Cling to the vesture of mortality,
Piercing the spirit through with cruel woe.
With thee my soul could dwell for evermore,
Expanding all good feelings day by day,
Till, at the last, like roses in full bloom
The blossoms fall from pure maturity.
Pride! Here no scale of inches is set up
For man to strain his littleness against,
But o'er me hangs the majesty of heaven,
Bright with the glory of the noontide sun;
Beneath, the Earth, that whispers "Thou art dust,
"Gat like a child forth from my fertile womb,
"And bone of my bone, thus, flesh of my flesh!"
Thou glorious firmament that like God's love
Enfoldest all creation utterly,
Making the pathway of the wheeling spheres
A splendour, and a triumph, and a joy,
That on the brightness of thine azure breast
Settest the constellated stars like gems,
To flash the glory of thy loveliness
Through all the fulness of unmeasured space.
Can madness in its raving cast a thought
To soar unto thy blessed perfectness,
Nor stand subdued with reverence and awe
In contemplation of the Infinite?
O Earth! thou Mother and true Monitress!
Can thy frail children close their ears for aye
'Gainst the deep-hearted warnings of thy voice?
In the wild whirl of life the tones may die
Amid the clangour of contending foes,
But here, as in the stillness of the night,
Thy solemn teaching falleth on the soul
To the vibration of the low heart-beat.
Then what is there to charm me back to life?
To wrestle with the guilty and the vain,
And lose identity amid the crowd
Who struggle onward after base desire.
This quiet scene doth teach me how to weigh
Your pleasures and your vanities aright;
To hold as dross the honour that is flung
Around man like a winter covering,
Which the same hand can pluck away again,
And leave the outcast shivering in the blast.
There is no honour saving that within,
Which none, nor man, nor Death itself can snatch,
But which falls from the spirit in its flight
Like a prophetic mantle upon Time.
Pleasure! O World! in thine insanity
Thou sinkest Soul into a poor buffoon,
Garbëd in tinsel and false ornament
To play its antics on the stage of life,
A thing for fools to laugh at in their mirth.
Thou sat'st thy lust upon the sapless husks
That strew the highways of this pilgrimage,
Closing thine eyes unto their emptiness,
And out of folly turning sour to sweet.
Hast thou the joy that nature's converse sheds
Thro' all the pulses of the quiet soul?
The gentle calm that like a whispered song
Steals o'er the sense with sweetest languishment?
Hast thou the magic of the Beautiful,
Wreathing about thy spirit evermore,
In sunshine and in shadow; when the stars
Gather around the azure dome of heaven,
And the pale moon glides like a virgin bride
Humbly behind the footsteps of her love:
When the sweet morn dawns on the sleeping world
To bring reality to visions bright;
And on the curtain of dissolving mist
Arches the many-tinted sign of heaven?
Hast thou the minstrelsie of the wild woods,
Clear-tided strains floating along the sky,
Swelling, subsiding, like a silvery sea
Beneath the dulcet breathing of the south?
Hast thou that essence of all joyousness—
The glorious independence of the soul—
That spurneth man's usurpëd tyranny,
The power of wealth, and hapless circumstance,
And, sweeping on its own unaided wings,
Measures the circuit of the boundless sky?
What is thy wealth, that fadeth in the use,
And all the pomp and vanity it buys,
To the rich treasure of undying thought,
Encreasing evermore, till like a dower
It benizon humanity for aye?
All thy poor gold resolveth into dust
Before the test of such a scene as this:
Can it charm forth the blossom of a flower
Ere summer bids it with her gentle smile?
Can it restore the verdure to the leaf
When yellow Autumn marks it for her own?
Or, in the noontide bid the dew-shower rise
To fill one rosy chalice to the brim?
Go! gild thee with it, worldling, as thou wilt,
Yet all thy pains will leave thee but a fool!
Ay! there is love to beckon me away
And lead me to a fountain of delight,
Gliding before me in its purity,
Like some bright angel guiding souls to heaven.
O Love! have I not drained thee to the dregs,
Thy pleasures and thy sorrows equally;
Clinging unto thee as the Arab doth
To his low fountain in the wilderness?
Have I not gazed into thy tender eyes
And read the secret of thy holiness,
Cleansing my soul in humbleness and faith,
To shrine thee in thy fulness evermore?
Have I not clasped thee in my frenzied arms
And heard thy heart-beats answer back to mine,
Fainter and fainter till the deep voice stilled
In the eternal silence of the grave?
O be to me henceforth but some sweet dream
Illumining the sky of Memory:
A fixëd star of everlasting light
To pilot me along the sea of life,
And keep the bearings of the spirit true.
Visit me in imagination's train,
The sweetest and the fairest child of Thought,