despair. The Mirror of a Mind, 77 XXVII. The lowliest flower still drinks the evening dew ; Upon the smallest twig the wind will play; ^ The faintest star-beam falls as far and true As the sun's glories in the glare of day; The lightest seed that on the blast can stray, Within its tiny breast a might doth wield,— A future lies entranced within its clay ; The dullest eye hath light, though ne'er revealed — The humblest heart a chord, how deep so e'er concealed. 78 The Mirror of a Mind. XXVIII. But like a flute washed on a desert shore — A harp ^oHan buried 'neath the mould — A giftless shrine with a cemented door — The coin of an age now still and cold, Which none can value — or a story told To woods and streams, which lives upon the air, — But scattered, melted, lost — an echo rolled Far in the mountain, and still resting there — Like each, like all the heart, it answers not to prayer! The Mirror of a Mind. 79 XXIX. For other hearts Hke mountains round us rise, Seemingly fitted to return all sound— We shout, but wake no echoes; or we prize One being, deeming we at length have found A mirror of ourselves, — our wish is crowned! We smile into the glass, and start to' find, When we have smiled our image darkly frowned : How hard at last the struggle to unwind Dead hopes, which like dead vines, Life's tree so closely bind. 8o The Mirror of a Mind. XXX. Men seek to draw from man, e'en though they know Themselves insolvent, helpless to return; Seeds of the heart in others we would sow, Hoping for harvest, while the whirlwinds spurn Those cast on our own bosoms; still we turn On things which are not, yet should be our whole, Eyes dull, or which with other lustre burn : There is a shining vapor in the soul. Which could it be condensed, no more to heaven would roll. The Mirror of a Mind. 8i XXXI. Dark ocean's tides that chisel her bleak cliffs To sculptured forms of wild sublimity, Are ruffled, yet unaltered by the skiffs. Which play upon their bosom ; thus the high Surges which mould our nature still pass by The lovely forms upon their surface rife, Which to our deeper being e'er are nigh. There are no anchors in the barks of life, Or each fond breast would be a bay to end our strife. 82 The Mirror of a Mind, XXXII. Winter, the aged huntsman, now appears, One who with time hath strengthened, not dechned ; His withered cheek the tint of vigor wears; He seeks for spoil with hard and bitter mind ; With barking winds before him and behind. Which beat each copse and thicket with keen breath — They bite at all things in their fury blind. And chase the clouds the chilly sky beneath — All that is left exposed they doom to speedy death. The Mirror of a Mind. 83 XXXIII. winds have found voices, but the streams are dumb, Nor can they stir the snow-bird's thirst to slake ; The days have shrunk into themselves, all numb And shivering in their sleep— the nights awake ! The long transparent winter nights, which make The empire of the moon; and blazoning these The winter stars upon our vision break— Sirius, Procyon, Rigel, Betelguese, 84 The Mirror of a Mind. Capella, Fomalhaut, flash through the glistening trees. XXXIV. I loved in childhood, and still love to climb Most dizzy rocks, and air-surrounded towers, Where, as it were, beyond the reach of Time, We lose a moment the dull weight of hours; Hills, streams, clouds, zephyrs reassert their powers ; The soul bursts forth, as breaks the narrow span Of daily view, and distance dim devours ; Our angel smiles as we the horizon scan, The Mirror of a Mind, 85 And feel the world contains more Nature still than Man. XXXV. I love to sit and watch the setting sun Slow sinking down athwart the western wave, Ere yet the purple twilight hath begun To strew his violets o'er the dead day's grave ; While at my feet the rocks the ripples lave, Flinging their jets aloft in sparkling showers; And glowing sails like stars the ocean pave ; And memories long forgot of youthful hours, Make life's o'ertrodden path not wholly void of flowers. 