Walter Richard Cassels

“ May love and sympathy wave through the Earth.
Life without love, is sorrow without hope.
O Love! thou law of Heaven! thou joy of Earth!
That like the Star of Bethlehem dost rest
Above the cradle of a Poet's soul,
The witness and the seal of holy birth;
Before whose brightness all earth's shadows fade
Like fiends before the angel of the Lord;
That rend'st in twain the veil of doubt and fear
Shrouding the perfectness of heaven's pure bliss,
Till man may worship with unsmitten soul
Before the glory of the inner shrine;
O Love! the Quenchless! Pure! and Beautiful! ”

“ Only in obedience to law is there life and safety. Knowledge of law is imperatively demanded by nature. Ignorance of it is a capital offence. If we ignore the law of gravitation we are dashed to pieces at the foot of a precipice, or are crushed by a falling rock; if we neglect sanatory law, we are destroyed by a pestilence; if we disregard chemical laws, we are poisoned by a vapour. There is not, in reality, a gradation of breach of law that is not followed by an equivalent gradation of punishment. Civilization is nothing but the knowledge and observance of natural laws. ”

“ Though not in Earth's eyes, still in Heaven's, which see
Each task accomplish'd not in poor degree,
But as fain workings out of Duty's plan,—
The hewers and the drawers of the land,
No whit behind the mighty and the great,
Bearing unmoved the burden of the State,—
Alike each duty challenged at man's hand.
Life is built up of smallest atomics,
Pile upon pile the ramparts still increase,
And as those, Roman walls, o'er which in scorn
The scoffer leapt, soon held the world at bay,
So shall thy deeds of duty, lowly born,
Be thy strong tower and glory ere the set of day. ”

“ The whole of his evidence for the Resurrection consists in the bare statement that he did see Jesus. Now can the fact that any man merely affirms, without even stating the circumstances, that a person once dead and buried has risen from the dead and been seen by him, be seriously considered satisfactory evidence for so astounding a miracle? Is it possible for any one of sober mind, acquainted with the nature of the proposition, on the one hand, and with the innumerable possibilities of error, on the other, to regard such an affirmation even as evidence of much importance in such a matter? ”

“ And the poet bent to meet her,
For he said "The truth will be
Made through Sorrow ever sweeter,
Ever clearer unto me.
"We are blinded by the sunlight
From the heaven's unclouded blue,
But through mist we eye the One-light
Till we read it through and through."
To the beautiful the Spirit
Open'd wide her loving breast,
Wooed their souls to nestle near it
And from life's excitement rest,
Whispering, "Sleep on Sorrow's bosom,
Dear ones, and your souls will rise
With fresh sweetness on their blossom,
Richer perfume, brighter dyes." ”

“ Steals o'er her fragile body, dulls her sense,
And wraps her wholly in its chill embrace;
That thus, spell-bound, lost to the living world,
She lies till thou again unwind her chain,
And wak'st her feebly to this life of earth.
Thus dost thou peril her, thou blinded man!
Sett'st her dear life against thy moonstruck thought,
And slay'st thy dove on Folly's altar-steps.
MAURICE. Ay! if you loved her, would your eyes have miss'd
The moonish faintness that o'erlaps her now,
Melting the fresh, full, ruddy glow of health
To loveliness most heavenly, yet most sad? ”

“ Do we think it giving a reason for our confidence in the future to say that, though no man has had experience of what is future, every man has had experience of what was future? It is true that what is future becomes at every step of our advance what was future, but that which is now still future is not the least altered by that circumstance; it is as invisible, as unknown, and as unexplored as if it were the very beginning and the very starting-point of nature. At this starting-point of nature what would a man know of its future course? ”

