NIGHT AND MORNING.

Yes! I have been for many a changeful year, Studious or sensual, gay or wild, or sad, An earnest votary of Evening. She Had something wondrous winning to my eye, So soft she was, and quiet. Often too, Absorbed in books, which were perchance a bane, Perchance a blessing; or in glittering crowds, Gazing all rapt on woman’s eloquent face, Nature’s most witching and most treacherous page; Or high in mirth with those whose senseful wit Outflashed the rosy wines that warmed its flow, I’ve held my vigils till the brow of Night Grew pale and starless, and her solemn pomp, Out-glared by day, faded in hueless space. I do repent me of my worship. Night Was given for rest: who breaks this natural law Wrongs body and soul alike. One vigorous hour Of sober day-light thought is worth a night’s Slow oscitations of a drowsy mind. ’Neath Eve’s pale star the desolate heart reverts To those far moments, when the sky was blue, And earth was green, as earth and sky to eyes Once disenchanted, can appear no more. We all are mourners. Good men must deplore Lost hours, lost friends, lost pleasures; and the bad Are racked by throes of impotent remorse, Dark, fierce, and bitter; for themselves are lost, And still neglecting what remains of life, They strive by backward reachings to redeem The irredeemable. Why pass the hours, The fleeting hours, in profitless regrets, When each regret but lops another bough, Full of green promise, from the tree of life? You, who in your bereavement truly feel This truth, expressed so sadly and so well: ‘Joy’s recollection is no longer joy, While Sorrow’s memory is sorrow still;’ I counsel to recant your vows, and come With me to worship at a better shrine, The shrine of Morning. Morning is the hour Of vigorous thought, unconquerable hope, And high endeavor. All our powers, in sleep Bathed, nurtured, clad, and strung with nerves of steel, Rise from their brief oblivion keen with health, And strong for struggling, and we feel that toil Is toil’s own recompense. I deem that Man Is not a retrospective being; for his course Is on, still on; and never should his eyes Turn back, but to detect his errors past, And shun them in his future steps. Too long, Ah! much too long, O world! and oft I’ve gazed In awe and wonder on thy midnight sleep, While magic Memory, singly or in groups, Upon her faded tablets re-produced Fair and familiar forms of Love and Joy. Oh! so familiar were they, and so fair, Though dim, those blessed faces, that my eyes Grew tremulous with the dew of unshed tears. The gaze hath hurt me. It hath taken their rest And natural joy from body and spirit, and worn Too fast the wheel-work of this frail machine. And now, oh! sleeping Nature! while the stars Smile on thy face, and I in fancy hear The low pulsations of thy dormant life, And feel thy mighty bosom heave and fall With regular breathings; through my little world I feel Disease advancing on his sure And stealthy mission. Well I know his step, The wily traitor! when I mark my short, Quick respirations; and his call I know, As, in the hush of night, my ear alarmed By the heart’s death-march notes, repeats its strange And audible beatings. Down! grim spectre, down! Flap not thy wings across my face, nor let Thy ghastly visage, horrible shadow! freeze My staring eye-balls! Let me fly, O Death! Thy chilling presence, and implore thy soft And merciful brother,2 dewy Sleep, to drip Papaverous balsam on my eyes, and lull My throbbing temples on his lap to rest! ····· The day-spring reddens: the first few, faint streaks, Mingling and brightening o’er the eastern skies, Announce the upward chariot of the Sun. Light leaps from Darkness! In the grave of Night Day lays aside his burial-robes, and dons His regal crown, and Nature smiles to see His resurrection, shouting, ‘Hail! oh, hail! Eve’s younger3 brother! and again, all hail! Thou bright-eyed Morning! fairest among all Of God’s fair creatures! Rise, bright prince, and shine O’er this green earth, from brooding Darkness won, From wild, waste Chaos, and the womb of Night!’ Let me too burst the leaden bands of Sleep, And while the blinking stars, all faint and pale With their long watch, recall their courier-rays To their far orbits; and our earthly stars, The stars of Fashion, sick and wan as they, Are wheeling homeward to their feverous rest, Let me walk forth among the silent groves, Or through the cool vales snuff the morning air. How fresh! how breathing! Every draught I take Seems filled with healthiest life, and sends the blood Rushing and tingling through my quickened veins, Like inspiration! How the fluent air, Fanned into motion by thy breezy wings, O, fragrant Morning! blows from off the earth The congregated vapors, dank and foul, By yesterday coagulate and mixed! Miasmas steaming up from sunless fens; The effluvia of vegetable death; Disease exhaled from pestilential beds, And Lust’s rank pantings and the fumes of wine; All these, condensed in one pernicious gas By Noon’s hot efflux and the reeking Night, Thy filtering breezes make as fresh and sweet As infant slumbers; pure as the virgin’s breath Whispering her first love in the eager ear Of her heart’s chosen. On this climbing hill, While, lost in ecstacy, I stand and gaze On the fresh beauties of a world disrobed, How does thy searching breath, oh, infant Day! Inspire the languid frame with new-born life, And all its sinking powers rejuvenate, Freshening the murky hollows of the soul! Good Heaven! How glorious this morning hour, Nature’s new birth-time! All her mighty frame, In lowly vale, on lofty mountain-top, And wide savannah, stirs, with sprightful life, Life irrepressible, whose eager thrill Shoots to her very finger-tips, and makes Each little flower through all her delicate threads Each fibrous plant, each blade of corn or grass, And each tall tree, through all its limbs and leaves, Quiver and tremble. The increasing light Reveals the outlines of the shadowy hills, And, charm by charm, the landscape all comes forth, Wood, stream, and valley; while above that green And waving ocean swells an endless vault Of blue serenity, and round its verge Kindles and flashes with rubescent gleams The far horizon; till the