86 The Mirror of a Mind. XXXVI. But when the orb sinks nearer to the sea, The sunlit sails do one by one expire, Like stars at morn ; and gazing drearily, We feel that wildering heart-ache, that desire To gain the ideal realm to which aspire Our weary thoughts ; now from the gather- ing gloom Stalks Retrospect in sad 'and gray attire — Life's early flowers are gone, and in their room Behold long willow streamers waving o'er a tomb ! The Mirror of a Mind. 87 XXXVII. Oh, Memory ! oh, Memory ! away ! With all thy thousand forms and colorings; Pale evening star of our declining day! Thine is the unseen hand that ever flings A mantle o'er the coffined Past, and wrings Dew from life's granite, and from seas of woe, Sounding their depths, a few shght pearlets strings : These are thy deeds, thy shapes, — but what art thou? Art thou impalpable ? I would thy essence know. The Mirror of a Mind. XXXVIII. Ay, ether's self indeed! but stern of mood; Thou art the spectre painter of the soul — Thy darkest pictures in strong light are stood, The fair in shadow; and to us the whole Forms a sad gallery, for the eyes will roll To fix on sketches which all beauties spoil ; And thus men strive these glances to control, Lest following eyes see all and mock their toil. Forgetting others' sight the shifting lights must foil. The Mirror of a Mind. 89 XXXIX. I've loved to gaze upon the Alps, where sweeping, The winds their glittering grain forever sow; A thousand winters past there still are sleeping Upon each other's breasts in tiers of snow. My heart warmed to those summits, like the glow Which kissed their pale cold cheeks at close of day; Something in things thus still which gaze below, Strangers to motion which is but decay, 90 The Mirror of a Mind, Speaks to what in ourselves would live beyond our clay. XL. A moment wait, ye thoughts in eager crowds ! The eternal rose which blooms but in the sky, Whose scattered petals are the ruddy clouds, Sheds o'er the world a universal dye, Surpassing speech ; all earth is heaven, and vie Hills, streams, trees, grasses, snow, each peeping stone, With the immortal ; Man's heart is his eye ! The Mirror of a Mind. 91 What winter's eve was e'er so fair? — 'tis gone — Save the faint feeble gleam which in this page is shown. XLI. Oh ! that some cunning workman of the mind, Could frame a magic, viewless door, which they Who seek the paths of thought might close behind. And bar return: like feudal vassals gay Our better thoughts rush on ; but one delay Makes fewer helms and halberds round us gleam, 92 The Mirror of a Mind, And the bright host doth softly melt away, Till gazing round alone we inly deem There were no fields to win, — 'twas but a troubling dream. XLII. The prattle of our children, — the hoarse hum Of thousand voices pitched in tones of trade, — Men hurrying to and fro, — the cries that come From factions, — and book-whisperings that persuade Glory a myth, and all our thoughts degrade, Till genius' self seems cold, and life grows tame, — The Mirror of a Mmd, 93 That bustle which to live must still be made, — Shut from our ears the enchanted flute of Fame, Which though it be unheard, still warbles on the same. XLIII. Few find on earth the boon which they would seek. Yet know they drink from a polluted spring ; A blush in secret burns the brazen cheek ; They feel that something to which poets sing, Which fain would soar, but in them hath no wing, 94 ^>^^ Mh'ror of a Mijid, To mount that ether which the bravest awes ; And years thus pass unheeded, and yet bring New pains for which they dread to know the cause, But wear a sculptured smile, and for spears brandish straws. XLIV. Within youth's grasp man's noblest aims are laid. But middle age beholds them far, nor pines; Till noon through seas of golden beams we wade, The Mirror of a Mind, 95 Which climb the mountains as our sun decHnes ; Until this spirit-lustre only shines Upon the ever varying clouds, which skim Far, far above ; reflected memory twines Fantastic wreaths on our horizon's rim — We gaze, and gaze, until all earth and heaven Q-row dim. XLV. Hues of the even, sombre yet serene ! Shades from the coming night thrown o'er the soul! Shadows, which foil the hands that fain would glean 96 The Mirror of a Mind. From our reaped fields but one more straw of toll! Dim forms, who can behold ye, and control One cry for Time to check his mad career, Prizing too late the oft neglected goal ? Who loves the coming as the parting year? We curse our endless toil, yet pine when rest is near. XLVI. Our hours are post-boys, who throughout the day Have loitered listlessly against our will ; But as they near their goal, and shadows gray The Mirror of a Mind, 97 Gather around, dash onward through the chill : Or should I say that hopes and loves are still The foaming steeds which drag our lagging wain To the bright top of life's most stubborn hill? But there they are unharnessed all by Pain — The car runs down alone, and ever speed doth