University of Virginia Library

VITA VENTURI SAECULI

Be glad with beauty, white with perfect grace,
Sweet Age to come, whose face
Dawns dimly in our prophesying eyes
Eager with good surmise!
Dim we discern thee, Daughter of God's Will,
Descending to fulfil
The august decrees that were when Time was not:
Time, man's compatriot;
Time, but an happy accident of God,
Gone at His dooming nod.
What golden gifts are plenteous in thine hands?
For now the longing lands
Await thee Saviour and expect the Queen,
Beneficent, serene,
Redemptress of wronged beauty, injured grace,
Restoring them their place.
Light on the heights! we hunger for full day
And the high sun's display:
Life flooded with bright beauty in full stream;
That is our faithful dream!
Sweet Age to come, whose wings are of white fire,
Deny not our desire:
O kingdom of the Spirit, conquering all
Take willing earth in Thrall!
Let green woods wave thee welcome, and blue seas
Laugh welcome, and each breeze
Be sacred incense round thee: peace appear
Through crystal atmosphere,
Impassioned, perdurable, omnipotent;
Given by God, not lent.
Foretaste of Heaven, ere Heaven be all in all,
Come to the vexed world's call;
Come to the faithful dreaming heart of man,
Whose wistful dreams began
When earth, for earth's no fault, but man's, was marred,
Vastly accursed, and scarred.
Man dreams! and sometimes beneath Olive trees
Plato divinely sees
Divinity, and Dante's pilgrim soul
Toils toward it; and the whole
Vision of Shakespeare craves it, and the least
Of men cast off the beast
At touch of love or sorrow of love's pain,
And Paradise regain.
What, though there be dark perjurers, who swear
To precepts of despair?
The world still tremblingly toward God returns,
And ardently, and yearns
Godward, and knows Him for the First and Last,
All Future and all Past;
Knows Him the Innumerable and the One,
Endless and Unbegun.
We perjure not our necessary dreams,
Whatever lie blasphemes
The high necessities of God and man:
Ere the Four Rivers ran,
Dreams and desires were made for men, whereby
They drink eternity
Beforehand, as in ecstasy, and feel
Heirs of its Commonweal,
Heirs of the King of Beauty and of Grace;
Most royal in their race.
Sweet Age to come, declare the doctrine clear;
We wait thee now, wait here!
Sweet Age to come, upon our ready ground
Let lily and rose abound,
With pure supremacy of fragrant state
Sweetening this world of hate,
Which does the wrongs, it knows not, and it knows;
Plant thou thy lily and rose!
Have there not blossomed upon gentle seas
Gentle Hesperides,
Fortunate Isles irrevocably fair?
Ah, to set sail, and there
Landing, lay hold on an immortal rest;
Land, and become the Blest,
Lapped in enamouring Elysian light
And musical delight!
A dream? Ah, dreams! Their poignancy is this:
They are, what only is,
Yet still escapes us: but we know them sure,
Eternal in allure.
Sweet Age to come, bring thou our dreams to birth,
Peopling the appealing earth
With all audacities of fiery faith:
Hear me! Hear me! it saith,
And thou, faint Dawnstar, herald of our hope,
Star of our horoscope,
We love thee, prophet light! love thee, but yet
Speed swiftlier to thy set,
That swiftlier prophecy and presage be
Proven of their verity.
Morn bides thy passing! Spring to us, our Morn.
Rejoicing to be born:
Rise on us, suffer us to share with thee
Thy dread immaculacy!
Kings are we, Principalities and Powers,
By right divine not ours,
But God's poured down upon us: help us then
To stand up royal men,
Olympian children, rosy in the light
Streaming from Sion Height;
Compassed about with echoes of its song,
Most heavenly clear and strong!
The impotence of death is plain to us,
Whose faith victorious
Laughs death into defeat, and spurns all dread
Of nothingness, and dead
Lifeblood, and deathless spirit bound to death,
And man an empty breath.
Thou knowest: even when our faith is dumb,
Thou knowest. Come, then, come,
Its passionate silence thou canst pierce; thine ear
Mistakes it not for fear.
Thou knowest; the vast silences of night,
Trembling with dumb delight,
Pulse with more passion than the voice of day
Attains, attempts, to say.
But now we hail thee: and our battling speech
Ways to thine heart can reach,
And by its weakness touch thee to our will,
And from the Holy Hill
Woo thee and win thee to the great descent,
Our hope and God's intent.
O mighty Angel of the Eternal Mind,
Shine on us, Predesigned:
Hear us, hear us, hear us, sweet Age to Come!
Our hearts prepare thy home.