第46章

I have an unexpected revelation to make to the reader.Not long after our visit to the Observatory, the Young Astronomer put a package into my hands, a manuscript, evidently, which he said he would like to have me glance over.I found something in it which interested me, and told him the next day that I should like to read it with some care.He seemed rather pleased at this, and said that he wished I would criticise it as roughly as I liked, and if I saw anything in it which might be dressed to better advantage to treat it freely, just as if it were my own production.It had often happened to him, he went on to say, to be interrupted in his observations by clouds covering the objects he was examining for a longer or shorter time.In these idle moments he had put down many thoughts, unskilfully he feared, but just as they came into his mind.His blank verse he suspected was often faulty.His thoughts he knew must be crude, many of them.It would please him to have me amuse myself by putting them into shape.He was kind enough to say that I was an artist in words, but he held himself as an unskilled apprentice.

I confess I was appalled when I cast my eye upon the title of the manuscript, "Cirri and Nebulae."--Oh! oh!--I said,--that will never do.People don't know what Cirri are, at least not one out of fifty readers."Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts" will do better than that.

--Anything you like,--he answered,--what difference does it make how you christen a foundling? These are not my legitimate scientific offspring, and you may consider them left on your doorstep.

--I will not attempt to say just how much of the diction of these lines belongs to him, and how much to me.He said he would never claim them, after I read them to him in my version.I, on my part, do not wish to be held responsible for some of his more daring thoughts, if I should see fit to reproduce them hereafter.At this time I shall give only the first part of the series of poetical outbreaks for which the young devotee of science must claim his share of the responsibility.I may put some more passages into shape by and by.

WIND-CLOUDS AND STAR-DRIFTS.

I

Another clouded night; the stars are hid, The orb that waits my search is hid with them.

Patience! Why grudge an hour, a month, a year, To plant my ladder and to gain the round That leads my footsteps to the heaven of fame, Where waits the wreath my sleepless midnights won?

Not the stained laurel such as heroes wear That withers when some stronger conqueror's heel Treads down their shrivelling trophies in the dust;But the fair garland whose undying green Not time can change, nor wrath of gods or men!

With quickened heart-beats I shall hear the tongues That speak my praise; but better far the sense That in the unshaped ages, buried deep In the dark mines of unaccomplished time Yet to be stamped with morning's royal die And coined in golden days,--in those dim years I shall be reckoned with the undying dead, My name emblazoned on the fiery arch, Unfading till the stars themselves shall fade.

Then, as they call the roll of shining worlds, Sages of race unborn in accents new Shall count me with the Olympian ones of old, Whose glories kindle through the midnight sky Here glows the God of Battles; this recalls The Lord of Ocean, and yon far-off sphere The Sire of Him who gave his ancient name To the dim planet with the wondrous rings;Here flames the Queen of Beauty's silver lamp, And there the moon-girt orb of mighty Jove;But this, unseen through all earth's aeons past, A youth who watched beneath the western star Sought in the darkness, found, and showed to men;Linked with his name thenceforth and evermore!

So shall that name be syllabled anew In all the tongues of all the tribes of men:

I that have been through immemorial years Dust in the dust of my forgotten time Shall live in accents shaped of blood-warm breath, Yea, rise in mortal semblance, newly born In shining stone, in undecaying bronze, And stand on high, and look serenely down On the new race that calls the earth its own.

Is this a cloud, that, blown athwart my soul, Wears a false seeming of the pearly stain Where worlds beyond the world their mingling rays Blend in soft white,--a cloud that, born of earth, Would cheat the soul that looks for light from heaven?

Must every coral-insect leave his sign On each poor grain he lent to build the reef, As Babel's builders stamped their sunburnt clay, Or deem his patient service all in vain?

What if another sit beneath the shade Of the broad elm I planted by the way,--What if another heed the beacon light I set upon the rock that wrecked my keel, Have I not done my task and served my kind?

Nay, rather act thy part, unnamed, unknown, And let Fame blow her trumpet through the world With noisy wind to swell a fool's renown, Joined with some truth be stumbled blindly o'er, Or coupled with some single shining deed That in the great account of all his days Will stand alone upon the bankrupt sheet His pitying angel shows the clerk of Heaven.

The noblest service comes from nameless hands, And the best servant does his work unseen.

Who found the seeds of fire and made them shoot, Fed by his breath, in buds and flowers of flame?

Who forged in roaring flames the ponderous stone, And shaped the moulded metal to his need?

Who gave the dragging car its rolling wheel, And tamed the steed that whirls its circling round?

All these have left their work and not their names, Why should I murmur at a fate like theirs?

This is the heavenly light; the pearly stain Was but a wind-cloud drifting oer the stars!