Hesperus by Charles Sangster (book club suggestions TXT) 📖

far arctic and antarctic zones,
Through all the vast, surrounding infinite,
A wilderness of intermingling orbs,
The gleaming wonders, pulsing earthward, came;
Each to its destined place,
Each in itself a world,
With all its coining myriad life,
Drawing us nearer the Omnipotent,
With hearts of wonder, and with souls of praise:
Astrea, Pallas, strange Aldebaran,
The Pleiads, Arcturus, the ruddy Mars,
Pale Saturn, Ceres and Orion--
All as they circle still
Through the enraptured void.
For each young angel born to us from earth,
A new-made star is launched among its peers.


FULL ANGEL CHORUS.

Dreamer in the realms aërial,
Searcher for the true and good,

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Hoper for the high, ethereal
Limit of Beatitude,
Lift thy heart to heaven, for there
Is embalmed thy spirit prayer:
Not in words is shrined thy prayer,
But thy Thought awaits thee there.
God loves the silent worshipper.
The grandest hymn
That nature chants--the litany
Of the rejoicing stars--is silent praise.
Their nightly anthems stir
The souls of lofty seraphim
In the remotest heaven. The melody
Descends in throbbings of celestial light
Into the heart of man, whose upward gaze,
And meditative aspect, tell
Of the heart's incense passing up the night.
Above the crystalline height
The theme of thoughtful praise ascends.
Not from the wildest swell
Of the vexed ocean soars the fullest psalm;
But in the evening calm,
And in the solemn midnight, silence blends
With silence, and to the ear
Attuned to harmony divine
Begets a strain
Whose trance-like stillness wakes delicious pain.
The silent tear
Holds keener anguish in its orb of brine,
Deeper and truer grief
Than the loud wail that brings relief,

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As thunder clears the atmosphere.
But the deep, tearless Sorrow,--how profound!
Unspoken to the ear
Of sense, 'tis yet as eloquent a sound
As that which wakes the lyre
Of the rejoicing Day, when
Morn on the mountains lights his urn of fire.
The flowers of the glen
Rejoice in silence; huge pines stand apart
Upon the lofty hills, and sigh
Their woes to every breeze that passeth by;
The willow tells its mournful tale
So tenderly, that e'en the passing gale
Bears not a murmur on its wings
Of what the spirit sings
That breathes its trembling thoughts through all the
drooping strings.
He loves God most who worships most
In the obedient heart.
The thunder's noisome boast,
What is it to the violet lightning thought?
So with the burning passion of the stars--
Creation's diamond sands,
Strewn along the pearly strands,
And far-extending corridors
Of heaven's blooming shores;
No scintil of their jewelled flame
But wafts the exquisite essence
Of prayer to the Eternal Presence,
Of praise to the Eternal Name.
The silent prayer unbars

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The gates of Paradise, while the too-intimate,
Self-righteous' boast, strikes rudely at the gate
Of heaven, unknowing why it does not open to
Their summons, as they see pale Silence passing through.


VIII.

In grateful admiration, till the Dawn
Withdrew the gleaming curtains of the night,
We watched the whirling systems, until each
Could recognize their own peculiar star;
When, with the swift celerity
Of Fancy-footed Thought,
The light-caparisoned, aërial steeds,
Shod with rare fleetness,
Revisited the farthest of the spheres
Ere the earth's sun had kissed the mountain tops,
Or shook the sea-pearls from his locks of gold.

------

Still on the Evening Star
Gazed we with steadfast eyes,
As it shone
On its throne
Afar,
In the blue skies.
No longer the charioteers
Dashed through the gleaming spheres;
No more the evangels
Rehearsed the glad story;
But, in passing, the angels
Left footprints of glory:

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For up the starry void
Bright-flashing asteroid,
Pale moon and starry choir,
Aided by Fancy's fire,
Rung from the glittering lyre
Changes of song and hymn,
Worthy of Seraphim.
Night's shepherdess sat, queenlike, on her throne,
Watching her starry flocks from zone to zone,
While we, like mortals turned to breathing stone,
Intently pondered on the Known Unknown.


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CROWNED.

Her thoughts are sweet glimpses of heaven,
Her life is that heaven brought down;
Oh, never to mortal was given
So rare and bejewelled a crown!
I'll wear it as saints wear the glory
That radiantly clasps them above--
Oh, dower most fair!
Oh, diadem rare!
Bright crown of her maidenly love.

My heart is a fane of devotion,
My feelings are converts at prayer,
And every thrill of emotion
Makes dearer the crown I would wear.
My soul in its fulness of rapture
Begins its millennial reign,
Life glows like a sun,
Love's zenith is won,
And Joy is sole monarch again.

My noonday of life is as morning,
God's light streams approvingly down;
Uncovered, I wait her adorning,
She comes with the beautiful crown!
I'll wear it as saints wear the glory
That radiantly clasps them above--
Oh, dower most fair!
Oh, diadem rare!
Bright crown of her maidenly love.


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MARILINE.

At the wheel plied Mariline,
Beauteous and self-serene,
Never dreaming of that mien
Fit for lady or for queen.

Never sang she, but her words,
Music-laden, swept the chords

Of the heart, that eagerly
Stored the subtle melody,
Like the honey in the bee;
Never spake, but showed that she

Held the golden master-key
That unlocked all sympathy

Pent in souls where Feeling glows,
Like the perfume in the rose,
Like her own innate repose,
Like the whiteness in the snows.

Richly thoughted Mariline!
Nature's heiress!--nature's queen!


II.

By her side, with liberal look,
Paused a student o'er a book,
Wielder of a shepherd's crook,
Reveller by grove and brook:

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Hunter-up of musty tomes,
Worshipper of deathless poems:

Lover of the true and good,
Hater of sin's evil brood,
Votary of solitude,
Man, of mind-like amplitude.

With exalted eye serene
Gazed he on fair Mariline.

Swifter whirled the busy wheel,
Piled the thread upon the reel--
Saw she not his spirit kneel,
Praying for her after-weal?

Like the wife of Collatine,
Busily spun Mariline.


III.

Hour by hour, and day by day,
Sang the maid her roundelay;
Hour by hour, and day by day,
Spun her threads of white and gray.

While the shepherd-student held
Commune with the great of eld:

Pondered on their wondrous words,
While he watched his scattered herds,
While he stemmed the surging fords.
And he knew the lore of birds,

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Learned the secrets of the rills,
Conversed with the answering hills.

Like her threads of white and gray,
Passed their mingled Eves away,
One unceasing roundelay--
Winter came, it still was May!


IV.

When the spring smiled, opening up
Pink-lipped flower and acorn cup;

When the summer waked the rose
In the scented briar boughs;
When the earth, with painless throes,
Bore her golden autumn rows--

Field on field of grain, that pressed,
Childlike, to her fruitful breast--

When hale winter wrapped his form
In the mantle of the storm,
Tamed the bird, and chilled the worm,
Stopped the pulse that thrilled the germ;

As the seasons went and came,
One in heart, and hope, and aim,

Cheered they each the other on,
Where was labor to be done,
At day-break or set of sun,
Like two thoughts that merge in one.

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Dignified, and soul-serene,
Busily spun Mariline.


V.

Brightly broke the summer morn,
Like a lark from out the corn,--
Broke like joy just newly born
From the depths of woe forlorn,--

Broke with grateful songs of birds,
Lowings of well-pastured herds;

Hailed by childhood's happy looks,
Cheered by anthems of the brooks--
Chants beyond the lore of books--
Cawing crows, instead of rooks.

Glowed the heavens--rose the sun,
Mariline was up, for one.


VI.

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