LITMIR.BIZ

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and sorrow, that like thorns

       Cling to the vesture of mortality,

       Piercing the spirit through with cruel woe.

       With thee my soul could dwell for evermore,

       Expanding all good feelings day by day,

       Till, at the last, like roses in full bloom

       The blossoms fall from pure maturity.

       Pride! Here no scale of inches is set up

       For man to strain his littleness against,

       But o'er me hangs the majesty of heaven,

       Bright with the glory of the noontide sun;

       Beneath, the Earth, that whispers "Thou art dust,

       "Gat like a child forth from my fertile womb,

       "And bone of my bone, thus, flesh of my flesh!"

       Thou glorious firmament that like God's love

       Enfoldest all creation utterly,

       Making the pathway of the wheeling spheres

       A splendour, and a triumph, and a joy,

       That on the brightness of thine azure breast

       Settest the constellated stars like gems,

       To flash the glory of thy loveliness

       Through all the fulness of unmeasured space.

       Can madness in its raving cast a thought

       To soar unto thy blessed perfectness,

       Nor stand subdued with reverence and awe

       In contemplation of the Infinite?

       O Earth! thou Mother and true Monitress!

       Can thy frail children close their ears for aye

       'Gainst the deep-hearted warnings of thy voice?

       In the wild whirl of life the tones may die

       Amid the clangour of contending foes,

       But here, as in the stillness of the night,

       Thy solemn teaching falleth on the soul

       To the vibration of the low heart-beat.

       Then what is there to charm me back to life?

       To wrestle with the guilty and the vain,

       And lose identity amid the crowd

       Who struggle onward after base desire.

       This quiet scene doth teach me how to weigh

       Your pleasures and your vanities aright;

       To hold as dross the honour that is flung

       Around man like a winter covering,

       Which the same hand can pluck away again,

       And leave the outcast shivering in the blast.

       There is no honour saving that within,

       Which none, nor man, nor Death itself can snatch,

       But which falls from the spirit in its flight

       Like a prophetic mantle upon Time.

      Pleasure! O World! in thine insanity

       Thou sinkest Soul into a poor buffoon,

       Garbëd in tinsel and false ornament

       To play its antics on the stage of life,

       A thing for fools to laugh at in their mirth.

       Thou sat'st thy lust upon the sapless husks

       That strew the highways of this pilgrimage,

       Closing thine eyes unto their emptiness,

       And out of folly turning sour to sweet.

       Hast thou the joy that nature's converse sheds

       Thro' all the pulses of the quiet soul?

       The gentle calm that like a whispered song

       Steals o'er the sense with sweetest languishment?

       Hast thou the magic of the Beautiful,

       Wreathing about thy spirit evermore,

       In sunshine and in shadow; when the stars

       Gather around the azure dome of heaven,

       And the pale moon glides like a virgin bride

       Humbly behind the footsteps of her love:

       When the sweet morn dawns on the sleeping world

       To bring reality to visions bright;

       And on the curtain of dissolving mist

       Arches the many-tinted sign of heaven?

       Hast thou the minstrelsie of the wild woods,

       Clear-tided strains floating along the sky,

       Swelling, subsiding, like a silvery sea

       Beneath the dulcet breathing of the south?

       Hast thou that essence of all joyousness—

       The glorious independence of the soul—

       That spurneth man's usurpëd tyranny,

       The power of wealth, and hapless circumstance,

       And, sweeping on its own unaided wings,

       Measures the circuit of the boundless sky?

       What is thy wealth, that fadeth in the use,

       And all the pomp and vanity it buys,

       To the rich treasure of undying thought,

       Encreasing evermore, till like a dower

       It benizon humanity for aye?

       All thy poor gold resolveth into dust

       Before the test of such a scene as this:

       Can it charm forth the blossom of a flower

       Ere summer bids it with her gentle smile?

       Can it restore the verdure to the leaf

       When yellow Autumn marks it for her own?

       Or, in the noontide bid the dew-shower rise

       To fill one rosy chalice to the brim?

       Go! gild thee with it, worldling, as thou wilt,

       Yet all thy pains will leave thee but a fool!

      Ay! there is love to beckon me away

       And lead me to a fountain of delight,

       Gliding before me in its purity,

       Like some bright angel guiding souls to heaven.

       O Love! have I not drained thee to the dregs,

       Thy pleasures and thy sorrows equally;

       Clinging unto thee as the Arab doth

       To his low fountain in the wilderness?

       Have I not gazed into thy tender eyes

       And read the secret of thy holiness,

       Cleansing my soul in humbleness and faith,

       To shrine thee in thy fulness evermore?

       Have I not clasped thee in my frenzied arms

       And heard thy heart-beats answer back to mine,

       Fainter and fainter till the deep voice stilled

       In the eternal silence of the grave?

       O be to me henceforth but some sweet dream

       Illumining the sky of Memory:

       A fixëd star of everlasting light

       To pilot me along the sea of life,

       And keep the bearings of the spirit true.

       Visit me in imagination's train,

       The sweetest and the fairest child of Thought,

      

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