“ Let the life draught flow o'er my powerless lips.
O! yet I see her, with those blessed eyes
Slaying my soul with beauty; eyes so deep,
That in their azure ocean of soft light
Thought shrank into a fathom length; and smiles,
Stealing their sweetness from a heaven of love,
And joy, and immortality within,
Whence all emotion, angel-like, came forth,
Clad in a vesture of celestial light.
Her face beamed on me like a glimpse of heaven
Caught in the rapture of prophetic trance,
That in all day-light thoughts, and shaded dreams,
Haunts the deep soul for ever. ”

“ Soft as the singing of a little child,
Heaven's music on light pinions floateth near,
Through all the strife of Earth, so harsh and wild;
Time's stream is rippling on its marges clear.
The end is nigh—the end of grief and pain,
And Life's broad gates are opening to my soul;
O'er my weak heart no more shall sorrow reign,
Enfranchised soon 'twill spurn the harsh control,
And never feel its empiry again.
No more, Filippo, shall my hapless life
Stand betwixt thee and pleasure,—Duty's knot
Shall soon be sever'd by the headsman's knife ”

“ As angels up the sunshine. Thought and deed
Are blessed in the framing and the act,
Fashioned and temper'd with pure charity,
That knits man unto man, and grants the weak
Exemption from the thraldom of the strong;—
And things inanimate, that yet are pierced
Through with the spirit of eternal love,
As with a life that circulates and glows
In ruddy currents throughout all their frame,
By gracious intuition stand revealed
In all the plenitude of Eden charms.
Then Nature's language reaches to the heart,
As through the modulations of a song
Sweet thoughts flow o'er the spirit. ”

“ Till glory flood my vision utterly.
The sun! the sun! I see it upward roll'd,—
Day for the world, but life, fire-life for me,
Smiting asunder Death's night-mystery
With lightning-blade of strength and ecstasy!
Now, on to work and action, seeing clear—
Blindness swift throwing to Time's charnel-place—
Eyeing, unscathed, the Sun-god face to face!
Ho! light! more light! dissolving sphere on sphere!
Would that my very life could lighten space,
Shining out like some constellation bright,
Back beating all the myrmidons of Night,
With starry splendors flashing sword and spear! ”

“ Set deeds in the world's face, and cry "Do thus!"
The Poet's life is action spiritualized,
Words sublimate by earnestness and truth
To the reality and force of deed—
Falling upon the great world's soul like spells
That take the reason captive, and subdue
Its motions to the gentle sway of love.
His thoughts are like the moonlight that enshrines
All earth and heaven with beauty and soft grace,
Pouring rich floods of radiance divine
O'er life's reality of grief and pain,
Making e'en sorrow luminous and sweet,
And freighting sighs with gentlest melody. ”

“ And sweet as Morn be her awaking.
THE EAGLE. The winds sweep by him on his mountain throne,
Hurling the clouds together at his feet,
Till Earth is hidden, lost, and swallow'd up
As in the flood of waters,—and he sits
Eyeing the boundless firmament above,
Proud and unruffled, till his heart exclaims,—
"I am a god, Heaven is my home,—the Earth
Serveth me but for footstool."
The strong winds
Sweep on, and wide his pinions spreadeth he,—
"Bear me afar!" and on the mighty storm
He rides triumphant, spurning the dim Earth—
Whither, O whither goest thou? ”

“ And fineless as the unresting winds of heaven,
Now rushing with wild joy around the belt
Of whirling Saturn, then away through space
Till he and all his radiant brotherhood
Dwindle to fire-flies round the brow of Night.
Thought is the great creator under God,
Begotten of his breathing, that can raise
Shapes from the dust and give them Beauty's soul;
And though my empire be a continent,
Squared down from leagues to inches, what of that?
The mind contains a world within its frame
Which Fancy peoples o'er with radiant forms,
Replete with life and spirit excellence. ”

“ Give me a child to guide me—e'en the least.
Then on! thou giant, child-led, through the land,
Tottering feebly with uncertain stride,
With heavy moans along the mountain side,
Groping the darkness wildly, staff in hand,
Staying, deep-voiced, the quick steps of thy guide;
On! with wild sightless sockets to the sun,
Thirsting for the light-streams that around it run;
Far on yon summit, turning eastward, stand!
God! let me rather die than thus, child-led,
Totter about the world an infant's slave—
Ay! die, and darkly slumber in the grave!—
Peace! proud one, bow thine unsubmitting head ”

