I slept and dreamed no more; I was awake!
And saw and heard with other eyes and ears,
Which taught me things unseen, unheard, before;
Things new yet old—old as eternity,
Old e'en to time, though new and strange to me.
I talked with Truth on solemn mountain tops;
I soared with winged thought the sunlit dome;
Studied the midnight stars; and when anon
The hurrying, far-flung legions of the storm 50
In supermortal might went forth to war,
Would fain have charioted the charging plain,
Or spurred the tempest as a battle steed,
Grasping the volted lightnings as they flew,
And thundering through the mists on things below.
Rejoicing in my new-found strength, I gave
Glory to Him, the Source and Sire of all;
That God whom I had neither loved nor feared,
That God whom now I worshipt and adored.
Who girdled me with Light, truth's triple key[3], 60
Unlocking what hath been, what yet shall be,
Probing death's gloom, life's three-fold mystery,
Solving the secret—Whither, Whence and Why.
Oh, wondrous transformation! when with wand
Of wakening might, that all-uplifting power
Waved o'er the cross where hung fond hopes impaled,
Waved o'er the tomb where loved ambitions lay,
Touched the strewn fragments of my shattered dream,
Bidding the dead arise in bodies new,
Building, on ruined hope, faith's battlement, 70
Love's palace, peace-domed, pinnacled in light,
In glory greater than earth's grandest dream,
Than glittering fame's most splendid spectacle;
Ideal transcending ideality,
Ideal made real past all reality!
Whose earth-dimmed eye could see what then I saw?
Whose earth-dulled ear such harmonies could hear?
When the all-searching Spirit tore the veil
Of things that seem, and showed me things that are.
Beauty, both good and evil—lamp to heaven 80
Or lure-light o'er the marshes of despair.
Beauty, divine—but not divinity;
Not parent—child of purity and truth;
Nor fount, nor stream, but bubble lost in air,
Nor tree, nor fruit—only a fragrant flower,
Flung from ambrosial gardens[4], here to grow
That life might be the less a wilderness.
But lo! a loveliness that blooms for aye,
That, withering here, is there revivified,
A loveliness made lovelier evermore; 90
The beauty of the restful and the risen,
Of Paradise[5] and Glory's higher home.
Pure as the mountain monarch's ice-crowned crest,
Pure as the snow-king's mantle, diamond-strewn,
Pure as the cascade's limpid crystalline,
Leaping from cliff to chasm, the breeze-flung flood
Blown into spirit spray of dazzling sheen;
So pure the love that warmed my boyish breast,
And lit the yearning of my youthful eye.
But pure love, e'en the purest, may be blind. 100
Truth spake—then fell the blindness from Love's eyes[6],
Revealing life in hues of hopefulness;
Love's rainbow dream, that only time's vale spans
To human vision, widening now till lost
Beyond the pale peaks of eternity.
Heaven's gold love is, though mixt with earth's alloy—
Dross, that betimes a needful part doth play
In nature's wise and true economy.
Love dies not—'t is love's seeming that dissolves,
Low to its serpent level, native dust, 110
A grave unmemoried in lethean ground[7].
The while see heaven-born, heaven-aspiring love,
Immortal spirit of the universe,
Soaring past sun and stars to worlds unknown!
Heir to herself, a self-succeeding queen,
Still regnant on life's throne when life is o'er.
O thou, of beauty[8], loveliest form and phase!
Kindler and keeper of the quenchless flame!
Partner and peer of human majesty!
Sharing with him life's dual sovereignty, 120
Well canst thou wait for thrones and diadems.
Queen of the future, Eve of coming worlds,
Mother of spirits that shall people stars,
And hail thee empress of a universe!
No more I deemed of crowning consequence,
That mortal clay to mortal eye should shine;
That human mites should shout and sing in praise
Each of the other's midget mightiness—
A molecule, by atoms glorified!
Apple of ashes[9] to the longing lip! 130
Brine to the burning throat and thirsting soul!
Phantom, delusion, misty ghost of fame!
Voidest and vainest of all vanities!
"Be not beguiled!" A vibrant thunder note,
Pealing from clouds that canopied my life,
The warning, lightning-winged to purify,
Up-kindling all the summits of the soul.
"Be not beguiled; not what men think and say,
But what God sees and knows, is what avails.
"Who knoweth aught, unknowing of the all? 140
Unknowing all, who knoweth perfectly
'Twixt small and great, 'twixt failure and success,
'Twixt heights of glory and the gulfs of shame?
What cares eternity for time's decrees?
Defeat hath oft deserved the conqueror's crown;
Dishonor worn the wreath of victory.
"Greatness—is it to loom 'mid glittering show?
Goes power but hand in hand with prominence?
Largeness or littleness, or high or low,
Has but to breathe, and straightway he is known. 150
What speech conceals, the spirit manifests.
"Fame, place, and title find a fitting use,
And