The Judgement of the Flood :: :: University of Virginia Library

Heart; be not downcast: cheerly, cheerly.
Some be there thou hast loved too dearly,
Things that have won too much regard,
Trials that have been overhard;
Shipwreck of hopes—thou Mariner
In seas untried—thou trespasser
On alien shores—thou sorely tempted:
Thou dupe of Faith; whiles, unexempted
From chance, and change, who fondly trusted
A world too old; a weapon rusted;
An icy globe with snow o'er-crusted,
That slips, and crunches as we roll it,
Uphill and downhill, with our feet
Taught, like a gymnast, to control it,
Yet—or betrayed, or indiscreet—
Still sliding from its surface found;
Till, fallen from off the treacherous round,
Sheer into space we gyrate; while the skies
Laugh all about us, with their starry eyes.

II.

Yet cheer thee, Heart. Keep merry chime;
Howe'er absurd, howe'er sublime,

375

The strife, the struggle may appear,
Let saints applaud, or sinners jeer;
Something is done that had not been,
But for thy action on the scene.
What once has been must always be:
Throb on, then—while there's pulse in thee.
Thy strings be harp-strings—scatter free
Their music over land, and sea.
—Up to the Heavens, down to the Hells,
One Harmony the Chorus swells,
Wherein bears each his proper part:
Then be not downcast; cheer thee, Heart.

Nought that is done in vain is done;
Each mite a world, each world a sun;
Nought so minute, but in its border
Resides an Everlasting Order,
A System, an Intelligence
From centre to circumference;
The tinièst as infinite
As the Titanic to the sight,
A universe of law, and truth,
Still fresh as in its dawn of youth,
Full of beauty, full of power,
Creating both from hour to hour;
Declaring each what all inherit,
The Strength of the Poetic Spirit:
Whence 'tis each planet to the other
Sings, and is sung to, like a brother;
And star to star, like sister-friends,
A fond electric message sends,
So that the air, from pole to pole,
Is formed from Breathings of the Soul.
Then cheer thee, Heart. Thy music-chords
Let any breeze shape into words.
Sing, while thou livest; if thou wouldst live,

376

Sing on; respire what all things give,
That influence without which we die,
But having, live immortally.

III.

O wonder-world of poet-song—
O harmony of right, and wrong—
What knows of you your Maker, ere
Ye rise within his being's sphere?
Prescient that he can sing, ere he
Attempt what is his destiny,
He sends his Voice into the Void,
And hears its echo overjoyed.
A new creation well he knows
Within that utterance lives, and glows,
Child of his Love. Let him rejoice
In the fair Daughter of his Voice:
And blame him not, if he should deem
His Vision more than common dream,
Something even brighter than the gleam
That makes the face of nature shine
To infant orbs as if divine;
Invested with a solemn trance,
Like that which bathes his countenance;
And hath his eyes intensely fired
With all that proves the man inspired.
O wonder-world of poet song—
O harmony of right, and wrong—
O hidden Kosmos, builded in the brain,
Fire-guarded from approach profane.

1856.

END.