They are nothing to the measure of our mind.
For place we must have space; for time we must have
Eternity; and for a spirit godhood.
Mind means not happiness: power is not good.
True bliss is to be found in holy life;
In charity to man—in love to God:
Why should such duties cease, such powers decay?
Are they not worthy of a deathless state—
A boundless scope—a high uplifted life?
Man, like the air-born eagle who remains
On earth only to feed and sleep and die;
But whose delight is on his lonely wing,
Wide sweeping as a mind, to force the skies
High as the lightfall ere, begirt with clouds,
It dash this, nether world—immortal man
Rushes aloft, right upwards, into Heaven.
O faith of Christ, sole honour of the world!
What know men of religion, save its forms?
True faith nor biddeth nor abideth form.
The bended knee, the eye uplift is all
Which man need render; all which God can bear.
What to the faith are forms? A passing speck,
A crow upon the sky. God’s worship is
That only He inspires; and His bright words,
Writ in the red-leaved volume of the heart,
Return to him in prayer, as dew to Heaven.
Our proper good we rarely seek or make;
Mindless of our immortal powers and their
Immortal end, as is the pearl of its worth,
The rose its scent, the wave its purity.
Come, we will quit these saddening themes. Wilt sing
To me? for I am gloomy; and I love
Thy singing, sacred as the sound of hymns,
On some bright Sabbath morning, on the moor,
Where all is still save praise; and where hard by
The ripe grain shakes its bright beard in the sun;
The wild bee hums more solemnly; the deep sky,
The fresh green grass, the sun, and sunny brook,
All look as if they knew the day, the hour;
And felt with man the need and joy of thanks.
I cannot sing the lightsome lays of love.
Many thou know’st who can; but none that can
Love thee as I do—for I love thy soul;
And I would save it, Festus! Listen then:
Is Heaven a place where pearly streams
Glide over silver sand?
Like childhood’s rosy dazzling dreams
Of some far faery land?
Is Heaven a clime where diamond dews
Glitter on fadeless flowers?
And mirth and music ring aloud
From amaranthine bowers?Ah no; not such, not such is Heaven!
Surpassing far all these;
Such cannot be the guerdon given
Man’s wearied soul to please.
For saint and sinner here below
Such vain to be have proved:
And the pure spirit will despise
Whate’er the sense hath loved.There we shall dwell with Sire and Son,
And with the mother-maid,
And with the Holy Spirit, one:
In glory like arrayed:
And not to one created thing
Shall our embrace be given;
But all our joy shall be in God;
For only God is Heaven.
I know that thou dost love me. I in vain
Strive to love aught of earth or Heaven but thee.
Thou art my first, last, only love; nor shall
Another even tempt my heart. Like stars,
A thousand sweet and bright and wondrous fair,
A thousand deathless miracles of beauty,
They shall ever pass at all but eyeless distance,
And never mix with thy love; but be lost
All, meanly in its moonlike lustrousness.
How still the air is! the tree tops stir not:
But stand and peer on Heaven’s bright face as though
It slept and they were loving it: they would not
Have the skies see them move for summers; would they?
See that sweet cloud! It is watching us, I am certain.
What have we here to make thee stay one second?
Away! thy sisters wait thee in the west,
The blushing bridemaids of the sun and sea.
I would I were like thee, thou little cloud,
Ever to live in Heaven: or seeking earth
To let my spirit down in drops of love:
To sleep with night upon her dewy lap;
And, the next dawn, back with the sun to Heaven;
And so on through eternity, sweet cloud!
I cannot but think that some senseless things
Are happy. Often and often have I watched
A gossamer line sighing itself along
The air, as it seemed; and so thin, thin and bright,
Looking as woven in a loom of light,
That I have envied it, I have, and followed;—
Oft watched the sea-bird’s down blown o’er the wave,
Now touching it, now spirited aloft,
Now out of sight, now seen—till in some bright fringe
Of streamy foam, as in a cage, at last
A playful death it dies, and mourned its death.
But thinkest thou the future is a state
More positive than this; or that it can be
Aught but another present, full of cares,
And toils, perhaps, and duties; that the soul
Will ever be more nigh to God than now,
Save as may seem from mind’s debility:
Just as the sun, from weakness of the eye,
And the illusions made by matter’s forms,
Seems hot and wearied resting on the hill?
It would be well, I think, to live as though
No more were to be looked for; to be good
Because it is best, here; and leave hope and fear
For lives below ourselves. If earth persuades not
That I owe prayer and praise and love to God,
While all I have He gives, will Heaven? will Hell?
No; neither, never!
I think not all with thee.
Have I not heard thee hint of spirit-friends?
Where are they now?
Ah! close at hand, mayhap.
I have a might immortal; and can ken
With angels. Neither sky nor night nor earth
Hinder me. Through the forms of things I see
Their essences; and thus, even now, behold—
But where I cannot show to thee—far round,
Nature herself—the whole effect of God.
Mind, matter, motion, heat, time, love, and life,
And death and immortality; those chief
And first-born giants all are there; all parts,
All limbs of her their mother; she is all.
And what does she?
Produce: it is her life.
The three named last, life, death, deathlessness,
Glide in elliptic path round all things made—
For none save God can fill the perfect whole:
And are but to eternity as is
The horizon to the world. At certain points
Each seems the other; now, the three are one;
Now, all invisible; and now, as first,
Moving in measured round.
How look
