Translated from the German by Sophie A. Miller and Agnes M. Dunne - "After Long Years and Other Stories"

Robert L. Taylor - "Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales"

Various - "Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories"

Susie F. Harrison - "Crowded Out! and Other Sketches"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore

T >> Thomas Moore et al >> The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore




[2] "We adorned the lower heaven with lights, and placed therein a guard
of angels."--_Koran, chap. xli_.






THE LOVES OF THE ANGELS


'Twas when the world was in its prime,
When the fresh stars had just begun
Their race of glory and young Time
Told his first birth-days by the sun;
When in the light of Nature's dawn
Rejoicing, men and angels met
On the high hill and sunny lawn,--
Ere sorrow came or Sin had drawn
'Twixt man and heaven her curtain yet!
When earth lay nearer to the skies
Than in these days of crime and woe,
And mortals saw without surprise
In the mid-air angelic eyes
Gazing upon this world below.

Alas! that Passion should profane
Even then the morning of the earth!
That, sadder still, the fatal stain
Should fall on hearts of heavenly birth--
And that from Woman's love should fall
So dark a stain, most sad of all!

One evening, in that primal hour,
On a hill's side where hung the ray
Of sunset brightening rill and bower,
Three noble youths conversing lay;
And, as they lookt from time to time
To the far sky where Daylight furled
His radiant wing, their brows sublime
Bespoke them of that distant world--
Spirits who once in brotherhood
Of faith and bliss near ALLA stood,
And o'er whose cheeks full oft had blown
The wind that breathes from ALLA'S throne,[1]
Creatures of light such as _still_ play,
Like motes in sunshine, round the Lord,
And thro' their infinite array
Transmit each moment, night and day,
The echo of His luminous word!

Of Heaven they spoke and, still more oft,
Of the bright eyes that charmed them thence;
Till yielding gradual to the soft
And balmy evening's influence--
The silent breathing of the flowers--
The melting light that beamed above,
As on their first, fond, erring hours,--
Each told the story of his love,
The history of that hour unblest,
When like a bird from its high nest
Won down by fascinating eyes,
For Woman's smile he lost the skies.

The First who spoke was one, with look
The least celestial of the three--
A Spirit of light mould that took
The prints of earth most yieldingly;
Who even in heaven was not of those
Nearest the Throne but held a place
Far off among those shining rows
That circle out thro' endless space,
And o'er whose wings the light from Him
In Heaven's centre falls most dim.[2]

Still fair and glorious, he but shone
Among those youths the unheavenliest one--
A creature to whom light remained
From Eden still, but altered, stained,
And o'er whose brow not Love alone
A blight had in his transit cast,
But other, earthlier joys had gone,
And left their foot-prints as they past.
Sighing, as back thro' ages flown,
Like a tomb-searcher, Memory ran,
Lifting each shroud that Time had thrown
O'er buried hopes, he thus began:--


FIRST ANGEL'S STORY.


'Twas in a land that far away
Into the golden orient lies,
Where Nature knows not night's delay,
But springs to meet her bridegroom, Day,
Upon the threshold of the skies,
One morn, on earthly mission sent,[3]
And mid-way choosing where to light,
I saw from the blue element--
Oh beautiful, but fatal sight!--
One of earth's fairest womankind,
Half veiled from view, or rather shrined
In the clear crystal of a brook;
Which while it hid no single gleam
Of her young beauties made them look
More spirit-like, as they might seem
Thro' the dim shadowing of a dream.
Pausing in wonder I lookt on,
While playfully around her breaking
The waters that like diamonds shone
She moved in light of her own making.
At length as from that airy height
I gently lowered my breathless flight,
The tremble of my wings all o'er
(For thro' each plume I felt the thrill)
Startled her as she reached the shore
Of that small lake--her mirror still--
Above whose brink she stood, like snow
When rosy with a sunset glow,
Never shall I forget those eyes!--
The shame, the innocent surprise
Of that bright face when in the air
Uplooking she beheld me there.
It seemed as if each thought and look
And motion were that minute chained
Fast to the spot, such root she took,
And--like a sunflower by a brook,
With face upturned--so still remained!

