 | East and west : the discovery of America and other poems |  |
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THE SOUL QUESTIONS.
The voice of the Present unheeded
Is drowned in a tempest of sighs,
Those sighs that the fancy hath breeded.
The Past is the beam in our eyes.
We look o'er a garden unweeded
For rapture of bloom to arise.
Is drowned in a tempest of sighs,
Those sighs that the fancy hath breeded.
The Past is the beam in our eyes.
We look o'er a garden unweeded
For rapture of bloom to arise.
Alas, for humanity's error,
The self that bewilders the brain,
The pleasure that whirls in the vein,
And brings on the phantoms of terror,
The terrible demons of pain!
The self that bewilders the brain,
The pleasure that whirls in the vein,
And brings on the phantoms of terror,
The terrible demons of pain!
The cities are buried in gloom.
The temple of man is a waste;
A shaft on a desolate waste.
He laughs like a ghost in the tomb
To which he is starred. In his haste
He prays for the curse of his doom
As if it were gold of the graced.
The temple of man is a waste;
A shaft on a desolate waste.
He laughs like a ghost in the tomb
To which he is starred. In his haste
He prays for the curse of his doom
As if it were gold of the graced.
On the beacon of hills is a breath,
But a gasp, of the life-giving air,
As it flees from the rising mist, death,
That blows through the valleys its hair,
The thoughts of its pestilent hair;
And soft to the universe saith,
“Behold me, ye fools, and despair.”
But a gasp, of the life-giving air,
As it flees from the rising mist, death,
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The thoughts of its pestilent hair;
And soft to the universe saith,
“Behold me, ye fools, and despair.”
O God, if delusion is all,
If fancy and pleasure are cheating
And luring on man to his fall,
If beauty be fickle and fleeting,
If thought be the worm in the sweeting,
If truth be a loosely built wall
Where doubt like an ocean is beating:—
If fancy and pleasure are cheating
And luring on man to his fall,
If beauty be fickle and fleeting,
If thought be the worm in the sweeting,
If truth be a loosely built wall
Where doubt like an ocean is beating:—
O, why didst Thou give us to be?
Not crush the dark seed of creation?
Why suffer each doomed constellation?
Why foam in thy querulous sea;
If all be not blessing from thee,
And crowned with thine utter salvation?
Not crush the dark seed of creation?
Why suffer each doomed constellation?
Why foam in thy querulous sea;
If all be not blessing from thee,
And crowned with thine utter salvation?
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