NOW AND THEN 
 
 I SPOKEN AT THE JUNIOR EXHIBITION OF TRIN- ' 
 ITY COLLEGE, ON WEDNESDAY, AUG. 1, 1849. 
 
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 By Gf T/ RIDER 
 
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 Published for the Author* 
 
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 AND THEN.” 
 
 A POEM, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE JUNIOR EXHIBITION OF TRINITY COU- 
 LEGE, ON WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUG. 1, 1849. 
 
 BY GEORGE T. RIDER. 
 
 I stood beside a poet’s lonely grave 
 In the deep mazes of the solemn woods, 
 
 Far from the haunts of worldly care and toil. 
 
 A stranger’s hand had reared a simple cross 
 Of stone above the dead, wherever the moss 
 And trailing vines had wrought a living vest 
 Of beauty ; ’till the wealth of leaf and bud 
 Had well nigh hid the marble’s mournful tale. 
 
 This was its its record : “ Of a broken heart 
 
 i_p 
 
 “ He died — -just in the Spring-tide of his days 
 4 “ The wondrous promise of maturer years 
 j “ Was crushed, and as he prayed that he might rest 
 4 “ Away from men in solitude like this, 
 rj “ A stranger’s heart hath listened to his prayer.” 
 
 £ Above my head the rugged ancient trees 
 Had joined their brawny limbs in many an arch, 
 And as the light came struggling through the roof 
 ^Of leaves and gorgeous fret-work, far adown 
 ^ The long-drawn aisles, till all was lost in gloom. 
 
2 
 
 I seemed within a Minster holier far 
 Than aught that man had ever reared a shrine 
 Not made with hands. The flowers around me 
 breathed 
 
 Their praise of incense, while the cheerful lark 
 With the full throng of warbling choristers 
 Joined in the Matin and the Even’ song. 
 
 Me thought the cold indifference of men 
 Had been a blessing ; — they had spurned his name 
 When living, and condemned his dust, they thought , 
 To sleep unwept, uncared for, and unknown ; 
 
 No patron’s pride had reared a storied tomb 
 
 Above him — the reward of flatteries 
 
 Thus cheaply bought — his name almost unwrit ; 
 
 Yet could those lips that once gave life to song 
 Again take up their strains of 4 long ago,’ 
 
 Me thinks a psalm of sweet thanksgiving would 
 Be heard throughout that holy Fane of God 
 For such a resting place. 
 
 Can lifeless stone, 
 
 Although beneath the artist’s skill it gains 
 Some glimpse of meaning tortured into life 
 Add to the glory of the noble dead % 
 
 Time grapples with this thoughtless pride, and gives 
 Its tinsel gewgaws to the bats and owls, 
 
 And sends dark Ruin with her Vandal hordes 
 To riot in its loveliness and strength. 
 
 And yet this humble mound — fit monument 
 For one 44 to fortune and to fame unknown,” 
 
 Shall more than serve to keep his memory — 
 
 The guerdon of an Immortality 
 
 Is his ; for as each spoken word they say 
 
 Thrills through the vast infinity of air, 
 
3 
 
 And so shall thrill in cadence tremulous 
 ’Till air and earth and flood shall be consumed ; 
 
 So he who wakes one holy, blissful thought 
 Within the heart, that harp of many strings, 
 
 Hath called a joy to life for earth and Heaven ! 
 And then the impulse hastens to its home 
 In sweet reunion with the angel world, 
 
 And there shall mingle with its own forever. 
 
 It is a holy trust, this gift of song, 
 
 And bringeth to the heart where it abides 
 A mingled company of smiles and tears ; 
 
 It opens to the vision of the soul 
 
 The spirit life around us — through create, 
 
 It sees the increate — the mystic realms 
 Of pure intelligence there deeply traced : 
 
 The world is peopled all anew, — beings 
 Of beauty cheer its solitude — around 
 Its noonday walks they meet when throngs 
 Of plodding men are selling joy and youth, 
 
 The sunshine of their little span, for gold 
 And things that perish. In the open fields, 
 
 Yea, in each blade and petal, truths as vast 
 As human destiny are writ ; it scans 
 Each meaning page of this great volume — reads 
 Pourtrayed therein the fearful mysteries 
 That gather round the soul, its life, its home, 
 
 Its journeying through Time, — but more — it sees 
 The beatific impress of its God ! 
 
