University of Virginia Library

At once, mid the vast realms of Night they plunge:
And still, as on they go, words of great joy
Speaks out the gracious angel. Through the obscure,
Stars 'gin at length to twinkle;—suns become,
Rulers of systems.—Straight as beams of light,
And swift as thought, through constellations vast
On, on they speed.....Even through the very heart
Of a sun's burning atmosphere pierce they now.....
Anon, through thickly clustered wonders bright,—
Great shoals of sun-sands, wherein light intense
Solid as diamond seems....Through host on host,—
Glory on glory thickening,—still they fly:
Till, now, that highest firmament they reach,—
The holy solitude where no star is;
The immense which all Creation, else, divides
From the Heaven of Heavens itself. To cross that depth,
Sunbeams would toil in vain; ere midway won,
Dwindled to viewless point. No vacuum this,
But purest air celestial—flood of life.
Light from without unneeding, self-illumed,
A liquid sapphire evermore it glows:
Its silence music; its eternal calm
Sacred as prayer. They shoot within: at once
They drink that air divine,—more fragrant far
Than breath of sweetest flowers, at dewy eve,
In virgin Paradise.....On—on—still on—
A bliss unspeakable, greater, and more great,
Like a flood of deepening water, pouring still
On the blest pardoned-one.

Across the vast,
Trembling he looks,—the first faint glory of heaven
Eager to spy:—and, lo! at length, a light!—
To the eye, a star,—but, by the unspeakable beam,—
Through thousand centuries forgotten not—
The Heaven of Heavens proclaimed!

A rapture-thrill
Runs like a lightning through him. On, still on,—
Still fleeter,—though each instant piercing space,
The measure of earth's orbit.

To a sun,
The star dilates....To bulk enormous spreads....
Vast as, to eye of man, the vaulted sky,
Waxes anon: and, lo! the mighty orb—
That solid had seemed, one, indivisible,—
In starlike points innumerable breaks,—
Pure beyond ray of sun, or star, that shines
In firmament of earth, as they eclipse
The smoky torch-flame....Soon, to suns expand
The star-points...Open...In the space between,—
Again as stars,—unnumbered as the sands
On ocean's shore—glorious past reach of thought,—
Heaven's inner sphere he sees; that wondrous round
Of orbs magnificent,—each one gem entire,
Ruby, or sapphire, emerald, chrysolite,
Topaz,—or other gems, yet lustrous more,
In earth, and sun, unknown,—which, to the sight
Of angels in mid heaven, temper the blaze
Of outer suns, too bright.....

Rapidly still
The wondrous spheres enlarge: brighter become;
Till, even to Spirit-gaze, the glory intense
Nigh unendurable is...Nearer...More near...