OURANOGAIA

Heaven of Earth

By

KENELM HENRY DIGBY

 

 

CANTO I.

HEAVEN BROUGHT DOWN ON EARTH BY THE

SPECTACLE OF CREATION.

 

1

On, joy, wing’d guest, how wonderful you are!

Yes, just as wondrous as the human heart,

Or all that in the universe we see

Replete with wonder and divinity!

Joy at its highest is the lightning s gleam,

Dazzles the sense and passes as a dream.

But then its precious memory can last,

Denoting through what golden gate we pass’d.

And, oh! that moment’s glimpse of what’s beyond

Once caught no, never more should we despond.

Besides, as waves still rise and foaming fall,

And one bright breaker seen is never all,

Wave follows wave; the first with sparkling crest

Bursts on the shore, and then in turn the rest,

Again, and still again the lustrous spray,

Lighting the solemn deep and purple way,

The colours of the showery arch brought down,

As if the white-robed pageantry to crown

So through our life on earth the sadness yields

To raptures rolling from Elysian fields,

Succeeding one another ever fast,

Until, through joy led, we are there at last.

Yes, “there”, whatever they or Heav’n may be,

Whose purpose must be true felicity;

For since without a purpose nought we find

The end must there be happiness for mind.

By “ there” we mean what all our race has known,

Though Sophists now would its whole sense disown.

What Nature dictates by an instinct sure,

What Reason needs must deem a credence pure,

What Christ did promise, nail’d upon the cross,

What gain’d by you, the earth will be no loss.

If more you’d know suffice it must to say

No evil there can for an instant sway.

For creatures rational ‘tis no more ill,

Tis Heav’n, Elysium, name it what you will,

Or Paradise, past Time, a blissful seat,

To satisfy all wants of Beings meet.

 

The Muse will not exaggerations sing;

Nor are they needed for her potent wing.

Though from its source we trace this tiny rill,

High Heav’n in truth is no less High Heav’n still,

Whose crystal summits no ascent can fear,

However kindred spirits pass them near.

This stream of joy may wind throughout the earth,

Yet not the less in Heav’n it has its birth.

Where All that is, that has been, and will be,

Pours through the universe felicity;

Whose veil by mortals never has been raised,

Whose gifts are felt, who only should be praised!

 

The earth we deem a vestibule, at best,

Of the bright palace where our souls find rest,

Whose bliss, ne’er flash’d across a poet’s dreams,

Effaces Helicon, Hyperion’s beams.

The name of man denoted in the Greek

That he a bright higher world than earth should seek

A noble language, sprung from noble thought,

But nobler still the truth that here is brought.

For those on whom will shine the World’s true light

Find that this better world is now in sight,

Within, beside, around them, like the air

The paradise celestial every where.

So nowhere while we tread this earthly ground

Those terminations can be ever found,

“ Where Nature and the world both end”, as thought

Agricola when British shores he sought.

But onwards farther always than the scene

Which may to sense presented, intervene,

While still accessible and near to mind

A boundless and eternal world we find,

Where we too instantaneously possess

The joys which mortal tongues cannot express;

With which horizon constantly in view

The world we live in wears an aspect new;

As when vast clouds will bound a landscape fair

With forms fictitious, as though Alps were there;

Each grove, each garden, and each structure bright

Becoming thereby glorified to sight!

 

By many earth is call’d a vale of tears;

And such, in one sense, it for all appears.

By others, who most feel the sorrow deep,

For which the good and evil both must weep,

’Tis found still fraught with things so bright and gay,

That through its paths they would for ever stray.

Some mark but crimes, diseases, follies, woe;

The good tha’s seen makes other hearts o’erflow

With rapture, admiration, such as speech,

Or song, or painting, nothing e’er can reach.

Then others think the whole perplex’d and strange,

When through its varied walks in mind they range.

What others chiefly love, some cannot bear,

Deem it the poor world’s fault that it is fair;

Would have it not restored, and understood

As being never in its fruitage good.

Never to Heav’n’s gate near, another Heav’n,

Whate’er experience may of proofs have given.

Then others analyze its joys, and find

It yields no pleasures for a solid mind.

And yet and yet there is a voice that cries,

Its acres reach beyond this globe, and rise

To a bright region, where the whole will be

Lost in effulgence of felicity.

These passages abound on every side;

E’en now these golden gates stand open wide,

Whence issue on our life such blissful beams

That e’en within already each one seems,

If only inward life should put forth clear

Visual beams that show to what he’s near,

Or songs within us should the while agree

With songs without us from the whole we see,

Dispersing notions mythical of things,

Which to explain them scepticism brings.

Sophists see nought in what surrounds them real!

The most prosaic deem them but ideal.