 As far as sense can penetrate the same 
 Mysterious blazonry of truth — the same 
 Eternal witness of Almighty power 
 
4 
 
 Drapes the stern, rugged frame-work of the world 
 In robes of holy beauty ! — Go beyond 
 The luxury of boundless forests, fields, 
 
 Flowers, babbling brooks — a wilderness of joys, 
 Where beauty vainly seeking here below 
 Her full embodiment, leaves grosser forms, 
 
 And robes the skies with splendors manifold, 
 
 The imaged pomp of Heaven’s all-glorious homes — 
 Strive with the Ocean in its calm and rage, 
 
 When terror sits enthroned on stillness — or 
 Its waters meet in revelry sublime ; 
 
 With wary step within that frozen world 
 Advance, where one dread night of silence reigns — 
 Mark with thy wondering eye its gorgeous domes 
 And crystal palaces upreared to Heaven, 
 
 Decked with the Rainbow’s captive tints, and ask 
 Thyself, “ Who placed them there V — in this cold 
 waste 
 
 Of desolation, beauty reigns supreme — 
 
 For God is every where. — 
 
 And yet the world 
 
 Lives on in all this loveliness of form, 
 
 In all this sweet companionship of beauty, 
 
 Blind to its high estate, like one content 
 To sit and slumber at the gates of Heaven ; 
 
 For Heaven with all its splendors lies around, 
 
 Above the sightless, dormant soul, and spreads 
 Its beauties forth on every side ; the world 
 Blindfolded gropes among them, and perchance 
 When one more lucky than his fellows meets 
 A struggling sunbeam from this nobler sphere, 
 
 He chuckles o’er his wealth and fondly deems 
 That he alone is wise — his brothers, fools ! 
 
5 
 
 Among the petty strife /of nations, he who gains 
 A field on battle — wrests a crown, 
 
 Or writes his valor in a people’s blood 
 Men love to laud, they deck him in the pomp 
 Of dignity and gorgeous circumstance — 
 
 ^ Pay to the Despot homage due to God : 
 
 And when he dies, preserve his hateful name 
 In splendid characters upon a tomb 
 Above the story of his victories ; 
 
 As men record a year of pestilence 
 
 And plague in marble by the deaths it wrought ! 
 
 Three thousand years ago ! and can it be 
 So many ages well renowned in arms, 
 
 In art, in science, and in song, have gone 
 From hence to be no more since thou sublime 
 Old man of Chios’ sea-girt isle — gave forth 
 Thy wondrous lays — to wondering Theban throngs, 
 For the mean pittance of thy daily bread ! 
 
 Poor, blind, despised beggar ! yet thy name 
 Flath never ceased to grow in brightness — Fame 
 Hath made thy memory her own, and men 
 * Have garnered up thy musings in their hearts, 
 
 As misers hoard up gold and gems. — Princes, 
 
 The mighty men of earth, who sleep in tombs 
 Of regal splendor, are but worthless dust 
 Compared with thee, who hast a resting place 
 Within the deathless soul — most trusty monument ! 
 A strain sublimer yet than thine the world 
 Hath heard — kingdoms and thrones, the pomp of war, 
 Conquest and victory — a nation’s life — 
 
 These are the meaner theme that cluster round 
 The soul of truth, their central sun — like moons 
 
6 
 
 In borrowed robes of beauty ; when this germ 
 Shall wax to fruitful ripeness, He who gave 
 It being from His fulness shall destroy 
 The crumbling, worn out universe, and purge 
 With fire, Perfection, prisoned in such gross 
 And sensual habiliments. 
 
