Poems (Hinxman)/Crescentio

CRESCENTIO.

It was in the heart of night
A wakeful stripling flung his casement wide;
He met a flood of silver light
That made his fair pale face more fair and pale,—
He met the wings of an impetuous gale,
Warm and strong, and rich with gifts of June,
Bounding by betwixt the sea and moon.
Through the quivering starry host,
Like a girt traveller, that of nought takes heed,
The moon climbed up the heavens at speed.
The hurrying, gladdening tide,
Against the Castle bastions white,
And down the dim curves of that balmy coast,
Broke its crownèd waves, and scattered flakes of light.
In wind and stars, in moon and ocean,
All was a world of light, and sound, and motion;
Yet, owning such harmonious law,
And fused to such a perfect whole,
That silence, solemness, and rest,
Came cradled on its ample breast,
And Pleasure walked abroad with Awe.

A rush of glad surprise
Took young Crescentio's soul.
Awhile in passive joy he hung:
But soon the mighty love that ruled his mind
Broke the bright trance which from itself had sprung,
And, like the eagle launched upon the wind,
Or swimmer shooting from some jutting height,
The wholeness of its strong desire outflung
Across the busy night.
And she, for whom the impassioned spell was meant,—
She, sacred mistress of the loftiest souls
That Fame and Memory treasure in their scrolls,—
She, darling of the young and innocent,—
She, reader of the heavenly types to man,—
She, tender nurse of every finer truth,
That, stifled else, had perished on our earth,—
She, radiant with her dower of beauteous youth,
Though not our narrow mortal phase may span
The far-up date of her ethereal birth,—
She would not disallow that spell's constraint,
A pure heart's love, a yearning spirit's plaint;
But, yielding to the prayer,
Came gliding through the moon-lit air,
In beauty so sublime, yet winning sweet,
That had they seen, the coldest of earth's race,
The dullest clown that ploughs the bleak hill's face
Had fallen, in high rapture at her feet.
But none beheld her; only, as she passed,
The lonely sailor felt
A web of tender thought around him cast,
That made his roughened nature sweetly melt;
Or some little child that, on its bed,
Lay staring at the swift moon overhead,
In fancies such as children's brains pursue,
Started up with wide eyes glittering bright
In very love, and welcome, and delight
Of something sudden in that beauteous night
Which its kindred spirit knew.

And now she hangs, in visible guise,
Before the turret whence Crescentio leant.
So, often, had the vision blessed his eyes;
Sometimes upon the evening shore,
When he pursued the murmuring, far-out tide
Which seemed to call him after, as it went,
Into an unknown world;—then would she glide
Across the naked, newly-furrowed floor,
And pace its dusky levels at his side.
Or she had met him when beneath the shade
Of meadow-oaks he rested, or along
The cuckoo-haunted river strayed;
Or on the heath, when autumn winds were strong,
Watched the dun cloud-racks through a lonely fir;
Or when he visited the blue lake's edge,
And passed the wild swan brooding in her nest,
Who never at his footstep cared to stir.

Thus often, often, from his tenderest years,
(For, early loved, so early to the boy
His sacred mistress had vouchsafed such joy,)
Thus had they met; but never till this hour
Did any shadow in his eyes obscure
The flash of passion pure,
Or tame its welcome to a pensive light.
But she, all calm, all happiness, the while,
Stood, raying on him her benignant smile,
The type of tenderest human beauty, crowned
By dignity not human; shrined around
By moonlight, and a mellower than the moon's.
She spake, and low as was the tone,
Yet, as the sovereign note, at once *twas known,
That led the chorus of the night,
And, in one soul harmonious bound
Its floating, fitful tunes.

"I come," she said, "my friend; but why
Am I thus welcomed with a sigh?
And wherefore did that stress of woe
On thine invocation lie?
Thus far, to thine unsaddened youth alone,
Have I a ministrant of joy been known;
But if the waxing years, the deepening mind,
Have led thee to thine heritage of pain,—
Grave heritage that waits on all thy kind,
The seed-time of their final bliss or bane,—
Let me the burthen know;
For hearts nor faint nor feeble, have confest,
If not a guide, a friend in me, possest
Of seasonable arts to cheer or soothe,
To float the worn-out thoughts to regions smooth,
To bathe in tender hues, or throw
A light sublime upon the woe;
The parched fount of tears again to fill,
Or nerve the spirit with the battle-thrill."

