But Poet, in thy song is power
To lift the flood gates of my woe,
And bid its solemn surging flow
Far from the triumph of this hour.
Yea, rising from life’s evil things,
My soul, long blinded from the light,
Starlit across the purple night
Sweeps the red lightning of her wings!
I will be free! there is a strength
In the full blowing of our youth
To climb the rosied hills of truth
From the dry desert’s burning length.
From far a voice shouts to my fate
As shout the choiring Angels, when
The fiery cross of suffering men
Falls broken at the narrow gate!
Be brave! be noble, and sublime
Thyself unto a higher aim—
Keeping thy nature white of blame
In all the dreary walks of time!
Oh musty creeds in mouldy books!
Blind teachers of the blind are ye—
A plainer wisdom talks with me
In God’s full psalmody of brooks.
The rustling of a leaf hath force
To wake the currents of my blood,
That sweep, a wild Niagara-flood,
Hurled headlong in its fiery course.
The moaning of the wind hath power
To stir the anthem of my soul,
Unto a mightier thunder roll
Than ever shook a triumph hour.
Betwixt the gorgeous twilight bars
Rare truths flow from melodious lips—
God’s all-sublime Apocalypse—
His awful poem writ in stars!
Each ray that spends its burning might
In the alembic of the morn,
Is, in the Triune splendors, born
Of the great uncreated light!