This form sheer madness sometimes will assume,

And to deny the visible presume,

Receiving ancient friends as in a dream,

E’en telling them they are not whom they seem.

So men who from insanity are far

Will place ‘gainst all reality a bar.

“ Fanciful! imaginary!” they

To their own secret mind will always say.

True, all that we perceive is still symbolic

In one sense, in accordance e’en with Logic.

We see but the material side of things,

We see not what each noble artist brings

The spiritual; but whate’er the eye

Beholds, will still excite mysteriously

The clear idea of what is not seen,

However matter’s symbols intervene;

While what is not seen gives to all we see

For this clear sense a true reality.

Nathless the Visible, because with veils

Men oft deny where ignorance prevails;

Though that we are, is not from doubt more free

Than that without us are the things we see.

Phantasmal is what they think real most,

And real what they deem an empty boast.

So if you pierce into the depth of things,

The whole is real that your Poet sings.

The Muse will here have nothing more to do

With aught but facts, and with the strictly true.

No Fairy Key she needs here to employ,

To open gates that lead to purest joy.

O strange Realities! nought else will here,

In their most common shapes, surround us near.

Let not the title offer’d lead you wrong,

To deem but Fancy’s flight this truthful song,

This simple exposition of a fact,

Though bright, like nature, not the less exact

Which realizes the Horatian thought

That the whole theme of every Poem ought

To be but “ one and simple” in its way;

And that we keep this rule at least you’ll say.

Times, it is true, there were when real things

Were only shadow’d in symbolic springs.

But these were then exceptional for man,

When his mysterious course revived, began.

Then, Muse, sing not of types now fled and pass’d,

Nor yet of that which will for ever last

Reality unveil’d, which Heaven will be

Hereafter in its full felicity.

Reality when veil’d, Muses, sing,

And to that present joy your incense bring,

That so, no longer we may feel surprise

When things of earth fade into things of skies,

As oft is witness’d, not alone in saints,

But in frail mortals whom no legend paints,

Of whom we too might cry, and not in vain,

“ Races fortunate, Saturnian reign!”

 

O’er three divisions mankind’s life is spread

The first of types, as of the Jews, is read;

Though even then a Presence could be traced

Which bounds between High Heav’n and earth effaced,

The bliss of future ages to attest,

When all the nations should alike be blest.

But shades, their end accomplished, shrank away,

Their night succeeded by our dawning day,

Or what is now Reality while veil’d,

Which dawn commenced when Christian faith prevail’d.

But shadows had the first, as Paul has taught;

To our new age Reality was brought,

Veil’d it is true, but still in substance real,

And not, as some protest, in the ideal

One reign o’er earth’s wide bounds and Heav’n above,

All Paradise, subordinate to Love.

Such is the life of mankind upon earth,

When once transferr’d by the mysterious birth;

Having a temple, where each day is seen,

By Faith, in a Form veil’d, th’ Eternal Sheen

That apex of the solemn, mystic vault

Which shines with all the human heart e’er sought.

Reality, thus veil’d, denotes the age

In which men live and act, the earth their stage

The subject now of my ambitious song,

Including all things that to joy belong.

The third division waits another lyre,

Than all our human thoughts, beyond thought higher;

For there, unveil’d, Reality is seen,

And which from all Eternity has been.

In this sense, therefore, take what I propose,

Whate’er the theme itself demonstrates, shows,

As if to present sight, so bright and clear,

That future life for moments may appear.

 

These veil’d Realities would make earth Heav’n,

If, with their faith, mankind the whole would leav’n :

For it is but religion they express,

The Christian simply, neither more nor less;

These words, observe, are clear, and common plain;

Like Chrysale, therefore, you cannot complain,

That when they’re spoken you have then to try

Their meaning to find out and to descry.

If leaven’d not throughout be yet the whole,

That mystery should not confine the soul.

Oh! look, then, for yourself; yes, mark, and see!

Faith would extirpate all this misery

Each foul, bad thing, that now disturbeth rest,

And bars the gate to you of regions blest,

Of peace, of sweetness, and of purest love,

Which constitute the perfect bliss above.

“ But why”, you ask, “hath it not leaven’d all?”

Say, do you this a grave objection call?

Ask why all seedlings do not rise and grow

To the perfection they were meant to show;

Why the foul worm will taint the beauteous rose,

Why the clear spring not always rises, flows,

Why the wide deep will oft receive the rain,

While hard and dry is left the thirsty plain;

Though no sound mind will question the intent

With which refreshment to the ground is sent.

Yes, you, who would discard all mystery,

Just ask the reason of the things you see:

Why there is sometimes mischief in the air,

To poison life, and blight each thing that’s fair;

Why the good tree, that always should yield fruit,

At times bears nought that can its nature suit;

Why birds carnivorous will pounce and prey

Upon the helpless lamb that roves to play

Ah, my sharp friend, whate’er you deeply know,

This is what you can never, never show.

