Part 32 (1/2)

II.

I rise, and leaning from my cas.e.m.e.nt high, Feel from the morning twilight a delight; Once more youth's portion, hope, lights up my eye, And for a moment I forget the sorrows of the night.

III.

O glorious morn! how great is yet thy power!

Yet how unlike to that which once I knew, When, plumed with glittering thoughts, my soul would soar, And pleasures visited my heart like daily dew!

IV.

Gone is life's primal freshness all too soon; For me the dream is vanished ere my time; I feel the heat and weariness of noon, And long in night's cool shadows to recline.

FLAXMAN.

We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone, Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought, And in the forms of G.o.ds and heroes wrought Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone-- A higher charm than modern culture won, With all the wealth of metaphysic lore, Gifted to a.n.a.lyze, dissect, explore.

A many-colored light flows from our sun; Art, 'neath its beams, a motley thread has spun; The prison modifies the perfect day; But thou hast known such mediums to shun, And cast once more on life a pure white ray.

Absorbed in the creations of thy mind, Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.

THOUGHTS

ON SUNDAY MORNING, WHEN PREVENTED BY A SNOW STORM FROM GOING TO CHURCH.

Hark! the church-going bell! But through the air The feathery missiles of old Winter hurled, Offend the brow of mild-approaching Spring; She shuts her soft blue eyes, and turns away.

Sweet is the time pa.s.sed in the house of prayer, When, met with many of this fire-fraught clay, We, on this day,--the tribe of ills forgot, Wherewith, ungentle, we afflict each other,-- a.s.semble in the temple of our G.o.d, And use our breath to wors.h.i.+p Him who gave it.

What though no gorgeous relics of old days, The gifts of humbled kings and suppliant warriors, Deck the fair shrine, or cl.u.s.ter round the pillars; No stately windows decked with various hues, No blazon of dead saints repel the sun; Though no cloud-courting dome or sculptured frieze Excite the fancy and allure the taste, No fragrant censor steep the sense in luxury, No lofty chant swell on the vanquished soul.

Ours is the faith of Reason; to the earth We leave the senses who interpret her; The heaven-born only should commune with Heaven, The immaterial with the infinite.

Calmly we wait in solemn expectation.

He rises in the desk--that earnest man; No priestly terrors flas.h.i.+ng from his eye, No mitre towers above the throne of thought, No pomp and circ.u.mstance wait on his breath.

He speaks--we hear; and man to man we judge.

Has he the spell to touch the founts of feeling, To kindle in the mind a pure ambition, Or soothe the aching heart with heavenly balm, To guide the timid and refresh the weary, Appall the wicked and abash the proud?

He is the man of G.o.d. Our hearts confess him.

He needs no homage paid in servile forms, No worldly state, to give him dignity: To his own heart the blessing will return, And all his days blossom with love divine.

There is a blessing in the Sabbath woods, There is a holiness in the blue skies; The summer-murmurs to those calm blue skies Preach ceaselessly. The universe is love-- And this disjointed fragment of a world Must, by its spirit, man, be harmonized, Tuned to concordance with the spheral strain, Till thought be like those skies, deeds like those breezes, As clear, as bright, as pure, as musical, And all things have one text of truth and beauty.

There is a blessing in a day like this, When sky and earth are talking busily; The clouds give back the riches they received, And for their graceful shapes return they fulness; While in the inmost shrine, the life of life, The soul within the soul, the consciousness Whom I can only _name_, counting her wealth, Still makes it more, still fills the golden bowl Which never shall be broken, strengthens still The silver cord which binds the whole to Heaven.