All's Well
The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake
Our thirsty souls with rain;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
From off our limbs a chain;
And wrongs of man to man but make
The love of God more plain.
As through the shadowy lens of even
The eye looks farthest into heaven
On gleams of star and depths of blue
The glaring sunshine never knew!
—John Greenleaf Whittier
A Violinist
The lark above our heads doth know
A heaven we see not here below;
She sees it, and for joy she sings;
Then falls with ineffectual wings.
Ah, soaring soul! faint not nor tire!
Each heaven attain'd reveals a higher,
Thy thought is of thy failure; we
List raptured, and thank God for thee.
—Francis William Bourdillon
To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are holy land!
—Edgar Allan Poe