This opens all the deep, unfathom’d well,

Whose bottom none on earth can ever tell.

So be content with what is daily found,

When that is sweet and to our reason sound;

And let us onwards, singing, to display

From earth to sweet Heav’n the bright, rapid way

That wide and ample road whose dust is gold,

And pavement stars, as poets e’en behold.

Destructive agencies on earth will stay,

But, with the Theban eagle, soar away

And reach that clime where all is understood

As beautiful and wise, as fair and good.

One object of this flight is to see shine

The lowest things of earth with the divine,

Not to attempt insanely to defile

The latter visions with the coarse and vile;

But rather what’s call’d “coarse and vile”, to prove

Consistent with what’s pure in Heav’n above;

That so the noble soul may not be vex’d,

Or by her poor companion be perplex’d,

But still pass forward on her lofty way,

Through what disparage justly no one may.

Some joys of man can suit but earth below;

Yet Heav’n contrived them; so from thence they flow.

You see at once, from viewing thus the whole,

What vistas open to the human soul.

Such are some heights to which our Muse would fly,

Who nature in no parts would vilify

An honest purpose, though the stern will blame,

The formal hate, and idiots cry out shame.

 

Great Cicero laments that Homer placed

In Heav’n above what he in man had traced,

And adds, for his part, he would rather crown

The Poet who to man had Heav’n brought down.

That Heav’n begins on earth, our song shall teach,

To show to what great bliss this earth can reach;

That human life, while counting years and time,

May spread the fragrance of another clime.

Ye Muses, fly beyond the mount, and spring,

No more confined to earth with feeble wing,

But pierce the clouds, the blue expanse of air,

And sing the joys we thought were only there.

Show how these oft will secretly descend

And yield to each thing a celestial end;

How common, slight, imperfect earthly things

Can give the human spirit wondrous wings!

How it can find in what is lowest here

A bliss it thought on earth could not be near,

Yes show how in all walks of life around

E’en Heav’n on earth can be already found,

That earth, as another heav’n, is not far,

And even now the gates of heav’n unbar.

Fear not the fate of Tantalus, who dared

Steal from the table where with gods he fared

Their Nectar and Ambrosia for men,

His punishment awarded being then

For that sole crime, as Pindar lets us know;

Since bounteous Heav’n aye loveth to bestow

On mortals here to recompense their love,

The same delights that charm the courts above.

To no Cumean Sibyl must we speed;

Of no strange conjurations have we need

Such as famed Paracelsus long did try

And Villeneuve’s Arnold, of his secrets shy;

Though Reuchlin and Agrippa will propound

The wonders that with them they thought were found;

Or those of Eastern Magi, from whom came

Mounge, Urgande, fairies, and Morganda’s fame.

Of no Hermetic science have we need,

Or cabalistic which could folly breed

Oneiromancy, oldest kind of all,

Which Aristotle vain would never call;

Or Eromancy, which deludes the weak,

We on this truthful path would never seek;

And though we may be said to hold a key,

No divination such we offer thee;

Nor magic squares in which sage Reinard found

Some true instruction, curious and yet sound.

Although as seers we might ourselves proclaim

In sense as true as once was false the name,

An order of phenomena we show

Which leads to extasy” we surely know.

The universal Panacea we,

Without committing crimes, will offer thee.

Immortal water and divine perfume,

Eternal youth; and, while we nought assume

But what is true, without imagination,

Shall here be yielded by this transmutation,

Which turns to gold and music of the spheres

Whate’er we see, whatever mankind hears;

While not as to the hermit of Kardou

Will joy be shown to be temptation new;

For here Perfection will be found to shine

With pleasure real, and with joy divine.

Then fearlessly abandon to the wind

The fears or doubts that linger in your mind.

With no dark secret, or “illumined” class

Would we to bright Heav’n from the earth now pass.

All men and women, poor and rich the same,

The youth, the child, the aged, we fondly name

Companions of our own on this great quest,

Where all can find true joy, true peace, true rest.

The paths still barr’d to Heav’n will be seen

Far, far below us, dull and dreary, mean,

While, what perhaps is strangest, only found

By those chain’d but by custom to the ground.

Ascent is easy to that upper air,

Let only hearts desire it, and dare.

For day and night the gates stand open wide,

Through which of mortals bless’d can pass the tide;

Each wave to swell the Empire vast of souls,

And glorify the arm that all controls.

For know, whatever the Stagyrite may say,

Quite instantaneously the soul can stray

Beyond all limits, since, as Bacon said,

A spiritual substance can be sped

As though an Angel through the boundless space,

Since in strict point of fact it needs no place.

