Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

As he who finds one flower sharp thorns among,
Plucks it, and highly prizes, though before
Careless regard on thousands he has flung,
As fair as this or more;

Not otherwise perhaps this argument
Won from me, where I found it, such regard,
That I esteemed no labour thereon spent
As wearisome or hard.

In huge and antique volume did it lie,
That by two solemn clasps was duly bound,
As neither to be opened nor laid by
But with due thought profound.

There fixëd thought to questions did I lend,
Which hover on the bounds of mortal ken,
And have perplexed, and will unto the end
Perplex the brains of men;

Of what is time, and what eternity,
Of all that seems and is not—forms of things—
Till my tired spirit followed painfully
On flagging weary wings;

So that I welcomed this one resting-place,
Pleased as a bird, which, when its forces fail,
Lights panting in the ocean's middle space
Upon a sunny sail.

And now the grace of fiction, which has power
To render things impossible believed,
And win them with the credence of an hour
To be for truths received—

That grace must help me, as it only can,
Winning such transient credence, while I tell
What to a cloistered solitary man
In distant times befell.

Him little might our earthly grandeur feed,
Who to the uttermost was vowed to be
A follower of his Master's barest need
In holy poverty.

Nor might he know the gentle mutual strife
Of home-affections, which can more or less
Temper with sweet the bitter of our life,
And lighten its distress.

Yet we should err to deem that he was left
To bear alone our being's lonely weight,
Or that his soul was vacant and bereft
Of pomp and inward state:

Morn, when before the sun his orb unshrouds,
Swift as a beacon torch the light has sped,
Kindling the dusky summits of the clouds
Each to a fiery red—

The slanted columns of the noon-day light,
Let down into the bosom of the hills,
Or sunset, that with golden vapour bright
The purple mountains fills—

These made him say,—If God has so arrayed
A fading world that quickly passes by,
Such rich provision of delight has made
For every human eye,

What shall the eyes that wait for Him survey,
Where his own presence gloriously appears
In worlds that were not founded for a day,
But for eternal years?

And if at seasons this world's undelight
Oppressed him, or the hollow at its heart,
One glance at those enduring mansions bright
Made gloomier thoughts depart;

Till many times the sweetness of the thought
Of an eternal country—where it lies
Removed from care and mortal anguish, brought
Sweet tears into his eyes.

Thus, not unsolaced, he longwhile abode,
Filling all dreary melancholy time
And empty spaces of the heart with God,
And with this hope sublime:

Even thus he lived, with little joy or pain
Drawn through the channels whereby men receive—
Most men receive the things which for the main
Make them rejoice or grieve.

But for delight, on spiritual gladness fed,
And obvious to temptations of like kind;
One such, from out his very gladness bred,
It was his lot to find.

When first it came, he lightly put it by,
But it returned again to him ere long,
And ever having got some new ally,
And every time more strong—

A little worm that gnawed the life away
Of a tall plant, the canker of its root,
Or like as when from some small speck decay
Spreads o'er a beauteous fruit.

For still the doubt came back,—Can God provide
For the large heart of man what shall not pall,
Nor through eternal ages' endless tide
On tired spirits fall?

Here but one look tow'rd heaven will oft repress
The crushing weight of undelightful care;
But what were there beyond, if weariness
Should ever enter there?

Yet do not sweetest things here soonest cloy?
Satiety the life of joy would kill,
If sweet with bitter, pleasure with annoy
Were not attempered still.

This mood endured, till every act of love,
Vigils of praise and prayer, and midnight choir,
All shadows of the service done above,
And which, while his desire,

And while his hope was heavenward, he had loved,
As helps to disengage him from the chain
That fastens unto earth—all these now proved
Most burdensome and vain.

What must have been the issue of that mood
It were a thing to fear—but that one day,
Upon the limits of an ancient wood,
His thoughts him led astray.

Darkling he went, nor once applied his ear,
(On a loud sea of agitations thrown,)
Nature's low tones and harmonies to hear,
Heard by the calm alone.

The merry chirrup of the grasshopper,
Sporting among the roots of withered grass,
The dry leaf rustling to the wind's light stir,
Did each unnoted pass:

He, walking in a trance of selfish care,
Not once observed the beauty shed around,
The blue above, the music in the air,
The flowers upon the ground:

Till from the centre of that forest dim
Came to him such sweet singing of a bird,
As, sweet in very truth, then seemed to him
The sweetest ever heard.

That lodestar drew him onward inward still,
Deeper than where the village children stray,
Deeper than where the woodman's glittering bill
Lops the large boughs away—

Into a central space of glimmering shade,
Where hardly might the struggling sunbeams pass,
Which a faint lattice-work of light had made
Upon the long lank grass.

He did not sit, but stood and listened there,
And to him listening the time seemed not long,
While that sweet bird above him filled the air
With its melodious song.

He heard not, saw not, felt not aught beside,
Through the wide worlds of pleasure and of pain,
Save the full flowing and the ample tide
Of that celestial strain.

As though a bird of Paradise should light
A moment on a twig of this bleak earth,
And singing songs of Paradise invite
All hearts to holy mirth,

And then take wing to Paradise again,
Leaving all listening spirits raised above
The toil of earth, the trouble, and the pain,
And melted all in love:

Such hidden might, such power was in the sound;
But when it ceased sweet music to unlock,
The spell that held him sense and spirit-bound
Dissolved with a slight shock.

All things around were as they were before—
The trees, and the blue sky, and sunshine bright,
Painting the pale and leafstrewn forest-floor
With patches of faint light.

But as when music doth no longer thrill,
Light shudderings yet along the chords will run,
Or the heart vibrates tremulously still,
Although its prayer be done,

So his heart fluttered all the way he went,
Listening each moment for the vesper bell;
For a long hour he deemed he must have spent
In that untrodden dell.

And once it seemed that something new or strange
Had passed upon the flowers, the trees, the ground;
Some slight but unintelligible change
On everything around:

Such change, where all things undisturbed remain,
As only to the eye of him appears,
Who absent long, at length returns again—
The silent work of years.

And ever grew upon him more and more
Fresh marvel—for, unrecognized of all,
He stood a stranger at the convent door:
New faces filled the hall.

Yet was it long ere he received the whole
Of that strange wonder—how, while he had stood
Lost in deep gladness of his inmost soul,
Far hidden in that wood,

Three generations had gone down unseen
Under the thin partition that is spread—
The thin partition of thin earth—between
The living and the dead.

Nor did he many days to earth belong,
For like a pent-up stream, released again,
The years arrested by the strength of song
Came down on him amain;

Sudden as a dissolving thaw in spring;
Gentle as when upon the first warm day,
Which sunny April in its train may bring,
The snow melts all away.

They placed him in his former cell, and there
Watched him departing; what few words he said
Were of calm peace and gladness, with one care
Mingled—one only dread—

Lest an eternity should not suffice
To take the measure and the breadth and height
Of what there is reserved in Paradise—
Its ever-new delight.