Read Ebook: Elfin land: and other poems by Ball Benjamin West

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Ebook has 83 lines and 6821 words, and 2 pages

In vigils lone she hears the chimes Of voices from diviner climes, And sees entranced the statures grand, That throng her lofty fatherland. Unwonted odors, strange and rare, Float round her on the midnight air, From gardens where her youth was spent, Beyond the dark blue firmament.

The fleshly walls are white and thin, Which close her yearning spirit in-- Celestial footfalls she can hear, Inaudible to grosser ear. She mourns her lot like one exiled, Her songs are filled with longings wild For home, and that serener day Which lights the angels far away.

THE SERAPHS' HOLIDAY.

MORNING.

All hail, thou blessed light of morn! At length I feel thy cheering ray-- Through all the darksome night forlorn, Yearning for thee I sleepless lay. The Roman in his palace porch, On the Parthenopean isle, To dim his red nocturnal torch, Ne'er prayed more fervently thy smile. The dripping trees in verdure drest, The rosy light, and eastern wind, Dispel the larvae, which infest The slumbers of the troubled mind.

O Power divine! my spirit keep From deeds of darkness ever clear, Lest unto me the realms of Sleep Should be beset with phantoms drear; For Conscience to the wicked is A demon-evocator pale, And summons from the soul's abyss Forms, which must make the stoutest quail.

Bear witness, purple Eremite, Who reared amid translucent seas A gorgeous palace of delight, A refuge from the Eumenides; Colossal spectres nightly strode Through portal, corridor and hall, The Sea impersonated stood, His dreaming spirit to appal.

Fronting the portals of the Sun, His lurid torches burning low, How oft amid the shadows dun He waited for the morning's glow. Bringer of pleasant thoughts, all hail! Thy touch dissolves the guilty dream. And Orcus' shapeless legions quail, Flying before thy rosy beam.

AUTUMN.

When yellowing woods let fall their sapless leaves, And, breathing softly from the mild South-west, The Indian Summer mitigates the air, Me it delights, leaving the towers of men, With devious feet, and void of fixed intent, To wander far into the country still; My path, some grassy road untrodden lone, Which leads the steps through woods of dwarfish pines, Where dwells unscared the solitary jay, And sings the cricket, sole inhabitants. In these sweet solitudes the soul becomes Tranquil as seas mid happy isles embayed; Here weary hearts a balsam for their woes, In whispering boughs and silent skies can find.

O power of Music! whence thy spell On man and brute, on soul and heart? What spirit haunts the chorded shell, Whose murmurs every passion start? The silent tenants of the sea, The brinded pard and serpent, own Thy sway--their fierceness tamed by thee, They cower and writhe about thy throne.

Thy lordly breath to war can yield A glory wild, a nameless charm; The sworded ranks, the embattled field Thou fill'st with bosoms high and warm; The gorgeous palaces of old Thy magic numbers cause to rise, And faces, which the valley's mould Has hidden long from weeping eyes.

DREAMS.

The magic of a dream how great! To us it gives a might divine, Whereby our souls annihilate The power of death, and space, and time.

The forms which lie recumbent, cold, In tombs and charnel-houses lone, In dreams our eyes again behold, As they in life were loved and known.

We enter through the gates of sleep, Into a neutral interspace, Most pleasant to the eyes that weep, For Life and Death can there embrace.

There absence ceases to divide; Though seas and mountains intervene, Friend unto friend can swiftly glide, And reck not of the space between.

There I last night thy form beheld, My ancient comrade, tried and true! Tears from my eyes profusely welled, And tears as freely fell from you!

THE PENITENT.

Sorrowful, weak, dejected, and in fear, Most Merciful, I fall before thy throne! The world through wickedness is dark and drear, Peace and content are found in Heaven alone.

A retrospect of sin behind me lies, A peccant youth all spent at Belial's shrine! The meek Judaean beckoned from the skies; I heeded not, seduced by powers malign.

The scales are fallen from my darkened sight, A potent euphrasy is poured therein; I look around with terror and affright, Behold the world is vanity and sin!

This task no mortal skill can execute, All Archimedean subtleties are vain; Invention, sciences, and minds astute, Are baulked, like those of old on Shinar's plain.