gain. XLVII. Smiles, angels of the lip, are seen no more ; The vestal of the eyes hath fled away. 98 The Mirror of a Mind. Where are the souls that seemed to live before In every leaf, each cloud, each heavenly ray ? Leaves stir, clouds float, as brightly dawns the day. As fair on sleeping waters sleeps the star — The children of the heart, oh ! where are they ? Where dreams at noonday dwell, a country far, Where sage and sober thoughts at wild weird midnight are. XLVIII. Stillness condensed and gathered into form ! Behold it there! the pallid corpse-like snow — 17ie Adirror of a Mind, 99 Who can believe it came upon the storm, Or e'er had motion, as it sleeps there now, A spirit-marble covering all below ? And yet the sprite upon the w^hirlwind climbs. And while the crowded clouds in masses go. Flings great white serpents o'er their ragged brims. Which lie all motionless along the crooked limbs. XLIX. A winter's eve : there is no cloud to dim The horizon's feeble pink, so coldly clear, — A great blue goblet with a rosy rim, Turned downward o'er the earth, the skies appear ; lOO The Mirror of a Mind. Dead weeds and grasses, withered, brown and sere, Lift o'er the snow their seedless tufts and Hmbs ; No Hving sound invades the silence drear; The wind with printless feet the snow-drift skims, Wrapped in his viewless cloak, singing his pilgrim hymns. The night is clear and moonless ; the stars gleam Peopling the void. — Oh, dwellers of the sky! Lost in your own existence do ye seem. For ye are rapture ! and your forms on high The Mirror of a Mind, loi Shine with an inborn splendor ; silently Looking a sacred language from afar, Whose words are feelings ; vainly man would try To grasp their fullest meaning — boundless are Our senses and our thoughts, — beyond them glows the star ! LI. There is a silence in the ocean's roar, A hush within the moaning of the wind, And in the crash of cataracts which pour From mountain heights, a quiet to the mind- A thunder with the stillness is combined I02' The Mhi^or of a Mind. Which wraps the stars ! With day that nature dies Which makes man mortal ; starHght is en- twined With our soul's life — our awe-struck soul, that tries To drink serenity, whose fount is in the skies. LII. The snow is nested high in the forked limbs, And there alights the dawn's first feeble ray; The eastern line a second evening climbs ; White swan-like clouds that westward wing their way. In serried flocks towards the close of day, The Mirror of a Mind, Tu o Now eastward slowly move, and on their wings Some golden glances glitter: Morning gray, O'er stiffened meads, and bristling trees, and springs All voiceless, hard and dry, his pallid lustre flings. LIIL But wintry objects check my outward eye ; The ao-orressive cold doth seem to drive within All thoughts, as men shrink back instinct- ively From those more self-wrapt than themselves, and in I04 The Mirror of a Mind, Reserve their masters: but all those who win No bays to-day, think straightway how before They gained a crown — thus memories now begin To rise. — Hark ! for my mind hath heard a roar — Once more, oh, ocean! do I stand upon thy shore. LIV. Like hair plucked by thy wild remorseless hands From the dread things in thy dread custody, The fibrous sea-weed strews the yielding sands ; The Mirror of a Mind, 105 Like great, white, frightened birds which seek to fly, And spread their snowy pinions toward the sky,— Then settle down again, — the phoenix foam Flies up along the coast; whose girdle high Around thy giant limbs doth circling come — Own, 'tis a rope of sand which checks thy will to roam! LV. Oh, Sea! the waves thy cymbals ever beat. With ceaseless clang, monotonously slow, Melodious measures which eternal feet Alone could follow; while the billows flow, The winds across them wander, and oft blow io6 The Mirror of a Mind. Their fifes and trumpets ; but as slowly sink The evening shades, thy features sharper grow, And wear a deadly look from which all shrink — Wild voices seem to talk, laugh, whisper round thy brink. LVI. We go, return, depart, return again, But Thought still sits beside the sounding shore. Far from the haunts of hollow-minded men ; Infinity's wild voice is ocean's roar! Hark to the billows' shout as on they pour! The Mirror of a Mind. 107 Each hath a tongue that speaks in accents clear The secret of the world, the unwritten lore; All that we know of life waves image here, — They ebb but to return, break but to reappear. LVII. And thus new