CXV.
And he had doubts, aye, I have heard him cry
To the wild winds, bidding them stay awhile;
He sought the substance of the beauty shy,
That lurk’d in ocean, kiss’d by summer’s smile;
And he hath called unto the ghastly dark,
Gasping for breath, and panting for the light:
He long’d for life, but phantoms steer’d his bark,
Lengthening his voyage with a tedious freight;
O he could understand all that seem’d sad,
And claim’d a kindred with deserted hope!
Life, too indulgent, show’d him all she had,
He scorned her earnest, would not trust her scope:
He asked nor sympathy, nor aid, nor pity;
Where should he seek them? not in field or city.
CXVI.
But had his happy hope chanc’d to alight
By the full river of thy thought’s sweet flow!
O then, my love, how couch’d had been his sight!
How had his mind been purged from all its woe!
Thy hand should only lead him to the hill,
That beckons daylight o’er its far blue waves;
Thy thought should but subdue his stubborn will;
Soon he were master of poor hope’s dim graves!
The presence of the God, that weaves the world,
Transfusing beauty till it higher grows;
The God of love, should still those storms that whirl’d
Such petty streamlets into deadlier flows:
But ah! the hand that only knows to mend,
How oft it fails unconscious whom to tend.
CXVII.
Child of a day, and changeling of an hour!
Man, feeblest tuning of love’s scarce-heard pipe;
The abyss, that voids despair, burns to deflower
With death thy hopes, with time thy thoughts unripe.
Yet know, rejoice, ’tis Nature guides the change;
Joy, beauty, truth, wing her transparent feet:
No toy thou art, nor left to lonely range;
Reward grows stronger from its oft defeat:
Whate’er thy utmost joy can comprehend;
What godlike beauty hath once thrill’d thy soul;
What love has ever stamp’d truth as his end:
Such joy, beauty, truth, love, are Nature’s goal:
Shall Nature gladden only to deceive?
Should man the atom more than God conceive?