PROMETHEUS, OR THE POET'S FORETHOUGHT. Or Prometheus, how undaunted Beautiful is the tradition Of that flight through heavenly portals, The old classic superstition Of the theft and the transmission Of the fire of the Immortals! First the deed of noble daring, Born of heavenward aspiration, Then the fire with mortals sharing, Then the vulture,—the despairing Cry of pain on crags Caucasian. All is but a symbol painted Of the Poet, Prophet, Seer; In their feverish exultations, In their triumph and their yearning, Shall it, then, be unavailing, All this toil for human culture? O'er life's barren crags the vulture? Such a fate as this was Dante's, By defeat and exile maddened; But the glories so transcendent That around their memories cluster, And, on all their steps attendant, Make their darkened lives resplendent With such gleams of inward lustre! All the melodies mysterious, Through the dreary darkness chanted; Thoughts in attitudes imperious, Voices soft, and deep, and serious, Words that whispered, songs that haunted! All the soul in rapt suspension, All the quivering, palpitating Chords of life in utmost tension, With the fervour of invention, With the rapture of creating! Ah, Prometheus! heaven-scaling! Though to all there is not given Yet all bards, whose hearts unblighted THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE. SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said, A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things, each day's events, Are rounds by which we may ascend. The low desire, the base design, The longing for ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, The action of the nobler will; All these must first be trampled down We have not wings, we cannot soar; The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen, and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs. The distant mountains, that uprear The heights by great men reached and kept, Standing on what too long we bore Nor deem the irrevocable Past THE PHANTOM SHIP. IN Mather's Magnalia Christi, A ship sailed from New Haven, That filled her sails at parting, Were heavy with good men's prayers. Thus prayed the old divine"To bury our friends in the ocean, Take them; for they are thine!" |