THE IDEAL," OR MODERN PHILOSOPHY,
"And not my chariot but my counsel take,
"While yet securely on the earth you stand,
"Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand."
IN glowing visions of their high-wrought dream
How exquisitely fair doth nature seem!
These souls in deep philosophy imbued,
With powers of sweet expression all endued!
Boundless their range through the wide space of thought!
What seeming truths from the " Ideal” caught!
Beauty ineffable, which fills the soul
With strange wild imagery beyond control,
Giving existence to the frenzied hour, —
Raising a shrine unhallow'd to their power!
Making an idol of all-erring man,
Who in his pride presumes his "God to scan;'
That pride our senses holds in dang'rous thrall,
Enveiling them in mists around that fall,
Uprising from the rainbow-tinted stream,
The troubled source, of philosophic dream.
Fair Science now in modern type is seen:
Oh, how unlike to that which once hath been!
As when from eastern climes its wondrous light
Broke on the darken'd mind's chaotic night;
That orient beam diffusing arts refined
From lands, to darkness now anew consign'd!
Where scourging despots e'en the thoughts enchain,
While sense and feeling wither in their train,
All sunk again into that silence dread
Of ignorance, by coward tyrants spread!
Epicurean doctrine tells in vain
That from its dissolution now again,
Like to the natural world, 't will be restored,
And all its first perfection then afford !
its former steady ray
Is lost in wild philosophy's display,
That will in all its own consuming fire,
Like Phoenix, 'mid the richest sweets expire!
But not like her to rise: its ashes must
Mix with the air, or with some humbler dust.
That mind which on itself alone relies,
Like Phaëton, may soar above the skies;
But must alike his awful fate abide,
And perish also in its reckless pride.
The God who clothes the mind in beauty's light
Can, at his pleasure, veil it in the night
Of dark oblivion; and by his power,
Create, and crush it, in the self-same hour!
Yet doth it never die: whene'er betray'd
It is to some more genial soil convey'd :
Thus when a nation, self-polluted, falls,
His grace abused in anger he recalls;
And (others rising brighter at his will)
In its destruction marks that power still.
Prophetic Sybils note the coming hour
When intellectual darkness shall o'erpower
The blazing light the false "Ideal" gives
Which in its pride of self-existence lives, —
Whose votaries pen the line with beauty stored,
And deem its birth from their "creating" word!
Themselves the authors, in their impious thought,
Of glories which alone in God are sought.
In their bold search in Science's deep mine
Forget to teach the Author is divine;
And while harmoniously they sing the theme,
Forget the source in vanity's weak dream,
Thinking the endless beauties which they find
In nature, are "creations" of their mind!
Their wings outspreading to some fancied shore,
Acknowledging the " Primal Cause” no more.
Short-lived will be their triumph over sense,
Vain, at the final reckoning, the pretence
That genius high their " very life had grown,
"A part, a power, a being of their own!"
The "Ideal," then, no "Heaven of heavens" shall
But with the "Fates" in dread eternity be lost;
Heaven's bright glory dim their fainter ray,
And God Omnipotent himself display!
GRANT that I breathe too warm regret, Glancing on by-gone days,
And to those sun-lit moments yield
A too luxuriant praise!
Still the loved ties then form'd were those
Of youth's sweet orient morn;
And, though on ruin'd shrine now placed,
They were my heart's first-born!
E'en though, with crushing footstep, time
Hath trodden down their flowers,
The fragrance of their bloom is shed
On these my present hours!
The chords of sympathy unite
My thoughts to pleasures flown,
And in the light of memory
They're once again my own.
A flower*, a stream, the moonlight, all
All on those chords renew
The sweetness, tone, and melody,
Which my glad soul once knew.
My heart was like the placid lake,
The summer sky reflecting;
My home was one of happiness,
With parents kind protecting!
I own the past had joys for me
The future ne'er can give,
And all their brightest rainbow tints
In memory only live.
Yet deem me not insensible,
As friends around me press,
And with a kindness ne'er surpass'd
These present moments bless!
The source is in that heaven above,
Where sits enthroned the Power Who, breaking not the " bruised reed,"
Hath granted this proud hour!
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