"Yea, what indeed, of loss or ill,
What pang, O heavenly born! of heart or brain,"
The fervent youth made answer, "but may gain
A medicine from thee?—save only one.
What waste canst thou not clothe with green? what void
May not thy sweet creations fill?
What ruins of a happiness destroyed
But, touched by thee, show fairer than the prime?
One sorrow lies beyond thy help alone,
One loss thou may'st not heal—the loss of thee."
"But must this truly be?"
Gently, she answered. "O beloved youth,—
"Dear for thy love of me,
But dearer for thy fervency, thy truth;
Dear for thine instincts sure,
As plants sun-seeking, for the good and pure,—
For thy fair fancy, thy conceptions wide,
And quick emotions! I had hoped, indeed,
Such gifts were with thy destiny allied,
To make thee wholly mine.
The youngest of thy royal father's seed,
From regal duties freed,
Yet lifted far o'er common human need,—
I hoped that leisure waited on thy days,
To rove at will my bowery ways,
And weave, in verse, the treasures of thy mind,
To honour me, and sweetly teach thy kind."

"And so it is!" he cried, with rapturous voice;
"Those words have sealed me. I am thine!
For what may trespass on thy sacred choice?
Shall the base cares of tax and rate,
The laws of harbour and of mart,
The busy nothings of a petty state;
Or the dull trammels of a formal troth,
Call back the votary from thy shrine,
And force his soul's true faculties to sloth?
No, let my father choose among his sons
A busier temper, an unplighted heart,
On him the burgh, the dowered bride bestow,—
Smooth be his life, and honours round it grow!
While mine in solemn service runs
Its holy, dedicated course,
Which no intruding claim shall bend or force."

"Save only Duty's;" so her soft word fell,
As, while the winds a moment cease to move,
Athwart a crowd of tossing firs
Glide down the silken pinions of a dove;—
And as, again, the rough winds swell,
Again the tangled forest stirs,
So to his angry plaint did he return.
"O Duty, chilling name! O image stern,
Too austere mistress for so frail a race!—
How many a youthful cheek has paled,
How many a tender bosom quailed
Before thy frowning face!
The impassive soul, that plods from day to day
On its set track, may yield thee homage blind;
The veteran spirits that have worn their way
Through wounds and strivings to the heights of peace,
Indeed may love thee;—but how much of pain,
What checks, what blight and frost,
Must meet the passionate heart, the fervent mind,
Before the weary struggle cease
That bows them down submissive to thy reign!
How many a blooming impulse hast thou crost!
Between the inner and the outer life,
How oft thy marring touch has wakened strife!"
So vexed Crescentio spoke,
In sorrow half, and half in wrath;
But she upon the angry murmur broke,
And turned the key to music, bursting forth:—

"O Duty, Duty! what unthankful tongue
Is this which so miscalls thine office sweet?
From thee do striving and unfitness spring?
Fair angel, from whose gleaming feet
The silver cord is still unwound,
That guides through all the mazy tracks of life;
Whose touch makes music of its noise,
And beauteous order of its coil,
And heavenly service of its toil.

"Art thou the blight of love and youthful bloom?
Thou bounteous Tree, whose boughs are hung
With all life's gladdening charities:
By thee the lover's joys are sealed;
Thou lead'st the mother to the cradle side,
And makest of her deep unspoken joys
A consecrated tide.
Thine honoured seat on the domestic hearth
Sheds Love, and Mirth, and Plenty round.

"Art thou the bane of high emprise,
Parent and Nurse of Fame?
'T is thou that glorifiest the patriot's name;
'T is thou that sanctifiest the battle-field;
The trumpet-blast for thee that rings
Echoes can from Heaven awake;
The bays thou twinest round the warrior's shield,
The wreath thou weavest for the sage's brows,
Are verdant in the tomb.

O Duty! many-branched River,
That dost thy countless tributes lead,
Gliding on in ever-gathering train,
Before the feet of the all-bounteous Giver!
O Duty! noiseless sacrifice of souls,
That, like the steaming of the fragrant mead,
Breathest thine upward incense!—sacred Chain!
Knitting this yearning planet as she rolls
Her lowly orbit round the starry tiers,
To the Unimagined, Ruling Shrine;—
Chain on whose links in lightning current dart
The missions of the Will Divine,
And the consenting answers of man's heart.
O filial Privilege on life bestowed,
That faintly by its lowest tribes confest
Dost widen with its rising spheres,
And bind'st most closely to the Father's breast,
His children of sublimest race!
Yea, thou with sweet control dost trace
The order of eternal joys, and crown
The raptures of the blest!
And O, my Guide, my Guardian, what were I—
I that now sweeten angels' tongues, and keep
The oracles of God for man enshrined,—
O, what without thee, but a wandering light,
A fitful meteor, leading mortals down
The slopes of lawless Fancy, or the steep
Of headlong passion into utter night!"

