EIDOLON, OR THE COURSE OF A SOUL; AND OTHER POEMS
BY WALTER R. CASSELS
EIDOLON,
OR THE COURSE OF A SOUL;
AND OTHER POEMS,
BY WALTER R. CASSELS
LONDON
WILLIAM PICKERING
1850
TO
CHARLES PEEL,
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY
HIS FRIEND,
W. R. CASSELS.
CONTENTS.
Page
Eidolon 1
Alcestй 93
Pygmalion 136
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
Ode to Fancy 159
What is a sigh? 165
Ione 167
Reality 169
Retrospection 172
The Stormy Petrel 181
To ---- 183
The Mermaid 185
The Spirit of the Air 190
Why do I love thee? 195
Lady Annabel 196
To Jenny Lind 201
The Gold Seekers 204
To Woman 209
The Poet 212
Evening 224
Life 226
Sorrow 229
SONNETS.
I. Written at Ulleswater 233
II. "There is a spell by which the panting soul" 234
III. "We wander on through life as pilgrims do" 235
IV. "Sweet spirits of the Beautiful! where'er ye dwell," 236
V. "We are ambitious overmuch in life," 237
VI. "Mountains! and huge hills! wrap your mighty forms" 238
VII. To Ella 239
VIII. "I traverse oft in thought the battle-plain" 240
INTRODUCTION TO EIDOLON.
Hazlitt says, one cannot "make an allegory go on all fours," it must
to a certain degree be obscure and shadowy, like the images which the
traveller in the desert sees mirrored on the heavens, wherein he can
trace but a dreamy resemblance to the reality beneath. It therefore
seems to me advisable to give a solution of the "Eidolon," the symbol,
which follows, that the purpose of the poem may at once be evident.
In "Eidolon" I have attempted to symbol the course of a Poet's mind
from a state wherein thought is disordered, barren and uncultivated,
to that which is ordered and swayed by the true Spirit of Poetry, and
holds its perfect creed.
I have therefore laid the scene on a desert island, whence, as from
the isolation of his own mind, he reflects upon the concerns of life.
At first he is a poet only by birthright '_Poeta nascitur_.' He has
the poet's inherent love for the Beautiful, his keen susceptibility of
all that is lovely in outward nature, but these are only the blossoms
which have fallen upon him from the Tree of Life, the fruit is yet
untasted. He has looked at the evil of the world alone, and seeing how
much "the time is out of joint" has become misanthropic, and turns his
back alike on the evil and the good.
Then comes Night, the stillness of the soul, with starlight breaking
through the gloom. He gazes on other worlds, and pictures there the
perfection he sighs for, but cannot find in this. Thus by the
conception of a higher and nobler existence acquiring some impetus
towards its realization.
We then find him lying in the sunshine with the beauties of Nature
around him, whose silent teaching works upon him till the true SPIRIT
OF POETRY speaks _within his soul_, and combats the misanthropy and
weakness of the sensuous MAN, showing him that Action is the end of
Life, not mere indulgence in abstract and visionary rhapsodies.
In the next scene he makes further advances, for the spirit of Poetry
shows him that the beauty for which he has sought amongst the stars of
heaven lies really at his feet; that Earth, too, is a star capable of
equal brightness with those on which he gazes. He is thus brought from
the Ideal to the Real.
The fifth scene emblems the influence of Love on the soul. It is the
nurse of Poetry, and Sorrow is the pang which stimulates the divine
germ into active vitality. Had he been entirely happy, and the course
of his love run smooth, he would have been content to enjoy life in
ease and idleness.
Next we find him looking broadly on life, on its utmost ills as well
as its beauties, but not with the eye of the misanthrope, but of the
Physician who searches out disease that he may find the remedy, and
though the soul still sighs for the serenity and placid delight of
the ideal life, the world of Thought, the glorious principle of Poetry
prevails, and he sacrifices self-ease, feeling that he has a nobler
mission than to dream through life, and that here he must labour ere
he can earn the right to rest.
Thus in the last scene the SPIRIT and the MAN have become one--he is
_truly_ a Poet. His prayer maintains the direct and divine inspiration
of the Poet-Priest.
The action in short is the conflict of two principles within the
breast, the False and the True, ending in the extinction of error
and the triumph of truth.
EIDOLON,
OR
THE COURSE OF A SOUL.
SCENE. _A desert Island. The sea-shore._
MAN.
How lonely were I in this solitude,
This atom of creation which yon wave,
White with the fury of a thousand years,
Might gulf into oblivion, if the soul
Knew circumscription. Far as eye can reach
Around me lies a wild and watery waste,
With every billow sentinel to keep
Its prisoner fetter'd to his ocean cell--
What were it but a plunge--an instant strife--
Then liberty snatch'd from the clutch of Death
The Tyrant, who with mystic terror grinds
Men into slaves--But he who thinks _is_ free,
And fineless as the unresting winds of heaven,
Now rushing with wild joy around the belt
Of whirling Saturn, then away through space
Till he and all his radiant brotherhood
Dwindle to fire-flies round the brow of Night.
