252
THE FOURFOLD ASPECT.
Oh! ye lifted up your head, and it seemed the while ye read,
That this death, then, must he found
A Valhalla for the crowned—
The heroic who prevail!
None, be sure, can enter in
Far below a paladin
Of a noble, noble tale!—
So, awfully, ye thought upon the Dead.
That this death, then, must he found
A Valhalla for the crowned—
The heroic who prevail!
None, be sure, can enter in
Far below a paladin
Of a noble, noble tale!—
So, awfully, ye thought upon the Dead.
Ay! hut soon ye woke up shrieking,—
As a child that wakes at night
From a dream of sisters speaking
In a garden's summer-light,—
That wakes, starting up and bounding,
In a lonely, lonely bed,
With a wall of darkness round him
Stifling black about his head!
And the full sense of your mortal
Rushed upon you deep and loud,
And ye heard the thunder hurtle
From the silence of the cloud—
Funeral-torches at your gateway
Threw a dreadful light within;
All things changed! you rose up straightway,
And saluted Death and Sin!
Since,—your outward man has rallied,
And your eye and voice grown bold—
Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid,
With her saddest secret told!
Happy places have grown holy:
If ye went where once ye went,
Only tears would fall down slowly,
As a solemn sacrament;
Merry books, once read for pastime,
If ye dared to read again,
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain!
As a child that wakes at night
From a dream of sisters speaking
In a garden's summer-light,—
That wakes, starting up and bounding,
In a lonely, lonely bed,
With a wall of darkness round him
Stifling black about his head!
And the full sense of your mortal
Rushed upon you deep and loud,
And ye heard the thunder hurtle
From the silence of the cloud—
Funeral-torches at your gateway
Threw a dreadful light within;
All things changed! you rose up straightway,
And saluted Death and Sin!
Since,—your outward man has rallied,
And your eye and voice grown bold—
Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid,
With her saddest secret told!
Happy places have grown holy:
If ye went where once ye went,
Only tears would fall down slowly,
As a solemn sacrament;
Merry books, once read for pastime,
If ye dared to read again,
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain!
