Ye southern Zephyrs, redolent with balm
Of myrtle, orange, and the rose;
Blowing from islands where the fronded palm
In beauty grows:
Wind of the North, whose trumpet voice can shake
The shuddering echoes of the cave;
Storm-born, blast-driven; thou, whose breath doth make
The mighty wave:
Perpetual Fire, whose never-dying flame
Consumes the glowing heart of earth,
Until a wide destruction shall proclaim
A second birth:
Tell me, oh! mighty concourse, have ye seen
In all this great infinity
Of worlds unborn and planets that have been,
A place for me?
Confession, Creed, and Prayer.
Silent around me a cathedral dim,
Still throbbing with the echoes of a hymn,
Lifted its ghostly arches, great and grim;
Slowly the worshippers had filed away;
Untenanted the vacant cloisters lay;
As even followed on the steps of day;
But one remained, who bent his reverent head
Where graven figures slumber with the dead,
And spake with faltering accents, and he said:
"Light, light, more light; Great Father, give me light;
I cannot see my way, so dark the night;
My finite heart shrinks from the infinite.
"Anon the shadow lifts: my straining eyes
One moment see that which before me lies;
This fades, and new-born hope within me dies.