IV. Platonic Poets, (seven.)

THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 129
PAET I. AMERICAN POETRY.
PREEXISTENCE.
BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.
While sauntering through the crowded street
Some half-remembered face I meet,
Albeit upon no mortal shore
That face, methinks, hath smiled before.
Lost in a gay and festal throng
I tremble at some tender song
Set to an air whose golden bars
I must have heard in other stars.
In sacred aisles I pause to share
The blessing of a priestly prayer,
When the whole scene which greets mine eyes
In some strange mode I recognize.
As one whose every mystic part
I feel prefigured in my heart.
At sunset as I calmly stand
A stranger on an alien strand
Familiar as my childhood's home
Seems the long stretch of wave and foam.
A ship sails toward me o'er the bay
And what she comes to do and say
I can foretell. A prescient lore
Springs from some life outlived of yore.
O swift, instructive, startling gleams
Of deep soul-knowledge : not as dreams
For aye ye vaguely dawn and die,
But oft with lightning certainty
Pierce through the dark oblivious brain
To make old thoughts and memories plain :
130 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION.
Thoughts which perchance must travel back
Across the wild bewildering track
Of countless aeons ; memories far
High reaching as yon pallid star,
Unknown, scarce seen, whose flickering grace
Faints on the outmost rings of space.
A MYSTERY.
BY J. G. WHITTEER.
The river hemmed with leaving trees Wound through the meadows green,
A low blue line of mountain showed The open pines between.
One sharp tall peak above them all
Clear into sunlight sprang, I saw the river of my dreams,
The mountain that I sang.
No clue of memory led me on, But well the ways I knew,
A feeling of familiar things With every footstep grew.
Yet ne'er before that river's rim Was pressed by feet of mine,
Never before mine eyes had crossed That broken mountain line.
A presence strange at once and known Walked with me as my guide,
The skirts of some forgotten life Trailed noiseless at my side.
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 131
"Was it a dim-remembered dream
Or glimpse through seons old ? The secret which the mountains kept
The river never told.
THE METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE PINE.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
As when the haze of some wan moonlight makes Familiar fields a land of mystery, Where, chill and strange, a ghostly presence wakes In flower or bush or tree,
Another life, the life of day o'erwhelms, The past from present consciousness takes hue As we remember vast and cloudy realms Our feet have wandered through :
So, oft, some moonlight of the mind makes dumb The stir of outer thought : wide open seems The gate where through strange sympathies have come The secret of our dreams :
The source of fine impressions, shooting deep Below the falling plummet of the sense Which strike beyond all Time and backward sweep Through all intelligence.
We touch the lower life of beast and clod And the long progress of the ages see From blind old Chaos, ere the breath of God Moved it to harmony.
All outward vision yields to that within Whereof nor creed nor canon holds the key ;
132 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION,
We only feel that we have ever been And evermore shall be.
And thus I know, by memories unfurled In rarer moods, and many a nameless sign That once in Time and somewhere in the world I was a towering pine.
Eooted upon a cape that once o'erhung The entrance to a mountain gorge The wintry shadow of a peak was flung Long after rise of sun.
There did I clutch the granite with firm feet, There shake my boughs above the roaring gulf, When mountain whirlwinds through the passes beat And howled the mountain wolf.
Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind Of that slow life which made me straight and high, And I became a harp for every wind, A voice for every sky.
And thus for centuries my rhythmic chant Eolled down the gorge or surged about the hill, Gentle or stern or sad or jubilant, At every season's will.
No longer memory whispers whence arose The doom that tore me from my place of pride, Whether by storms that load the peak with snows, Or hands of men I died.
All sense departed with the boughs I wore, And though I moved with mighty gales at strife A mast upon the seas, I sang no more, And music was my life.
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 133
Yet still that life awakens, brings again Its airy anthems, resonant and long, Till earth and sky transfigured fill my brain With rhythmic sweeps of song.
Thence am I made a poet ; thence are sprung Those shadowy motions of the soul that reach Beyond all grasp of art, — for which the soul Is ignorant of speech.
