University of Virginia Library

ETERNAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Ah, one by one these fetters as they break
Though soft as silk and precious as the gold
And sweet as heart-strings, yet are fetters still,
Which bind me to the earth I have outlived
And all outgrown. My spirit frets within,
It chafes at even the very charms of life
And feels the angel wings, that gently flutter
For larger circuits and serener air,
And fain would rise and spread themselves abroad
On wider and undreamed of spaces. Time
Drops from me like a garment old, moth-eaten,
And far too small for this consuming fire
Which thirsts and thirsts for full eternity
And cannot, will not be assuaged with less.
Flesh is a burden and a bondage now,
And not as erst a proud empalacement
With avenues of joy on every side
Expanding freely to whate'er is good,
And letting in the gladsome influences
Which make and shake to beautiful fine form
The world within to be the world without
But more. I weary of this anchorage
And restless roadstead, and I would unmoor
My sense-bound soul and voyage out alone
Into the awful silences. I see,
I know the waxing wonderment of things,
And long to rend the coloured veil that dazzles
But yet deludes not with mysteriousness
A steadfast faith, and errs not from defect
But its excess of vision and vast light.
I am the sport of dim disharmonies
Here, and I darkly reach towards realms above,
Beyond, outside this murky mortal state
Now, till I win the fair enfranchisements
Of bliss and being somehow fixed for me
And somewhere, past the idle mocking mists
On these gray shores with their unsheltered harbours.
And surely each strange appetency strong,
Which stirs the mind and in the haunted heart
Beats out low music, is a certain sign
And murmur of a real foreshadowing
Of richer dreams and rarer destinies,
In final blossom of the act and fact.
I do believe—I will be sure of this—
Our noblest feelings do not trick or thwart
The pilgrim bound and battling for the Truth,
With girded mind and staff of stout resolve,
And like to like must correspond for ever.