In pity to the wondering maid,
Tho' loath from such a vision turning,
Downward I bent, beneath the shade
Of my spread wings to hide the burning
Of glances, which--I well could feel--
For me, for her, too warmly shone;
But ere I could again unseal
My restless eyes or even steal
One sidelong look the maid was gone--
Hid from me in the forest leaves,
Sudden as when in all her charms
Of full-blown light some cloud receives
The Moon into his dusky arms.

'Tis not in words to tell the power,
The despotism that from that hour
Passion held o'er me. Day and night
I sought around each neighboring spot;
And in the chase of this sweet light,
My task and heaven and all forgot;--
All but the one, sole, haunting dream
Of her I saw in that bright stream.

Nor was it long ere by her side
I found myself whole happy days
Listening to words whose music vied
With our own Eden's seraph lays,
When seraph lays are warmed by love,
But wanting _that_ far, far above!--
And looking into eyes where, blue
And beautiful, like skies seen thro'
The sleeping wave, for me there shone
A heaven, more worshipt than my own.
Oh what, while I could hear and see
Such words and looks, was heaven to me?

Tho' gross the air on earth I drew,
'Twas blessed, while she breathed it too;
Tho' dark the flowers, tho' dim the sky,
Love lent them light while she was nigh.
Throughout creation I but knew
Two separate worlds--the _one_, that small,
Beloved and consecrated spot
Where LEA was--the other, all
The dull, wide waste where she was _not_!

But vain my suit, my madness vain;
Tho' gladly, from her eyes to gain
One earthly look, one stray desire,
I would have torn the wings that hung
Furled at my back and o'er the Fire
In GEHIM'S[4] pit their fragments flung;--
'Twas hopeless all--pure and unmoved
She stood as lilies in the light
Of the hot noon but look more white;--
And tho' she loved me, deeply loved,
'Twas not as man, as mortal--no,
Nothing of earth was in that glow--
She loved me but as one, of race
Angelic, from that radiant place
She saw so oft in dreams--that Heaven
To which her prayers at morn were sent
And on whose light she gazed at even,
Wishing for wings that she might go
Out of this shadowy world below
To that free, glorious element!

Well I remember by her side
Sitting at rosy even-tide,
When,--turning to the star whose head
Lookt out as from a bridal bed,
At that mute, blushing hour,--she said,
"Oh! that it were my doom to be
"The Spirit of yon beauteous star,
"Dwelling up there in purity,
"Alone as all such bright things are;--
"My sole employ to pray and shine,
"To light my censer at the sun,
"And cast its fire towards the shrine
"Of Him in heaven, the Eternal One!"

So innocent the maid, so free
From mortal taint in soul and frame,
Whom 'twas my crime--my destiny--
To love, ay, burn for, with a flame
To which earth's wildest fires are tame.
Had you but seen her look when first
From my mad lips the avowal burst;
Not angered--no!--the feeling came
From depths beyond mere anger's flame--
It was a _sorrow_ calm as deep,
A mournfulness that could not weep,
So filled her heart was to the brink,
So fixt and frozen with grief to think
That angel natures--that even I
Whose love she clung to, as the tie
Between her spirit and the sky--
Should fall thus headlong from the height
Of all that heaven hath pure and bright!

That very night--my heart had grown
Impatient of its inward burning;
The term, too, of my stay was flown,
And the bright Watchers near the throne.
Already, if a meteor shone
Between them and this nether zone,
Thought 'twas their herald's wing returning.
Oft did the potent spell-word, given
To Envoys hither from the skies,
To be pronounced when back to heaven
It is their time or wish to rise,
Come to my lips that fatal day;
And once too was so nearly spoken,
That my spread plumage in the ray
And breeze of heaven began to play;--
When my heart failed--the spell was broken--
The word unfinisht died away,
And my checkt plumes ready to soar,
Fell slack and lifeless as before.
How could I leave a world which she,
Or lost or won, made all to me?
No matter where my wanderings were,
So there she lookt, breathed, moved about--
Woe, ruin, death, more sweet with her,
Than Paradise itself, without!

