Man.
O Mother Earth! methinks I hear a voice
Sound 'mid the surging of the stars of heaven,
Like a clear trump athwart the mighty roar
Of falling waters.
"Oh thou beautiful,
"Frail daughter of Immensity! that hangest
"Upon the bosom of dim night, at once
"A glory, and a brightness, and a shame—
"That from the urn of everlasting love
"Drinkest of light and immortality,
"Like a fair child in waywardness and mirth,
"Triumphing in her loveliness; the swell
"Of thy rapt harmonies is mute in heaven,
"That once rang through the arches of all space,
"A wonder and an ecstasy; but still
"Thy path is with the glorious and pure,
"Spanning the empyrean with a jewelled zone,
"Making heaven beautiful, and with thy grace
"Charming to goodness, though thou act it not.
"Arise, O lovely fondling of the skies!
"Wake from the silence of thy fallen doom,
"Breathe forth thy sweetness to the longing air;
"The angels are about thee evermore,
"Like watchers o'er a stricken one, that hold
"A glass to catch the life-mist from her lips.
"Arise! and don thy bridal vestments pure,
"And lead the train of heaven to the morn!
"Art thou not beautiful, Daughter of Heaven?—
"Beautiful as a bride before the sun,
"Gliding along the blue serene of space,
"Pensive and glorious; showering soft light
"Upon the path of heaven, as from the eyes
"Of downward-glancing cherubim. Arise!
"Stand in the light of lights, and bare thy soul
"Unto the searching of the undimmed spheres!"
O, Spirit! are there angels hovering now
In the dim ocean of this twilight air?
Spirit.
There are pure angels ever round the earth,
As stars are round the azure dome of heaven,
In sunshine and in twilight and in gloom,
That with the sweetness of an unseen love
Circle humanity, and like the lark
Hid in the glory of the noonday sun,
Pour o'er the world heaven's constant tenderness.
Some in the soft-hued glimmering of dreams,
Through the unfolded lattices of sleep,
Steal to the soul in visions of delight,
Pure and benignant as the evening dew
That cools the bosom of the blushing rose.
Some all unseen, save in the blessed care,
That like a lover's arm, from life's rough way
Presses the serried thorns that choke it up;
But all as with an atmosphere of love,
And peace and strength encircling man, alike
Within him and without, that the foul breath
Of pestilent corruption touch him not.
Some are there who have loved and suffered much
For earth, as a fond mother doth who sees
Her babe die in her bosom; who have traced
Man to the precipital brink of ruin,
With open arms to charm him back from death,
Rejected and despised; who on the scroll
Of conscience, as with words of living light,
Stamp the pure precepts of a holy lore,
That sin obliterates and sets at naught.
Man.
Oh! how polluted must man's spirit show
In contrast with these ministers of heaven,
That e'en beneath frail woman's purity
Dims like a taper 'neath the light of day!—
Methinks if from our eyes sin's blindness fell,
And gave pure angels to our ravish'd sight,
Gliding around us clad in the bright robes
Of love and immortality, this earth
Would be like heaven. O! 'twere a blessed change,
And perfect as when Death's exulting sigh
Swoons through the empty chambers of the soul
His note of liberty.
Spirit.
'Tis man alone
Makes Earth less Paradise; its frame is full
Of perfect blessedness, which to the pure
Were Heaven in all its fulness; but mankind
Are crimsoned o'er with sin, which like blood-stains
A soundless ocean could not cleanse away.
And thus all flesh must thaw back to the dust
From which it sprang, as ice doth unto water,
Before the soul is purified for heaven.
Men little dream how near heaven is to them
In possibility, how far in deed.
As little as they dream amid their mirth,
Death stalks beside them; that his shadow falls
In the same mirror where the maiden sees
The image of her loveliness, and flits
Amongst the whirl of revelry and show.