University of Virginia Library


221

[XXIII. Some truths may pierce the spirit's deeper gloom]

Some truths may pierce the spirit's deeper gloom,
Yet shine unapprehended: grand, remote,
We bow before their strength, yet feel them not;
When some low promise of the life to come;
Blessing the mourner, holds the heart indeed,
A leading lamp that all may reach and read!
Nor reck those lights, so distant over us,
Sublime, but helpless to the spirit's need
As the night-stars in heaven's vault! yet, thus,
Though the great asterisms mount and burn
In inaccessible glory,—this, its height
Has reached; but lingers on till light return,
Low in the sky, like frosty Sirius,
To snap and sparkle through the winter's night.