The Soul of Song[1]

Alone my soul upon a mighty hill,
Ancient with lingering snows of vanished years,
Where towering forms the templed azure fill,
Wooed by the breath of woodland atmospheres;
Where Nature, throned in solitude, reveres
The God whose glory she doth symbolize,
And on these altars, watered by her tears,
Spreads far around the fragrant sacrifice
Whose incense wafts her sweet memorial to the skies. 240

Here will I rest, where I have loved to roam,
From childhood's rose-hued, scarce-remembered day,
And found my pensive soul's congenial home
Far from the depths where human passions play.
Born at their feet, my own have learned to stray
Familiar o'er these pathless heights, and feel,
As now, the mind assume a loftier sway,
Soaring for themes that o'er its summits steal,
Beyond all thought to reach, all utterance to reveal.

Here let me linger. O my native hills! 250
Solemn and watchful o'er the silent waste!
How great the joy his bounding bosom thrills,
Whose steps, aspiring, mar your summits chaste!
Language! thy richest robe, thy rarest taste,
How clothe description in befitting dress,
When halts imagination's wingÉd haste,
Awe-spelled in wonder's conscious littleness,
Where loom the cloud-crowned monarchs of the wilderness?

Grim, storm-plumed guardians! Warriors tempest-mailed,
Federal with freedom, fortressing her land! 260
Had primal man the sacred garden[2] tilled,
'Ere earthly scenes your early vision scanned?
In spirit form took ye your titan stand[3],
Ere rolled a world-creating fiat forth?
Or came ye at convulsion's fierce command,
'Mid loud-tongued thunders bursting from the earth,
The martial music that proclaimed your war-like birth?

Vast, voiceless oracles, whose intelligence
Sleeps in the caverns of each stony heart,
Yet breathes o'er all a boundless eloquence, 270
What wealth historic might your words impart!
Lone, looming, hermit of the hills, apart
From where thy banded mates in union dwell!
A master lyrist seemingly thou art,
Chief harper of a host that round thee swell;
And thine the Orphean boon[4], what could withstand thy spell?

E'en now it whispers from the graven rock,
Scribed with the lightning's pen, in sculpture bold,
Defying time and tide and tempest shock,
Frowning where seas and centuries have rolled. 280
"Oh were my words[5] thus writ!" That sage of old,
Knew he not well, ye mighty tomes of clay,
How firm the trust your flinty page might hold?
Have ye not scorned the fiats of decay?
Are ye not standing now where nations passed away?

Thrice wondrous things, once thine to wisely scan,
Fast as thy frozen snow-crown, still in store,
Hadst thou the melting gift[6]—of sovereign man
The sunlike glory—mightest thou restore,
Till learning's tide o'erwhelmed the shining shore, 290
With rich revealings of lost realms that rose
And fell like frost-hewn flowers thy face before;
Blightings which brought them an untimely close—
Perchance, of spirit lore, some mystic mine disclose.

But like the laboring brain that burns to speak
Mind's inmost thought, in deepest dungeon pent;
Or liker still to inward boiling peak
Of fires volcanic, vainly seeking vent
Where adamantine bolts and bars prevent;—
Thou'rt doomed to utter stillness, and shalt keep 300
The burden of thy bearing till is rent
Yon heavenly veil, and earth and air and deep
Tell secrets that shall rouse the dead from solemn sleep.

And must I be as mute, O silent mount!
Muse of all Melody, shall I not sing?—
Burst these dumb bars, when e'en yon babbling fount
May find in every breeze a wafting wing,
Afar its lightest murmured word to fling?
Where art thou, ancient Soul of Solemn Song?
Asleep? Then wake! Wherefore art slumbering? 310
The world hath need of thee, and waiteth long.
Strike, strike again thy harp, and thrill the listening throng!

Thus musing, lone upon a beetling brow,
Quaffing from unseen fount, those wilds among,
The spirit of the sun-kissed torrent flow,
Methought some lofty, caverned cliff had rung
With echoings of a more than mortal tongue;
Though softly clear the mournful cadence broke,
As notes from off the weird-toned viol flung.
Or was it yon lone cloud that muttering spoke, 320
Heralding the storm king's wrathful shout and shivering stroke?

Amazed I listened. Did I more than dream?
Had random word aroused unhoped reply?
Or was it sound whose import did but seem?
Hark!—for again it rolls along the sky:
"Then question hast thou none? Or none wouldst ply,
Save to thy soul in meditative strain,
Or heedless winds that wander idly by?
So be it; still to me thy purpose plain,
Thy hidden wish revealed, nor thus revealed in vain." 330

While freshening waves of woodland-scented air
Widened the spell of that immortal tone;
While, as on threshold of a lion's lair,
Speechless I stood, as stricken into stone;
Methought the sun with lessening splendor shone,
As if that wandering cloud obscured his gaze.
Then burst the glory from his midday throne!
Turning, mine eye beheld, in rapt amaze,
What memory ne'er would lose were life of endless days.

