Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War. Herman Melville

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ starry heights

      A bugle wails the long recall;

      Derision stirs the deep abyss,

      Heaven's ominous silence over all.

      Return, return, O eager Hope,

      And face man's latter fall.

      Events, they make the dreamers quail;

      Satan's old age is strong and hale,

      A disciplined captain, gray in skill,

      And Raphael a white enthusiast still;

      Dashed aims, at which Christ's martyrs pale,

      Shall Mammon's slaves fulfill?

      (Dismantle the fort,

      Cut down the fleet—

      Battle no more shall be!

      While the fields for fight in æons to come

      Congeal beneath the sea.)

      The terrors of truth and dart of death

      To faith alike are vain;

      Though comets, gone a thousand years,

      Return again,

      Patient she stands—she can no more—

      And waits, nor heeds she waxes hoar.

      (At a stony gate,

      A statue of stone,

      Weed overgrown—

      Long 'twill wait!)

      But God his former mind retains,

      Confirms his old decree;

      The generations are inured to pains,

      And strong Necessity

      Surges, and heaps Time's strand with wrecks.

      The People spread like a weedy grass,

      The thing they will they bring to pass,

      And prosper to the apoplex.

      The rout it herds around the heart,

      The ghost is yielded in the gloom;

      Kings wag their heads—Now save thyself

      Who wouldst rebuild the world in bloom.

      (Tide-mark

      And top of the ages' strike,

      Verge where they called the world to come,

      The last advance of life—

      Ha ha, the rust on the Iron Dome!)

      Nay, but revere the hid event;

      In the cloud a sword is girded on,

      I mark a twinkling in the tent

      Of Michael the warrior one.

      Senior wisdom suits not now,

      The light is on the youthful brow.

      (Ay, in caves the miner see:

      His forehead bears a blinking light;

      Darkness so he feebly braves—

      A meagre wight!)

      But He who rules is old—is old;

      Ah! faith is warm, but heaven with age is cold.

      (Ho ho, ho ho,

      The cloistered doubt

      Of olden times

      Is blurted out!)

      The Ancient of Days forever is young,

      Forever the scheme of Nature thrives;

      I know a wind in purpose strong—

      It spins against the way it drives.

      What if the gulfs their slimed foundations bare?

      So deep must the stones be hurled

      Whereon the throes of ages rear

      The final empire and the happier world.

      (The poor old Past,

      The Future's slave,

      She drudged through pain and crime

      To bring about the blissful Prime,

       Then—perished. There's a grave!)

      Power unanointed may come—

      Dominion (unsought by the free)

      And the Iron Dome,

      Stronger for stress and strain,

      Fling her huge shadow athwart the main;

      But the Founders' dream shall flee.

      Agee after age shall be

      As age after age has been,

      (From man's changeless heart their way they win);

      And death be busy with all who strive—

      Death, with silent negative.

      Yea, and Nay—

      Each hath his say;

      But God He keeps the middle way.

      None was by

      When He spread the sky;

      Wisdom is vain, and prophesy.

Apathy and Enthusiasm.

       Table of Contents

      (1860–1.)

      I.

      O the clammy cold November,

СКАЧАТЬ