Atma - A Romance

"These things are a shadow," said Atma, "and a shadow is created by a

fact."

"I join in your prayer," said Bertram. "'Lead me from shadowy things to

things that be.' Types are not for him who believes that the horizon of

his sight bounds the possible."

"No," replied Atma, "better reject the image than accept it as the end

of our desire. The faith of my fathers, which grasped after Truth,

teaches me that if the outward semblance of divine verities lead captive

not only my senses, to which its appeal is made, but my heart's

allegiance, I am guilty of idolatry."

"How fair," said Bertram, "must be the thing imaged by earth's loveliest

pageantry! What must be the song of whose melody broken snatches and

stray notes reach us in the golden speech of those endowed with hearing

to catch its echoes! What harmony of beatitude is taught by the mystery

of heavenly colour! How dull must be our faculties, or how distant the

bliss for which our souls yearn as from behind a lattice, seeing only as

in a mirror of burnished silver, which, though it be never so bright,

reflects but dimly! How unutterable are our transitory glimpses of

eternal possibilities!"

"Therein," said Atma, "may lie the reason why evanescent beauty stirs

us most. It may be more heavenly in meaning or affinity than things that

remain. This has sometimes perplexed me.

"For, ever most our love is given

To glories whose decadence fleet

Has more of changeful earth than heaven; The heart's astir,

And sympathies leap forth to greet

The mingling fair

Of heavenly hues limned in empyreal bow

Aloft in dewy air, but ere we know

Their place and method true they fade away,

And fancy follows still, though things as beauteous stay.

What joyous note,

Warbled in bliss of upper air,

May with the one death-song compare

That floats among the reeds, and blends

With wild wind's plaint, till silence ends

In haunt remote

Sweet life and song;

They float away the reeds among.

"I beware me of types," he continued, "though I know nothing real. I am

surrounded by images, my present state of being is a shadow, but I

crave reality. The symbol is fair, but Truth is fairer. To that verity

all types must yield, how beautiful soever they be, or meet to express

their burden."

* * * * * And yet how dear the transient joys of time,

Their purport not the Pearl of our desire.

Loved are these confines as immortal clime,

And dear the hearth-flame as the altar fire;

When fate accomplished wins her utmost bourne,

And fulness ousts for aye fair images,

Will doting mem'ry from their funeral pyre

Rise phoenix-wise and earth-sick spirits yearn

For fragrant flower, and sward, and changeful trees,

For storied rose, and sweet poetic morn,

For sound of bird, and brook, and murmuring bees,

For luckless fancies of illusion born,

What time in dark we dwelt and framed our lore?

Woe, woe, if then regretful we should mourn

"What wisdom left we on that human shore!"

For brooding kindness can a charm beget,

Not duly won, and from Heaven's parapet

These terrene colours shine with starry gleam--

But this is all a fable and a dream;

A fable, for this axiom it brings,

Immortal loves must love immortal things;

Dream is it, for uncurbed it took its flight,

And roamed afar, a fancy of the Night.