And if some wild full-gathered harmony Rolls its unbroken music through my line, There lives and murmurs, faintly though it be, The spirit of the pine.
THE POET IN THE EAST.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
The poet came to the land of the East
When spring was in the air, The East was dressed for a wedding feast
So young she seemed and fair, And the poet knew the land of the East
His soul was native there.
All things to him were the visible forms
Of early and precious dreams, Familiar visions that mocked his quest
Beside the western streams, Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds unrolled
In the sunset's dying beams.
134 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. THE METEMPSYCHOSIS.
BY T. B. ALDRICH.
I know my own creation was divine.
Strewn on the breezy continents I see
The veined shells and burnished scales which once
Enclosed my being, — husks that had their use ;
I brood on all the shapes I must attain
Before I reach the Perfect, which is God,
And dream my dream, and let the rabble go ;
For I am of the mountains and the sea,
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth,
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.
I was a spirit on the mountain-tops, A perfume in the valleys, a simoom On arid deserts, a nomadic wind Roaming the universe, a tireless Voice. I was ere Romulus and Remus were ; I was ere Nineveh and Babylon ; I was, and am, and evermore shall be, Progressing, never reaching to the end.
A hundred years I trembled in the grass, The delicate trefoil that muffled warm A slope on Ida ; for a hundred years Moved in the purple gyre of those dark flowers The Grecian women strew upon the dead. Under the earth, in fragrant glooms, I dwelt ; Then in the veins and sinews of a pine On a lone isle, where, from the Cyclades, A mighty wind, like a leviathan,
Ploughed through the brine, and from those solitudes Sent Silence, frightened. To and fro I swayed, Drawing the sunshine from the stooping clouds. Suns came and went, and many a mystic moon,
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 135
Orbing and waning, and fierce meteors, Leaving their lurid ghosts to haunt the night. I heard loud voices by the sounding shore, The stormy sea-gods, and from fluted concha Wild music, and strange shadows floated by, Some moaning and some singing. So the years Clustered about me, till the hand of God Let down the lightning from a sultry sky, Splintered the pine and split the iron rock ; And from my odorous prison-house a bird, I in its bosom, darted : so we flew, Turning the brittle edge of one high wave, Island and tree and sea-gods left behind !
Free as the air from zone to zone I flew, Far from the tumult to the quiet gates Of daybreak ; and beneath me I beheld Vineyards, and rivers that like silver threads Ran through the green and gold of pasture-lands, And here and there a hamlet, a white rose, And here and there a city, whose slim spires And palace-roofs and swollen domes uprose Like scintillant stalagmites in the sun ; I saw huge navies battling with a storm By ragged reefs along the desolate coasts, — And lazy merchantmen, that crawled, like flies, Over the blue enamel of the sea To India or the icy Labradors.
A century was as a single day. What is a day to an immortal soul ? A breath, no more. And yet I hold one hour Beyond all price, — that hour when from the sky I circled near and nearer to the earth, Nearer and nearer, till I brushed my wings Against the pointed chestnuts, where a stream, That foamed and chattered over pebbly shoals, Fled through the briony, and with a shout
136 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION,
Leapt headlong down a precipice ; and there,
Gathering wild-flowers in the cool ravine,
Wandered a woman more divinely shaped
Than any of the creatures of the air,
Or river-goddesses, or restless shades
Of noble matrons marvellous in their time
For beauty and great suffering ; and I sung,
I charmed her thought, I gave her dreams, and then
Down from the dewy atmosphere I stole
And nestled in her bosom. There I slept
From moon to moon, while in her eyes a thought
Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn —
A mystical forewarning ! When the stream,
Breaking through leafless brambles and dead leaves,
Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut-boughs
The fruit dropt noiseless through the autumn night,
I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do :
We weep when we are born, not when we die !
So was it destined ; and thus came I here,
To walk the earth and wear the form of Man,
To suffer bravely as becomes my state,
One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God.
