 | Poems |  |
100
LINES.
We walk, unconscious, blind Somnambulists,
All girded round with the dull mist of dreams,
Among the shadows of our shifting years;
Blindly we stumble onward, step by step,
Near the precipitous edges of our Fate,
Nor deem how many footfalls, or how few,
Divide us from the fearful gulf that waits,
—A Horror, ghastly with mysterious glooms,—
To whelm us in its dim, Tartarean depths.
All girded round with the dull mist of dreams,
Among the shadows of our shifting years;
Blindly we stumble onward, step by step,
Near the precipitous edges of our Fate,
Nor deem how many footfalls, or how few,
Divide us from the fearful gulf that waits,
—A Horror, ghastly with mysterious glooms,—
To whelm us in its dim, Tartarean depths.
We gaze on beauty, but while yet our eyes
With the bright drops of rapture overflow,
The beauty wanes, and passes into Heaven;
Till at the last, we learn to look beneath
The blush that masks, and mark the stealthy worm,
And all the loveliest Images of earth
Grow mournful to our sad Philosophy.
Only, irradiate with the dews of youth,
And its empurpling atmosphere of joy,
Our false Life puts a Halcyon glory on;
O! golden-tinted years, when in the sky
We see bright shapes, and hear a tender voice
Of benediction, when the Winds reveal
Their mystic thoughts to our attunèd ears,
And not a violet blossoms on the lea,
And not a leaf is quivering in the light,
And not a song of any bird that flies
By the lone beach, or through the woodland aisles,
But comes the special delegate of Heaven,
To strike a morning sunshine on the soul.
With the bright drops of rapture overflow,
The beauty wanes, and passes into Heaven;
Till at the last, we learn to look beneath
The blush that masks, and mark the stealthy worm,
And all the loveliest Images of earth
Grow mournful to our sad Philosophy.
101
And its empurpling atmosphere of joy,
Our false Life puts a Halcyon glory on;
O! golden-tinted years, when in the sky
We see bright shapes, and hear a tender voice
Of benediction, when the Winds reveal
Their mystic thoughts to our attunèd ears,
And not a violet blossoms on the lea,
And not a leaf is quivering in the light,
And not a song of any bird that flies
By the lone beach, or through the woodland aisles,
But comes the special delegate of Heaven,
To strike a morning sunshine on the soul.
But soon, the early splendor pales and dies,
But soon, the flowers, the woodlands, the glad birds,
No longer own a blest Interpreter;
But treacherous Sin, with heavy-lidded Grief
Close following after, brands the Universe
With the funereal blazonry of wo.
But soon, the flowers, the woodlands, the glad birds,
No longer own a blest Interpreter;
But treacherous Sin, with heavy-lidded Grief
Close following after, brands the Universe
With the funereal blazonry of wo.
O! grant me but once more, for the last time,
Ere falls the black Night weltering in its shades,
The gift of childhood's glorious Alchemy,
That turns even gloom to gladness, and the dross,
(Or what we wise Philosophers term dross)
Of lowliest things, to golden mines of bliss;
O! give me back Belief, the unfaltering Trust
In man, in Nature, and in Providence,
That arched the Air with rainbows, and the earth
Thrilled with the music of harmonious tongues,
Till in the multitudinous forms of being,
The humblest to the highest, I may find
One soul of beauty, and one voice of God.
Ere falls the black Night weltering in its shades,
The gift of childhood's glorious Alchemy,
That turns even gloom to gladness, and the dross,
102
Of lowliest things, to golden mines of bliss;
O! give me back Belief, the unfaltering Trust
In man, in Nature, and in Providence,
That arched the Air with rainbows, and the earth
Thrilled with the music of harmonious tongues,
Till in the multitudinous forms of being,
The humblest to the highest, I may find
One soul of beauty, and one voice of God.
| Poems | |