“ No joys too blissful o'er her life to shed.
And thus the land became a Paradise,
A new-made Eden, redolent of joy,
Where beauty blossom'd under sunny skies,
And peaceful pleasure reign'd without alloy.
THE LAND'S END. I stood on the Land's End, alone and still.
Man might have been unmade, for no frail trace
Of mortal labour startled the wild place,
And only sea-mews with their wailing shrill,
Circled beneath me over the dark sea,
Flashing the waves with pinions snowy white,
That glimmer'd faintly in the gloomy light
Betwixt the foaming furrows constantly. ”

“ Obscure her taintless heavens, and the blue mist,
Which is the spirit of the rising dew,
Hangs o'er it like the sadness of first love,
That makes youth beautiful. The lark is up
[Pg 68] And singing like a disembodied soul
Within the brightness of the blessed sun,
Telling of naught but heaven and happiness;
There is no dew upon her bosom now,
For the young beams have kissed it utterly;
Yet over flower, and bud, and blade there lies
The crystal tissue, trembling with soft light,
As the young day moves gaily up the sky,
And sheds his guerdon o'er the waiting Earth. ”

“ Life is his seed-time, after life his rest.
Had he not joyed to scan that lovely form,
And mark each glorious lineament, that held
A model up to Nature of pure grace
Unblemished by the shadow of a fault?
Had he not loved with more than Artist soul
The beauteous creature of his heaven-drawn power,
And oped again the flood-gates of his heart
To the full current of humanity?
Had he not thanked the gods for victory,
And gloried in his strength with conscious might
That made e'en fame his fellow? Yet he stood
Silent and sad beside his finished work.
What lacked he yet? Life! life! ”

“ Till the leaves open, and the glory streams
Down through my trancèd soul in radiant dreams.
Too short—too short—soon comes the chilly morn,
To shake from love's boughs all their sleep-born bloom,
And wake my heart back to its bitter doom,
Sending me through the land down-cast, forlorn,
Whilst thou, my Beautiful, art far away,
Bearing the brightness from my joyless day.
I stand and gaze across Earth's fairest sea,
And still the plashing of the restless main,
Sounds like the clashing of a prisoner's chain,
That binds me, oh! my Beautiful, from thee. ”

“ Yet now, methinks, I seem to see
One spot of burning brightness, beaming clear
Through all the floating glory, like a sphere
Quenching light with its own intensity.
Yes! yes! it is the Holy City I behold,
With God's sun, from its towers of burnish'd gold,
Reflected broadly through immensity!
I must gaze out, although I die:
Ah! yes, I see it through my longing tears—
A great clear glow of glory there appears,
Like a light-fountain in the eastern sky,
That as I gaze pours forth its living light,
Flooding Creation, till the dazzled sight
Sees Heaven in all things that around it lie. ”

“ That weave your myriads in a golden chain
To bind creation with the Beautiful,
As locks are interrun with precious gems
To deck a queen out for her royalty:
Hear me, ye bright ones, for a poet's love,
And let light fall upon my swelling soul,
To crest each rising thought with purity!
There was a time—in youth, ere yet the sands
Of life clogged 'neath satiety, but ran
Lighter than blithe rills down a mountain's side ”

“ O what were matter, fashioned ne'er so fair,
But for the beaming of that quenchless light
That plays around it, like the radiance
Of heaven's own glory stamped upon its work?
[Pg 24] What were the charm of the soft arching brow
White as the snow-flake 'neath its golden braid?
What were the dimpled cheek with roseate shades
Spread o'er it like the budding of a flower,
The lips' ripe crimson, and the melting eye,
Unbrightened by the sunshine from within,
The emanations of seraphic thought,
And full emotion, kindling into life
Light, grace, the temple that they glorify? ”

