Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 328, February, 1843. Various
from dark hidden fount within,
Comes SONG, its own wild world to win
Amidst the souls of men!"
Swift with the fire the minstrel glow'd,
And loud the music swept the ear:—
"Forth to the chase a Hero rode,
To hunt the bounding chamois-deer:
With shaft and horn the squire behind:—
Through greensward meads the riders wind—
A small sweet bell they hear.
Lo, with the HOST, a holy man,—
Before him strides the sacristan,
And the bell sounds near and near.
The noble hunter down-inclined
His reverent head and soften'd eye,
And honour'd with a Christian's mind
The Christ who loves humility!
Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves
A brook—the rains had fed the waves,
And torrents from the hill.
His sandal shoon the priest unbound,
And laid the Host upon the ground,
And near'd the swollen rill!
"What wouldst thou, priest?" the Count began,
As, marvelling much, he halted there.
"Sir Count, I seek a dying man,
Sore hungering for the heavenly fare.
The bridge that once its safety gave,
Rent by the anger of the wave,
Drifts down the tide below.
Yet barefoot now, I will not fear
(The soul that seeks its God, to cheer)
Through the wild wave to go!"
He gave that priest the knightly steed,
He reach'd that priest the lordly reins,
That he might serve the sick man's need,
Nor slight the task that heaven ordains.
He took the horse the squire bestrode;
On to the chase the hunter rode,
On to the sick the priest!
And when the morrow's sun was red,
The servant of the Saviour led
Back to its lord the beast.
"Now Heaven forefend," the hero cried,
"That e'er to chase or battle more
These limbs the sacred steed bestride,
That once my Maker's image bore!
But not for sale or barter given;
Henceforth its Master is the Heaven—
My tribute to that King,
From whom I hold as fiefs, since birth,
Honour, renown, the goods of earth,
Life, and each living thing."
"So may the God who faileth never
To hear the weak and guide the dim,
To thee give honour here and ever,
As thou hast duly honour'd Him!
Far-famed ev'n now through Switzerland
Thy generous heart and dauntless hand;
And fair from thine embrace
Six daughters bloom—six crowns to bring—
Blest as the Daughters of a KING—
The Mothers of a RACE!"
The mighty Kaisar heard amazed;
His heart was in the days of old:
Into the minstrel's eyes he gazed—
That tale the Kaisar's own had told.
Yes, in the bard, the priest he knew,
And in the purple veil'd from view
The gush of holy tears.
A thrill through that vast audience ran,
And every heart the godlike man,
Revering God, reveres!
THE WORDS OF ERROR
Three errors there are, that for ever are found
On the lips of the good, on the lips of the best;
But empty their meaning and hollow their sound—
And slight is the comfort they bring to the breast.
The fruits of existence escape from the clasp
Of the seeker who strives but these shadows to grasp—
So long as Man dreams of some Age in this life
When the Right and the Good will all evil subdue;
For the Right and the Good lead us ever to strife,
And wherever they lead us, the Fiend will pursue.
And (till from the earth borne, and stifled at length)
The earth that he touches still gifts him with strength!7
So long as Man fancies that Fortune will live,
Like a bride with her lover, united with Worth;
For her favours, alas! to the mean she will give—
And Virtue possesses no title to earth!
That Foreigner wanders to regions afar,
Where the lands of her birthright immortally are!
So long as Man dreams that, to mortals a gift,
The Truth in her fulness of splendour will shine;
The veil of the goddess no earth-born may lift,
And all we can learn is—to guess and divine!
Dost thou seek, in a dogma, to prison her form?
The spirit flies forth on the wings of the storm!
O, Noble Soul! fly from delusions like these,
More heavenly belief be it thine to adore;
Where
This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antæus, the Son of Earth,—so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,—so the soul contends in vain with evil—the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antæus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy, (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth's offspring,) when bearing it from earth itself, and stifling it in the higher air.