A stately form, of giant stature tall; 340
Of hoary aspect, venerable and grave;
Whose curling locks and beard of copious fall
Vied the white foam of ocean's storm-whipt wave.
The firm-fixt eye flashed lightnings from its cave;
Far-darting penetration's gaze combined
With wisdom's milder light. Of study gave
Deep evidence that brow by learning lined,
Thought's towering throne, where ruled his realm a monarch
mind.

The spirit's garb—for spirit so he seemed— 350
Fell radiant in many a flowing fold;
A robe antique, by modern limners deemed
Befitting monk or eremite of old.
Head, hands, and feet were bare; the presence bold
With majesty, e'en as a god might wear,
While condescending to a mortal mould.
He spake—the voice no longer thrilled with fear;
Like some vast organ swell, it charmed, enchained, the ear.

"Long have I watched and waited, but no sound
Broke the wild stillness of this stern abode, 360
Save thunder's fiery foot-print smote the ground,
Or far beneath some torrent's fury flowed;
Anon the screaming eagle past me rode;
The seeker after gold, with toilsome stride,
And eager eye to fix the shining lode,
Hath paused and panted on the hill's steep side;
But none, for greater things, till now have hither hied.

"And thou, O pensive crier in the waste,
Invoker of the Voice now visible!
Prepared art thou a mystery to taste, 370
Whose fruit is joy or woe ineffable?
Pluck not of wisdom's branches bending full,
Drink not of that divine philosophy,
Save thou canst bravely suffer wrong's misrule,
Thy best intent thought ill; save thou canst be
What men deem "fool," real fools despising, pitying thee.

"Not all my ministry to lift the gloom
Yet hovering o'er this mystic hemisphere.
List while I tell, for I am one by whom
Future and past as present shall appear. 380
In me behold Messiah's Minister,
Ancient of time and of eternity,
Spirit of song that moved the Hebrew seer,
Voice of the stars[7] ere earth's nativity;
Exile, for ages gone, of mortal minstrelsy.

"See now my sacred heritage, the prey
Of ribald rhymesters, sensuous, half obscene;
Of gloating censors, glad o'er my decay,
And deeming all but best I ne'er had been!
The body's bard[8] throned, sceptering the scene, 390
A groveling worshiper of earth and time.
Arise! and with thy soul's celestial sheen,
Shame these false meteors, change the ruling chime;
My minstrel, I thy muse, sing thou the song sublime!

"Sing, poet, sing! but not of new—of old,
Of old and new—eternal truth thy theme,
That holdeth past and future in her fold,
That maketh present but a passing dream,
While time and earth and man as trifles seem;
That knoweth not of new, or old, or strange; 400
Whose everduring, all-redemptive scheme,
Fixt and immutable 'mid worlds of change,
On, on, from universe to universe doth range.

"Faint not, nor fear, for all shall fare thy way—
My way, His way, the Master's, evermore.
East shall seem West, rethrown the rising ray,
Shining afar from this most ancient shore[9],
And man shall rise[10] e'en where man fell before.
Fools may deride, may jeer at destiny;
They mock to mourn, oblivion earths them o'er; 410
While they that champion truth, by truth shall be
Exalted, e'en in time, to live eternally."

The ancient paused, and, unperceived till then,
A wondrous harp his bosom swung before,
Such harp as played the shepherd psalmist[11] when
A maddening rage his monarch seized and tore,
And music's magic quelled satanic power.
Seated, his form against the crag reclined,
He waved me to his feet, and forth did pour,
As pours Niagara on the plaintive wind, 420
Floods of majestic song, falling from mind to mind.

Full tale of wonders told, I may not tell,
Though mind be heir to all of mystery;
With milk of truth the breasts of wisdom swell,
Sufficing past and present infancy.
But matching all the modern eye may see
With marvels promised to the future sight,
'Twas as the shrub unto the sheltering tree,
The floating swan unto the eagle's flight,
The hillock to the snow-crowned summit, lost in light. 430

Silent he towered above me, harp in hand,—
Was it a dream? Could dream so vivid be?—
And with his mantle's fold my forehead fanned.
Then leapt to life the flame of poesy!
Was it a vision of my destiny?
Upon the mount, as erst, I stood alone,
And naught was there of muse or minstrelsy;
Save that afar still trembled that strange tone,
And something said within: "That harp is now thine own."