“ Steadfast and pure as the true men of old.
Strength for the sunshine, strength for the gloom,
Strength for the conflict, strength for the tomb;
Let not the heart feel a craven fear—
Draw from the fountain deep and clear;
Brim up Life's chalice—pour in! pour in!
Pour in Strength!
Life's chalice is empty—pour in! pour in!
What—Pour in Truth!
Drink! till the mists that enshroud the soul,
Like sleep's drowsy shadows backward roll,
And show the spirit its radiant goal,
That nought may blind it all its days,
Or tempt it down earth's crooked ways ”

“ Have the soft cadence of an angel's mirth;
The springs of genius—high imaginings
That are the wealth of ages, and the birth
Of Art, beneath whose vivifying wand
The stone, the canvas, animated, stand.
III.
Thy very dust is hallowed, and we tread
The footsteps of the mighty, meeting ever
The prized memorials of the Living Dead,
Those whose sublimëd spirits, waning never,
Hover around the struggling world and shed
Their blessings o'er it, which nor time can sever,
Nor can oblivion crush, but which endure
Strong in their greatness, in their truth secure. ”

“ Where 'neath its ruthless tide on hill or plain,
No flower or shady leaf shall bud again.
Slowly thus the ocean creeping,
Creeping coldly o'er the world of old,
Stole many an Eden from the Age of Gold,
And gazing now we see blank billows sweeping,
Long cheerless wavings of the sullen seas,
Were once the sun shone bright on flowery leas.
Over Earth, and over Being,
Over many glories of the Past,
Remorseless floods are flowing fierce and fast,
Snatching sun-lighted Tempes from our seeing,
Rolling their dreary surges o'er the shore,
Where Love had hoped to dwell for evermore. ”

“ In heaven's wide treasury shines in thy tale?
Spirit.
Listen! e'en in this paradise there works
A mighty power of evil, conjured there
By acts of foreknown consequence. This rears
A standard of rebellion against God,
And whirls a giddy tide of interest
And pleasure to suck souls unto itself,
The centre—dashing sorrow like salt foam
To sterilize humanity. Yet still
There is a virtue, given to make its guiles
Shrink into ruin, like a withered leaf,
And pass the spirit scatheless. 'Tis a strife
Of spirit against spirit, whose result
Of loss or gain fashions eternity. ”

“ We are all one with Nature—every breeze
Stealeth about the chambers of the soul,
Haunting their rest with sounds of joy or dole;
And every cloud that creepeth from the seas,
Traileth its shade o'er human sympathies.
Blow! blow, thou weird wind, till the clouds be rent,
And starlight glimmer through the riven seams,
Scatter their darkness like the mist of dreams,
Till all the fleeting, spectre-gloom be spent,
And the bright Future gem the firmament.
Blow! blow! Night's "Mene Tekel" even now
Glows on her palace-walls, and she shall pass
Like the dim vapour from a burnish'd glass ”

“ The very clouds that scan the blue of heaven,
Fused sometimes by the sunshine as with soul,
Or flaked by the light fancies of the gale,
Form to the vision labyrinths of grace
And beauty, that melt into space, and spread
A hemisphere of magic o'er the orb—
And thro' this world at morning, noon, and night,
A dreamy sweetness wanders, varying
From blessing unto blessing, that the sense
Of pleasure dull not with satiety.
Man.
And it is habited?
Spirit.
By beings framed
After the model of all perfectness. ”

“ Opening Earth's portals wide to let thee wend
Forth to Plutonian realms of gloom away;
And never more about the waiting land
Stray'd thy light steps at morn or shady eve.
No fountain hid thine image in its heart;
No flowers leapt up to wreathe thy golden hair;
No more the fawns within the forest glade
Follow'd a foot more lightsome than their own;
The moon stole through the night in dim surprise;
And all the stars look'd pale with wondering;
For thou cam'st not, O lost Eurydice!
Earth found thee not, O lost Eurydice! ”