But to return--that very day
A feast was held, where, full of mirth,
Came--crowding thick as flowers that play
In summer winds--the young and gay
And beautiful of this bright earth.
And she was there and mid the young
And beautiful stood first, alone;
Tho' on her gentle brow still hung
The shadow I that morn had thrown--
The first that ever shame or woe
Had cast upon its vernal snow.
My heart was maddened;--in the flush
Of the wild revel I gave way
To all that frantic mirth--that rush
Of desperate gayety which they,
Who never felt how pain's excess
Can break out thus, think happiness!
Sad mimicry of mirth and life
Whose flashes come but from the strife
Of inward passions--like the light
Struck out by clashing swords in fight.

Then too that juice of earth, the bane
And blessing of man's heart and brain--
That draught of sorcery which brings
Phantoms of fair, forbidden things--
Whose drops like those of rainbows smile
Upon the mists that circle man,
Brightening not only Earth the while,
But grasping Heaven too in their span!--
Then first the fatal wine-cup rained
Its dews of darkness thro' my lips,
Casting whate'er of light remained
To my lost soul into eclipse;
And filling it with such wild dreams,
Such fantasies and wrong desires,
As in the absence of heaven's beams
Haunt us for ever--like wildfires
That walk this earth when day retires.

Now hear the rest;--our banquet done,
I sought her in the accustomed bower,
Where late we oft, when day was gone
And the world husht, had met alone,
At the same silent, moonlight hour.
Her eyes as usual were upturned
To her loved star whose lustre burned
Purer than ever on that night;
While she in looking grew more bright
As tho' she borrowed of its light.

There was a virtue in that scene,
A spell of holiness around,
Which had my burning brain not been
Thus maddened would have held me bound,
As tho' I trod celestial ground.
Even as it was, with soul all flame
And lips that burned in their own sighs,
I stood to gaze with awe and shame--
The memory of Eden came
Full o'er me when I saw those eyes;
And tho' too well each glance of mine
To the pale, shrinking maiden proved
How far, alas! from aught divine,
Aught worthy of so pure a shrine,
Was the wild love with which I loved,
Yet must she, too, have seen--oh yes,
'Tis soothing but to _think_ she saw
The deep, true, soul-felt tenderness,
The homage of an Angel's awe
To her, a mortal, whom pure love
Then placed above him--far above--
And all that struggle to repress
A sinful spirit's mad excess,
Which workt within me at that hour,
When with a voice where Passion shed
All the deep sadness of her power,
Her melancholy power--I said,
"Then be it so; if back to heaven
"I must unloved, unpitied fly.
"Without one blest memorial given
"To soothe me in that lonely sky;
"One look like those the young and fond
"Give when they're parting--which would be,
"Even in remembrance far beyond
"All heaven hath left of bliss for me!

"Oh, but to see that head recline
"A minute on this trembling arm,
"And those mild eyes look up to mine,
"Without a dread, a thought of harm!
"To meet but once the thrilling touch
"Of lips too purely fond to fear me--
"Or if that boon be all too much,
"Even thus to bring their fragrance near me!
"Nay, shrink not so--a look--a word--
"Give them but kindly and I fly;
"Already, see, my plumes have stirred
"And tremble for their home on high.
"Thus be our parting--cheek to cheek--
"One minute's lapse will be forgiven,
"And thou, the next, shalt hear me speak
"The spell that plumes my wing for heaven!"

