 | Dryburgh Abbey and other poems |  |
THE VOICE OF NIGHT.
I
How beautiful the heavens look to-night!—So calm, transparent; and the starry crowd,—
Those exquisite embodiments of light,—
Could ye not almost fancy they were proud
Of their own loveliness?—that they had bliss
In beaming forth on such a night as this?
II
For ever and for ever there is setIn the enduring sky, a seal and sign,
A voiceless evidence of God!—which yet
Unchanged shall live, when this frail form of mine
Hath mouldered from the bosom of the earth,
Leaving no record of its mortal birth.
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III
The elements of which we are composedMay perish; they are finite: but the soul
Bursts from the frame in which it lived enclosed,
Beyond the grasping reach of Time's control!—
That spirit which within us swells and speaks,
Shall find the immortality it seeks!
IV
Oh, thou!—Creator!—God!—and can it beThat man is heir to thine own glorious heaven?—
'Tis so!—the light, which is sublimity,—
The essence, which is thought, by Thee were given!—
The fear and heaviness of doubt are o'er—
I muse, and feel—and tremble—and adore!
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