IV
O Edmund! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud! 50
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world, allow'd
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud [55]
Enveloping the earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
O pure of heart! Thou need'st not ask of me 60
What this strong music in the soul may be?
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making pow'r?
Joy, virtuous Edmund! joy that ne'er was given, [65]
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Joy, Edmund! is the spirit and the pow'r,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dow'r,
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undream'd of by the sensual and the proud— [70]
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud—
We, we ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light. [75]
Yes, dearest Edmund, yes!
There was a time that, tho' my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence fancy made me dreams of happiness: [80]
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine,
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seem'd mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I, that they rob me of my mirth,
But oh! each visitation [85]
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of imagination.
[The Sixth and Seventh Stanzas omitted.]
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