Madmoments: or First Verseattempts :: :: University of Virginia Library

There is a Poesy where Words do seem
Like Hieroglyphics to the practiced Eye,
A Shorthandwriting with fit Imagery
Penned as by Angelshands, or with the Beam
Of living Truth enwoven; words that teem
With grand and lofty combinations, high
And sweet suggestions, signs and tokens, by
Which we can piece the fragments of some dream
Of Beauty, and fill up the outline clear
Of the dim vision veiled in its own Bright-
Ness, which from time to time our dull path here
Crosses, then vanishes again from Sight,
Halfconscious Recognitions from a sphere
To which we tend as flowers to the Light!

2

But this is Poetry which he alone,
Whose soul is pure, can comprehend, whose mind
The perfect Beauty in itself can find,
And concentrate the scattered rays of one
Eternal Truth, whereever they have shone
Upon it, in one Socket, where enshrined,
Like to a living Eye among the blind,
The blessed radiance, glancing ever on
All objects, shows them in their genuine Light.
The Wisdom which is not of Earth, whose Sight
Is single, calm and serene, and whereby,

205

Through Hope and Faith, he looks beyond this Night,
These changeful Mists of Time, and in his Eye
Receives the Light of Immortality!

3

But to the worldly soul these words have no
Deep meanings, give no Intuitions clear,
No glimpses far into the life which ne'er
To chance and change is subject: but like to
The poor skygazing Savage, it can know
Naught of the wheels of Harmony which bear
The starry chariots thro' the silent air,
While on the other Heaven's least star can throw
The radiance of all, and lead him on,
From orb to orb, thro' all the Galaxy,
From link to link, yea! even to the throne
Of God himself! for to his ample Eye
Earth's meanest flower or that one star alone
Are signs and tokens of Infinity!

4

The least sandgrain on the seashore is fraught
To him with wonder, and it speaks as well
As the loud Ocean: is a miracle
As great as any in the old times wrought
For those who in their souls had never sought
The miracle of miracles, to quell
All Doubts; that most incomprehensible
God in our Breasts, who grapples with proud Thought,
As with a babe, and flings him back to Earth,
When without Faith he would investigate
The mystery that hovers o'er Man's birth;
For Faith and Thought to Wisdom's rich Estate
Are Coheirs, Twins in Heaven they were, and so
No perfect Being when divided know!

5

There is no Littleness to him who sees
God in all Things; nay, often that which is

206

Despised as insignificant, in his
Esteem is but more wonderful: Degrees
Of Wisdom unobserved he marks, by these
Goes deep and rises high, still fixing sure
Each Spoke of Truth's vast Wheel, 'till it endure
The Weight of the whole Universe; where cease
The Stare and Wonder of the World, there he
Is lost most in Astonishment and Awe:
Amid the Chaos and the ceaseless War
Of human Passions, it is his to see
These jarring Elements, by one grand Law,
Made Parts of Nature's boundless Harmony!