While thus I spoke, the fearful maid,
Of me and of herself afraid,
Had shrinking stood like flowers beneath
The scorching of the south-wind's breath:
But when I named--alas, too well,
I now recall, tho' wildered then,--
Instantly, when I named the spell
Her brow, her eyes uprose again;
And with an eagerness that spoke
The sudden light that o'er her broke,
"The spell, the spell!--oh, speak it now.
"And I will bless thee!" she exclaimed--
Unknowing what I did, inflamed,
And lost already, on her brow
I stampt one burning kiss, and named
The mystic word till then ne'er told
To living creature of earth's mould!
Scarce was it said when quick a thought,
Her lips from mine like echo caught
The holy sound--her hands and eyes
Were instant lifted to the skies,
And thrice to heaven she spoke it out
With that triumphant look Faith wears,
When not a cloud of fear or doubt,
A vapor from this vale of tears.
Between her and her God appears!
That very moment her whole frame
All bright and glorified became,
And at her back I saw unclose
Two wings magnificent as those
That sparkle around ALLA'S Throne,
Whose plumes, as buoyantly she rose
Above me, in the moon-beam shone
With a pure light; which--from its hue,
Unknown upon this earth--I knew
Was light from Eden, glistening thro'!
Most holy vision! ne'er before
Did aught so radiant--since the day
When EBLIS in his downfall, bore
The third of the bright stars away--
Rise in earth's beauty to repair
That loss of light and glory there!

But did I tamely view her flight?
Did not I too proclaim out thrice
The powerful words that were that night,--
Oh even for heaven too much delight!--
Again to bring us, eyes to eyes
And soul to soul, in Paradise?
I did--I spoke it o'er and o'er--
I prayed, I wept, but all in vain;
For me the spell had power no more.
There seemed around me some dark chain
Which still as I essayed to soar
Baffled, alas, each wild endeavor;
Dead lay my wings as they have lain
Since that sad hour and will remain--
So wills the offended God--for ever!

It was to yonder star I traced
Her journey up the illumined waste--
That isle in the blue firmament
To which so oft her fancy went
In wishes and in dreams before,
And which was now--such, Purity,
Thy blest reward--ordained to be
Her home of light for evermore!
Once--or did I but fancy so?--
Even in her flight to that fair sphere,
Mid all her spirit's new-felt glow,
A pitying look she turned below
On him who stood in darkness here;
Him whom perhaps if vain regret
Can dwell in heaven she pities yet;
And oft when looking to this dim
And distant world remembers him.

But soon that passing dream was gone;
Farther and farther off she shone,
Till lessened to a point as small
As are those specks that yonder burn,--
Those vivid drops of light that fall
The last from Day's exhausted urn.
And when at length she merged, afar,
Into her own immortal star,
And when at length my straining sight
Had caught her wing's last fading ray,
That minute from my soul the light
Of heaven and love both past away;
And I forgot my home, my birth,
Profaned my spirit, sunk my brow,
And revelled in gross joys of earth
Till I became--what I am now!

The Spirit bowed his head in shame;
A shame that of itself would tell--
Were there not even those breaks of flame,
Celestial, thro' his clouded frame--
How grand the height from which he fell!
That holy Shame which ne'er forgets
The unblenched renown it used to wear;
Whose blush remains when Virtue sets
To show her sunshine _has_ been there.

Once only while the tale he told
Were his eyes lifted to behold
That happy stainless, star where she
Dwelt in her bower of purity!
One minute did he look and then--
As tho' he felt some deadly pain
From its sweet light thro' heart and brain--
Shrunk back and never lookt again.

Who was the Second Spirit? he
With the proud front and piercing glance--
Who seemed when viewing heaven's expanse
As tho' his far-sent eye could see
On, on into the Immensity
Behind the veils of that blue sky
Where ALLA'S grandest secrets lie?--
His wings, the while, tho' day was gone,
Flashing with many a various hue
Of light they from themselves alone,
Instinct with Eden's brightness drew.
'Twas RUBI--once among the prime
And flower of those bright creatures, named
Spirits of Knowledge,[5] who o'er Time
And Space and Thought an empire claimed,
Second alone to Him whose light
Was even to theirs as day to night;
'Twixt whom and them was distance far
And wide as would the journey be
To reach from any island star
To vague shores of Infinity

'Twas RUBI in whose mournful eye
Slept the dim light of days gone by;
Whose voice tho' sweet fell on the ear
Like echoes in some silent place
When first awaked for many a year;
And when he smiled, if o'er his face
Smile ever shone, 'twas like the grace
Of moonlight rainbows, fair, but wan,
The sunny life, the glory gone.
Even o'er his pride tho' still the same,
A softening shade from sorrow came;
And tho' at times his spirit knew
The kindlings of disdain and ire,
Short was the fitful glare they threw--
Like the last flashes, fierce but few,
Seen thro' some noble pile on fire!
Such was the Angel who now broke
The silence that had come o'er all,
When he the Spirit that last spoke
Closed the sad history of his fall;
And while a sacred lustre flown
For many a day relumed his cheek--
Beautiful as in days of old;
And not those eloquent lips alone
But every feature seemed to speak--
Thus his eventful story told:--


SECOND ANGEL'S STORY.


