The Human Inheritance :: :: University of Virginia Library

As into some waste space in a dark sky
A new star swims serene, and calm, and bright,
A never-fading steadfast lamp set high
To fill with its immaculate far light
The lonely darkness of the lonely night—

So swam upon my dark the star of love.
Before, afar off only had I seen
Like planets in a distant heaven move:
But when this rebirth of my soul had been,
It was as tho' Life drew aside her screen;

The music of the great seas deeper grew,
A larger message fill'd each echoing shore,
The swaying forests had a meaning new,
And the sweet songs of birds so loved of yore
Were sweeter still, and with a lovelier lore.

Life, that once lay like some mere narrow sea
Between fair promontories and shining sands,
Thence stretched an ocean vast and great and free:
Love was the arc that rose in shining bands
And join'd the near with far imagin'd lands.

Thou hast been as the light unto mine eyes,
As music in the strange revolving days:
Around us is the glory that ne'er dies—
The glory of the sun's awakening blaze,
The splendour of the moon in cloud-girt ways—

These die not, but they ever bloom and fade;
The beauty of thy soul is still the same:
A glory for the œons they were made;
For all eternity thy spirit came
Straight from thy God in an enduring flame.

O best belov'd,—too dear for faltering words
To tell thee truly—would that I could sing
With the unconscious rapture of the birds
That, mated, ev'ry morn till noontide fling
Their overflowing music thro' the Spring:

Or that with deep and solemn measured speech
Such as the ocean in a windless night
Moans incommunicably to the beach
That dumbly listens thro' the moon-glare white,
My words could track thy soul's still tender height.

Thou art my moon, and I thy tide to roll
Thro' storm and tempest as thro' winds that sleep!
Thy love my pilot is,—I fear no shoal
Or perilous straits that hidden dangers keep,
Since thou art with me on this troubled Deep.