University of Virginia Library

FEELING.

How in this work-day World, alas!
The preciousness of Life doth pass!
And oft without our Minds engrossed,
Knowing 'tis for ever lost!
Oft that preciousness doth pass
Like scented Winds, that o'er the grass
Lightly, faintly, softly go—
We doubt still if they're there or no!—
Like tenderest Clouds that gently veil
The Sun, with their slight folds and frail—
Which we miss not, though we find
The Sun shines then to scorch and blind!
What is Life's pure preciousness?—
Feeling's fresh and deep excess,
Which too quickly dies away,
Like the blossoms of the May!
Feeling, that all gently round
The quick heart caressing wound,
To shut out selfish, sordid Care,
With its cold inhuman glare!
To breathe one incense breath new born
From the ambrosial Skies of Morn
Deep into that Heart's deepest Life,
Then dying with no noise nor strife!
Unmissed, unmourned—till haply we,
Slaves of interest, shudderingly—
Find we have, with zeal insane,
Toiled for guerdon and for gain—
Laboured with one stubborn aim,
(With worn out mind and wearied frame!—)
Only to our heavy cost,
To know we have for ever lost
The in-born feeling that could make
The Soul in its successes take
Aught of pleasure or of pride,
Henceforward and for aye denied!
We may then invest indeed
Those Souls in proud and pompous weed!
Stoles of State, and Royal pall—
They are vain and useless all!
The Soul is still a deadened thing,
Waning, wasting, withering!—
Oh! they who in the days of old,
Brought all ghastly to behold—
A pale corse from the charnel's scene,
And crowned the breathless Inez Queen!
Did not, e'en then, lose more their toil,
Investing her with princely spoil,
Than they who vainly load and deck
The Spirit's loveless, lifeless wreck,
With gifts and treasures of the Earth,
When it no more can weigh their worth!
Oh! Feeling! when thy thrilling Lyre
Once ceaseth, ceaseth to respire
Those tones that waken Earth and Sky
To one deep Music of reply—
How doth our consciousness then seem
Like a heavy haunting dream,
Dull and dim, and vague, and vain,
Faint echo of a finished strain!
'Tis Feeling only that can give
The life Immortal Souls should live—
What were to us the Seraph's lot.
If we its good perceivēd not?
Or Empire wide as space is wide,
If we lacked Energy and Pride—
Or every glory—every good—
If we failed in the accordant mood.