IDENTITY.
BY T. B. ALDRICH.
Somewhere — in desolate wind-swept space In twilight-land, — in no-man's land,
Two hurrying shapes met face to face And bade each other stand.
" And who are you ? " cried one agape, Shuddering in the gloaming light.
" I know not," said the other shape, " I only died last night."
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
BY CHARLES G. LELAND.
Thoit and I in spirit land
One thousand years ago, Watched the waves beat on the strand,
Ceaseless ebb and flow, Vowed to love and ever love,
One thousand years ago.
Thou and I in greenwood shade
Nine hundred years ago Heard the wild dove in the glade
Murmuring soft and low, Vowed to love for evermore
Nine hundred years ago.
Thou and I in yonder star
Eight hundred years ago Saw strange forms of light afar
In wildest beauty glow. All things change, but love endures
Now as long ago.
Thou and I in Norman halls
Seven hundred years ago Heard the warden on the walls
Loud his trumpets blow, " Ton amors sera tojors,"
Seven hundred years ago.
Thou and I in Germany,
Six hundred years ago. Then I bound the red cross on,
" True love, I must go,
POETRY OF REINCARNATION.
.But we part to meet again In the endless flow."
Thou and I in Syrian plains
Five hundred years ago Felt the wild fire in our veins
To a fever glow. All things die, but love lives on
Now as long ago.
Thou and I in shadow land
Four hundred years ago Saw strange flowers bloom on the strand,
Heard strange breezes blow. In the ideal, love is real,
This alone I know.
Thou and I in Italy
Three hundred years ago Lived in faith and died for God,
Felt the fagots glow, Ever new and ever true,
Three hundred years ago.
Thou and I on Southern seas
Two hundred years ago Felt the perfumed even-breeze, Spoke in Spanish by the trees,
Had no care or woe. Life went dreamily in song,
Two hundred years ago.
Thou and I 'mid Northern snows
One hundred years ago Led an iron silent life
And were glad to flow
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 139
Onward into changing death, One hundred years ago.
Thou and I but yesterday
Met in fashion's show. Love, did you remember me,
Love of long ago ? Yes : we kept the fond oath sworn
One thousand years ago.
THE FINAL THOUGHT.
BY MAURICE THOMPSON.
What is the grandest thought Toward which the soul has wrought ? Has it the spirit form, And the power of a storm ? Comes it of prophecy (That borrows light of uncreated fires) Or of transmitted strains of memory Sent down through countless sires ?
Which way are my feet set ? Through infinite changes yet Shall I go on, Nearer and nearer drawn To thee, God of eternity? How shall the Human grow, By changes fine and slow, To thy perfection from the life-dawn sought ? What is the highest thought ?
Ah ! these dim memories, Of when thy voice spake lovingly to me, Under the Eden trees,
140 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION.
Saying, " Lord of all creation thou shalt be," — How they haunt me and elude — How they hover, how they brood
On the horizon, fading yet dying not ! What is the final thought ?
What if I once did dwell
In the lowest dust germ-cell, A faint fore-hint of life called forth of God,
Waxing and struggling on, Through the long flickering dawn,
The awful while His feet earth's bosom trod ? What if He shaped me so, And caused my life to blow Into the full soul-flower in Eden-air ?
Lo ! now I am not good,
And I stand in solitude, Calling to Him (and yet He answers not) :
What is the final thought ?
What myriads of years up from the germ ! What countless ages back from man to worm ! And yet from man to God, — oh, help me now ! A cold despair is beading on my brow ! I may see Him, and seeing know Him not ! What is the highest thought ?
So comes, at last,
The answer from the Vast. . . . Not so, there is a rush of wings — Earth feels the presence of invisible things,
Closer and closer drawn
In rosy mists of dawn ! One dies to conquer Death
And to burst the awful tomb — Lo, with his dying breath
He blows love into bloom !
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 141
Love ! Faith is born of it !
Death is the scorn of it ! It fills the earth and thrills the heavens above :
And God is love, And life is love, and, though we heed it not,
Love is the final thought.
