University of Virginia Library

I know some dreadful, most exalted doom
My future waits. My soul is taken hence
And set full often by a stormy sea—
A grey, perturb'd, immeasurable sea,
The desolation of whose terrible voice
Arrests the inward being. There are clouds
Heap'd by some wild art of a winter wind
In wild confusion. There is saffron light
Through lurid rifts. The verge is tooth'd by waves,
The whole sky torn by tempest. There are sharp
And bulging headlands, promontories bleak,
And melancholy miles of winding coast,
With stones and seaweed strewn. No sea-mew cries;
I stand, wind-wrapp'd, and dream deep dreams thereby,
Or wander aimless, waiting, hush'd and white,
Some fierce convulsion in the boding sky.
Mine eyes are fixed upon the raving waste
Of whirling waves, and, utterly apart
From sympathy or voice of man, I face
The mysteries of being.

I accept
The doom. My spirit has been tested there
But has not fail'd. An inspiration comes
From wretchedness; in desolation, strength;
Through Nature in convulsed, terrific moods,
The secret hidden by external things.
I know this terrible and rending scene
Is threshold of revealment. That rent sky
Will open suddenly, in depths serene
A sunset all of majesty and light
Revealing; clouds transfigured, grouping round,
Will lead imagination on from world
To world of thoughts ineffable. Some ray
Will fall full redly on the restless sea
And soothe its tortured surges, smoothing out
A path of magical and mystic light—
Salt breeze and rosy splendour: all its length
My soul, uplifted in a mighty trance,
With faculties made clean, with tranquil step,
Will swiftly traverse. . . . To the Land of Light
Go, favour'd Soul! The prospects open wide;
Dream preludes vision; like a flower of flame,
Unfolds high vision into truth attain'd;
Thy pinions bear thee to ecstatic rest,
In quiet seas of spiritual space
Profoundly lapp'd. . . . A magnet draws thee on;
Thou art awaken'd in the world of mind;
Where blessed hierarchies of perfect life
Are gleaming round thee, poised and sphered at length;
The heights unknown of supersensual things
Prolong their vistas. Thou art taught thereby;
Thou art inspired; an end of all is seen—
As naked and unutterable truth
Whose essence is the Deity reveal'd.