“ To look on sorrow with undaunted mien,
And smile away the fears that trouble brings—
To bear unto the stricken solace sweet
As water to the wounded, and to be
A strength and an assurance to the weak.
Ay! life, like matter, is atomic, and
Man blows unto the winds what multiplied
Makes up the universe. This radiant earth,
Which, in its penitential moods the heart
Feels were a paradise if guilt were not,
Sprung from the womb of space, in perfectness
Co-equal with the fairest orb that holds
Vice-royalty in heaven for the sun ”

“ MORGAN. But in this one act all his fury pass'd;
And turning softly from the dead child there,
Suffering none to touch it where it lay,
He sat him down in awful calmness nigh,
And gazed forth blankly like a sculptured face;
And when we fain would pass to take the child,
A strange wild voice still warns us back again,
"Hush! for the boy is sleeping." It would seem
He will not think that Death hath struck the babe,
But blinds his willing soul, and deems it sleep.
MONK. A longer sleep, whose waking is not here!
Poor soul! that, catching at the skirts of Truth. ”

“ Should darken o'er with clouds as it roll on,
Still love would light them on, like the bright guide
Of Israel, to the promised land of rest.
'Tis beautiful, love plighted in the morn
Of life, when not a shadow dims its heaven—
Plighted for good or ill, as fate may rule,
Enduring alike true through sun and storm,
Save when the cold blast sweeps across the way,
It knits them only closer heart to heart. ”

“ Stay'd his slow steps beside a marble block,
Hewn from some far unstain'd Italian rock,
That for his shaping chisel waiting stood.
Then his heart spoke out to him, "Not alone
This thought divine hides in the streams and woods,
Seeking expression through their solitudes,
Perchance e'en lies it in this unhewn stone.
It may be that the soul which fills all space,
And speaks up to us from each thing we see,
In words that are for ever mystery,
Within this Parian, too, hath resting-place." ”

“ Stand forth, thou Conqueror, before God's throne,
Thou ruler, thou Earth-leader, great and strong,
Behold thy work, thy doing, labour'd long,
Before that mighty Presence little grown.
Stand forth, thou Man, low toiling 'mid the lees,
That measurest Duty out in poor degrees;
Are not all deeds, beside the deeds of Heaven,
But as the sands upon the ocean shore,
Which, softly breath'd on by God's winds, are driven
Into dim deserts, thenceforth seen no more! ”

“ Evermore growing with its growth more strong,
Till not e'en Death can tear those arms away;
Love—winging o'er creation like the morn
And show'ring light and beauty as it flies
O'er mountain, vale, and streamlet, equally—
In flowery mead and desert solitude
Making itself a presence of delight,
A radiant glory sweeter than all forms,
All shows, all substance—rising in the soul,
Like water in the desert—heaven in death! ”

“ So do men
Worship me. Oh! the mighty crash ascends,—
The shoutings, and the glory, and the woe,
One great full chaunt of homage to mine ears,—
And there I wait the while the sacrifice
Is slain before me; then down with a swoop
I get me from my skyey throne, and dye
Deep in the ruddy stream my talons grey—
Hurrah! hurrah! blood red's the flag for me!"
The time will come, proud one, when thou shalt die!
"Die! Death I cast from me as these loose plumes
That moult out from my pinions—let them go
To Earth, and Death go with them, both I leave
To mortals. What have I to do with Time? ”

“ Thro' all the pulses of the quiet soul?
The gentle calm that like a whispered song
Steals o'er the sense with sweetest languishment?
Hast thou the magic of the Beautiful,
Wreathing about thy spirit evermore,
In sunshine and in shadow; when the stars
Gather around the azure dome of heaven,
And the pale moon glides like a virgin bride
Humbly behind the footsteps of her love:
When the sweet morn dawns on the sleeping world
To bring reality to visions bright ”