Part 2 (2/2)

Lo, there thy Past's forsaken Paradise Subsideth like some visionary strand, While glimmering faint, the Future's promised land, Illusive from the abyss, seems fain to rise.

This hour alone Hope's broken pledges mar, And Joy now gleams before, now in our rear, Like mirage mocking in some waste afar, Dissolving into air as we draw near.

Beyond our steps the path is sunny-clear, The shadow lying only where we are.

THE ASCENT OF MAN.

PART II.

”Love is for ever poor, and so far from being delicate and beautiful, as mankind imagined, he is squalid and withered ... homeless and unsandalled; he sleeps without covering before the doors, and in the unsheltered streets.”--PLATO.

_THE PILGRIM SOUL._

Through the winding mazes of windy streets Blindly I hurried I knew not whither, Through the dim-lit ways of the brain thus fleets

A fluttering dream driven hither and thither.-- The fitful flare of the moon fled fast, Like a sickly smile now seeming to wither,

Now dark like a scowl in the hurrying blast As ominous shadows swept over the roofs Where white as a ghost the scared moonlight had pa.s.sed.

Curses came mingled with wails and reproofs, With doors banging to and the cras.h.i.+ng of gla.s.s, With the baying of dogs and the clatter of hoofs,

With the rush of the river as, huddling its ma.s.s Of weltering water towards the deep ocean, 'Neath many-arched bridges its eddies did pa.s.s.

A hubbub of voices in savage commotion Was mixed with the storm in a chaos of sound, And thrilled as with ague in shuddering emotion

I fled as the hunted hare flees from the hound.

Past churches whose bells were tumultuously ringing The year in, and clas.h.i.+ng in concord around;

Past the deaf walls of dungeons whose curses seemed clinging To the tempest that s.h.i.+vered and shrieked in amazement; Past brightly lit mansions whence music and singing

Came borne like a scent through the close-curtained cas.e.m.e.nt, To vaults in whose shadow wild outcasts were hiding Their misery deep in the gloom of the bas.e.m.e.nt.

By vociferous taverns where women were biding With features all withered, distorted, aghast; Some sullenly silent, some brutally chiding,

Some reeling away into gloom as I pa.s.sed On, on, through lamp-lighted and fountain-filled places, Where throned in rich temples, resplendent and vast,

The Lord of the City is deafened with praises As wors.h.i.+pping mult.i.tudes kneel as of old; Nor care for the crowds of cadaverous faces,

The men that are marred and the maids that are sold-- Inarticulate ma.s.ses promiscuously jumbled And crushed 'neath their Juggernaut idol of gold.

Lost lives of great cities bespattered and tumbled, Black rags the rain soaks, the wind whips like a knout, Were crouched in the streets there, and o'er them nigh stumbled

A swarm of light maids as they tripped to some rout.

The silk of their raiment voluptuously hisses And flaps o'er the flags as loud laughing they flout

The wine-maddened men they ne'er satiate with kisses For the pearls and the diamonds that make them more fair, For the flash of large jewels that fire them with blisses,

For the glitter of gold in the gold of their hair.

They smiled and they cozened, their bold eyes shone brightly And lightened with laughter, as, lit by the flare

Of the wind-fretted gas-lamps, they footed it lightly, Or, closely enlacing and bowered in gloom, With mouth pressed to hot mouth, their parched lips drain nightly

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