Act 5 — ODE.

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BY R. H. STODDARD.

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The days are growing chill, the Summer stands

Drooping, like Niobe with clasped hands,

Mute o’er the faded flowers, her children lost,

Slain by the arrows of the early frost!

The clouded Heaven above is pale and gray,

The misty Earth below is wan and drear,

And baying Winds chase all the leaves away,

As cruel hounds pursue the trembling deer,

And in the nipping morns, the ice around,

Lieth like Autumn’s gage defiant on the ground!

My heart is sick within me, I have toiled

In iron poverty and hopeless tears,

Tugging in fetters at the oar for years;

And wrestling in the ring of Life have soiled

My robes with dust, and strained my sinews sore;

I have no strength to struggle any more!

And what if I should perish?—none would miss

So strange a dreamer in a world like this—

Whate’er our beauty, worth, or loving powers,

We live, we strive, we die, and are forgot;

We are no more regarded than the flowers;

And death and darkness is our destined lot!

One bud from off the tree of Earth is naught,

One crude fruit from the ripening bough of Thought,

The hinds will ne’er lament, in harvest-time,

The bud, the fruit that fell and wasted in its prime!

Away with Action! ’tis the ban of Time,

The curse that clung to us from Eden’s gate;

We toil, and strain and tug from youth’s fair prime,

And drag a chain for years, a weary weight!

Away with Action and Laborious Life;

They were not made for man,

In Nature’s plan,

For man is made for quiet, not for strife.

The pearl is shaped serenely in its shell

In the still waters of the ocean deep;

The buried seed begins to pulp and swell

In Earth’s warm bosom in profoundest sleep;

And, sweeter far than all, the bridal rose

Flushes to fullness in a soft repose.

Let others gather honey in the world,

And hoard it in their cells until they die;

I am content in dreaminess to lie,

Sipping, in summer hours,

My wants from fading flowers,

An Epicurean till my wings are furled!

What happy hours! what happy, happy days

I spent when I was young, a careless boy;

Oblivious of the world—its wo or joy—

I lived for song, and dreamed of budding bays!

I thought when I was dead, if not before—

(I hoped before!)—to have a noble name

To leave my eager foot-prints on the shore

And rear my statue in the halls of Fame!—

I pondered o’er the Poets dead of old,

Their memories living in the minds of men;—

I knew they were but men of mortal mould,

They won their crowns, and I might win again.

I drank delicious vintage from their pages,

Flasks of Parnassian nectar, stored for ages;

My soul was flushed within me, maddened, fired,

I leaped impassioned, like a seer inspired;

I lived, and would have died for Poesy,

In youth’s divine emotion—

A stream that sought its ocean;

A Time that longed to be

Engulfed, and swallowed in a calm Eternity!

Had I a realm in some enchanted zone,

Some fadeless summer-land, I’d dwell alone,

Far from the little world, luxurious, free,

And woo the dainty damsel Poesy!

I’d loll on downy couches all the day,

And dream the heavy-wingéd hours away:

Reading my antique books, or framing songs,

Whose choiceness to an earlier age belongs,

Or else a loving maid, in gentle fear,

Would steal to me, from her pavilion near,

And kneel before me with a cup of wine,

Three centuries old, and I would sip and taste,

With long-delaying lips a draught divine;

And, peering o’er the brim in her blue eyes

Slow-misting, and voluptuous, she would rise,

And stoop to me, and I would clasp her waist,

And kiss her mouth, and shake her hanging curls—

And in her coy despite undo her zone of pearls!

Oh, Poesy! my spirits crownéd queen,

I would that thou couldst in the flesh be seen

The shape of perfect loveliness thou art

Enshrined within the chambers of my heart!

I would build thee a palace, richer far

Than princely Aladeen’s renowned of old;

Its walls and columns of the massiest gold,

And every gem encrusting it a star!

Thy throne should be an Alp, o’ercanopied

With rainbows, and a shielded Moon o’erhead;

Thy coffers should o’erflow, and mock the Ind,

Whose boasted wealth would dwindle into naught

The rich-ored driftings of the streams of Thought

Washed lucidly from cloven peaks of Mind!—

And I would bring to thee the daintiest things

That grow beneath the summer of thy wings;—

Wine from the Grecian vineyards, pressed with care,

Brimming in cups antique, and goblets rare,

And sweeter honey than the singing bees

Of Helios ever gathered on the leas

Olympian, distilled from asphodels,

Whose lucent nectar truckles from their cells!

And luscious fruitage of enchanted trees,

The peerless apples of the Hesperides,

Stolen by Fancy from the guardant Fates,

Served, by a Nubian slave, on golden plates!

And I would hang around thee day and night,

Nor ever heed, or know the night from day;

If Time had wings, I should not see his flight,

Or feel his shadow in my sunny way!

Forgetful of the world, I’d stand apart,

And gaze on thee unseen, and touch my lute,

Sweet-voiced, a type and image of my heart,

Whose trembling chords will never more be mute;

And Joy and Grief would mingle in my theme,

A swan and shadow floating down a stream!

And when thou didst in soft disdain, or mirth,

Descend thy throne and walk the common earth,

I would, in brave array, precede thee round,

With pomp and pageantry and music sweet,

And spread my shining mantle on the ground,

For fear the dust should soil thy golden-sandaled feet!

Away! away! the days are dim and cold,

The withered flowers are crumbling in the mould,

The Heaven is gray and blank, the Earth is drear,

And fallen leaves are heaped on Summer’s bier!

Sweet songs are out of place, however sweet,

When all things else are wrapt in funeral gloom,

True Poets never pipe to dancing feet,

But only elegies around a tomb!

Away with fancy now, the Year demands

A sterner chaplet, and a deeper lay,

A wreath of cypress woven with pious hands,

A dirge for its decay!