University of Virginia Library


81

IX
SELF-DECEPTION.

There's a Seēr's peak on Ararat, they say,
From which we can descry the better world;
Not that supernal kingdom whence were hurled
The rebel-angels ere Creation's day,
But Eden-garden, Adam's first array,
Round which the Flood-waves stood back like a wall,
And whither still are sent the souls of all
The good dead, where the cherubim sing and play.
Dear lovely land we wait for and desire,
Whence fondly-loved lost faces look back still,
Waiting for us, so distant and apart;
But from the depth between what mists aspire—
What wrinkled sea rolls severing hill from hill—
Vision! 'tis but a reflex of the heart!