You both remember well the day
When unto Eden's new-made bowers
ALLA convoked the bright array
Of his supreme angelic powers
To witness the one wonder yet,
Beyond man, angel, star, or sun,
He must achieve, ere he could set
His seal upon the world as done--
To see the last perfection rise,
That crowning of creation's birth,
When mid the worship and surprise
Of circling angels Woman's eyes
First open upon heaven and earth;
And from their lids a thrill was sent,
That thro' each living spirit went
Like first light thro' the firmament!

Can you forget how gradual stole
The fresh-awakened breath of soul
Throughout her perfect form--which seemed
To grow transparent as there beamed
That dawn of Mind within and caught
New loveliness from each new thought?
Slow as o'er summer seas we trace
The progress of the noontide air,
Dimpling its bright and silent face
Each minute into some new grace,
And varying heaven's reflections there--
Or like the light of evening stealing
O'er some fair temple which all day
Hath slept in shadow, slow revealing
Its several beauties ray by ray,
Till it shines out, a thing to bless,
All full of light and loveliness.

Can you forget her blush when round
Thro' Eden's lone, enchanted ground
She lookt, and saw the sea--the skies--
And heard the rush of many a wing,
On high behests then vanishing;
And saw the last few angel eyes,
Still lingering--mine among the rest,--
Reluctant leaving scenes so blest?
From that miraculous hour the fate
Of this new, glorious Being dwelt
For ever with a spell-like weight
Upon my spirit--early, late,
Whate'er I did or dreamed or felt,
The thought of what might yet befall
That matchless creature mixt with all.--
Nor she alone but her whole race
Thro' ages yet to come--whate'er
Of feminine and fond and fair
Should spring from that pure mind and face,
All waked my soul's intensest care;
Their forms, souls, feelings, still to me
Creation's strangest mystery!

It was my doom--even from the first,
When witnessing the primal burst
Of Nature's wonders, I saw rise
Those bright creations in the skies,--
Those worlds instinct with life and light,
Which Man, remote, but sees by night,--
It was my doom still to be haunted
By some new wonder, some sublime
And matchless work, that for the time
Held all my soul enchained, enchanted,
And left me not a thought, a dream,
A word but on that only theme!

The wish to know--that endless thirst,
Which even by quenching is awaked,
And which becomes or blest or curst
As is the fount whereat 'tis slaked--
Still urged me onward with desire
Insatiate, to explore, inquire--
Whate'er the wondrous things might be
That waked each new idolatry--
Their cause, aim, source, whenever sprung--
Their inmost powers, as tho' for me
Existence on that knowledge hung.

Oh what a vision were the stars
When first I saw them born on high,
Rolling along like living cars
Of light for gods to journey by![6]
They were like my heart's first passion--days
And nights unwearied, in their rays
Have I hung floating till each sense
Seemed full of their bright influence.
Innocent joy! alas, how much
Of misery had I shunned below,
Could I have still lived blest with such;
Nor, proud and restless, burned to know
The knowledge that brings guilt and woe.

Often--so much I loved to trace
The secrets of this starry race--
Have I at morn and evening run
Along the lines of radiance spun
Like webs between them and the sun,
Untwisting all the tangled ties
Of light into their different dyes--
The fleetly winged I off in quest
Of those, the farthest, loneliest,
That watch like winking sentinels,[7]
The void, beyond which Chaos dwells;
And there with noiseless plume pursued
Their track thro' that grand solitude,
Asking intently all and each
What soul within their radiance dwelt,
And wishing their sweet light were speech,
That they might tell me all they felt.

