第74章

- The Asylum stands on a bright and breezy hill; those glazed corridors are pleasant to walk in, in bad weather.But there are iron bars to all the windows.When it is fair, some of us can stroll outside that very high fence.But I never see much life in those groups I sometimes meet; - and then the careful man watches them so closely! How I remember that sad company I used to pass on fine mornings, when I was a schoolboy! - B., with his arms full of yellow weeds, - ore from the gold mines which he discovered long before we heard of California, - Y., born to millions, crazed by too much plum-cake, (the boys said,) dogged, explosive, - made a Polyphemus of my weak-eyed schoolmaster, by a vicious flirt with a stick, - (the multi-millonnaires sent him a trifle, it was said, to buy another eye with; but boys are jealous of rich folks, and Idon't doubt the good people made him easy for life,) - how Iremember them all!

I recollect, as all do, the story of the Hall of Eblis, in "Vathek," and how each shape, as it lifted its hand from its breast, showed its heart, - a burning coal.The real Hall of Eblis stands on yonder summit.Go there on the next visiting-day, and ask that figure crouched in the corner, huddled up like those Indian mummies and skeletons found buried in the sitting posture, to lift its hand, - look upon its heart, and behold, not fire, but ashes.- No, I must not think of such an ending! Dying would be a much more gentlemanly way of meeting the difficulty.Make a will and leave her a house or two and some stocks, and other little financial conveniences, to take away her necessity for keeping school.- I wonder what nice young man's feet would be in my French slippers before six months were over! Well, what then? If a man really loves a woman, of course he wouldn't marry her for the world, if he were not quite sure that he was the best person she could by any possibility marry.

- It is odd enough to read over what I have just been writing.- It is the merest fancy that ever was in the world.I shall never be married.She will; and if she is as pleasant as she has been so far, I will give her a silver tea-set, and go and take tea with her and her husband, sometimes.No coffee, I hope, though, - it depresses me sadly.I feel very miserably; - they must have been grinding it at home.- Another morning walk will be good for me, and I don't doubt the schoolmistress will be glad of a little fresh air before school.

- The throbbing flushes of the poetical intermittent have been coming over me from time to time of late.Did you ever see that electrical experiment which consists in passing a flash through letters of gold-leaf in a darkened room, whereupon some name or legend springs out of the darkness in characters of fire?

There are songs all written out in my soul, which I could read, if the flash might pass through them, - but the fire must come down from heaven.Ah! but what if the stormy NIMBUS of youthful passion has blown by, and one asks for lightning from the ragged CIRRUS of dissolving aspirations, or the silvered CUMULUS of sluggish satiety? I will call on her whom the dead poets believed in, whom living ones no longer worship, - the immortal maid, who, name her what you will, - Goddess, Muse, Spirit of Beauty, - sits by the pillow of every youthful poet, and bends over his pale forehead until her tresses lie upon his cheek and rain their gold into his dreams.

MUSA.

O MY lost Beauty! - hast thou folded quite Thy wings of morning light Beyond those iron gates Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates, And Age upon his mound of ashes waits To chill our fiery dreams, Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care, Whose flowers are silvered hair! -Have I not loved thee long, Though my young lips have often done thee wrong And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?

Ah, wilt thou yet return, Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me! - I will flood thy silent shine With my soul's sacred wine, And heap thy marble floors As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores In leafy islands walled with madrepores And lapped in Orient seas, When all their feathery palm toss, plume-like, in the breeze.

Come to me! - thou shalt feed on honied words, Sweeter than song of birds; -No wailing bulbul's throat, No melting dulcimer's melodious note, When o'er the midnight wave its murmurs float, Thy ravished sense might soothe With flow so liquid-soft, with strain so velvet-smooth.

Thou shalt be decked with jewels, like a queen, Sought in those bowers of green Where loop the clustered vines And the close-clinging dulcamara twines, -Pure pearls of Maydew where the moonlight shines, And Summer's fruited gems, And coral pendants shorn from Autumn's berried stems.

Sit by me drifting on the sleepy waves, -Or stretched by grass-grown graves, Whose gray, high-shouldered stones, Carved with old names Life's time-worn roll disowns, Lean, lichen-spotted, o'er the crumbled bones Still slumbering where they lay While the sad Pilgrim watched to scare the wolf away.

Spread o'er my couch thy visionary wing!

Still let me dream and sing, -

Dream of that winding shore Where scarlet cardinals bloom, - for me no more, -The stream with heaven beneath its liquid floor, And clustering nenuphars Sprinkling its mirrored blue like golden-chaliced stars!

Come while their balms the linden-blossoms shed! -Come while the rose is red, -

While blue-eyed Summer smiles On the green ripples round you sunken piles Washed by the moon-wave warm from Indian isles, And on the sultry air The chestnuts spread their palms like holy men in prayer!

Oh, for thy burning lips to fire my brain With thrills of wild sweet pain! -On life's autumnal blast, Like shrivelled leaves, youth's, passion-flowers are cast, -Once loving thee, we love thee to the last! -Behold thy new-decked shrine, And hear once more the voice that breathed "Forever thine!"