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I
THE AWFUL shadow of some unseen Power |
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| Floats though unseen among us,—visiting |
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| This various world with as inconstant wing |
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| As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,— |
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| Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, |
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| It visits with inconstant glance |
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| Each human heart and countenance; |
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| Like hues and harmonies of evening,— |
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| Like clouds in starlight widely spread,— |
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| Like memory of music fled,— |
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| Like aught that for its grace may be |
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| Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. |
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II
Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate |
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| With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon |
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| Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone? |
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| Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, |
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| This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? |
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| Ask why the sunlight not for ever |
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| Weaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river, |
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| Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, |
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| Why fear and dream and death and birth |
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| Cast on the daylight of this earth |
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| Such gloom,—why man has such a scope |
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| For love and hate, despondency and hope? |
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III
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever |
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| To sage or poet these responses given— |
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| Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, |
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| Remain the records of their vain endeavour, |
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| Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, |
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| From all we hear and all we see, |
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| Doubt, chance, and mutability. |
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| Thy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven, |
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| Or music by the night-wind sent |
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| Through strings of some still instrument, |
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| Or moonlight on a midnight stream, |
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| Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream. |
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IV
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart |
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| And come, for some uncertain moments lent. |
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| Man were immortal, and omnipotent, |
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| Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, |
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| Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. |
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| Thou messenger of sympathies, |
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| That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes— |
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| Thou—that to human thought art nourishment, |
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| Like darkness to a dying flame! |
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| Depart not as thy shadow came, |
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| Depart not—lest the grave should be, |
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| Like life and fear, a dark reality. |
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V
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped |
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| Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, |
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| And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing |
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| Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. |
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| I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; |
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| I was not heard—I saw them not— |
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| When musing deeply on the lot |
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| Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing |
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| All vital things that wake to bring |
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| News of birds and blossoming,— |
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| Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; |
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| I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! |
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VI
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers |
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| To thee and thine—have I not kept the vow? |
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| With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now |
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| I call the phantoms of a thousand hours |
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| Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers |
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| Of studious zeal or love’s delight |
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| Outwatched with me the envious night— |
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| They know that never joy illumed my brow |
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| Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free |
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| This world from its dark slavery, |
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| That thou—O awful LOVELINESS, |
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| Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express. |
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VII
The day becomes more solemn and serene |
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| When noon is past—there is a harmony |
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| In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, |
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| Which through the summer is not heard or seen, |
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| As if it could not be, as if it had not been! |
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| Thus let thy power, which like the truth |
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| Of nature on my passive youth |
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| Descended, to my onward life supply |
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| Its calm—to one who worships thee, |
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| And every form containing thee, |
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| Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind |
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| To fear himself, and love all human kind. |
