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THE MANIAC:
AND
OTHER POEMS,
BT
GEOBGB SHEPARD BURLEIGH.
PHUADELPHIA:
J, W. MOORE, 193 CHESNUT STREET.
X849, V-
Sotored aceording ta th« Act of Cengrett ia the jMt 1M9, bj
Oioiox 8. Buwojtnm,
Ib the Clerk*! Office of the District Court of the Xaiten Pittrict ef
Penntjtvanie.
• • •• •
No. T Carter VA31I/." . '• • '
TO
• M 0r0ttln0 4eart «f ^ttmiinitpi
LONG TAUGHT BT
SUFFXRINQ AND LOSS,
y
5^4^, THIS VOLUME
IS FRATSRNALLT IN8CRIBSD BT
THE AUTHOR.
• • •
•• • •• •
• • • • /
••- • <
• ••••
• • •
• • • *
CONTENTS,
The Maniac,
The Little Botanist, 67
Man and the Y^ars, 83
Autumn Hymn, 94
Worship, 97
The Pond Lily, 102
Dora, 105
The Lesson, 113
Mother Margary, . , 115
Spirit Love, 119
Spirit Marriage, 121
The Laborer's Thoughts, . . . . .123
From the Bereaved to Nature, . . . .126
The Autumnal Equinox, 131
The Garden, . ... . . . .143
The Fire-Steed, . . . . . . .172
The Little Workers, 175
Duality, 178
Hymns for a Mother :
1. The Dead Boy-Babe, 183
3. The Babe's Welcome in Heaven, . . 188
3. The First Bom, 192
4. The First Smile, 195
▼1. C0NTINT8.
Tableaux :
1. Pare Love, 199
2. SensiHil Love, 199
3. Moral Heroism, 300
4. Martial Heroism, 201
The Groond Swell, 302
Water, 205
The Storm-Waltz, 208
Antiques :
1. Tears, ; 216
2. Askings, * . 217
3. The Truly BlMt, 219
Ellen Byrne, 221
Trust, 236
The Wren, 228
A Symbol, 232
The Home-Gone, 233
Unmeant Service, 236
Ice Crystals, 237
The Wanderer, 838
Primal Music, 239
POEMS.
THE MANIAC.
There are two graves, and they are far apart,
But I have scattered flowers on both to-day :
ChUdren were weeping over one, a fair
Young girPs, whom they had dearly loved : and one
Was a poor Maniac's, newly iHled, and smoothed
With soft green turf, where he might calmly sleep.
After his horrid life-dream.
Once long since
I saw him wandering lone, as he was wont.
With head uncovered, and his straggling locks
Blazing into the air. Deep trenches ploughed
By wild thought, tracked his cheek, and in each line
Sat an insatiate demon of despair.
His dark dilated eyes glared wildly out
On vacancy, as if their orbs had caught
2
10 THE MANIAC.
A Bodden glimpse of the Eternal Honors
That crowd the infinite Dark, and could not tarn
From that dread yision. Fearfully his clenched
And bony hand smote down the viewless forms,
That gave the air he breathed a hue of hell;
While ever and anon he spumed the earth,
And muttered ''Dead! dead! dead !" and then, oft-times,
His maniac laugh rang dismally from out
The hollow chambers of his desolate heart,
The knell of past affections, joys and hopes.
He shunned the dwellings and the paths of men,
And trod the loneliest woods, what time the owl
With boding cry, like wasted manhood's sob.
Made the night-echoes tremulous with fear :
Chiefly he sought the low swamp's trackless waste,
Where the white fog hung heaviest, and the shade
Of the thick cedar, and the solemn pine.
Shed grateful horrors o'er his starless Soul.
The night-birds flapped their pinions by his cheek.
And the hoarse frog croaked out his clamorous note
As he went by, and the shrill 'katydids'
Shrieked their sharp contest in his heedless ears:
But when he pealed his wild and maniac laugh,
Till the deep bosom of the old woods shook
All else grew voiceless, and, with quicker beat.