waves of life forever rolling, Forever break upon death's ice-bound coast; Each waving hare-bell its own knell is tolling, Yet not a leaf or petal e'er is lost: The fairest flower felled by early frost, The noblest soul cut down before its prime, io8 The Mirror of a Mind, But fade away that a more lovely host Forth from their ashes into life may climb, The same with full-blown strength, in beauty more sublime. LVIII. The breath which filled my humble reed is spent — The night is come in which no man may work — The staff is broke on which my spirit leant — The thoughts which in my inmost being lurk Are speechless: From the all-surrounding murk Two forms alone arise. Fate and Decay; Th^ Mirror of a Mind. 109 The last I know full well and would not shirk, — The -other's face is sternly turned away, To quench my mind with doubt, and quell me with dismay. LIX. What I have felt shall others ever feel ? What I have sown with toil shall I e'er reap ? Shall my voice ring afar with echoing peal. Or shall I be as those who in their sleep Deem they have cried aloud, while their lips keep Unbroken stillness? 'Twere in vain to try To wring from out the inexorable deep no The Min^or of a Mind. Aught that the yearning mind may satisfy- refn eye. Yet refuge still remains to fix the wandering LX. The true tragedian for one only plays, One eaQ:er face which he beholds below, Upturned to his with an enraptured gaze. Seizing his very thoughts ere words may flow, And ^ainino; on his utterance; even so, If from earth's millions one ear drink my strain, If in one heart I may awake a glow. Or for one bosom win surcease of pain. The Mirror of a Mind. 1 1 1 Let Darkness dye his frown ! my toil is not in vain. LXI. Perchance this lay I shall once more resmiie ; The future thoughts that now I cannot see, Which stand arrayed between me and the tomb, May seek to live in music ; tremblingly I still would hope that I may yet, more free, With higher heart, less soulless scenes among, Play as I journey onward — it may be — I know not — But my thoughts have found a tongue ! 112 The Mirror of a Mind, Though soon my soul grow old, still here 'tis ever young. LXII. But still I feel a shrinking and a doubt — Long have I striven — ah ! perhaps in vain ; My Hope sinks low, a breath might blow it out ; More frequent grow despondency and pain ; My soul seems launched upon a shoreless main : — What rose unwatered still blooms on the same? What captive sinks not 'neath a life-long chain ? What lamp unfed can yet preserve its flame? The Mirror of a Mind, 113 What heart still float aloft without the breath of Fame ? LXIII. We live in gloomy days, 'neath sombre skies, Which pour down ever sleet, and snow, and hail ; And vapors dark and dank around us rise, Breeding dull slugs and cold worms, that assail The flowers which strive with loveliness to veil The bare, black, lifeless mould of earth in vain ; But should these loathely things of slime prevail, 1 1 4 The Mirror of a Mind. To blight the ambitious nurslings of my brain, — Still there are springs of joy which man can never stain. LXIV. A spiders web with starlight dew besprink- led— A wave which the uprising moon hath lit — An autumn leaf ere time his cheek hath wrinkled — The unbought smiles of infancy that flit Unquestioned by — a few bright pages writ By slumbering hands — such straws to planks may grow, Clutched by the gasping mind, sustaining it The Mh^ror of a Mind. 115 To stem the waters of disgust and woe, Which rise with batthng tides, to whelm us in their flow. LXV. The sparkles of the ocean as they fall — Translucent tongues that dwell within the winds — The voices of the locust hours that crawl. With blast athwart the gardens of men's minds — The slow drao; of the anchor that ill binds Forever drifting Change — the strange impress Of past on present, and the voice that finds Its way from out the void, — their mysteries 1 1 6 The Mirror of a Mind. Infuse into my soul, and bid her mock distress. LXVI. I feel as I had reached the ocean's shore, And found all silence there ! the jostling band Of my own thoughts has hastened on before, And left me here alone ; my song doth stand And beckon to its echo, which had planned A swift and loud return ; but now is blown Into the Future's still-retreating land ; Where it may ever wander up and down. Nor e'er return till I can catch no earthly tone. If "^" 'i;i;'l!r'«!!j::t;!U uttnMiorttrtmiiiiiii iiiiimirtiwn«im*w itniiiiiiii»iiiiiiliiitriirtrf'["'t'n iiiimiiiiimMii