Though unto us the elements become Obsequious helots to our wills subdued; Though, Ariel-like, the glittering lightning run, To do our errands over land and flood;

Ocean, thou art disenchanted! And the mariner no more Anchors under islands haunted, Off a silver-sanded shore;

Where he sees some Fairy's palace Glitter through the boscage green; Hears the glancing of her shuttle, And the wizard chant between.

Once the galley steering westward, Toward the throne of Saturn sailed, Toward the Islands of the Happy, Where the summer never failed;

Where along the beach elysian, Heroes born in better days Wandered, fanned by winds eternal, Blowing inland from the bays.

Ocean, thou art disenchanted! And the mariner no more Sees the sunken city glimmer, Leagues away from any shore.

Where are Helice and Buris? Leaning o'er the galley's side, Once the voyager saw them waver With the motions of the tide.

Argosies condemned to wander Havenless from clime to clime, With ensanguined ingots laden,-- All have faded from the brine!

And the Triton's shell no longer Over yesty waves is blown; And Poseidon's burnished axle Drifts a wreck upon the foam.

These are gone--but still thy surges Kiss and girdle isles of balm, Clasping beaches beryl-paven, Latitudes of endless calm!

TWILIGHT IN EGYPT.

Round the City of the Sun, And Mokattan mountains dun, Fast the woof of Night is spun, Planets through it gleaming; Vista'd columns stretch in rows, On whose tops with massive brows, Sphinxes lion-limbed repose, In the twilight dreaming.

Shines Canopus high and calm Over sand and waving palm, While the sea-winds, strewing balm, Make the Lotos quiver; Limned upon the rising Moon, Sculptured demons frown and gloom, Pedestalled amid the spume Of the Coptic river.

Val? to the dying day Memnon's lips of marble say, Darkling mid the shadows gray, Which around it gather; Girdled by the swelling stream, Island-like the cities gleam, O'er their imaged temples lean In the blue that waver.

ARIEL'S SONG.

And when my lids are heavy, With slumber's dews oppressed, A pale-lipped shell shall circle My limbs reclined in rest; The pillars of my mansion Full proudly shall aspire, Their corbels wrought and woven Of opalescent fire.

My torches shall be kindled At wells of Naptha fine, And myrrhine urns shall bubble With draughts of Elfin wine; Those gardens, which the daughters Of Hesper sow and till, With golden-rinded melons My fragrant board shall fill.

The vaunted barge of Cydnus My shallop shall outvie, With silken cables furnished, With sails of purple dye; Its deck in halcyon weather Shall bear me o'er the main-- Its argent beak shall follow Apollo's sinking wain.

Where abid'st thou, prophet mighty? Whom the fiery horses drew Skyward from the Jordan's rivage, Till they faded from the view,-- Past the sceptre of Uriel, Regent of the solar fire, Past the starry Lion couchant, And the planet-chorded Lyre;

Till the citadels of Heaven O'er the Sea of Jasper flamed, And thy wing?d yoke in triumph At its golden gates was reined; Thou hast clomb the grades of splendor, As the ages rolled away, Till at length cherubic legions Thee as hierarch obey.

But thy fatherland has fallen From the might of other days; The anathemas of Ebal Blight and wither all its race. Gone the ivory house of pleasure, Where the Syrian cedars grew, Where the minions of Astarte Could a monarch's heart subdue;

Gone the carven lion-warders From that monarch's jewelled throne-- But the genii malignant Still his mighty signet own; Still his song instinct with passion, Like a string of rubies glows; Than the vaunted lays of Te?os With a sweeter cadence flows.

On her monumental scroll Let these syllables be seen; Meek Griselda was no dream, No ideal of the soul.

Softly slumbers one below, Who an equal worth could claim With that visionary dame, Drawn by poet long ago.

Face more beautiful and mild Than the buried maiden bore, Never blessed the earth before, Never sorrow's sigh beguiled.

Through her lineaments of white Blushed the morning's healthy hue, And her eye of tender blue Was with softest lustre bright.

Like the Mother sad and fair, The Madonna in the skies, She was patient, sinless, wise, And of gentleness most rare.

In the mansion where she died, All is silent, drear and lone; In the yard the lindens moan-- Through the chambers shadows glide.

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