Truth and Beauty [pp. 197]

TREA S URES.
TREASURES.
I HAVE some withered flowers
That are softly laid away,
Not because they were so beautiful
And fragrant in their day;
But little fingers clasped them,
And little lips caressed,
And little hands so tenderly
Placed them on a "mother's" breast.
The paper that infolds them
Was white in other years;
But't is yellow now and crumpled,
And stained with many tears.
Yet, though they look so worthless,
This paper and the flowers,
They clasp and hold, like links of gold,
Memories of jewel-hours.
I have some little ringlets
They are softly laid away;
Their luster and their beauty
Are like the sun's glad ray.
But't is not for this I prize them It is that they restore
The tender grace of a loving face
That gladdens earth no more.
As shipwrecked men at midnight
Have oft been known to-clingWith a silent prayer, ill wild despair,
To some frail, floating thingSo I, in darkened moment,
Clasp, with a voiceless prayer,
Whilst wandering wide on grief's deep tide,
These locks of golden hair.
I have some broken playthings
That are softly laid away,
With some dainty little garments
Made in a long-past day.
To each there is a history;
But this I may not tell,
Lest the old, old flood of sorrow
Again should rise and swell.
Now that the skies are brightened
And the fearful storm is o'er,
Let me sit, in tender calmness,
On Memory's silent shore,
And count the simple treasures
That still remain to show
Where Hope's fair freight, by saddest fate,
Was shipwrecked long ago.
I have another treasure
That is softly laid away,
And though I have not seen it
This many a weary day,
From every thing around me
Comes a token and a sign
That't is fondly watched and guarded,
And that it still is mine.
When the flowers lie dead in Winter,
In their winding-sheets of snow,
We know they'11 rise to charm our eyes
Again in Summer's glow.
Thus I, in this chill season,
When frost and darkness reign,
Wait the blest Spring whose warmth shall bring
Life to my flower again.
TRUTH AND BEAUTY.
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BEAUTY and Truth in Heaven's congenial clime,
Inseparate seen beside the Almighty throne,
Together sprung, before the birth of time,
From God's own glory, while he dwelt alone;
These, when Creation made its wonders known,
Were sent to mortals, that their mingling powers
Mlight lead and lure us to ethereal bowers.
But our perverse condition here below
Oft sees them severed, or in conflict met:
0, sad divorce! the well-spring of our woe.
When Truth and Beauty thus their bond forget,
And Heaven's high law is at defiance set!
'T is this that Good of half its force disarms,
And gives to Evil all its dearest charms.
See Truth with harsh Austerity allied,
Or clad in cynic garb of sordid hue:
See him with Tyranny's fell tools supplied,
The rack, the fagot, or the torturing screw:
Or girt with Bigotry's besotted crew,
What wonder, thus beheld, his looks should move
Our scorn or hatred, rather than our love?
See Beauty, too, in league with Vice and Shame,
And lending all her light to gild a lie;
Crowning with laureate-wreaths an impious name,
Or lulling us with Siren minstrelsy
To false repose when peril most is nigh;
Decking things vile or vain with colors rare
Till what is false and foul seems good and fair.
Hence are our hearts bewilder'd in their choice,
And hence our feet from Virtue led astray:
Truth calls imperious with repulsive voice
To follow on a steep and rugged way;
While Beauty beckons us along a gay
And flowery path, that leads, with treacherous slope,
To gulfs remote from happiness or hope.
Who will bring back the world's unblemish'd youth
When these two wander'd ever hand in hand;
When Truth was Beauty, Beauty too was Truth,
So link'd together with unbroken band,
That they were one; and man, at their command,
Tasted of sweets that never knew alloy,
And trod the path of Duty and of Joy?
Chiefly the Poet's power may work the change:
His heavenly gift, impell'd by holy zeal,
O'er Truth's exhaustless stores may brightly range,
And all their native loveliness reveal;
Nor e'er, except where Truth has set his seal,
Suffer one gleam of Beauty's grace to shine,
But in resistless force their lights combine.
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