Dark vans to eddies smote the sleeping fog:
Even the fire-flies smothered up their lamps,
THS MANIAC. 11
That, like the flaah of multitadinoas swordB
In some far war-field, gave inceBsant gleams 3
While the dim line of congregated hills
Sent back their answer. The benighted swain
Caught quick, and held in long suspense, his breath,
As sudden memories of old legends came.
Taught on his nurse's knee, of the Black Fox —
Scotland's dread devil — and his marvellous deeds.
His eye would glance with quick and anxious look,
At the live shadows of the moving boughs
Beside him, as, with longer strides, he sped
To the far star-beam of his cottage light.
O who, that marked the wretched madman then,
Lonely in heart and haunts, had seen in his,
The manly features of young Donaldane,
Whose heart was once affection's quiet nest;
His soul the mother of high thoughts and pure,
Fit for an Angel's love, save that a pride
Too tender for a breast whose every pore
Was instinct with quick life, within him dwelt I
He was a child of Passion and of Thought;
Thought plumed to soar in heaven, not armed to delve;
To win by flight the goal, which others seek
By weary plodding ; Passion warm with Love
That knows no hiding, earnest, open, deep.
Though he read not the spirit-life of things
12 THS MAMIAC.
la their etenial meaning-^their God's-word, —
Nature was aomething more to hitn than what
The yisible pictured to the Tisual orb :
Brooks were not simple brooks, but liquid thoughts,
Uttered in ripples on the pebbled shore,
Which filled his soul with their soft melody;
And sisterly sweet flowers, with honey lips^
Were dear companions, whispering blessed things,
Fraught with the kind humanities of love:
The blue lake seen by starlight, with its soft
Daguerreotype of heaven, the moss-clad rocks,
With time-wrought records of the buried Past ;
Valley and hill, green trees and waving fields,
Were beings which had life ; and each by turns,
In its own language, prophesied to him :
And oft, to cheat the sad hour of its grief.
He chanted their mute oracles in song.
The love he gave dumb natures was not lost;
For, though they made his soul no answering vow,
Yet they in him begot new kindnesses,
And nourished old affections; lent his heart
Sublime ideals of a purer life,
And a more high communion. Things which men
Pass thoughtless, or behold with icy heart,
He met with such kind heed that, day by day,
He grew ibto a very brotherhood
With them, and they at length, were as a part
THB MAKIAC. Id
Of his OTim being. With how much higher flight
Man's soaring soul o'ertops insentient things,
With so much nobler love and fellowship
Would he hare wedded his warm heart to man,
But iron Custom bound its withering chain
Upon his bosom, and drore back the pulse
Of its deep, earnest life : Conyxntion laid
Her rigid finger on the burning lips
Of his great soul, to dam the upgushing thought ',
And all his young affections run to waste,
Too freely lavished on ideal things.
Early repulsed with cold neglect, or stung
With colder pity, he became acquaint
With bitterness, and armed himself with Pride,
That bosom-traitor to the wounded heart,
To guard his bleeding hope ; and, in such mood,
Even kindly Nature lost her power to heal.
Her soothings, like a mother's fond caress
Of an o'erfretful child, would oft provoke
A deeper restlessness, and plant new pangs
Into the growing sorrow of his soul.
When from a human shrine the priceless pearl
Of his rich love was blindly cast aside.
As nothing worth, he would go forth to lay *
The slighted offering at Nature's feet,
And turn to weep ; for even in her courts
2*
14 TH8 MANIAC.
Whare bieatbad his holiest wonhip, the Muoae heart
From which he fled ruled there ; for, as he pas s ed.
The very birds, whose untaught melody
He loved so well, would shun him and grow mute,
And the fleet rabbifc bound in fear away.
It grieved him sorely that perfidious man ,
Had taught them terror, who were born for joy.
