And I am freezing-burning
Dying! Oh God! if I might only live!—
My phial-Ha! it thrills me-I revive.
Ay-were not man to die
He were too glorious for this narrow sphere. Had he but time to brood on knowledge here— Could he but train his eye
Might he but wait the mystic word and hourOnly his Maker would transcend his power!
Earth has no mineral strange—
Th' illimitable air no hidden wings-
Water no quality in its covert springs,
And fire no power to change-
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.
Oh, but for time to track
The upper stars into the pathless sky-
To see th' invisible spirits, eye to eye-
To hurl the lightning back—
To tread unhurt the sea's dim-lighted halls
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon walls
And more, much more-for now
The life-sealed fountains of my nature move-
To nurse and purify this human love—
To clear the god-like brow
Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down,
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one—
This were indeed to feel
The soul-thirst slaken at the living stream-
To live-Oh God! that life is but a dream!
And death- -Aha! I reel-
Dim-dim-I faint-darkness comes o'er my eye-
Cover me! save me!-God of Heaven! I die!
"Twas morning, and the old man lay alone—
No friend had closed his eyelids, and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, th' expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild.
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want, and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.
The storm was raging still. The shutters swung
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind,
And all without went on as aye it will
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken in its change.
The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them, and the small silver rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on th' alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.
And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire-a sun-bent eagle stricken
From his high soaring down—an instrument
Broken with its own compass. He was born
Taller than he might walk beneath the stars,
And with a spirit tempered like a god's,
He was sent blindfold on a path of light,
And turn'd aside and perished! Oh how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath out-flown
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked-
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.
"ROOM for the leper! Room!" And as he came The cry passed on-" Room for the leper! Room!" Sunrise was slanting on the city gates
Rosy and beautiful, and from the hills
The early risen poor were coming in
Duly and cheerfully to their toil, and up
Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum
Of moving wheels and multitudes astir,
And all that in a city murmur swells,
Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear,
Aching with night's dull silence, or the sick
Hailing the welcome light, and sounds that chase
The death-like images of the dark away.
"Room for the leper!" And aside they stood
Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood—all
Who met him on his way—and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper with the ashes on his brow,
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip
A covering, stepping painfully and slow,
And with a difficult utterance, like one
Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down,
Crying "Unclean!—Unclean!"
Of the Judean summer, and the leaves
Whose shadows lay so still upon his path,
Had budded on the clear and flashing eye
Of Judah's loftiest noble. He was young,
And eminently beautiful, and life
Mantled in eloquent fulness on his lip,·
And sparkled in his glance, and in his mien
There was a gracious pride that every eye
Followed with benisons- and this was he!
With the soft airs of Summer there had come
A torpor on his frame, which not the speed
Of his best barb, nor music, nor the blast
Of the bold huntsman's horn, nor aught that stirs
The spirit to its bent, might drive away.
The blood beat not as wont within his veins;
Dimness crept o'er his eye; a drowsy sloth
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