Thought is the great creator under God,
Begotten of his breathing, that can raise
Shapes from the dust and give them Beauty's soul;
And though my empire be a continent,
Squared down from leagues to inches, what of that?
The mind contains a world within its frame
Which Fancy peoples o'er with radiant forms,
Replete with life and spirit excellence.
O! there is glory in the thought that now
I stand absolved from all the chilling forms
And falsities of life, that like frail reeds
Pierce the blind palms of those that lean on them,
And from the springs of my own being draw
All strength, and hope, and joyance, all that makes
Lone meditations sweet, and schools the heart
For prophecy. In the o'erpeopled world
We seem like babes that cannot walk alone,
But fasten on the skirts of other men,
Their creeds, conclusions, and vain phantasies,
Too languid, or too weak to poize ourselves;
But here the crutch is shattered at a blow,
Dependence made a thing for winds to blast,
And paraphrase in bitter mockery.
From this retreat, as from a cloister calm,
I dream upon the busy haunts of men
As things that touch me not. An empire riven,
A monarchy o'erthrown, here seem to me
Importless as a foam-bell's death. The world
And all its revolutions are now less
Within my chronicles, than is the ken
Of a star's orbit on the fines of space;
But like a mariner saved from the wreck
On this calm spot I stand, unscathed, secure
From the rough throbbings of the sea of strife,
And woe, and clamour, wherewith this world's life
Ebbs and declines unto the printless shore
Of death. O! blessed change, if there were one
To love me in this solitude, and make
Life beautiful. My soul is wearied out
With earth's fierce warfare, and its selfish ease;
The slights and coldness of the hollow crowds
That are its arbiters; the changeful face,
The upstart arrogance of base-born fools,
Who crown them with their golden dross, and deem
_That_ the all-potent badge of sovereignty.
O thou, my heart! hast thou not framed for life
A golden palace in all solitude,
Whither the strains of quiet melodies
Float on the breath of memory, like songs
From the dim bosom of the evening woods,
Peopling its chambers with sweet poesy?
Hast thou not called the sunshine from the morn
To circle thee with a pure spirit life,
And with the softness of its tender arms
Clasp thee in the embrace of heav'nly love?
Hast thou not heard the music of the stars,
In the calm stillness of the summer night,
And read their jewell'd pages o'er and o'er,
Like the bright inspirations of a bard,
Till glowing strophes rung within thy soul
Of glad Orion and clear Pleiades?
Hast thou not seen the silv'ry moonshine thrill
Upon the dusky mantle of the night,
Like radiant glances through a maiden's veil,
Till shaken thence they fell in a pure shower
O'er flood and field and bosky wilderness,
Wreathing earth with the glory of a saint?
O! thus to dwell far from the stir of life,
Far from its pleasures and its miseries,
Far from the panting cry of man's desire,
That waileth upward in hoarse discontent,
And here to list but to that liquid voice
That riseth in the spirit, and whose flow
Is like a rivulet from Paradise--
To hear the wanderings of divine thought
Within the soul, like the low ebb and flow
Of waters in the blue-deep ocean caves,
Forming itself a speech and melody
Sweeter than words unto the aching sense--
To stand alone with Nature where man's step
Hath never bowed a grass-blade 'neath its weight,
Nor hath the sound of his rude utterance
Broken the pauses of the wild-bird's song;
And thus in its unpeopled solitude
To be the spirit of this universe,
Centering thought and reason in one frame,
And in the majesty of quenchless soul,
Rising unto the stature of a man,
_That_ is to make life glorious and great,
Dissolving matter in the spiritual,
As the green pine dissolveth into flame;
Not on the breath of popular applause
That is the spectre of all nothingness;
Not on the fawning of a servile crew,
Who kiss the hem of fortune's purple robe,
And lick the dust before prosperity,
Waiting the cogging of the downward scale,
To turn from slaves to bravos in the dark;
Not on the favours of the politic,
Who in the smile of honour, Persian-like,
Pamper the pampered from their banquet halls,
But to his starving cry, when fortune frowns,
Mutter their falsehoods through the bolted gate;
But in the brightness of the inner soul,
The placitude of peace and holy thought,
The joyous lightness of the spirit's wings,
Sweeping with equal strokes the azure sky
Of Present, Past, and wide Futurity;
In the high tidemarks on the sands of life,
Where thought hath swept her purifying wave,
Bearing the treasures of the unsearched deep
To swell the riches of humanity.
_That_ is a happiness apart from man
To aid, to sympathise with, or destroy;
In
