I
THE AWFUL shadow of some unseen Power |
|
Floats though unseen among us,—visiting |
|
This various world with as inconstant wing |
|
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,— |
|
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, |
5 |
It visits with inconstant glance |
|
Each human heart and countenance; |
|
Like hues and harmonies of evening,— |
|
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,— |
|
Like memory of music fled,— |
10 |
Like aught that for its grace may be |
|
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. |
|
|
II
Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate |
|
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon |
|
Of human thought or form,—where art thou gone? |
15 |
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, |
|
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? |
|
Ask why the sunlight not for ever |
|
Weaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river, |
|
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, |
20 |
Why fear and dream and death and birth |
|
Cast on the daylight of this earth |
|
Such gloom,—why man has such a scope |
|
For love and hate, despondency and hope? |
|
|
III
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever |
25 |
To sage or poet these responses given— |
|
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, |
|
Remain the records of their vain endeavour, |
|
Frail spells—whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, |
|
From all we hear and all we see, |
30 |
Doubt, chance, and mutability. |
|
Thy light alone—like mist o’er mountains driven, |
|
Or music by the night-wind sent |
|
Through strings of some still instrument, |
|
Or moonlight on a midnight stream, |
35 |
Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream. |
|
|
IV
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart |
|
And come, for some uncertain moments lent. |
|
Man were immortal, and omnipotent, |
|
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, |
40 |
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. |
|
Thou messenger of sympathies, |
|
That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes— |
|
Thou—that to human thought art nourishment, |
|
Like darkness to a dying flame! |
45 |
Depart not as thy shadow came, |
|
Depart not—lest the grave should be, |
|
Like life and fear, a dark reality. |
|
|
V
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped |
|
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, |
50 |
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing |
|
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. |
|
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed; |
|
I was not heard—I saw them not— |
|
When musing deeply on the lot |
55 |
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing |
|
All vital things that wake to bring |
|
News of birds and blossoming,— |
|
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; |
|
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! |
60 |
|
VI
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers |
|
To thee and thine—have I not kept the vow? |
|
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now |
|
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours |
|
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers |
65 |
Of studious zeal or love’s delight |
|
Outwatched with me the envious night— |
|
They know that never joy illumed my brow |
|
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free |
|
This world from its dark slavery, |
70 |
That thou—O awful LOVELINESS, |
|
Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express. |
|
|
VII
The day becomes more solemn and serene |
|
When noon is past—there is a harmony |
|
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, |
75 |
Which through the summer is not heard or seen, |
|
As if it could not be, as if it had not been! |
|
Thus let thy power, which like the truth |
|
Of nature on my passive youth |
|
Descended, to my onward life supply |
80 |
Its calm—to one who worships thee, |
|
And every form containing thee, |
|
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind |
|
To fear himself, and love all human kind. |