FIRST EXILES.
“The Lord God sent him forth from the garden
of Eden.”—Gen. iii. 23.
Though earth abounds with choral streams,
And sunny gladness smiles and gleams
O'er forest glade and woodland-flower,
Yet man has lost his fairest bower!
With arching glory bright and blue
Though heaven attract the minstrel's view,
And bird and breeze, upon the wing,
Their lyric strain in concert sing,
Yet may each pure poetic spot
Where grief and guilt are most forgot,
Faint shadows of our exile feel
Around it, like dark memory, steal.
For, there intrudes an aching thought,
A feeling with dejection fraught,
An under-tone of discontent
With our serenest rapture blent.
The whence, and why, we cannot tell,—
But girt we are with such a spell;
A zone mysterious which can bind
And oft enclose the calmest mind.
Who hath not felt such worldless mood
When cloister'd in green solitude,
With nothing near, but earth and sky,
And none to read him, but God's eye!
And oft, too, when we cease to roam
Amid the heaven of virtuous home,
With leisure, books, and wedded love,
And peace and pureness from above,
E'en then, a craving thirst will rise
For more than present bliss supplies;
Soft yearnings through the spirit melt,
And seek what soul hath never felt.
Whence come these moods? we vainly ask:—
“Oh! why is life a wearied task,
Where unreposing trials speak,
The world is sad, and nature weak?”
Is it, because no being can
The inward deeps of deathless man
With such a rich contentment fill,
As leaves the conscience lull'd, and still?
Or, shall we find the felt unrest
That haunts the hour most deeply blest,
In man's indwelling plague of sin,—
The venom'd fire that burns within?
Yea, these, and more than we divine,
May round these perill'd hearts combine,
To darken with unearthly hues
Our radiant hours, and richest views.
And when we know, that Adam's fall
O'er bright creation drew a pall,
And over man and nature cast
The shadow of a ruin'd past,
Behold! the myst'ry half unwinds,
Why sadness dims some holy minds,
And mild dejection inly sighs
For brighter scenes, and bluer skies.
It is because, like exiles we,
When roaming on a foreign sea,
While pilgrim waves approach the strand,
Are dreaming of our own far land;
And thus to realms of gracious thought
Are mystic recollections brought
Of vanish'd Eden, and the bowers,
Where God and innocence were ours.
As exiled ones, a branded race
Whom sin and self alike disgrace,
Say, ought we not, where'er we roam,
By faith to see our forfeit home?
And never, oh! Thou Source of Light,
Let this cold earth become too bright;
Lest, world-enamour'd we may grow,
And root our hearts in bliss below.
Rather on high, ascended Lord!
Lift we our souls on Thy loved word,
And through God's Eden yearn to rove
That blooms and brightens with Thy Love.
