Volume II Part 32 (1/2)
Must this deep sigh of thine own Haunt thee with humanity?
Green visioned banks that are too steep To be o'erbrowzed by the sheep, May all sad thoughts adown you creep Without a shepherd? Mighty sea, Can we dwarf thy magnitude And fit it to our straitest mood?
O fair, fair Nature, are we thus Impotent and querulous Among thy workings glorious, Wealth and sanct.i.ties, that still Leave us vacant and defiled And wailing like a soft-kissed child, Kissed soft against his will?
XI.
G.o.d, G.o.d!
With a child's voice I cry, Weak, sad, confidingly-- G.o.d, G.o.d!
Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always up Unto Thy love, (as none of ours are) droop As ours, o'er many a tear; Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad, Two little tears suffice to cover all: Thou knowest, Thou who art so prodigal Of beauty, we are oft but stricken deer Expiring in the woods, that care for none Of those delightsome flowers they die upon.
XII.
O blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breath We name our souls, self-spoilt!--by that strong pa.s.sion Which paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong death Which made Thee once unbreathing--from the wrack Themselves have called around them, call them back, Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!
For here, O Lord, For here they travel vainly, vainly pa.s.s From city-pavement to untrodden sward Where the lark finds her deep nest in the gra.s.s Cold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very vain The greatest speed of all these souls of men Unless they travel upward to the throne Where sittest THOU the satisfying ONE, With help for sins and holy perfectings For all requirements: while the archangel, raising Unto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing, Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.
_TO BETTINE,_
THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE.
”I have the second sight, Goethe!”--_Letters of a Child._
I.
Bettine, friend of Goethe, _Hadst_ thou the second sight-- Upturning wors.h.i.+p and delight With such a loving duty To his grand face, as women will, The childhood 'neath thine eyelids still?
II.
--Before his shrine to doom thee, Using the same child's smile That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile For the first time, won from thee Ere star and flower grew dim and dead Save at his feet and o'er his head?
III.
--Digging thine heart and throwing Away its childhood's gold, That so its woman-depth might hold His spirit's overflowing?
(For surging souls, no worlds can bound, Their channel in the heart have found.)
IV.
O child, to change appointed, Thou hadst not second sight!
What eyes the future view aright Unless by tears anointed?
Yea, only tears themselves can show The burning ones that have to flow.
V.
O woman, deeply loving, Thou hadst not second sight!
The star is very high and bright, And none can see it moving.