University of Virginia Library

THE POET.

The Poet, through all things on earth, can see
Glimpses of that Celestial State to be.
The Voices of all Ages, from their dim
Abodes, (his foregone echoes,) answer him.
God's holy Messenger to ignorant men
To lead them safely back to Heaven again;
For that Celestial State is far above
This low, terrestial one in heavenly love.
He is the Echo of great Nature's voice,
Whose utterance makes the heart of Man rejoice—
That God-made Memnon who dost ever make
Celestial music for his own soul's sake;
Thus he becomes the Prophet of all time,
Archangel-like, in thunderous tones sublime—
Preaching that mystic music unto men,
Which Angels shall rehearse in Heaven again.
Then listen to him while he sings to thee
Of what thou art—what thou shalt surely be;
For knowing not what thou art now—hast been—
Is not to know what thou shalt be again;
Which, knowing not, will teach thy soul to know
What, only known, will bring thee deepest wo!
He plucks the fruit of that Igdrasil-tree
Whose roots grow in the heart of Deity.
He speaks of the Eternal Source of things,
And gives to wingless Man an Angel's wings.
He tells him of his soul's lost Paradise,
And how he may regain it in the skies—
That his peculiar mode of being here,
Is not the being that shall live up there.
He tells why Man cannot be happy here,
Because his hopes of joy are fixed up there.
He shall be happy in the world to come,
Who lives as this were not his Heavenly Home.
He is the Pole-Star of this life's dark night—
The only Pharos to the Ports of Light—
That great, divinest, Everlasting Day,
God-lighted, shining here on earth alway.
He is the Temple of the Living God,
Built here on earth for His Divine Abode.
Rapt with Archangel-might, his sunlike song
Gushes in golden music from his tongue,
Where God's Sphere-melody is heard on high
Flooding the ocean-ether endlessly—
(Radiating from the rolling Stars like light
Out of the sun, encompassing his flight—)
Until the unborn Ages yet to be,
Are rapt with his great Seraph-melody.