Part 6 / Book 2 — ORAMA; OR, FATE AND FREEWILL.

Thin, shadowy, scarce divided from the light, I saw a phantom at the birth of morn: Its robe was sable, but a fleecy white Flow'd silvering o'er the garb of gloom; a horn It held within its hand; no faintest breath Stirr'd its wan lips—death-like, it seem'd not Death. My heart lay numb within me; and the flow Of life, like water under icebergs, crept; The pulses of my being seem'd to grow One awe;—voice fled the body as it slept, But from its startled depth arose the soul And king-like spoke:— "What art thou, that dost seem To have o'er Immortality control?" And the Shape answer'd, not by sound, "A Dream! A Dream, but not a Dream: the Shade of things To come—a herald from the throne of Fate. I ruled the hearts of earth's primæval kings, I gave their life its impulse and its date: Grey Wisdom paled before me, and the stars Were made my weird interpreters—my hand Aroused the whirlwind of the destined wars, And bow'd the nations to my still command. A Dream, but not a Dream;—a type, a sign, Pale with the Future, do I come to thee. The lot of Man is twofold; gaze on thine, And choose thy path into eternity." Thus spoke the Shade; and as when autumn's haze Rolls from a ghostly hill, and gives to view The various life of troubled human days, So round the phantom, pale phantasma grew, And landscapes rose on either side the still River of Time, whose waves are human hours.— "What," said my soul, "doth not the Omniscient Will Foreshape, foredoom; if so, what choice is ours?" The Ghost replied:— "Deem'st thou the art divine Less than the human? Doth inventive Man All adverse means in one great end combine, And close each circle where the thought began, So that his genius, bent on schemes sublime, Scarce notes the obstructions to its purposed goal, But turns each discord of the changeful time Into the music of a changeless whole? And deem'st thou Him who breathes, and worlds arise, But the blind agent of His own cold law? Fool! doth yon river less reflect the skies Because some wavelet eddies round a straw? Still to Man's choice is either margin given Beside the Stream of Time to wander free: And still, as nourish'd by the dews of Heaven, Glides the sure river to the solemn sea. Choose as thou wilt!"— Then luminously clear Flash'd either margin from the vapoury shade; What I beheld unmeet for mortal ear,— Nor dare I tell the choice the mortal made. But when the Shape had left me, and the dawn Smote the high lattice with a starbeam pale, As a blind man when from his sight withdrawn The film of dark,—or as unto the gale Leaps the live war-ship from the leaden calm,— So joyous rose, look'd forth, and on to Fate Bounded my soul! Yet nor the Olympian palm Which fierce contestors hotly emulate, Nor roseate blooms in Cytherean dell, Nor laurel shadowing murmurous Helicon, Strain'd my desire divinely visible In the lone course it was my choice to run. Wherefore was then my joy?—That I was free! Not my life doom'd, as I had deem'd till then, An iron link of grim Necessity,— A sand-grain wedged amidst the walls of men; The good, the ill, the happiness or woe, That waited, not a thraldom pre-decreed, But from myself as from their germ to grow,— Let the Man suffer, still the Slave was freed! Predestine earth, and heavenly Mercy dies; The voice of sorrow wastes its wail on air; Freewill restores the Father to the skies, Unlocks from ice the living realm of prayer, And gives creation what the human heart Gives to the creature, life to life replying. O epoch in my being, and mine art, Known but to me!—How oft do thoughts undying Like rainbows, spring between the cloud and beam, Colouring the world yet painted on—a dream.