Then methought my soul was lifted
From the anguish and the strife;
With a finer vision gifted
For the Spirituals of Life;
For the links that, while they thrall us,
Upward mount in just degree,
Knitting even, if they gall us,
Life to Immortality;
For the subtler glories blending
With the common air we know,
Ansel hosts to heaven ascending
Up the ladder based below.
Straight each harsher iron duty
Did the sudden light illume;
Oh, what streams of solemn beauty
Take their sources in the tomb!
PART V.
THE PANTHEISM OF LOVE PASSING INTO THE IDEAL.
Then I rose, at dawn departing,
Wan the dead earth, wan the snow,
Wan the frost-beam dimly darting
Where the corn-seed lurk'd below;
From that night, as streams dividing
At the fountain till the sea,
Wildly chafing, gently gliding,
Life has twofold lives for me;
One by mart and forum passing,
Vex'd reflection of the crowd;
One the hush of forests glassing,
Or the changes of the cloud.
By the calmer stream, for ever
Dwell the ghosts that haunt the heart,
And the phantoms and the river
Make the Poet-World of Art.
There in all that Fancy gildeth,
Still thy vanish'd smile I see;
And each airy hall it buildeth
Is a votive shrine to thee!