 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
LIFE
I
Great Universe—what dost thou with thy dead!Now thinking on the myriads that have gone
Into a seeming blank oblivion,
With here and there a most resplendent head,—
Eyes of such trancing sweetness, or so dread,
That made the soul to quake who looked thereon,—
All utterly wiped out, dismissed, and done;
Lost, speechless, viewless, and forever fled!
Myriad on myriad, past the power to count;—
Where are they, thou dumb Nature? Do they shine,
Released from separate life, in summer airs,
On moony seas, in dawns?—or up the stairs
Of spiritual being slowly mount
And by degrees grow more and more divine?
II
Ah, thou wilt never answer to our call,Thou Voiceless One—naught in thee can be stirred,
What tho' the soul, like to a frightened bird,
Dash itself wildly 'gainst thy mountain-wall.
From Nature comes no answer, tho' we fall
In utmost anguish praying to be heard,
Or peer below, or our brave spirits gird
For steep and starry flight; 't is silent all.
69
The throbbing human heart, that still doth keep
Its truth, love, hope, its high and quenchless faith.
By day, by night, when all else faints in sleep,
“Naught is but Life,” it cries; “there is no death;
Life, Life doth only live, since Life began.”
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |