That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, — puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
THE HUSBAND AND WIFE'S GRAVE.
HUSBAND and wife! no converse now ye hold,
As once ye did in your young days of love,
On its alarms, its anxious hours, delays,
Its silent meditations and glad hopes,
Its fears, impatience, quiet sympathies ;
Nor do ye speak of joy assured, and bliss
Full, certain, and possessed. Domestic cares
Call you not now together. Earnest talk
On what your children may be moves you not.
Ye lie in silence, and an awful silence;
Not like to that in which ye rested once
Most happy, silence eloquent, when heart
With heart held speech, and your mysterious
frames,
Harmonious, sensitive, at every beat
Touched the soft notes of love.
And do our loves all perish with our frames?
Do those that took their root and put forth buds,
And then soft leaves unfolded in the warmth
Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty,
Then fade and fall, like fair, unconscious flowers?
Are thoughts and passions that to the tongue give
speech,
And make it set forth winning harmonies,
That to the cheek do give its living glow,
And vision in the eye the soul intense
With that for which there is no utterance,
Are these the body's accidents, no more?
To live in it, and when that dies go out
Like the burnt taper's flame?
O listen, man!
A voice within us speaks the startling word,
"Man, thou shalt never die !" celestial voices
Hymn it around our souls; according harps,
By angel fingers touched when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality;
Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn, universal song.
O listen, ye, our spirits! drink it in
From all the air! "T is in the gentle moonlight;
Is floating in day's setting glories; Night,
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears; -
Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtfuleve,
As one great mystic instrument, are touched
A stillness deep, By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.
Insensible, unheeding, folds you round,
And darkness, as a stone, has sealed you in;
Away from all the living, here ye rest,
In all the nearness of the narrow tomb,
Yet feel ye not each other's presence now;
Dread fellowship!- together, yet alone.
Is this thy prison-house, thy grave, then, Love?
And doth death cancel the great bond that holds
Commingling spirits? Are thoughts that know no
bounds,
But, self-inspired, rise upward, searching out
The Eternal Mind, the Father of all thought,
Are they become mere tenants of a tomb?-
Dwellers in darkness, who the illuminate realms
Of uncreated light have visited and lived? -
Lived in the dreadful splendor of that throne
Which One, with gentle hand the veil of flesh
Lifting that hung 'twixt man and it, revealed
In glory?-throne before which even now
Our souls, moved by prophetic power, bow down
Rejoicing, yet at their own natures awed ? —
Souls that thee know by a mysterious sense,
Thou awful unseen Presence, - -are they quenched?
Or burn they on, hid from our mortal eyes
By that bright day which ends not, as the sun
His robe of light flings round the glittering stars?
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The dying hear it; and, as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.
Why is it that I linger round this tomb?
What holds it? Dust that cumbered those I
They shook it off, and laid aside earth's robes,
And put on those of light. They 're gone to dwell
In love, their God's and angels'? Mutual love,
That bound them here, no longer needs a speech
For full communion; nor sensations strong,
Within the breast, their prison, strive in vain
To be set free, and meet their kind in joy.
Changed to celestials; thoughts that rise in each
By natures new impart themselves, though silent.
Each quickening sense, each throb of holy love,
Affections sanctified, and the full glow
Of being, which expand and gladden one,
By union all mysterious, thrill and live
In both immortal frames ;-sensation all,
And thought, pervading, mingling sense and
thought!
Ye paired, yet one! wrapt in a consciousness
Twofold, yet single, this is love, this life !
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds;
Save that, from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient, solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, Or busy housewife ply her evening care; No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke ; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke !
Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour;
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where, through the long-drawn aisle and fretted
vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn, or animated bust,
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre;
But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood; Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest; Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. The applause of listening senates to command, The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbade; nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride
With incense kindled at the muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture
decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered
The place of fame and elegy supply; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned, Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say :
"Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn, Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high, His listless length at noontide would he stretch, And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
"Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.
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