Sonnets and Canzonets

Sense overpowering doth the soul belie:
Thou the soul’s errand and due place dost see,
Its heavenly features to thy ken disclose,
As when in Nazareth thy Lord uprose,
The Father’s image in Humanity.
A holy service thine, interpreter
Of Lazarus rising from the sepulchre.

“The virtuous mind that ever walks attended
By a strong siding champion, Conscience.”

    Milton.

IV

Channing! my Mentor whilst my thought was young,
And I the votary of fair liberty, —
How hung I then upon thy glowing tongue,
And thought of love and truth as one with thee!
Thou wast the inspirer of a nobler life,
When I with error waged unequal strife,
And from its coils thy teaching set me free.
Be ye, his followers, to his leading true,
Nor privilege covet, nor the wider sway;
But hold right onward in his loftier way,
As best becomes, and is his rightful due.
If learning ’s yours, – gifts God doth least esteem, —
Beyond all gifts was his transcendent view;
O realize his Pentecostal dream!

“Without oblivion there is no remembrance possible. When both oblivion and memory are wise, then the general soul is clear, melodious, and true.”

    Carlyle.

V

Daughter of Memory! who her watch doth keep
O’er dark Oblivion’s land of shade and dream,
Peers down into the realm of ancient Sleep,
Where Thought uprises with a sudden gleam
And lights the devious path ’twixt Be and Seem;
Mythologist! that dost thy legend steep
Plenteously with opiate and anodyne,
Inweaving fact with fable, line with line,
Entangling anecdote and episode,
Mindful of all that all men meant or said, —
We follow, pleased, thy labyrinthine road,
By Ariadne’s skein and lesson led:
For thou hast wrought so excellently well,
Thou drop’st more casual truth than sages tell.

“Not on the store of sprightly wine,
Nor plenty of delicious meats,
Though gracious Nature did design
To court us with perpetual treats;
’Tis not on these we for content depend,
So much as on the shadow of a friend.”

    Menander.

VI

Misfortune to have lived not knowing thee!
’T were not high living, nor to noblest end,
Who, dwelling near, learned not sincerity,
Rich friendship’s ornament that still doth lend
To life its consequence and propriety.
Thy fellowship was my culture, noble friend:
By the hand thou took’st me, and did’st condescend
To bring me straightway into thy fair guild;
And life-long hath it been high compliment
By that to have been known, and thy friend styled,
Given to rare thought and to good learning bent;
Whilst in my straits an angel on me smiled.
Permit me, then, thus honored, still to be
A scholar in thy university.

“He shall not seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;
Wait his returning strength.
Bird, that from the nadir’s floor
To the zenith’s top can soar,
The soaring orbit of the Muse exceeds that journey’s length.”

VII

Hierophant, and lyrist of the soul!
Clear insight thine of universal mind;
While from its crypts the nascent Powers unrol,
And represent to consciousness the Whole.
Each in its order seeks its natural kind,
These latent or apparent, stir or sleep,
Watchful o’er widening fields of airy space,
Or slumbering sightless in the briny deep; —
Thou, far above their shows, servant of Grace,
Tread’st the bright way from Spirit down to Sense,
Interpreting all symbols to thy race, —
Commanding vistas of the fair Immense,
And glimpses upward far, where, sons of Heaven,