 There is 
 
 An Everlasting world above of pure 
 Intelligence, where change, corruption, death, 
 
 The moth of Time, can work no ravages ; 
 
 The mountains lifting from the meaner earth 
 Their barren peaks — the dream-like mists that fiee 
 The cold embrace of ocean, and mount up 
 On high and spread their thousand colored sails 
 Out on the shoreless ocean of the sky, 
 
 In concert with all voices of the world, 
 
 Tell of a higher and a holier life. 
 
 ’Twas thine mysterious bard, whose muse on Faith’s 
 Strong pinions sought and found the courts of Heaven 
 And gazed upon the new Jerusalem, 
 
 And heard the harmonies of Seraphs — felt 
 The mingling of all hallowed souls with thine, 
 
 To touch such themes as angels well might love. 
 With thy poor dust this atom globe shall fade 
 And melt away even as a torch just spent ; 
 
 Yet from the wreck, Eternal Truth within 
 Thy song embodied shall spread wide her wings, 
 
 On the dark night of Time’s oblivion, 
 
 And gather brightness as it nears the throne 
 Of God. Angels have lost their crowns of light, 
 And used the glories of their heavenly birth 
 In impious contest with the majesty 
 Of Him who gave them — thus one gifted son 
 
 « 
 
7 
 
 Of song, bright in his soul’s investiture 
 Of loveliness — who sung as few have sung, 
 Flung from his brow the Coronal of Truth $ 
 With renowned -scorn reviled the holy book 
 Of God, and o’er the warm and heart-born life 
 Of Christian faith, the foul pollution cast 
 Of God defying, reckless unbelief. 
 
 The splendid ravings of his frenzied brain 
 Give melancholy proof how Shelley once 
 Knelt at the shrine of Nature and of God. 
 
 We wonder not — the very sky above 
 Nurtures the evening dew, the light of noon 
 In strange companionship with sweeping storm 
 And lightnings gleam— and yet the wildest rage 
 Of the fierce elemnets arrayed in battle, 
 Together with the sweetest woodland notes, 
 Proclaim of God ; the one of majesty, 
 
 Supreme, the other, blest beatitude 
 And love. 
 
 And thus a tuneful brotherhood 
 Have served the sacred mysteries of Truth, 
 
 And in secret numbers sung to every age 
 * The burning visions of their raptured souls — 
 Reflected light that God vouchsafes to send 
 Through the dark veil of this old dying world, 
 Of the superior glories that shall be. 
 
 And as this song has throbbed with holy life, 
 Forshown what Reason trembles, to deny 
 Of its Eternity, the faithful heart 
 Of the whole world has known its mighty sway, 
 And felt as did the Patriarch of old, 
 
 Who held communion once with An^el quests 
 And knew it not ! 
 
8 
 
 The scarlet robe of wealth, 
 
 The jeweled sceptre, and the crown of state, 
 
 Would ill become the poet. Luxury 
 Might sully with its earthiness the themes 
 That claim the homage of his soulful lyre ; 
 
 God gave the gift, and with it gave content. 
 
 Pile, then, the marble o’er the great that die, 
 
 And keep the record of each brilliant act 
 In the mean coffers such base coin deserves : 
 
 Give dust to dust ! hang drapery as frail 
 
 As the poor spider’s gossamer on all 
 
 That needs such trappings — Death will claim its own. 
 
 The Son of song hath built a monument 
 Stronger than brass — above the wreck of Time ; 
 Majestic made with emblems fashioned 
 From deathless spirit, crowned with wreaths well 
 wrought 
 
 Of beauties that shall last forever. 
 
 Earth 
 
 May oft forget that he hath lived or died, 
 
 And yet it matters not ; this April day 
 Of the immortal soul below, though dark 
 Or bright, is but a pulse-stroke of its being. 
 Chaunting his dirge-like triumph he shall pass 
 The darkling shadows of the vale of Death ; 
 
 With nobler powers his purer songs employ 
 At Heaven’s high gate, and join the tuneful throng 
 In lays long loved, though faintly heard before. 
 
 FINIS.