University of Virginia Library

XLI

Pure thought-creations of the mind,
Within the circle of the soul,—
The emanations that control
Life to its God-predestined goal,—
Are spirit shapes no flesh can bind:
Within the soul desire ordains
Achievements which the will constrains;
And far above us, on before,
Our thoughts—a beautiful people—soar,
To wait us on celestial plains.

39

So Nature pours her thoughts in forms—
Realities we move among—
Of fragrance, color, and of song;
Sense emanations which belong,
Invisible, to spiritual charms;
The sensuous substance of her thought
From immaterial matter wrought—
Matter, which death can not annul,
That constitutes the Beautiful,
And, dead, repeats itself from naught.