All distance corporal is to the soul

Nought; so the mind has entrance to the whole;

And thus escaping from the body s bounds

It reaches here the bless d’Elysian grounds

Here are bright waters, not the Stygian pool;

Here, to assist the sinking is the rule,

That they, at last, may rest in placid seats,

Where each fair angel each new comer greets;

So here, to each one wretched a right hand

Is stretch’d to lift them to the happy strand,

Where they who weeping pass’d their gloomy hours

Are welcomed safe within the glorious bowers;

No gates that open with horrific noise

Are here, but purple wings still fanning joys.

The sounds of Heav’n here float o’er blissful ground,

Where meads of real asphodel are found,

The places full of gladness, meadows sweet,

Groves fortunate, and the thrice blessed seat,

One space of vaster aether, with its light,

And all the happy spirits given to sight;

To none a home exclusive, all in one,

For ever flying through the glory won;

Through the wide fields of life-eternal’s air,

Gazing for ever on the good and fair.

Such, from these gates of horn, is now the way;

While some, for nought, most wantonly will stray

Through the false shining ivory doors of doom,

To find a darkness other than the tomb.

 

Fear not, heart! as if you here can meet

Sophistic dreams or palpable deceit.

Nought that surpasses human measure here

Urania sings but what to all is clear.

’Tis plain and common sense that I invoke

What no fair maidens ever will provoke;

A fact important to remark for me,

Whose theme seems false without their company.

And would be false; since if they had not been

In Eden’s garden good had not been seen;

And rather would I that my book lay shut

Within a woman’s casket (only cut)

Than open in a scholar’s study, where

Like Euphues, to see it I’ve no care.

Pretence, or things unproved you will not meet,

Or speculative themes however sweet.

And no dark, sly magician will you find,

Who with false visions would mislead your mind,

Like him we read of, with his garden fair,

Who victims made of those who enter’d there.

Within that high enclosure there were found

What seem0d fair fruits and flowers growing round;

But, strange to add, he there would none admit,

Excepting foes, or some devoid of wit;

For whom, with words alluring, then he threw

The gates wide open, to entice their view.

Once enter’d there, the wonder was to see

How each did prize it as felicity;

Though from the first they all were brought to know

The whole to be a vain and empty show.

Still there, though restless, would they aye remain,

And, while they chose to stay, would yet complain,

And even yield their whole inheritance

To him who did their spirits so entrance;

They deem’d it Paradise that still would yield

The fruits immortal of th’ Elysian field.

Like poor pain’d alchemists in days of yore,

Most wretched, who on crucibles would pore,

Disdaining to look farther, or beyond

The false enclosure and its poison’d bond;

Until the dark magician, who did scoff

His victims so enchanted, cut them off;

And the factitious Eden proved to be

A glade of pains, and death, and misery!

But such grave fables even can deceive.

Experience judges better far than Eve,

And teaches to detect all hollow seeming,

And recognize it as deceptive dreaming

So false was old Quarles when he sung to tell,

“ A seeming Heaven is the way to Hell”.

The seeming way to pleasure is the right;

For no false semblance long misleads the sight,

Though “double-gilded as the doors of day”,

The proud, fantastic gates invite to stray.

No, trustless heart, what seems here is the truth,

The sovereign good of man in age or youth.

Not that once widely-famed Atlantic Isle,

Which the wise man of Sais did beguile,

’Till, hearing him, sage Solon would relate

In verse the bliss of that ideal state;

Though leaving his description incomplete,

To furnish still a similar defeat

When Plato even, who would seize the theme,

Unfinish’d left it as a passing dream;

Nought else for us imperfect to be found

In all his writings but that fancied ground.

Nor are we vainly trying to portray

The joys imagined of an ancient day,

To sing “the Islands Fortunate” of those

Who there the fields Elysian did suppose,

Seats of the bless’d, which the barbarians thought

Might off the shore of Africa be sought,

Which Homer sung, Sertorius wish’d to see,

From wars and men despotic ever free,

Where he with perfect peace might ever dwell,

And find the whole around him right and well

Mere fruitless efforts of men’s anxious mind,

What we would sing of, realized to find.

To show that Heav’n on earth can now descend,

Is not, like them, to seek a hopeless end.

It is but truth to point out and maintain,

And simply tell how bliss on earth can reign.

The real Paradise is here in view,

As old as Innocence, yet ever new,

Whose wholesome fragrance doth perfume the ground

Where real fruits and flowers bloom around.

 

Oh, Science, ’tis not thee I have to fear,

If now my song should meet thy cautious ear!

It is thine enemy, thy bane as well,

Who scoffs and contradicts what now I tell;

’Tis Inattention, that most fatal foe

To all the bliss on earth, I now would show.

