THE fashions and the forms of men decay,
The seasons perish, the calm sunsets die,
Ne’er with the same bright pomp of cloud or ray
To flush the golden pathways of the sky;
All things are lost in dread eternity,–
States, empires, creeds, the lay
Of master poets, even the shapes of love,
Bear ever with them an invisible shade,
Whose name is Death; we cannot breathe nor move,
But that we touch the darkness, till dismayed,
We feel the imperious shadow freeze our hearts,
And mortal hope grows pale and fluttering life departs.
All things are lost in dread eternity,
Save that majestic virtue which is given
Once, twice, perchance beneath our earthly heaven,
To some great soul in ages: O! the lie,
The base, incarnate lie we call the world,
Shakes at his coming, as the forest shakes,
When mountain storms, with bannered clouds unfurled,
Rush down and rend it; sleek convention drops
Its glittering mass, and hoary, cobwebbed rules
Of petty charlatans or insolent fools
Shrink to annihilation,–Truth awakes,
A morning splendor in her fearless eyes,
Touching the delicate stops
Of some rare lute which breathes of promise fair,
Or pouring on the covenanted air
A trumpet blast which startles, but makes strong,
While ancient Wrong,
Driven like a beast from his deep-caverned lair,
Grows gaunt, and inly quakes,
Knowing that retribution draws so near!
Whether with blade or pen
Toil these immortal men,
Theirs is the light supreme, which genius wed
To a clear spiritual dower.
Hath ever o’er the arous
(Paul Hamilton Hayne)
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