So spake the lovely Being, and inclined,
In silent adoration, her meek head,
While sweetness gathered on the exulting wind,
The full seas panted, flashed the stars, the moon
Stood brightening. "Hark! O hark!" she cried,
Lifting her rapturous face, her gleaming arm,
"Nature, whose childlike ministers obey
In duteous harmony that placid sway,
Attest its praise!" Then they together stood,
That youth and his celestial mistress, each
Suspended in the solemn charm,
And drinking deep, with kindred souls, the flood
Of rich emotion; but too soon
The light upon Crescentio's features died,
And in despondent tones he sighed.
"I, too, this language can discern, and reach
These mystic raptures where thou lead'st the way.
I, too, can love the august, the beauteous Truth
By thee unveiled; but shouldst thou guide no more,
Then all that deepened, raised, inspired my youth,
Falls powerless in the dust. Disowned by thee,
My aimless life shall languish like a tree
When the clear sap is dwindling at its core,
And inch by inch the useless boughs decay."

"Ah! cease," she cried, with cheerful tone,
"To do thy better self this wrong:
Say not the colouring of my touch alone
Makes truth and duty lovely in thine eyes;
I will not think so base a thing of thee.
Too well, from childhood, like the golden sands
Paving the fountain clear,
The precious grains of Virtue, Courage, Truth,
Beneath the playing of thy Fancy free
My watchful eye has known.
Go, then, and from thy father's honoured hand—
Nor with cold arms, nor backward heart, receive
The destined Partner of thy life,
And mount the delegated throne;
Fearless though this new career
Seems with thy native gifts at strife;
—Unto an honest heart, the life
Will teach the fitness for itself.
While not one lovely vision that has swelled
Thy bosom in the thoughtful Past,
One moonlit vigil at this window held,
One hour of mystic converse by my side,
On mountain sward or rocky shelf,
But has upon thy spiritual Future cast
Its fertilising grain.
Look on Mother-Nature's thriftful plan;
Nor loss, nor waste, she knows; and even Decay
Gives back its fragments to the stores
Where life, and form, and colour lurk
In still progression, waiting for their day.
So, nought to the wise-hearted man,
Of seeming good or ill that ever crost
The orbit of his life, is lost:
All has its portion in the gradual work
Tl;at builds his soul to its predestined scope
Of Goodness, Wisdom, and of final Bliss.

"O, may thine arise
To utmost groth, and under smiling skies!
While haply, ere the eternal Morning greet
Its summit glorified, thou yet may'st meet
Me, the beloved of thy youth, again.
Thus has it fared with others who have loved,
And seemed for ever from my side removed.
But for this hour, and best most briefly said,
"One word remains. Farewell."

So saying, she stooped down her gracious head
And sealed his forehead with a kiss.
Thereat no sudden flush
Over his languid features came,
Nor did thrill of passion rush
Through the pulses of his frame.
Fever had sunk, and passion had grown tame,
Beneath the discipline of her calm words.
Only it seemed that deep within his soul
Some curtain was half-lifted, and there stole
Some sweet forecasting sense across his mind,
As through the mountain mist a fanning wind;
Or, as a traveller, toiling on his way
O'er barren roads, descries on either side
Cool opening glades of turf,
Opening tracts of flowery lawn,
Whence come the luscious notes of hidden birds,
And knows not when, but feels that on a day
It shall be his those pleasures to explore.

*****

He raised his eyes, and he beheld
Only the dusky sea and dim-red dawn.
One heavy surge of grief
Across his bosom swelled;
Then he drew forth, and leaf by leaf,
Flung, with slow hand, upon the surf
Those pages, hoarded long, and often conned,
Where his young hand with aspirations fond
Had stored the rhymed treasures, day by day,
From his teeming fancy drawn.

"Now bid farewell, my soul," he cried,
"To thy dear native clime and pastimes sweet;
Cast all thy flowers at Duty's feet,
And welcome Winter with this breaking day."

He knew not that his worshipped Queen the while
Hovered at hand, and watched with kindly smile
This frowardness of young resolve.
Yet did she stretch no timely hand to save
The fragments from the reckless wave;
A worthier harvest than this early fruit
She knew a mellower age would yield;
Or better else his soul should learn to train
Some other way its vigorous shoots,—
With full-ripe boughs endow another field.
Still should some fitting instrument remain
(For never shall this earth revolve
Without a living Poet on her breast,)
By Gifts and Destiny together sealed,
Through his own day, to bear along
The sacred burthen and the trust of song.

Dec. 2. 1855.