But let her hence, and seek her senseless way,

While thou, Science, will to hear me stay;

For though thou mayst not often wander so,

Content, if things material thou shouldst know,

As through the heights or depths of Nature’s bounds

Thou passest and dost heed not other sounds,

No wonders real yield offence to thee,

And thou wilt own the first that mystery

Agrees with what thou never canst deny,

Howe ‘er enskied they are, above all high.

Experience thou wilt always count a fact,

Though sung by Muses, not the less exact.

Analysis may chiefly suit thy head;

But this bright theme need not that method dread;

Though when applied to life as seen around

Life’s purpose ceases while its depths are found;

So here you may all vital movement kill,

But truth immortal it remaineth still.

 

But will the simple hearts that most I love

Be moved so high an object to approve?

I know that themes beyond a hearer’s sphere

At first will seldom please, and strange appear;

And hence they all must now proportion’d be

To the small minds that serve publicity;

But still the Muse will hope e’en these will find

Her theme at last congenial with their mind;

For by degrees at least they will perceive

What want of thought had made them doubt or leave;

Since Sentiment most found in simple hearts

When so directed views like these imparts.

For here, I nought invent; I but dispose,

And give a new form to what each one knows,

As Architects find marble on the hill:

With which they then construct whate’er they will.

But now to me, no Sibyl, thou wilt say,

Like the Virgilian hero, “ Teach the way,

Show us the sacred doors”, that we may fly,

And all the wonders they unfold descry.

But much we doubt that thou a path canst find

On earth to reach the Paradise for mind.

Since men the highest placed, who watch the most,

Appear to deem this but an empty boast.

They send us back to Perrault’s tales again,

And seem to say those hopes are wholly vain.

Upon their high tower fix’d, like Sister Anne,

To teach despair is simply all they can.

The world spread round them wears no aspect new;

No real Paradise appears in view.

Alas! by them there s nothing ever seen

“ But sun and dust, or grass still growing green”.

Well, take your answer ; and no more deny

That Heav’n on earth to us is ever nigh.

 

Then first our eyes can see, our hands can feel

What does the mind and work of God reveal,

Who hath dispensed His bounties here on earth

As in the heavens, causing angels mirth;

Diffusing fragrance through the vernal air,

While flowers will whisper in each garden fair,

From whence they stole their perfume and array,

Which can their Maker by His art display;

For present still in valley and in plain,

He in this Eden new is seen again,

Who thus creates the trefoil, cinqfoil too,

As if He counted while He wrought, like you;

For so the smallest, tritest thing we see

Proclaims the Fiat of Divinity

As loudly as the planets that we trace,

Or unnamed suns, in boundless, unknown space.

To any mortal of attentive mind,

Who is not intellectually blind,

The fact, not only visible, is such,

That palpable, ’tis subject to our touch,

Attesting, in accordance with the voice

Of cherubim, all creatures to rejoice,

That Heav’n not only, but the earth as well

“ Proclaims the glory” which the angels tell.

But at the sound of such a herald’s cry

The earth makes part of that bright region high.

 

A sense of Nature’s beauty when profound

Denotes a mind most intimately sound.

sage antiquity! what tales thou hast,

While seldom equall’ d, ne’er by us surpass’d!

What can exceed the glory of that trait,

When in reply the sage had nought to say

To Alexander charging him to ask

Some gift, but that the king should spare the task,

Requesting that he would but step aside,

From him no longer there the sun to hide,

Nor intercept the landscape where he sat;

He had nought else to ask from him but that!

Trite and familiar anecdote, but grand,

When we its whole deep meaning understand;

For Nature of herself can even see

At least the borders of felicity;

Although the streams that from those limits glide

Alpheus like at times their flow will hide,

Again to issue forth and reappear,

As when their bright crystalline source was near.

And hence the joys of leisure, for a mind

That will, attentive, such a rapture find,

As even with the ancients, we are told,

In most laborious men we oft behold,

Can yield a passage ever, more or less,

To joys which we in words cannot express.

Whate’er the total lot of men may be,

Its isolated gifts with joy agree;

And so, apart from memory and fear

The present will man’s moment best appear.

Such words each keen observer will employ

To notice thus our instantaneous joy.

Moments dissever’d wholly from the past

And future which are ne’er with aught o’ercast,

As painted on the wise poetic page

Of Tiek describing his young artist’s age,

Replete with transports known in every station,

Which draw from keen De Stael the exclamation,

“ What wonders thus surround us every where,

Of which e’en we ourselves are not aware!”

The future breaks in joy no heart divines;

But each detach’d, successive moment shines,

Which simple hearts are open to receive,

While Pride alone suspects they may deceive.

