New-York daily tribune., 1849-02-24
NEW-YORK TRIBUNE.
From the Anti- slavery Standard.
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.
pYy. LOWELL.

WHo hath not been a poet who hath not,
While Lies new quiver full OF winged years,
Shot at q venture, and then following on,
stood doubtful at the Parting OF the Ways
There once stood in dream and, az paused,
Locking this way and that, came forth TO me
The figure OF a Woman veiled that said,
. Nv name is Duty, turn and follow me -
Something there was that chilled me in her voice;
fel. Youths hand grow slack and cold in mine
As If TO be withdrawn, aud | replied
20, leave the hot, wild heart within my breast,
Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes Death
This slippery globe OF life whirls Of itself,
Hasting our youth away into the dark
These senses, quivering with electric heats
Too soon will show like nests on wintry boughs,
Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck,
Which whstling northwinds line with downy snow
Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, in vain,
Thither the singing birds no more return
Then glowed to me Maiden from the left,
With bosom hall disclosed, and naked arms
More white and undulant than necks of swaDs;
And all before her steps an influence ran
Warm ss the whis pering South that opens buds
And swells the laggard sails OF Northern May.
&" am called Pleasure, come with me ~ she said,
Then laughed and shook out sunshine from her hair,
Nor only that, but, so 1t seemed, shook out
All memory, too and all the moonlit past,
Old loves, old aspirations and old dreams,
More beautiful for being old and gone.
90 we two went together downward sioped
The path through yellow meads, or 60 dreamed
Yellow with sunshine and young green bat
Saw nought or heard, shut up in one close joy
l only felt the hand within my own,
TRANSMITTING all my blood to golden fire.
Dissolving all my brain IN throbbing mist
Suddenly shrsnk the hand suddenly burst
A cry that split the torpor Of my brain,
And, as the first sharp thrust OF lightning loosens
From the heaped cloud its rain, loosened my sense
Save me" IL thrilled, 30, hide me there 10
Death the d.ylder. the unmeTClful Death
That digs bis pitfalls under Love and Youth,
And covers Beauty up In the cold ground
Horrible Death, bringer of endless dark
Let him not see me, hide me in thy breast ~
Thereat 1'strove to clasp her, but my arms
Met only what slipped crombhng down and fell
A handful OF gray ashes at my feet
l would have fed, would have followed back
That pleas ant path We came bot oil was changed :
Rocky the way abrupt, and hard to hnd.
Yet toiled on, and, toIliDg on, thought,
4" That way lie Youth, and Wisdom, and all Good ;
For only by unlesrning Wisdom comes
And Ginning backward 70 diviDer Youth;
What the world teaches, profits 10 the world
What the soul teaches, profits TO the soul
Which then frat stands erect with Godwsrd face
When she let's fall her pack Of withered facts,
The glesnings OF the outward eye and ear,
And looks and listens with her finer sense
Nor Truth, nor Knowledge cometh from without"
After long weary days stood again
Aud waited al the Parting Of the Ways;
Again the figure of Woman veiled
Stood forth and beckoned, and ] followed now
Down 10 no bower of roses led the path, Cold
But through the streets Of towns where chattering
Hewed wood for fires whose glow was owned and
fenced
Where Nakedness wove garments Of warm wool
Not for itself ;-or through the fields it led,
Where Hunger reaped the unsttaiuable grain,
Where ldleness enforced, saw idle lands,
Leagues OF unpeopled soil, the common Earth,
Walled round with paper against God and Man.
GO cannot look" grosned at only these;
The heart grows hardened with perpetual want,
And palters with ieigned necessity,
Bargaining with itself TO be content;
Let me behold thy lace
The Form replied
Men follow Duty, never overtake;
Duty nor lifts her veil nor looks behind"
But, as she spoke. loosened lock OF hair
Slipped from beneath her hood, and l. who looked
To see It gray and thin, saw ampest gold,
Not that dnll metal dug from sordd earth,
But such as the retiring sunset food
Leaves heaped on bays and capes of island cloud.
80, Guide divine, prayed. although not yet
may repair the virtue, which feel
Gone out at touch al untuned things and foul,
\ With drsoghts OF Beauty, yet declare how soon y
"Faithess and faint OF heart" the Voice replied
E" Thou seest no beauty save thou make II hrst
Man, Woman, Nature, each is but glass
Where the soul sees the image OF herself
Visible echoes, offspring fherself.
But, since thou need 81 assurance OF how soon,
Wait till that Angel comes who opens all,
The reconcier he who lifts the veil
The reunter, the restbringer, Death
| waited and methousht he came, but how
Or in what shape. doubted, for no sign
BY touch or mark he gave me as he passed
Only know lily that held
Snapt short below the head aud shriveed up
Then turned my Guide and looked at me unveiled,
And beheld no face of maron stern,
But that Enchantment had followe ed erst,
Only more fair more clear TO eye and brain.
Heightened and chsstened by household charm
See smiled, and, (Which is fsirest said her eyes,
The witchs snowy Florimel or mine 2"