FROM "A POEM READ AT BROWN UNIVERSITY."
BY N. P. WILLIS.
But what a mystery this erring mind ? It wakes within a frame of various powers A stranger in a new and wondrous world. It brings an instinct from some other sphere, For its fine senses are familiar all, And with the unconscious habit of a dream It calls and they obey. The priceless sight Springs to its curious organ, and the ear Learns strangely to detect the articulate air In its unseen divisions, and the tongue Gets its miraculous lesson with the rest, And in the midst of an obedient throng Of well trained ministers, the mind goes forth To search the secrets of its new found home.
FROM "BEYOND."
BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE.
From her own fair dominions Long since, with shorn pinions My spirit was banished. But above her still hover in vigils and dreams Ethereal visitants, voices and gleams That forever remind her Of something behind her Long vanished.
142 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION.
Through the listening night With mysterious flight
Pass winged intimations ; Like stars shot from heaven, their still voices call to me Far and departing they signal and call to me, Strangely beseeching me, Chiding yet teaching me Patience.
FROM " RAIN IN SUMMER."
BY H. W. LONGFELLOW.
Thus the seer, with vision clear,
Sees forms appear and disappear
In the perpetual round of strange .
Mysterious change
From birth to death, from death to birth,
From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,
Till glimpses more sublime
Of things unseen before
Unto his wondering eyes reveal
The universe, as an immeasurable wheel
Turning for evermore
In the rapid rushing river of time.
FROM "THE TWILIGHT."
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Sometimes a breath floats by me, And odor from Dreamland sent,
Which makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a something that came and went,
Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere :
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Of mem'ries that come not and go not ;
Like music once heard by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it ; A something so shy, it would shame it
To make it a show. A something too vague, could I name it,
For others to know : As though I had lived it and dreamed it, As though I had acted and schemed it
Long ago.
And yet, could I live it over,
This Life which stirs in my brain ; Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover,
As I seem to have been, once again,—- Could I but speak and show it,
This pleasure more sharp than pain, Which baffles and lures me so, — The world would not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad, Long ago.
FROM "FACING WEST FROM CALIFORNIA'S SHORES."
BY WALT WHITMAN.
Facing west from California's shores, Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound, I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of ma- ternity, the land of migrations, look afar, Look off the shores of my Western sea, the circle almost
circled : For starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
144 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION.
From Asia, from the north, from the God, the sage, and
the hero, From the south, from the flowery peninsulas and the spice
islands, Long having wander'd since, round the earth having wan-
der'd, Now I face home again, very pleas'd and joyous. (But where is what I started for so long ago ? And why is it yet unfound ?)
FROM "LEAVES OF GRASS."
BY WALT WHITMAN.
I know I am deathless.
I know that this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a car- penter's compass ;
And whether I come to my own to-day, or in ten thou- sand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
As to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many
deaths. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.
Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years.
Births have brought us richness and variety, and other births have brought us richness and variety.
THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION. 145 STANZAS.
BY THOMAS W. PARSONS.
" We are such stuff" as dreams are made of."
We have forgot what we have been, And what we are we little know ; We fancy new events begin, But all has happened long ago.
Through many a verse life's poem flows, But still, though seldom marked by men, At times returns the constant close, Still the old chorus comes again.
The childish grief — the boyish fear — The hope in manhood's breast that burns ; The doubt — the transport, and the tear — Each mood, each impulse, oft returns.
Before mine infant eyes had hailed The new-born glory of the day, When the first wondrous morn unveiled The breathing world that round me lay ;
The same strange darkness o'er my brain Folded its close mysterious wings, The ignorance of joy or pain, That each recurring midnight brings.
Full oft my feelings make me start, Like footprints on a desert shore, As if the chambers of my heart Had heard their shadowy step before.
So looking into thy fond eyes, Strange memories come to me, as though Somewhere — perchance in Paradise — I had adored thee long ago.
146 THE POETRY OF REINCARNATION.