The Young Man's Song

At last the curse has run its date! The heavens grow clear above, And on the purple plains of Hate, We'll build the throne of Love! One great heroic reign divine Shall mock the Elysian isles, And love in arms shall only shine Less fair than Love in smiles! Old Clio, burn thine ancient scroll, The scroll of Rome and Greece! Our war shall be a parable On all the texts of peace, And saints look down, with eyes of praise, Where on our modern field The new Samaritan forelays The wrongs that other healed! What virtue is beyond our prize? What deed beneath you sun More Godlike than the prodigies We mortal men have done We wearied of the lagging steed, The dove had not a quill To fledge the imaginable speed Of our wild shaft of will; 'Ah, could each word be winged with wind, And speech be swift as sight!' We cursed the long arms of that blind Dumb herald on the height, Dark struggling with a mystery He daily hid in shades, As a ghost steams up on the eye, Begins a Fate and fades. 'If, like a man, dull space could hear! If, like a man, obey!' We seized this earthly hemisphere, This senseless skull of clay. We drew from Heaven a breath of flame, And thro' the lifeless whole Did breathe it till the orb became One brain of burning soul. As he o'er whom a tyrant reigns, It waits our sovran word, And thinks along the living veins The lightnings of its lord! What Force can meet our matchless might? What Power is not our slave? We bound the angel of the light, We scourged him in a cave. And when we saw the prisoner pine For his immortal land, We wrung a ransom, half divine, From that celestial hand Whose skill the heavy chain subdued, And all a captive's woe Did tame to such a tempered good As mortal eyes can know. Who comes, who comes, o'er mountains laid, Vales lifted, straightened ways? 'Tis he! the mightier horse we made To serve our nobler days! But now, unheard, I saw afar His cloud of windy mane, Now, level as a blazing star, He thunders thro' the plain! The life he needs, the food he loves, This cold earth bears no more; He fodders on the eternal groves That heard the dragons roar, Strong with the feast he roars and runs, And, in his maw unfurled, Evolves the folded fires of suns That lit a grander world! Yon bird, the swiftest in the sky, Before him sprang, but he Has passed her as a wind goes by A struggler in the sea. With forward beak and forward blows, She slides back from his side; While ever as the monster goes, With needless power and pride, Disdainful from his fiery jaws He snorts his vital heat, And, easy as his shadow, draws, Long-drawn, the living street. He's gone! Methinks that over him, Like Curtius in the abyss, I see great gulphs close rim to rim, And Past and Future kiss! Oh, Man! as from the flood sublime Some alp rose calm and slow, So from the exhaling floods of time I see thy stature grow. Long since thy royal brow, uncrowned, Allegiant nature saw, Long since thine eye of empire frowned The heavenly thrones to awe; And now the monarch's breast apart Divides the sinking spray, Fit dome for such gigantic heart As warms so vast a sway. Far o'er the watery wilds I see Thy great right-arm upsurge, Thy right-hand, armed with victory, Is sunburst on the verge! Arise, arise! oh, sword! and sweep One universal morn! Another throe, thou labouring Deep, And all the god is born! So sang a youth of glorious blood. Below, the wind-hawk shook her wings, And lower, in its kingdom, stood A tower of ancient kings. Above, the autumn sky was blue, Far round the golden world was fair, And, gun by gun, the ramparts blew A battle on the air.