Madmoments: or First Verseattempts By a Bornnatural. Addressed to the Lightheaded of Society at Large, by Henry Ellison |
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THOUGHTS ON PAST YOUTH. |
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 | Madmoments: or First Verseattempts |  |
THOUGHTS ON PAST YOUTH.
Sing, sing ye Birds, and welcome in young May,And o'er his Cradle strew your fairest Dies
Ye Flowers, and ye green Leaves, wheree'er he lies,
By Shadows numberless hid from the Day,
Make soft his Bed, and sweeten all his Way
With freshest Perfumes, that when he shall rise,
No Sign of Winter meet his laughing Eyes,
Forgotten, like a Sorrow passed for aye:
A Sorrow! lo! and at the Word, close by
Joy's Side, the dimseen Spectre stands, like to
His Shadow, Step for Step, forever nigh!
Thus all this Loveliness I wander thro',
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And yet 'tis less of Pain, than Ecstacy!
'Tis sublimed by the Feeling of the True,
The Godlike, which supplies the Dream of Youth:
And who would not exchange a Dream for Truth,
However sweet? thus what I have not is
Far fairer, yea! e'en that which I do miss
Is richer, than what others have: they dream
On still, and are not yet, but only seem!
And tho' these Harbingers both Youth and Spring
With the fresh Heart back unto them may bring,
Yet something more than Youth or Spring have I,
The inward Sentiment unchangingly
Of Being as a Whole, with which there is
Nor Youth nor Spring, nor Time nor Place, but Bliss
And Heaven, for by it we grow as one
With God, and feel in all Things him alone,
That is, th' Eternal! thus in Feeling we
Are now what we shall really someday be,
Nay, really too: for what is more real than
Our Feelings? are not these the Soul of Man?
And if we are the God within us, then
We are more than we know, while yet mere Men,
And yet by Faith, altho' we do not know
All that we are, we still feel ourselves so!
| Madmoments: or First Verseattempts | |