Although, as Horace says, Arcadians we

Have nought to do with what regards the sea,

Like Scipio and Laelius on the shore,

We draw near Paradise still more and more;

Like Scaevola, our leisure being wise,

We play on earth, conversant with the skies;

“ Ease is the sauce of labour”, said a sage.

With that at times life’s tedium we assuage.

Like Socrates, obnoxious to the jest

Of Alcibiades disdaining rest,

We still can find in leisure what we feel

Must a supernal joy to man reveal;

For these sweet pleasures more or less must flow

From works divine; and that is all we know.

 

But with God’s works surrounded, to live here

Is thus far Heav’n; and, besides, ’tis clear,

What men already know who search their mind

Surpasses all that on this earth we find.

Yes, traverse slowly now that spacious hall,

And its vast wealth divine will you appal.

For who bestow’d that? whence is it derived?

Your Maker; and to Him it be ascribed.

A thirst for knowledge without seeing this

Is a true end of knowledge but to miss;

To thirst for it as e’en would Diderot,

And only ever thirstier to grow.

But this is simply not to be a man,

Contracting thus his own allotted span.

 

In the heart, conscience, words announced for ears,

Before our face great Nature’s Book appears;

And in that last immense and beauteous page

We see, we feel, and hear what can assuage

The instinct which impels us to desire

Something than all this earth, much purer, higher,

The view of things created, which unites

The ground we tread on with celestial sights.

As in the vales of Heav’n, we here can greet,

Our country’s confines and our ancient seat.

This is affirm’d by Bernard many more,

Anthony, of Padua, famed of yore,

Spain’s Villanova’s Thomas, and of schools,

The angel, who for aiding sight gives rules,

Prescribing how, and by what means we see

In Nature’s face high Heav’n s great mystery.

That Nature’s Author does by vision speak

Is proved, if in ourselves alone we seek.

Vision is His Language unto man,

Let him explain the mystery who can.

“ When learn’d we its alphabet?” demands

The sage who its diffusion understands.

We only know, intuitive perceptions

Which never lead the weakest to deceptions,

Arise from adaptations made, past doubt,

Of things within us to things found without,

From pre-establish ‘d harmony that reigns

Between the soul and Nature’s wide domains,

By means of which, from feelings, we can read

The language which reveals what, we all need

A knowledge of the laws and operations

Of the external world, through all mutations.

“ Oh, what a wond’rous book!” the Spaniard cries,

What deep Theology within it lies!

What beauty in each page we always trace

Of things here visible to all our race!”

And then what echoes through the lofty whole,

As if from voices, to direct the soul

Heav’nward still! though even in this earth’s bower

Are seen the works of the Creator’s power.

Theocritus could sing this beauty well;

Though whither led it, he did never tell.

Dark rocks, blue mountains with the icy peak,

The tragic Muse of old was found to seek.

To forests, flowery meads would oft repair

The Idyl-loving Bard, and Heaven was there;

Although of genius he might feel the sting,

His cure by that reveal’d he did not sing.

Yet there was it extended, bright and calm,

The joy of innocence, of grief the balm.

Then, too, in Nature’s face we here may find

An image of the heaven for our mind.

For, oh! that silence of the verdant wood,

What vistas there, if rightly understood;

That “ morning humour ’neath Verona’s grove”

Denotes the heart that farther still should rove.

Then life itself, so great a mystery,

Of which the action we both feel and see

Life, which no science ever can explain,

Can lead on our minds to Heav’n thus again.

In biologic studies some may rest,

To Heav’n fly others whose content is best.

 

But Beauty, above all, discloses most

What fires with joy the great artistic Host

Of those who, if they cannot paint as well,

Reflect in mind the thoughts no tongue can tell.

Oh Beauty, high Heav’n s secret, ray divine!

Whence comest thou? What mortal can opine?

Why must we love thee, oh what man can tell

Why are we drawn to thee as by a spell,

As magnets draw the iron? Why must we

To thy attraction thus so docile be?

Embrace thy shadow, to thy kisses fly,

Or from thee torn must weep and fade and die?

None know thy secret; all thy empire own;

At thy bright aspect more than earth is shown.

We only know that thy great fascination

Must of our instincts be the revelation.

 

Consider only beauty of the earth,

Which e’en to thoughts divine can here give birth.

What is that vale of Tempe but a way

Through which e’en disembodied souls would stray?

Or view the source of Ladon, with its stream,

Bright Aroanius, an Arcadian dream.

See those clear floods of azure near the shore,

Where faithless men, you’d say, would e’en adore,

Such as that lake from which imperial eyes

Could never turn great symbol for the wise

And then that golden dawn, that ruddy west,

Reveal the portals through which man finds rest,

Which Homer’s heroes seem to have descried

While “gazing on, or into Heaven wide”.

