The fire beneath his crucible was low;
Yet still it burned; and ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy; and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrunk back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Muttered a curse on death! The silent room,
From its dim corners, mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from his breast,
And drank. And instantly his lips compressed,
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and communed with himself:
I did not think to die
Till I had finished what I had to do;
I thought to pierce th' eternal secret through
With this my mortal eye;
I felt. O God! it seemeth even now
This cannot be the death-dew on my brow.
Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid;
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade; And something seems to steal bosom like a frozen hand,
my Binding its pulses with an icy band.
And this is death! But why
Feel I this wild recoil? It cannot be
Th' immortal spirit shuddereth to be free!
Would it not leap to fly,
Like a chained eaglet at its parent's call?
I fear I fear that this poor life is all.
Yet thus to pass away!
To live but for a hope that mocks at last;
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,
To waste the light of day,
Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought, All that we have and are - for this — for naught.
God of my spirit! but a day, to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within.
I would know something here.
Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!
Vain, vain! my brain is turning With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick, And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick, And I am freezing, burning, Dying. O God, if I might only live!
ha! it thrills me; I revive.
Ay, were not man to die,
He were too mighty 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 hour,
Only his Maker would transcend his power.
Earth has no mineral strange,
Th' illimitable air no hidden wings,
Water no quality in covert springs,
And fire no power to change,
Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.
O, 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 godlike brow
Of weakness and distrust, 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-O 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 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. O, how poor
Seems the rich gift of genius, when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked
A thing the thrush might pity, as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest.
'TIS summer eve, when heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below.
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sun-bright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do these cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey:
The promised joy of life's unmeasured scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;
And every form that Fancy can repair,
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.
THERE, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife bee and humming-bird.
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