The Pilgrims of the Rhine Page 7

  II.

  OUR DREAMS BELONG TO THE IDEAL.--THE DIVINER LOVE FOR WHICH YOUTH SIGHS NOT ATTAINABLE IN LIFE, BUT THE PURSUIT OF THAT LOVE BEYOND THE WORLD OF THE SENSES PURIFIES THE SOUL AND AWAKES THE GENIUS.--PETRARCH.--DANTE.

  Thine are the Dreams that pass the Ivory Gates, With prophet shadows haunting poet eyes! Thine the belov'd illusions youth creates From the dim haze of its own happy skies. In vain we pine; we yearn on earth to win The being of the heart, our boyhood's dream. The Psyche and the Eros ne'er have been, Save in Olympus, wedded! As a stream Glasses a star, so life the ideal love; Restless the stream below, serene the orb above! Ever the soul the senses shall deceive; Here custom chill, there kinder fate bereave: For mortal lips unmeet eternal vows! And Eden's flowers for Adam's mournful brows! We seek to make the moment's angel guest The household dweller at a human hearth; We chase the bird of Paradise, whose nest Was never found amid the bowers of earth.*

  * According to a belief in the East, which is associated with one of the loveliest and most familiar of Oriental superstitions, the bird of Paradise is never seen to rest upon the earth, and its nest is never to be found.

  Yet loftier joys the vain pursuit may bring, Than sate the senses with the boons of time; The bird of Heaven hath still an upward wing, The steps it lures are still the steps that climb; And in the ascent although the soil be bare, More clear the daylight and more pure the air. Let Petrarch's heart the human mistress lose, He mourns the Laura but to win the Muse. Could all the charms which Georgian maids combine Delight the soul of the dark Florentine, Like one chaste dream of childlike Beatrice Awaiting Hell's dark pilgrim in the skies, Snatched from below to be the guide above, And clothe Religion in the form of Love?*

  * It is supposed by many of the commentators on Dante, that in the form of his lost Beatrice, who guides him in his Vision of Heaven, he allegorizes Religious Faith.