With yearnings Tain, and soft and tender words,
With gifts hung on the rocks and forest boughs,
He strove to banish from their timid breasts
The fear, which barred them frcmi his willing love ;
But they had learned to shun the insidious foe,
Whose cruel snares and cunningly laid baits
Beset them, hedging every woodland path.
And whose fell engines, with perfidious aim,
Showered death and wounds among their startled
tribes;
Too well they knew the upright form of man
Swathed a Soul fallen from its first estate.
For when, ere taught to shun him, they had brought
The humble ofierings of their little hearts.
With the dumb utterance of a wordless love,
In song or gambol, — ^bondage, or the knife
Of sateless gluttony, repaid their boon:
So oft betrayed, perchance, a wiser heart
Than bird's or beast's might know not whom to trust.
THE MANIAC. 15
Tho mouTfifol thoaghts by sadi repaloes wak'd
Grew dark, uid deepened into faithleBsaess
In man's heart, and the great Heart of the world.
He saw unkye, distrust, and naked hate,
And the long visage of hypocrisy ;
Saw man a traitor to his fellow man,
A tyrant there, and here a cringing slave :
Heard the loud shout of myriad-handed Wrong,
Drowning the death-cry of his bleeding prey^
And starving mtUions cursing the great heavens
That rained not bread into their shrivelled maws;
While the fiat locustry of Priest and Lard
Rolled by, in pride of fratricidal pomp.
A thousand noble hearts had swelled and snapt,
Finding no answer to their cry for love:
A thousand famished hearts gnawed on themselves,
Hearts, like his own, too weak to stand erect
In calm self-trusting, and too proud to beg.
Over all Nature universal war
Made ravage, and the might of Terror reigned ;
Bird preyed on bird, brute brute, and man on all.
To him the eternal Asking came, as come
It must to every eamest soul, "Why thus
Runs Anarch Misrule its perpetual round.
If Order fdls the throne; why Discord howl.
If the Great Law be jarless Harmony ? ''
Alas! in him that dread eternal Wht
16 THB MANIAC.
Unanswered rang, and he became its prey.
For every lost beam of his fading trust,
The whole world seemed more false and meaningless.
By turns he fought and fled the growing doubt,
But like a fiend it haunted all his steps,
Blotting the glory from the uniyerse,
Till o'er his soul the native joy of things
Could pour no light through EviPs full eclipse.
He heard the shrill-blown clarion of Reform
Summon stout hearts to battle- on the wrong;
And a half-hope sprang gladdening his faint Soul,
As rank on rank the sacramental host
Of God's Elect, poured their linked files upon
The armies of the Alien. Forth with them
He marched, to windings of their Spartan flute,
Filled with the visions of heroic deeds.
Though not of hope, yet born of pure desire.
If Virtue yet survive the wrecks of Time,
If Truth and Love be no grand mockery,
Nor the great world a bubbling vat of Hell,
Haply some glimmer of its better soul
Will greet him there, and there even yet may be
Some heart of all those Chosen, who might fill
The infinite thirst and hunger of his own.
Small need he saw, where first he scanned the field
Of his last hope, for alien armies there;
THE MANIAC. 17
That host itself went surging in the whirls
Of ciyil conflict, with more mad turmoil
Than shook the heavens, when wildest rout disranked
The innumerous foe. Not his the dear*eyed soul
To pierce that loud contending whirlpool down
To the cahn center of a swerveless aim, —
The potent God's-will, blending in one tide
Of boundless good, its torn and warring waves ;>*-
The storm was there, but where was the blue eky?
The grim Doubt grew into a very fiend,
And laughing, leapt upon his cheated heart,'
Coiled its bat-wings and clung there, black as hell,
And heavy as a nightmare. What could he %
Poor Donaldane, a brother brotherless.
With an Ideal too divine for earth;
Nigh stripped of faith in aU he virould have loved !
Yet there was One amid that dinning moil.