 

When Summer has come so bright

All Nature with joy is clad;

The smile of God seems to light

On creatures to make them glad.

Each field, each grove has its part;

The sky over all pours bliss;

The wood gives ears to your heart,

The wave to the shore its kiss.

’Tis the invisible glows,

Under its vault of bright sapphires,

A  stream from Eden that flows

To the soft music of zephyrs.

The Summer’s bright morn is fire,

The day to effulgence given,

Eve will in glory expire,

Night is a vision of Heav’n.

Yes, God is at all times here;

Saith Hugo, in Lyric strain,

For Spring, Autumn, Winter drear

Have pageants to hail his reign.

 

Then dense is he who cannot understand,

How all things solemn, beautiful, and grand

Disclose a view of that celestial Power

Which rules all beings past the mortal hour;

And, sooth, not “ happy now” “the man”, we cry,

“ To whom great Pan and Silvanus are nigh”,

Or who can say,

“ How oft the Nymphs of groves

And lakes have cheer’d the lonely wight who roves?”

But happy he who sees beyond all plains

The blissful hills where no one more complains!

Who sees, as Samson wish’d, through every pore,

The scenes consummate prompting to adore,

His sight, like feeling, through all parts diffused,

As if to Heav’n’s enchantment he were used.

In fine, this earth extendeth even there,

By means of histories of things that were,

As of those sages, separate to God,

Whose blessed feet its plains and paths have trod.

Ideas, when associated so,

Them will before us bring and clearly show.

On mountains and in woods Mind sees the cell

Of men who thus on earth in Heav’n did dwell.

The tree, the flower, the rock stand not alone;

Their friends it sees when meditative grown,

By thinking on that beauty even there

Which led these sages to a higher air.

For all this joy and beauty in the face

Of Nature, which we thus can daily trace,

Were felt by saints, great Basil, and the rest,

Who, with Augustine, farther sought the best.

Though in the Pagan writers we ne’er find

A trace of what this yieldeth to our mind.

Pausanias will describe each grove and hill;

Cold and unmoved he vieweth beauty still.

His dry details suggest what must be there;

We long to visit sites so grand and fair.

Oh, with what rapture would I always fly

To see what there he says can meet the eye!

This rock projecting, and that winding glade,

The road which mounts where olives cast their shade;

But all this beauty picturesque remains

For him unknown and unexplored domains.

One instance only of this sense is found

Where Scylax the known world would visit round.

He says, “Pellene, rising from the sea,

In Macedonia towers with majesty”.

The Christians first appear to have surveyed

Hills, groves, and lakes as all with beauty made;

As though a sense before unfelt by men

The Picturesque had first awaken’d then.

Where former men had pass’d observing nought,

These see the hand that raised high Heav’n’s vault;

Who will d that rays from distant orbs should yield

The beauteous colours of the earthly field.

Creation then disclosed on every side,

The courts celestial open near and wide,

Comprising earth and all that’s known below,

To what side e’er we turn, where’er we go.

For why are useless flowers all clad so fair

While things most useful earthly raiment wear?

’Tis that the beautiful may point to Heav’n,

For which end chiefly is it ever given.

The use of plants nutritious each one knows,

This is the use of Lilies and the Rose.

With minds directed thus to Nature’s face

The happy garden reaches to each place.

 

While living, still with present mortal sight,

Having left neither men nor this sweet light,

’Tis Heaven we see; and one short moment’s glance,

Beyond all speech, can human minds entrance.

 

But let us now distinguish, choose some parts,

To mark how Heav’n can thus be in our hearts;

Which sphere must yield at least analogy

With all the good that on this earth we see.

What, if things God on earth in Heav’n has wrought

Be like each other more than oft is thought?

’Tis proved, they say, that all the Planets show

The same materials as this globe below,

Which indicates a likeness in them all,

By whatsoever names these worlds we call.

If the same gas and minerals are there,

There may be likewise what on earth is fair,

Intensified perhaps, but, in the main,

What can a certain sameness still sustain

With gladness and with beauty, such as here

To flow from God and Heaven must appear.

But even if the distant worlds we see

With perfect beauty should not all agree,

The nearer we approach to the unseen

The more intense, we know, must be the sheen.

For beauty here derives its charms alone

From what it represents, as sages own.

So Heav’n, where God unseen does ever dwell

Must be of beauty pure th’ eternal well.

The property of beauty is to cause

Pleasure and joy by force of unknown laws.

Judgment with pleasure ever will unite

To swell the blissful tide that flows so bright.

Its source is not the sentiments that rise

To dictate ever where self-interest lies.

The Beautiful and Useful e’en must be

Each sole in mind and rule with sovereignty.

Strange mystery of Nature! quite alone

Will Beauty reign, and claim hearts for her own.

And whither are we led when docile so?

