TO ARCTURUS.

———

BY SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.

———

——Nec morti esse locum, sed viva volare

Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere cælo.

Virgil, Geor. IV.

“Star of resplendent front!” thy glorious eye

Again shines out from yonder sapphire sky,

Piercing the blue depths of the vernal night

With opal shafts and flames of rubient light;

Till the pale Serpent gliding round thy path

Hides in dim shades his ineffectual wrath,

Pining with envy at thy dazzling ray,

Deep-hued and damasked like the orb of day

When in the purple west he slowly sinks away.

Hast thou not stooped from heaven, fair star, to be

Through Night’s wide, pathless realm of phantasie

So near—so bright—so glorious—that I seem

To lie entranced as in some wondrous dream,

All earthly joys forgot—all earthly fear

Purged in the light of thy resplendent sphere: —

Gazing upon thee till thy flaming eye

Dilates and kindles through the stormy sky,

While, in its depths withdrawn, far, far away,

I see the dawn of a diviner day,

And hear celestial harmonies that come

Burdened with love from thine elysian home.

For in that gorgeous world, I fondly deem,

Dwells the freed soul of one whose earthly dream

Was full of beauty, majesty and wo —

One who, in that pure realm of thine, doth grow

Into a power serene—a solemn joy,

Undimmed by earthly sorrow or alloy;

Sphered far above the dread phantasmal gloom

That made his poet-heart a living tomb,

Tortured by fires that death alone could quell

Fierce as the flames of Farinati’s hell.

“Was it not Fate, whose earthly name is Sorrow,”

That bade him with prophetic soul to borrow

From all the stars that fleck night’s purple dome,

Thee, bright Arcturus! for our spirit home —

Our trysting star, where, while on earth’s cold clime,

Our mingling souls might meet in dreams sublime?

Was it not Fate, whose name in Heaven above

Is Truth and Goodness and unchanging Love —

Was it not Fate that bade him turn to thee

As the bright regent of his destiny? —

For when thine orb passed from the lengthening gloom

Of autumn nights a morning star to bloom

Beside Aurora’s eastern gates of pearl,

He passed from earth his weary wings to furl

In “the cool vales of Heaven”—thence through yon sea

Of starry isles to hold his course to thee.^[1]

Now when again my wistful eyes I turn

To greet thy beacon fires, feeding the urn

Of memory with sweet thoughts—I almost see

The presence of the loved and lost in thee,

Kindling within my soul a pure desire

To blend with thine its pale, candescent fire.

I have “no refuge from thy light,” no home

Save in the depths of yon empyrian dome,

Where thy bright Pharos ’mid the stars doth burn,

“Whence I departed, whither I return,”

To lose my very life in thine, and be

Soul of thy soul through all eternity.