Whose deep, calm eye, with glances of clear hope
And love-sad pity, smote the shrivelled fiend
Who clutched his lieart so fiercely. In her face
Was quiet beauty, and a soul of Good;
Her voice was music, and a holy light
Of faithful thought shone in her words sincere, —
Light, driving back the strong Doubj from his breast,
18 THS MANIAC.
If yet it might not open into bloom
The trodden rose-bads of a perfect Trast.
Lillian (fit name for one whose smallest deeds
Made her life musical,) henceforth became
The one sweet tone, in all that stormy war,
To the sick sonl of Donaidane; in him
She stirred new pulses of new joy, unfelt
Till then, and, with a touch that she knew not.
Struck from the silence of his jangled heart
DiTinest melody, in the silver chimes
Of generous thoughts, and the sweet will, that born
Of pure affection, showers its kindnesses
On all; for that soft tone of world-wide love.
And the rich music of her gentle voice,
Laden with earnest goodness, went with him—
The joy melodious of his silent way;
Out of his soul she might not lightly pass,
For she had come — as comes the welcome beam
Of morning to the dreamer, when wild shapes
Have marred some olden Beauty — with a light
Rekindling the fair forms of primal love,
Ideals perished in the long ago.
Amid the tumult of the turbulent crowd,
When the whole heart recoiled with aching grief .
At what he saw, her spirit brought again
Those buried visions of diviner things.
THE MANIAC. 19
And holier Being, that had peopled oft
His boyhood's solitude, ere yet he knew
That there were smiles of guilt and treachery.
Her voice was as the song of summer birds
In the Btotm's roaring, her serene glance lit
The smothered torch of his white love again,
Not now to waste with buried fire his heart,
But a pure fiame above the hallowed shrine
Of this, his new Divinity. A glance,
A word, brought back with one electric flash
Into the Man, the buried glory-beams
That ht the Boy.
To him whose secret soul
Hath never dreamed of those diviner forms
Which people the bright realms of Thought, or sighed
For the pure incarnation of his dream,
Love hath no language to reveal her deep
Mysterious presence, or the workings of
Her prevalent spirit} but to one like him —
Whose heart from childhood bote an aimless fire.
While on the clear deeps of his gentle soul.
In hours of calm, were mirrored the serene
And bvely forms, that hover over us.
Informing us with beauty— there but needs
One glance, when eye to eye lends fire, to bear
Her holiest revelation.
He beheld,
30 THK MANIAC.
In her soft eye, gaxd fair heart-fipeaking face,
Some gleams of the enshrined beatitudefl,
Whose light once made his path a galaxy :
And now^ for that he feared his own scarred heart,
Even as one of those Impalpable
She moved before him, and became to him
A holy yision, a sweet, waking dream,
Which, if he did but utter one poor word.
Would fade away for ever. Sanctity
Serene encircled her, through whose light wreaths
He would not pierce, with earthly speech like his; j
And though his heart was full of whitest love,
He gave his tongue no counsel, but did choose
Rather to worship in dumb reverence,
Than mar the shrine by rudely grasping it. I
i
What if she were not all that he believed;
What if the mist-like halo of divine
And placid spirit-beauty, were but cast
From his own deep unconscious Soul? it fell
On a pure mirror, dimmed by no foul breath, |
Or he had never seen it ; was it fit i
That he should pluck the sweet delusion off,
If it were thus, since in that fair reflex
His whole heart opened flower-like, day by day?
Nay, if the beam were hisj 'twas only thus
It could be Life and Beauty to his soul.
THE MANIAC. 21
Bat she was hdy^ and the atmosphere
Was tinged with heavenly radiance from ietthin^
Making surrounding earth-clouds beautiful.
The commonest things put on a hue of heaven,
In her divine heart's presence, and the rude
Brown earth bloomed sweetly, under the warm light
Of her pure sun-like spirit. Round her path
Wood, rock, and st
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Full text of "The maniac; and other poems"
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