The Ghost-Seer

Ye, who passing graves by night,Glance not to the left or right,Lest a spirit should arise,Cold and white, to freeze your eyes,Some weak phantom, which your doubtShapes upon the dark withoutFrom the dark within, a guessAt the spirit's deathlessness,Which ye entertain with fearIn your self-build dungeon here,Where ye sell your God-given livesJust for gold to buy you gyves,—Ye without a shudder meetIn the city's noonday street,Spirits sadder and more dreadThan from out the clay have fled,Buried, beyond hope of light,In the body's haunted night!See ye not that woman pale?There are bloodhounds on her trail!Bloodhounds two, all gaunt and lean,(For the soul their scent is keen,)Want and Sin, and Sin is last,They have followed far and fast;Want gave tongue, and, at her howl,Sin awakened with a growl.Ah, poor girl! she had a rightTo a blessing from the light;Title-deeds to sky and earthGod gave to her at her birth;But, before they were enjoyed,Poverty had made them void,And had drunk the sunshine upFrom all nature's ample cup,Leaving her a first-born's shareIn the dregs of darkness there.Often, on the sidewalk bleak,Hungry, all alone, and weak,She has seen, in night and storm,Rooms o'erflow with firelight warm,Which, outside the window-glass,Doubled all the cold, alas!Till each ray that on her fellStabbed her like an icicle,And she almost loved the wailOf the bloodhounds on her trail.Till the floor becomes her bier,She shall feel their pantings near,Close upon her very heels,Spite of all the din of wheels;Shivering on her pallet poor,She shall hear them at the doorWhine and scratch to be let in,Sister bloodhounds, Want and Sin!

Hark! that rustle of a dress,Stiff with lavish costliness!Here comes one whose cheek would flushBut to have her garment brush'Gainst the girl whose fingers thinWove the weary broidery in,Bending backward from her toil,Lest her tears the silk might soil,And, in midnights chill and murk,Stitched her life into the work,Shaping from her bitter thoughtHeart's-ease and forget-me-not,Satirizing her despairWith the emblems woven there.Little doth the wearer heedOf the heart-break in the brede;A hyena by her sideSkulks, down-looking, — it is Pride.He digs for her in the earth,Where lie all her claims of birth,With his foul paws rooting o'erSome long-buried ancestor,Who perhaps a statue wonBy the ill deeds he had done,By the innocent blood he shed,By the desolation spreadOver happy villages,Blotting out the smile of peace.There walks Judas, he who soldYesterday his Lord for gold,Sold God's presence in his heartFor a proud step in the mart;He hath dealt in flesh and blood;At the bank his name is good;At the bank and only there,'Tis a marketable ware.In his eyes that stealthy gleanWas not learned of sky or stream,But it has the cold, hard glintOf new dollars from the mint.Open now your spirit's eyes,Look through that poor clay disguiseWhich has thickened, day by day,Till it keeps all light at bay,And his soul in pitchy gloomGropes about its narrow tomb,From whose dank and slimy wallsDrop by drop the horror falls.Look! a serpent lank and coldHugs his spirit fold on fold;From his heart, all day and night,It doth suck God's blessed light.Drink it will, and drink it must,Till the cup holds naught but dust;All day long he hears it hiss,Writhing in its fiendish bliss;All night long he sees its eyesFlicker with foul ecstasies,As the spirit ebbs awayInto the absorbing clay.Who is he that skulks, afraidOf the trust he has betrayed,Shuddering if perchance a gleamOf old nobleness should streamThrough the pent, unwholesome room,Where his shrunk soul cowers in gloom,Spirit sad beyond the restBy more instinct for the best?'Tis a poet who was sentFor a bad world's punishment,By compelling it to seeGolden glimpses of To Be,By compelling it to hearSongs that prove the angels near;Who was sent to be the tongueOf the weak and spirit-wrung,Whence the fiery-winged DespairIn men's shrinking eyes might flare.'Tis our hope doth fashion usTo base use or glorious:He who might have been a larkOf Truth's morning, from the darkRaining down melodious hopeOf a freer, broader scope,Aspirations, prophecies,Of the spirit's full sunrise,Chose to be a bird of night,That, with eyes refusing light,Hooted from some hollow treeOf the world's idolatry.'Tis his punishment to hearSweep of eager pinions near,And his own vain wings to feelDrooping downward to his heel,All their grace and import lost,Burdening his weary ghost:Ever walking by his sideHe must see his angel guide,Who at intervals doth turnLooks on him so sadly sternWith such ever-now surpriseOf hushed anguish in her eyes,That it seems the light of dayFrom around him shrinks away,Or drops blunted from the wallBuilt around him by his fall.Then the mountains, whose white peaksCatch the morning's earliest streaks,He must see, where prophets sit,Turning east their faces lit,Whence, with footsteps beautiful,To the earth, yet dim an dull,They the gladsome tidings bringOf the sunlight's hastening:Never can these hills of blissBe o'erclimbed by feet like his!

But enough! Oh, do not dareFrom the next the veil to tear,Woven of station, trade, or dress,More obscene than nakedness,Wherewith the plausible culture drapesFallen Nature's myriad shapes!Let us rather love to markHow the unextinguished sparkStill gleams through the thin disguiseOf our customs, pomps, and lies,And, not seldom blown to flame,Vindicates its ancient claim.