University of Virginia Library

The courses of our lives, which side by side
Ran for some little while, are sundered now;
We meet not now, as once, day after day,
In pleasant intercourse to change our thoughts:
Yet I remember often that past time,
And all the thoughts which filled it; for just then
We were as merchants seeking goodly pearls,
Seeking one pearl of price; and when we read
In books of some, or met on life's highway,
Who had returned as from a fruitless quest,
Bringing these tidings only, that all lands
They had gone through, had searched the furthest coasts,
Wherever fame reported that such pearl
Was to be won, but still had nothing found,
And now believed not there was aught to find,
Our hearts would die within us, loath to leave
Their hope, which yet grew weaker day by day,
That somewhere was a key which should unlock
The many chambers of this human life,
A law harmoniously to reconcile
All the perplexed appearances of things,
A treasure which should make for ever rich
The finder: for slight profit then to us,
And little comfort might we draw from things
Wherein some found, or fancied that they found,
The immortal longings of their spirits slaked,
And all life's mystery lightened. What at best
The beautiful creations of man's art,
If resting not on some diviner ground
Than man's own mind that formed them,—at their best
What but the singing of a mournful dirge,
What but the scattering flowers upon the grave
Of his abandoned hopes and buried joys?
Oh miserable comfort! loss is loss,
And death is death; and after all is done,
After the flowers are scattered on the tomb,
After the singing of the sweetest dirge,
The mourner with his heart uncomforted,
Returning to his solitary home,
Thinks with himself, if any one had aught
Of stronger consolation, he should speak;
If not, 'twere best for ever to hold peace.
Such, and no more, to us contemplating
The life of man, such, and no truer, seemed
The alleviations to be won from these,
Poor withering garlands flung upon a grave,
The mournful beauty of a couchant Sphinx,
Watching by some half-buried pyramid,
Or fallen column in the wilderness.

And Nature's self, our foster-mother dear,
What could she do for us? what help impart?
Or when we mourned as lonely orphans here,
Or fled unto her bosom, there to find
Pity and love, there were no beatings there,
There were no pulses in her cold cold heart;
She had no happy family of love
In which to adopt us. Beauty without love,
How should it cherish or make less forlorn,
Yea, how should it not leave forlorner still,
The forlorn heart of man? so left it us,
Who gazed upon the incense-breathing flowers,
Trees and rejoicing rivers, suns and stars,
Keeping their courses in untroubled joy,
By sin unstained, by longings undisturbed;
While we, the first-fruits of creation, we,
For whose dear sake all lower things were made,
Mourned evermore. How often then they seemed
Like the hired servants whom the Prodigal
Bethought him of, as satisfied with bread,
While we, the children of our Father's house,
Were perishing with hunger far away.
What longing had we then to be as these,
To be as trees or flowers, as rocks or stones,
Glad might we have relinquished and put by
The burden of our immortality,
And all the drear prerogatives of man.

Or sometimes finding little nearer home,
That we should care to dwell with our own hearts,
We looked abroad, and spake of some bright dawn
Of happiness and freedom, peace and love,
Day long desired, and now about to break
On all the nations; yet the while we felt
That we were speaking false and hollow words,—
For how should one, despairing of himself,
Find hope for others? where no centre is,
Centre established sure of life and joy,
What is it but an idle thing to draw
The widest circle of imagined good
At distance round us? where 'tis ill with each,
How vain to hope it should be well with all!

But now, though not to outward change we look
For the fulfilling of that glorious hope,
Have we renounced that hope?—or is it grown
A less substantial vision, because now
No fabled world, imagined isles beyond
The limitary ocean, such as never
Have been but in the longing of man's heart,
Not these now occupy our hearts and hopes;
But Eden and the New Jerusalem,
The Garden and the City of our God,
The things which have been and shall be again,
Fill up the prospect upon either side,
Before us and behind? or have we left
Our love for Nature, now to love her less,
Since we have learned that all we so admire
Is only as her soiled and weekday dress,
And nothing to the glory she shall wear,
When for the coming sabbath of the world
She shall put on her festival attire—
Or closed our hearts to what of beautiful
Man by strong spell and earnest toil has won
To take intelligible forms of art,
Now that all these are recognized to be
Desires and yearnings, feeling after Him,
And by Him only to be satisfied,
Who is Himself the eternal Loveliness?