’Tis of the tears which stars weep, sweet with joy—
The air is softer than a loved one’s sigh—
The ground is glowing with all priceless ore,
And glistening with gems like a bride’s bosom—
The trees have silver stems and emerald leaves—
The fountains bubble nectar—and the hills
Are half alive with light. Yet it is not Heaven.
Oh, how this world should pity man’s! I love
To walk earth’s woods when the storm bends his bow,
And volleys all his arrows off at once;
And when the dead brown branch comes crashing close
To my feet, to tread it down, because I feel
Decay my foe: and not to triumph’s worse
Than not to win. It is wrong to think on earth;
But terror hath a beauty even as mildness;
And I have felt more pleasure far on earth;
When, like a lion or a day of battle,
The storm rose, roared, shook out his shaggy mane,
And leaped abroad on the world, and lay down red,
Licking himself to sleep as it got light;
And in the cataract-like tread of a crowd,
And its irresistable rush, flooding the green
As though it came to doom, than e’er I can
Feel in this faery orb of shade and shine.
I love earth!
Thou art mad to dote on earth
When with this sphere of beauty.
It is the blush
Of being; surely, too, a maiden world,
Unmarred by thee. Touch it not, Lucifer!
It is too bright to tarnish.
Didst thou fail?
I cannot fail. With me success is nature.
I am the cause, means consequence of ill.
Thou canst not yet enjoy a sensuous world—
Refined though ne’er so little o’er thine own,
And yet wouldst enter Heaven. Valhalla’s halls,
And sculls o’erbrimmed with mead, Elysian plains—
Eden, where life was toilless, and gave man
All things to live with, nothing to live for;—
The Muslim’s bowers of love, and streams of wine,
And palaces of purest adamant,
Where dark-eyed houris, with their young white arms,
The ever virgin, woo and welcome ye,
The Chaldee’s orbs of gold, where dwells the primal Light,
Were all too pure to thee; yet shalt thou be
Surely in Heaven, ere Death unlock the heart.
I said that I would show thee marvels here;
For here dwell many angels—many souls
Who have run pure through earth, or been made pure
By their salvation since. It is a mart
Where all the holy spirits of the world
Perform sweet interchange, and purchase truth
With truth, and love with love. Hither came He,
The Son—the Savior of the universe;
Not in the stable-state He went to earth—
A servant unto slaves; but as a God,
Carrying His kingdom with Him, and His Heaven.
Lo, here are spirits! and all seem to love
Each other.
He hath only half a heart
Who loves not all.
Speak for me to some angel.
See, here is one, a very soul of beauty:
It is the muse. I know her by the lyre
Hung on her arm, and eye like fount of fire.
Mortal, approach! I am the holy Muse,
Whom all the great and bright of spirit choose—
’Tis I who breathe my soul into the lips
Of those great lights whom death nor time eclipse;
’Tis I who wing the loving heart with song,
And set its sighs to music on the tongue:
It is I who watch, and, with sweet dreams, reward
The starry slumbers of the youthful bard;
For I love every thing that is sweet and bright.
And but this morn, with the first wink of light
A sunbeam left the sun, and, as it sped,
I followed, watched, and listened what it said:
Wherefore, with all this brightness am I given
From sun to earth? Am I not fit for Heaven?
From God I came once; and, though worlds have passed,
Ages, and dooms, yet I am light to the last.
Whatever God hath once bent to His will
Is sacred; so the world’s to be loved still.
What of this swift, this bright, but downward being,
Too burning to be borne—too brief for seeing?
What is mine aim—mine end? I would not die
In dust, or water, or an idiots eye:
I would not cease in blood, nor end in fire,
Nor light the loveless to their low desire:
No; let me perish on the poet’s page,
Where he kisses from his beauty’s brow all age;
Spelling it fair for aye, and wrinkle scorning,
As when first that brow brake on him like a morning.
But yet I cannot quit this line I tread,
Though it lead and leave me to the eyeless dead:
It is mine errand: ’tis for this I come,
And live, and die, and go down to my doom.
This is my fate—right and bright to speed on.
God is His own God: fate and fall are one.
Straight from the sun I go, like life from God,
Which hits, now on a heaven, now on a clod.
But, spite of all, the world’s air warps our way,
And crops the roses off the cheek of day;
As some false friend, who holds our fall in trust,
Oils our decline, and hands us to the dust.
Where are the sunbeams gone of the young green earth?
Search dust and night: our death makes dear our birth—
It said—and saw earth; and one moment more
Fell bright beside a vine-shadowed cottage door:
In it came—glanced upon a glowing page,
Where, youth forestalling and foreshortening age—
Weak with the work of thought, a boyish bard,
Sat suing night and stars for his reward.
The sunbeam swerved and grew, a breathing, dim,
For the first time, as it lit and looked on him:
His forehead faded—pale his lip and dry—
Hollow his cheek—and fever fed his eye.
Clouds lay about his brain, as on a hill,
Quick with the thunder thought, and lightning will.
His clenched hand shook from its more than midnight clasp,
Till his pen fluttered like a winged asp,
Save that no deadly poison blacked its lips:
’Twas his to life-enlighten, not eclipse;
Nor would he shade one atom of another,
To have a sun his slave, a god his brother.
The young moon laid her down as one who dies,
Knowing that death can be no sacrifice,
For that the sun, her god, through nature’s night
Shall make her bosom to grow great with light.
Still he sat, though his lamp sunk; and he strained
His eyes to work the nightness which remained.
Vain pain! he could not make the light he
