University of Virginia Library

EVENING.

'Twas Evening!—Music floated on the air,
And crimson light was brooding everywhere,
And still 'twas growing lovelier; till at last
I almost thankful felt when all was past;
Too beautiful the emotions that it brought
To fascinate the feeling, sense, and thought,—
I could not more admire.—My heart and mind,
Sank, fainting, pierced by raptures too refined;
Each power and faculty seemed on the stretch;
I felt a very worm, a helpless wretch,
Blind, dumb, unfeeling—even from the excess
Of feeling—and o'erpowering happiness,—
And half rejoiced when all was o'er at last,
And almost thankful felt, when all was past.
Oh! our weak nature! we are fettered close
(And most we feel it in such hours as those?)
In chains too complex, and too mighty still—
Narrow our consciousness and frail our will!
All things are circumscribed for us, since we
Are bound and clenched in our mortality;
Our very joys are too much for us here!—
We breathless stand, and ask a single tear,
To show how much the full-fixed soul adores,
Thus borrowing for delight from sorrow's stores.
Aye, so our very pleasures give us pain!
Lo! we have found the true length of our chain;—
And vainly, vainly, 'gainst it strive and strain;
So our joys grieve us; so doth our delight
With dark self-discontent o'ertake and smite;
We are found wanting to ourselves, and own
A leaden mantle round our spirits thrown—
A frost, like sleep or death, dull, deep, intense,
Upbinding every nerve and every sense!—
A weight, a chill, a stupor, and a gloom,
As though our souls were bound in living tomb;—
We find ourselves still wanting evermore
Unto ourselves,—and grieve shame-stricken sore,
And pine to enter on that nobler life
That shall not know this sufferance and this strife—
When brightly liberated, proudly freed,
Our souls shall grasp their own great bliss indeed!—
Not sink beneath its burthen and its weight,
But bound exultant, fearless, and elate.
There love, joy, admiration, zeal, shall be
Part of our living souls eternally;—
Not pressing from without—importunate—
But part and portion of the soul's estate,
No shock, and no addition, and no change,
Still there for ever—nothing new—nor strange—
Not sprung from foreign objects—to controul,
But from the Soul of all things in the Soul!