Nay, oft, so passionate my chase,
Of these resplendent heirs of space,
Oft did I follow--lest a ray
Should 'scape me in the farthest night--
Some pilgrim Comet on his way
To visit distant shrines of light,
And well remember how I sung
Exultingly when on my sight
New worlds of stars all fresh and young
As if just born of darkness sprung!

Such was my pure ambition then,
My sinless transport night and morn
Ere yet this newer world of men,
And that most fair of stars was born
Which I in fatal hour saw rise
Among the flowers of Paradise!

Thenceforth my nature all was changed,
My heart, soul, senses turned below;
And he who but so lately ranged
Yon wonderful expanse where glow
Worlds upon worlds,--yet found his mind
Even in that luminous range confined,--
Now blest the humblest, meanest sod
Of the dark earth where Woman trod!
In vain my former idols glistened
From their far thrones; in vain these ears
To the once-thrilling music listened,
That hymned around my favorite spheres--
To earth, to earth each thought was given,
That in this half-lost soul had birth;
Like some high mount, whose head's in heaven
While its whole shadow rests on earth!

Nor was it Love, even yet, that thralled
My spirit in his burning ties;
And less, still less could it be called
That grosser flame, round which Love flies
Nearer and near till he dies--
No, it was wonder, such as thrilled
At all God's works my dazzled sense;
The same rapt wonder, only filled
With passion, more profound, intense,--
A vehement, but wandering fire,
Which, tho' nor love, nor yet desire,--
Tho' thro' all womankind it took
Its range, its lawless lightnings run,
Yet wanted but a touch, a look,
To fix it burning upon _One_.

Then too the ever-restless zeal,
The insatiate curiosity,
To know how shapes so fair must feel--
To look but once beneath the seal
Of so much loveliness and see
What souls belonged to such bright eyes--
Whether as sunbeams find their way
Into the gem that hidden lies,
Those looks could inward turn their ray,
And make the soul as bright as they:
All this impelled my anxious chase.
And still the more I saw and knew
Of Woman's fond, weak, conquering race,
The intenser still my wonder grew.
I had beheld their First, their EVE,
Born in that splendid Paradise,
Which sprung there solely to receive
The first light of her waking eyes.
I had seen purest angels lean
In worship o'er her from above;
And man--oh yes, had envying seen
Proud man possest of all her love.

I saw their happiness, so brief,
So exquisite,--her error, too,
That easy trust, that prompt belief
In what the warm heart wishes true;
That faith in words, when kindly said.
By which the whole fond sex is led
Mingled with--what I durst not blame,
For 'tis my own--that zeal to _know_,
Sad, fatal zeal, so sure of woe;
Which, tho' from heaven all pure it came,
Yet stained, misused, brought sin and shame
On her, on me, on all below!

I had seen this; had seen Man, armed
As his soul is with strength and sense,
By her first words to ruin charmed;
His vaunted reason's cold defence,
Like an ice-barrier in the ray
Of melting summer, smiled away.
Nay, stranger yet, spite of all this--
Tho' by her counsels taught to err,
Tho' driven from Paradise for her,
(And _with_ her--_that_ at least was bliss,)
Had I not heard him ere he crost
The threshold of that earthly heaven,
Which by her bewildering smile he lost--
So quickly was the wrong forgiven--
Had I not heard him, as he prest
The frail, fond trembler to a breast
Which she had doomed to sin and strife,
Call her--even then--his Life! his Life![8]
Yes, such a love-taught name, the first,
That ruined Man to Woman gave,
Even in his outcast hour, when curst
By her fond witchery, with that worst
And earliest boon of love, the grave!
She who brought death into the world
There stood before him, with the light
Of their lost Paradise still bright
Upon those sunny locks that curled
Down her white shoulders to her feet--
So beautiful in form, so sweet
In heart and voice, as to redeem
The loss, the death of all things dear,
Except herself--and make it seem
Life, endless Life, while she was near!
Could I help wondering at a creature,
Thus circled round with spells so strong--
One to whose every thought, word, feature.
In joy and woe, thro' right and wrong,
Such sweet omnipotence heaven gave,
To bless or ruin, curse or save?

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