HOPE.

He mark'd two sunbeams upward driven

Till they blent in one in the bosom of heaven;

And when closed o'er the eye lid of night,

His own mind's eye saw it doubly bright,

And as upward and upward it floated on

He deemed it a seraph—and anon.

Through its light on heaven's floor he made,

The shadow bright of his dead love's shade,

In her living beauty, and he wrapt her in light,

Which dropped from the eye of the Infinite.

And as she breathed her heavenward sigh,

'Twas halved by that light all radiently,

As it lit her up to eternity.

Then the future opened its ocult scroll.

And his own inward man was refined to soul,

And straightway it rose to the realms above,

On the wings of thought till it joined his love,

And though from that beauteous trance he woke

Still linger'd the thought—and he called it—hope!