Page:Landon in The New Monthly 1837.pdf/19

Rh

Rh

Silvery rose those far sands shining, Where that shade was cast— While the king with stern repining Watched the serpent past. Sadly did the conqueror say— "Would my steps were like my spirit,    I would track thy path! What those distant sands inherit,     What this new world hath, Should grow bright around my way. Ah! not mine, yon glorious sphere— My world's boundary is here!"

Pale he stood, the moonlight gleaming In his golden hair— Somewhat of a spirit's seeming, Glorious and fair, Is upon that radiant brow. Like the stars that kindle heaven In the sacred night, To those blue clear eyes were given An unearthly light, Though the large tears fill them now; For the Macedonian wept As his midnight watch he kept.

In those mighty tears' o'erflowing, Found the full heart scope For the bitter overthrowing Of its noblest hope; So will many weep again. Our aspirings have arisen In another world; Life is but the spirit's prison, Where its wings are furl'd, Stretching to their flight in vain,— Seeking that eternal home Which is in a world to come.

Like earth's proudest conqueror, turning From his proudest field, Is the human soul still yearning For what it must yield Of dreams unfulfill'd and powers; Like the great yet guided ocean Is our mortal mind, Stirr'd by many a high emotion, But subdued, confined;— Such are shadows of the hours, Glorious in the far-off gloom, But whose altar is the tomb!

[There is something singularly fine in Alexander's appeal to his army, when the Indian world lay before them, but more present to their fears than to their hopes. "For my own part," said the ardent conqueror, "I recognise no limits to the labours of a high-spirited man but the failure of adequate objects." Never was more noble motto for all human achievement; and it was from a lofty purpose that the Macedonians turned back on the banks of the Hyphasis. But it is the same with all mortal enterprise: nothing is, in this world, carried out to its complete fulfilment. Our mortality predominates in a world only meant to be a passage to another.]