whole appears A sapphire dome, which, edged with golden rim, Spans the green surges of an emerald sea. The Sun is still unseen; yet far before His chariot-wheels a train of glory marks His kindling track, and all the air is now A luminous ocean. Whence these floods of light, Rich with all hues? Say! have the spheréd stars, Powdered in shining atoms, fallen and filled The ambient air with their invisible dews? Or have the fugitive particles of light, The Sun’s lost emanations, which all night Lay hid in hollows of the earth, or slept In vegetable cells, come forth to greet Their monarch’s coming? Are they pioneers Sent to prepare his way, and raise his bright Victorious banner, that their sovereign’s eye From his serene pavilion may behold No lingering shadow from the gloomy host Of hateful Darkness, who hast westward borne His routed army and his fading flag? Alas! proud Science, Fancy’s sneering foe, Says they are but the Sun’s refracted rays, And scintillations from his burning wheels. Earth’s bride-groom rises. Round his glittering head He shakes his streamy locks, and fast and far Sheds showers of splendor; and his blushing bride, Recumbent on her grassy couch, scarce opes Her bashful eyes to meet his ardent gaze. While at the advent of her lord, the Earth, Marking his shining footsteps, with a smile Remembers the espousals of her youth, When morning stars rang out the nuptial song4 In jubilant chorus; on her milky breast, All the green nurslings of his favor raise Their dewy heads, and welcome his approach With thankful greetings; and each gentle flower Turns her fair face to the munificent god Of her idolatry, and well repays His warm caresses with her perfumed breath. But while inanimate nature takes the shows Of life, and joy, and deep and passionate sense, The animal kingdom sleeps not; all its tribes Swell the glad anthem. Birds, that all night long Slept and dreamed sweetly ’neath their folded wings, At nature’s summons are awakening now; Nor unmelodiously; for from their throats, In many a warbling trill, or mingled gush, Comes music of such sweet and innocent strength, As might force tears from the black murderer’s eyes, And make the sighing captive, while he weeps His own hard wrongs, lift his chained hands, and pray For his oppressor more than for himself. Thou, too, my soul, if wearing years have left Aught of high feeling in thy wasted powers, Of gratitude for mercies undeserved, Or hope of future favors, here and now, Upon this breezy hill-top, in the eye Of the bright day-god rising from his sleep, Perform thine orisons: ‘Father and King, While here thy quickening breezes round me play, And yonder comes thy visible delegate With his bright scutcheon, to diffuse again All day the rays of thy beneficence Over this lovely earth, thy six days’ work; To Thee, Almighty One! thy child would raise A loud thanksgiving. And if this, my strain Of joy and thanks, and supplication, be Or cold, or weak, or insincere in aught, (As our poor hearts deceive themselves so oft,) Thou! O Omnipotent! canst make it warm,— Warm as thy love, strong as thy Son’s strong tears, And pure as thine own essence. Formed by Thee, Saved by thy mercy from thy wrath, we all Are guilty ingrates, and the best of men Hath sins perchance which might outweigh the worth Of all the angels. I, at least, have sinned, Sinned long and deeply; and if still my heart, Warped by its own bad passions, or allured By the world’s glitter and the arts of him, Thy foe and our destroyer, should forget Its source and destiny, and breathe its vows Again to idols, yet reject Thou not This present offering. Let thy Grace surround My steps as with a muniment of rocks, And guide me in the uneven paths of life, A pilgrim shielded by thy hollow hand. And as the grateful earth sends up all day Her exhalations through the bibulous air To the sun, her monarch; and receives them back Rich, soft, and fertile, in the still small shower, That falls invisible from the morning’s womb: So may my fervent heart exhale to Thee Daily, the breathings of its thankful prayer. And praise spontaneous; which thy heavenly grace Shall render back in a perpetual dew Of benedictions, making all the waste Green with cool verdure. Oh! the time hath been, When thy benighted children lost the creed Of thy true worship, and to brutes bowed down, And senseless stones, and, kneeling in sincere But vain devotion, to the creature gave The adoration due to Thee alone, The mighty Maker. Others strove to turn Thine anger from them, by the streaming blood Of human victims; and the reverend priest Stood up, and in the name of people and king, Prayed Thee, or some vain substitute, to bless The holy murder. Even thy chosen, thine own Peculiar nation, did forget that Thou Lov’st the oblation of a grateful heart, A holocaust self-sacrificed to God,5 And trusted to the blood of bulls and goats, And whole burned offerings. And still mankind Kneel in blind worship. Every heart sets up Its separate Dagon. Fierce Ambition breathes His burning vow, and, to secure his prayer, Makes the dear children of his heart, his own Sweet home’s affections and delights, pass through The fire of Moloch: Avarice at the shrine Of greedy Mammon, gluts his eyes with gold: Some to Renown bend low the obsequious knee, Praying to be eternized by a blast From her shrill trumpet: in the glittering halls Of sensual Pleasure some sing songs, and bind Their fair young brows with chaplets steeped in wine; Though soon the chaplets turn to chains, the wines To gall and wormwood, and the festal song To howls and hootings. High above these shrines The great arch-demon and parental Jove Of all the Pantheon, a god unknown But every where adored, omnipotent And omnipresent to the tribes of men, Self, rears his temple. But the day shall come, When far and wide o’er the regenerate world, From each green vale and ancient hill, thy sons Duly to Thee shall bring their evening thanks And morning homage. Round each cheerful hearth, Or kneeling in the spreading door-tree’s shade, Each human heart, brim-full of love and hope, And holy gratitude, shall send aloft A pure oblation, and the throbbing earth Be one great censer, breathing praise to Thee.’