by Camilla Toulmin.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.3 #1 (1843).
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."—Shakspeare.
Speak gently of those two wild dreams, nor curl the lip with scorn,
That ever, wearing human shape, such dreaming fools were born,
As they whose gorgeous errors shook the steadfast thrones of kings,
And shadow'd long the mental world with their outspreading wings.
It was an age of darkness—yea, the mighty mind of man
Was struggling 'mid the brambles, which its pathway over-ran;
And feebly shone the star of Truth, which rises as we gaze,
Until at last we fain must hope 'twill shed meridian blaze:
But only near the horizon did it glimmer to the view
Of the earnest ones of olden time—the seekers of the True!
Speak gently of those parents old, who, dying at the birth,
Brought forth their marvellous offspring, to shed upon the earth
The truth-enkindled, living light, which never shall be lost.
Astronomy and Chemistry!—oh, where can Science boast
Such peerless daughters as the two that time hath won at last
From travail of the teeming mind, through darksome ages past?
It was a dazzling meteor, that well might lead astray
The bounding heart, which fain would soar above its home of clay,
To think the whirling stars, that watch with their unslumb'ring eyes,
Had power unseen to guide the reins of human destinies.
Oh! surely 'twas no grovelling soul that first the thought did own,
Which link'd his being to the stars, upon their purple throne,
And mounting on the pinions strong, which only Faith can spread,
Disdain'd sometimes the rugged path that Reason loves to tread;
And yet, methinks, with wounded wing, Faith often in the race
Did turn where Reason's finger shew'd anon a resting-place.
It might be such indeed were few, and yet the daughter fair,
Astronomy, that mounts the path, and doth its steepness dare,
Reveals the things and thoughts that ask of man more ample mind
Than in her old dead parent's dream were ever found entwined.
But see, the yet more duteous child advances proudly now,
To twine a laurel-wreath around her ancient parent's brow,
And tell it was no baseless hope, by knaves and fools begot,
To merit but the passing sneer, or dull oblivion's lot,
Which lured the gray-beards on to strive, though terrors round them furl'd,
To form of meaner elements the Thing that rules the world!
The soulless—bless'd—accurséd Gold, which in life's tangled web
Must weave its strange controlling thread till life itself shall ebb.
But Chemistry, that boldly speaks in Wisdom's garb array'd,
And wrests from Nature secrets hid since first the world was made,
Who can detect the subtle part the radiant diamond hath,
And moves with steady, rapid march, in her extending path
Proclaims—so spake the great high priest[1] who trod behind the veil
Of her pure temple—that the thing at which the thoughtless rail
May prove among her triumphs mean, in those advancing years,
Whose herald-shadow now, methinks, upon the earth appears:
A triumph mean, if not in vain, that cherish'd dream of old—
Compared with knowledge, that outweighs the earth's whole store of gold.
1. Sir H. Davy, in one of his lectures, asserts not only the possibility of the transmutation of metals, but the probability that such a discovery will be made. He adds, however, "it would of course be useless."