To Paradise, from which this joy must flow.

For know, as all things visible reveal

The things unseen which Nature would conceal,

So all the beautiful that we behold

Flows from the beautiful unseen, untold.

The sheen, invisible to human eyes,

Is the sole fountain that to us supplies

The beautiful in Nature as in Art;

And unseen beauty thus can move our heart

Esthetically e’en. Cut off that spring,

Nor Art nor Nature can produce a thing

That moves us with a sense of beauty so

Without regard to interest here below.

And hence it is, that as we onward stray

Some thoughtful sages would oppose the way,

Crying, with Jouffroy, that this passion keen

For Beauty here has dangers quite unseen;

Yea, none more dangerous he will maintain

Than such a passion which is spent in vain;

Since this great want of beauty for the eye

Can’t here be satisfied, howe’er we try.

While soul and body are so close allied

This highest satisfaction is denied.

It is the pledge, he thinks, of future life,

And so may cheer us midst the mortal strife.

But if it should absorb us in desire,

It yields emotions that perplex and tire.

The Beautiful as such is all divine,

And wholly upon earth it will not shine;

But then, what’s call’d sublime with struggles bound

As human ever on the earth is found.

The fundamental source of the sublime

Is the great struggle that belongs to time.

The pleasure that it yields is not the same

As that which unto us from Beauty came.

This last is all divine, beyond our strife;

The former suits alone our present life.

“ Choose then the path”, he cries; which joy secures,

Struggle, contend, the true sublime is yours.

Let gleams of beauty still direct your way,

But think not that with you they long can stay.

Though still some steps we take while here below,

To follow rays which thus from Heav’n will flow”.

“ This love of beauty,” saith a sage,

Whose writings glow at every page,

“Of man is an essential part,

When he enjoys a healthy heart,

Or human nature whole and sound,

In which it ever will be found.

At times, with faults that love has stood,

But in itself ’tis wholly good;

Of Envy, Avarice, and Care

The deadly foe, and sure to dare

Resist all cruelty”, which shows

The origin from which it flows,

And whither it would lead us, till

In Eden’s fields we found its rill.

Say, what is beauty but a sun

In whose bright ray is Heav’n begun?

Yes, in all the trees and flowers,

Placid lakes and woodbine bowers,

Slopes and lawns, the mountain grove,

Heights to which we still would rove,

Bubbling streams and daisied grass

All that will in charm surpass,

As in sweet Aosta s vale,

Mantled with the olive pale,

We experience what was meant

By what man did not invent.

Haste but alone to France with me,

Where skies inspire felicity.

No sudden streams of damp raw air,

Like false notes in a concert fair,

Will interrupt the calm delight

With which you gaze on what is bright,

The atmospheric joy will seem

To make whate’er you see a dream.

The sunrise on a summer’s morn,

When Nature will herself adorn

As for a fête, while earth will wear

A certain novel aspect there

The ground a Paradise, each spot

Teeming with what is ne’er forgot;

A something you have read about,

Of which the charm is not found out;

An influence of light and air

Producing what is nameless fair;

As towards the south you gaily stray,

And Heav’n descends upon your way,

And the sweet chime of early bells

The truth of all your feeling tells

These incidents of warmer climes

Transport you elsewhere thus at times.

But, wherever artists stray,

Beauty smiles upon their way.

See the dawn that comes with speed,

While on moors the stags will feed,

Purple veil that flies the morn,

Crescent moon with slender horn,

Bright Aurora’s steeds foreshown

By a faint but golden tone,

Stars of spring that fade away

At cerulean tints of day,

Dews and air perfumed around

Sweet Heav’n in them all is found;

For such beauty marks the plan

Meant for creatures and for man.

How can it be ever past?

Elsewhere too it needs must last

In some form, or tone right fair,

Though incomparable there.

So when we enjoy its sheen,

Somewhat of Heav’n here is seen.

 

But Beauty comes in still more radiant vest,

As in the human countenance express’d,

Which some think is the shade or carnal trace

Of the Profiles of the Eternal Face.

In this are many forms, proclaiming each

That Heav’n on earth is now within our reach.

Here, too, we see what God deems good and fair;

Resemblance to it must be likewise there;

So that e’en Science, using prose aright,

Might say angelic forms are here in sight.

“The beautiful and good” can never be

So wholly different from what we see;

Though here, no doubt, ’tis moulded by the tone

Which human minds, in states that differ, own.

 

Where the child sits smiling so,

Where the maiden’s graces flow,

Where the youth will laugh and play,

Where old age will cheerful stay,

Airs from Heav’n perfume the way.

 

Eden never can be far,

No gates stand we need unbar,

When the sight of earthly sheen,

Acting on sensations keen,

Makes us love what is unseen.