The Pilgrims of the RhineLytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Science
The Pilgrims of the Rhine
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Fairies -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Rhine River Valley -- Fiction
And thrones some Jove above the Titan Force,
Till, love completing what in awe began,
From the rude savage dawns the thoughtful man.
* The gloomy Typhon of Egypt assumes many of the mystic attributes
of the Principle of Life which, in the Grecian Apotheosis of the
Indian Bacchus, is represented in so genial a character of
exuberant joy and everlasting youth.
Then, oh, behold the Glorious comforter!
Still bright’ning worlds but gladd’ning now the hearth,
Or like the lustre of our nearest star,
Fused in the common atmosphere of earth.
It sports like hope upon the captive’s chain;
Descends in dreams upon the couch of pain;
To wonder’s realm allures the earnest child;
To the chaste love refines the instinct wild;
And as in waters the reflected beam,
Still where we turn, glides with us up the stream,
And while in truth the whole expanse is bright,
Yields to each eye its own fond path of light,--
So over life the rays of Genius fall,
Give each his track because illuming all.
IV.
FORGIVENESS TO THE ERRORS OF OUR BENEFACTORS.
Hence is that secret pardon we bestow
In the true instinct of the grateful heart,
Upon the Sons of Song. The good they do
In the clear world of their Uranian art
Endures forever; while the evil done
In the poor drama of their mortal scene,
Is but a passing cloud before the sun;
Space hath no record where the mist hath been.
Boots it to us if Shakspeare erred like man?
Why idly question that most mystic life?
Eno’ the giver in his gifts to scan;
To bless the sheaves with which thy fields are rife,
Nor, blundering, guess through what obstructive clay
The glorious corn-seed struggled up to day.
V.
THE IDEAL IS NOT CONFINED TO POETS.--ALGERNON SIDNEY RECOGNIZES HIS IDEAL
IN LIBERTY, AND BELIEVES IN ITS TRIUMPH WHERE THE MERE PRACTICAL MAN
COULD BEHOLD BUT ITS RUINS; YET LIBERTY IN THIS WORLD MUST EVER BE AN
IDEAL, AND THE LAND THAT IT PROMISES CAN BE FOUND BUT IN DEATH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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