When nightly through the sky
I view the stars their files unnumber'd leading,
Then see the dark earth lie
In deathlike trance, unheeding
How Life and Time with those bright orbs are speeding:
Strong love and equal pain
Wake in my heart a fire with anguish burning;
The tear-drops fall like rain,
Mine eyes to fountains turning,
And my sad voice pours forth its tones of mourning:
O mansion of high state,
Bright temple of bright saints in beauty dwelling,
The soul, once born to mate
With these, what force repelling
Hath bound to earth, its light in darkness quelling?
What mortal disaccord
Hath exiled so from Truth the mind unstable?
Why of its blest reward
Forgetful, lost, unable,
Seeks it each shadowy fraud and guileful fable?
Man lies in slumber dead,
Like one that of his danger hath no feeling,
The while with silent tread
Those restless orbs are wheeling,
And, as they fly, his hours of life are stealing.
O mortals, wake and rise;
Think of the loss that on your lives is pressing;
The soul, that never dies,
Ordain'd for endless blessing,
How shall it live, false shows for truth caressing?
Ah, raise your fainting eyes
To that firm sphere which still new glory weareth,
And scorn the low disguise
The flattering world prepareth,
And all the world's poor thrall hopeth or feareth.
O what is all earth's round,
Brief scene of man's proud strife and vain endeavour,
Weigh'd with that deep profound,
That tideless Ocean-river,
That onward bears Time's fleeting forms for ever?