University of Virginia Library

After a few short years of feverish being
On earth, years all so swiftly flown, I seemed
To have filled them with a madness, as one seeing
No goal, but rushing on for something dreamed
Or lost, torn past endurance of an earthly frame
By griefs and angers and some brief-snatched bliss
More cruel, and with no stay for praise or blame,
Or thought of whether righteous or amiss
I did, only the roaring loud within
Of two great contrary voices loud in strife
The momentary prevalence to win;
Some last turn on the heated path of life
Brought me most suddenly before a door,
Dark and a mystery in the narrow way,
With look of nothing known to me before.
Only a moment had I then to stay,
Appalled: the latest frenzies of the blood
And o'erwrought heart abating rapidly,
Ere with me, overmastering me, there stood
One greater than in its weak humanity
My soul could comprehend, He touched the gloom
Of that closed door gigantic, the latest bar
Of iron earthliness, the body's tomb.
It opened noiseless: and for sight too far
I seemed to gaze, while feeling all his will
That I should enter or go out thereby,
And that above my head a moment still
As 'twere his other hand was raised on high.
But through quick inward change that brought to mind
Neglected knowledge, sudden flashing bright
Of flames burnt down or darkened, as one blind
A dream's space I began to see, with sight
Not of the failing eye, but such as thought
And memory use, the ample image unfailing
And look within. I saw my life as nought
In the eternity of spirit prevailing
Before and after; a moment's dream delayed
In the dense meshes of a slackening zone,
Where lights are scarce and wandering, or they fade
In some remote cessation. Clear my own
I saw an ever-brightening upward way,
Through finer-growing ocean and atmosphere,
The widening spirits' habitation lay
Open before me, and the mystery near;
Breaking a new-found revelation to my soul
Of that which, all beyond an angel's scope,
Tried me; and, farther than a star may roll
Unsundered from its sun, sent me to grope
Among the griefs and stumble o'er the graves
Of man's wrecked realm, yet drew me like a breath
Through all-dark walls and intervening waves,
And clogging heaviness of life and death,
Back to His bosom of ineffable calm,
And splendour of the soul's eternal source.

Yet, while that moment lasted, the disease
Of life was on me; its arrested course
My blood resumed and to my heart returned,
The latest fit of agony suspended,
At sudden shock. The unwrought purpose burned
Once more in all my being, with the blended
Fires and energies of love and grief,
Intense desire, and bitterness of hate.