Until the overburdened brain,
Weary with labor, faint with pain, Like a jarred pendulum, retain Only its motion, not its power, Remember, in that perilous hour, When most afflicted and oppressed From labor there shall come forth
And if a more auspicious fate On thy advancing steps await,
Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along of the poor,
Of the great army
O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous mo
Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern
True beauty in utility;
As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue, The secret of the sounding wire, And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. Thy destiny remains untold; For, like Acestes' shaft of old,
The swift thought kindles as it flies,
And burns to ashes in the skies.
I SAW, as in a dream sublime, The balance in the hand of Time. O'er East and West its beam impen And day, with all its hours of light, Was slowly sinking out of sight, While, opposite, the scale of night Silently with the stars ascended.
Like the astrologers of eld, In that bright vision I beheld
THE OCCULTATION OF ORION.
Greater and deeper mysteries. I saw, with its celestial keys, Its chords of air, its frets of fire, The Samian's great Æolian lyre, Rising through all its sevenfold bars, From earth unto the fixed stars. And through the dewy atmosphere, Not only could I see, but hear, Its wondrous and harmonious strings, In sweet vibration, sphere by sphere, From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings, Where, chanting through his beard of snows, Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,
And down the sunless realms of space
Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch This music sounded like a march,
And with its chorus seemed to be
Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east ; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast!
His sword hung gleaming by his side And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air
The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God, Unharmed with naked feet she trod
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