I read the burning letters Of warlike pomp, on History's page, alone; I heard no clank of fetters; I only felt the trumpet's stirring blast, And lean-eyed Famine stalked unchallenged past! I heard with veins of lightning, The utterance of the Statesman's word of powerBinding and loosing nations in an hour But while my eye was brightening, A masked detraction breathed upon his fame, The Poet rapt mine ears With the transporting music that he sung. And then he turned away to muse apart, And scorn stole after him and broke his heart! Yet here and there I saw One who did set the world at calm defiance, And press right onward with a bold reliance; And he did seem to awe The very shadows pressing on his breast, And, with a strong heart, held himself at rest. And then I looked again, And he had shut the door upon the crowd, And in her chamber sat his wife in tears, And his sweet babes grew sad with whispered fears. And so I turn'd sick-hearted From the bright cup away, and, in my sadness, Searched mine own bosom for some spring of glad ness; And lo! a fountain started Whose waters ev'n in death flow calm and fast, And my wild fever-thirst was slaked at last. And then I met thee, Mary, And felt how love may into fulness pour, Like light into a fountain running o'er : And I did hope to vary My life but with surprises sweet as this A dream, but for thy waking filled with bliss. Yet now I feel my spirit Bitterly stirred, and-nay, lift up thy brow! And thou didst pray to hear it— I must unto my work and my stern hours! Take from my room thy harp, and books and flowers! And in his room again he sat alone. A year His frame had lost its fulness in that time; Thoughts of the past preyed on him bitterly. He had won power and held it. He had walked And kept his truth unsullied-but his home Familiar with him. He'd small time to sleep, THE SCHOLAR OF THEBET BEN KHORAT.* "Iufluentia cœli morbum hunc movet, interdum omnibus aliis amotis." MELANCTHON DE ANIMA, CAP. DE HUMORIBUS. NIGHT in Arabia. An hour ago, Pale Dian had descended from the sky, And at their watches now the solemn stars The breathing earth lay in its silver dew, * A famous Arabian astrologer, who is said to have spent forty years in discovering the motion of the eighth sphere. He had a scholar, a young Bedouin Arab, who, with a singular passion for knowledge, abandoned his wandering tribe, and, applying himself too closely to astrology, lost his reason and died. |