III.

And now so still! This, Cicero, is thy heart; I hear it beating through each purple line. This is thyself, Anacreon--yet thou art Wreath'd, as in Athens, with the Cnidian vine. I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold Thy spirit meets me in the haunted ground! Sublime and eloquent, as while, of old, "It flamed and sparkled in its crystal bound;"[B] These _are_ yourselves--your life of life! The Wise (Minstrel or Sage) _out_ of their books are clay; But _in_ their books, as from their graves, they rise, Angels--that, side by side, upon our way, Walk with and warn us! Hark! the world so loud And _they_, the movers of the world, so still!

What gives this beauty to the grave? the shroud Scarce wraps the Poet, than at once there cease Envy and Hate! "Nine cities claim him dead, Through which the living Homer begg'd his bread!" And what the charm that can such health distil From wither'd leaves--oft poisons in their bloom? We call some books immoral! _Do they live?_ If so, believe me, TIME hath made them pure. In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace-- God wills that nothing evil should endure; The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole, As the dust leaves the disembodied soul! Come from thy niche, Lucretius! Thou didst give Man the black creed of Nothing in the tomb! Well, when we read thee, does the dogma taint? No; with a listless eye we pass it o'er, And linger only on the hues that paint The Poet's spirit lovelier than his lore. None learn from thee to cavil with their God; None commune with thy genius to depart Without a loftier instinct of the heart. Thou mak'st no Atheist--thou but mak'st the mind Richer in gifts which Atheists best confute-- FANCY AND THOUGHT! 'Tis these that from the sod Lift us! The life which soars above the brute Ever and mightiest, breathes from a great Poet's lute! Lo! that grim Merriment of Hatred;[C]--born Of him--the Master-Mocker of Mankind, Beside the grin of whose malignant spleen, Voltaire's gay sarcasm seems a smile serene,-- Do we not place it in our children's hands, Leading young Hope through Lemuel's fabled lands?-- God's and man's libel in that foul yahoo!-- Well, and what mischief can the libel do? O impotence of Genius to belie Its glorious task--its mission from the sky! Swift wrote this book to wreak a ribald scorn On aught the man should love or Priest should mourn-- And lo! the book, from all its ends beguiled, A harmless wonder to some happy child!