Theodore H. Rand

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MAGNANIMOUS AND MEAN

OPEN, my heart, thy ruddy valves;

It is thy master calls;

Let me go down, and curious trace

Thy labyrinthine halls.

Open, O heart, and let me view

The secrets of thy den;

Myself unto myself now show

With introspective ken.

Expose thyself, thou covered nest

Of passions, and be seen;

Stir up thy brood, that in unrest

Are ever piping keen.

Ah! what a motley multitude—

Magnanimous and mean!

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'TIS solemn darkness; the sublime of shade;

Night, by no stars nor rising moon relieved;

The awful blank of nothingness arrayed,

O'er which my eyeballs roll in vain, deceived.

Upward, around, and downward I explore,

E'en to the frontiers of the ebon air,

But cannot, though I strive, discover more

Than what seems one huge cavern of despair.

Oh, Night, art thou so grim, when, black and bare

Of moonbeams, and no cloudlets to adorn,

Like a nude Ethiop 'twixt two houris fair,

Thou stand'st between the evening and the morn?

I took thee for an angel, but have wooed

A cacodÆmon in mine ignorant mood.

SEE how the Morn awakes. Along the sky

Proceeds she with her pale, increasing light,

And, from the depths of the dim canopy,

Drives out the shadows of departing night.

Lo, the clouds break, and gradually more wide

Morn openeth her bright, rejoicing gates;

And ever, as the orient valves divide,

A costlier aspect on their breadth awaits.

'TWAS on a day, and in high, radiant heaven,

An angel lay beside a lake reclined,

Against whose shores the rolling waves were driven,

And beat the measure to the dancing wind.

There, rapt, he meditated on that story

Of how Jehovah did of yore expel

Heaven's aborigines from grace and glory,—

Those mighty angels that did dare rebel.

And as he mused upon their dread abode

And endless penance, from his drooping hands

His harp sank down, and scattered all abroad

Its rosy garland on the golden sands;

His soul mute wondering that the All-wise Spirit

Should have allowed the doom of such demerit.