Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/529

1850-60.] Shall not be subject longer to control;

For my desire is upward, and I must

Spurn back the fetters of the slothful past

As the loosed captive tramples on his chain;

From now, henceforth, my destiny is cast,

And what I will, I surely shall attain.

Onward and upward! strengthening in their flight,

My thoughts must "all be eagle thoughts," nor bend

Their pinions downward, until on the height

That nurses Helicon's pure fount I stand.

Onward my soul! nor either shrink nor turn,

Be cold to pleasure and be calm to pain;

However much the yielding heart may yearn,

Listen not, listen not, it is in vain!

Upward! "a feeling like the sense of wings,"

A proud, triumphant feeling buoys me up,

And my soul drinks refreshment from the springs

That fill forever joy's enchanted cup.

A glorious sense of power within me lies,

A knowledge of my yet untested strength,

And my impatient spirit only sighs

For the far goal to attain at length.

THE PALACE OF IMAGINATION.

of beauty, full of art and treasure,

Is that palace where my soul was bound;

Filled harmoniously with every pleasure

Sweet to sense, or exquisite of sound.

Light whose softness rival summer shadows—

Shadows only softer than the light,

Like those clouds that dapple the June meadows,

Make its chambers rarely dark and bright.

Nightingales are nested in its bowers;

Unseen singers stir the fragrant air;

Fountains drop their musical, cool shadows

Into basins alabaster fair.

Ancient myths are storied here in marble,

Busts of poets people every nook—

Forms so like the living, that the warble

Of their voices thrills you as you look.

Rare creations of all times and ages,

Wrought by inspiration of high art,

Live in sculpture, speak from gilded pages,

Throng with beauty its remotest part.

In this Palace did my soul awaken,

From what Past it thirsted not to know;

With the bright existence it had taken

Wandering, tranced—like Cherubim a-glow.

Till, from dreaming, rose unquiet fancies—

Frightful phantoms glided in and out:

Gnomes and ghouls read of in old romances,

Haunted all its shadowy halls about!

Then my soul sat with averted vision,

Cold and pallid in a nameless fear,

Seeing with inward eyes a new elysian

Dream of pleasure, inaccessible here.

And she uttered, sighing deep and sadly,

"Here, though all is fair, yet all is cold;

I would change my matchless palace gladly,

For one hour of life in love's warm fold."

This she said, and straight the sapphire air

In the palace, rosy grew, and gold;