Amid that gay assemblage many wore,
Perchance, a laughing vizard o'er a heart
Empty and sad; many a vacant smile,
Like a sun-ray upon the winter's snow
That freezes yet beneath it. Some there were
Who flutter'd round its glitter, like a moth
That takes a petty rush-light for the sun;
And few who let the honest heart appear
Unveiled mid Fashion's frigid masquerade.
Didst thou look deeper than the outward guise?
Man.
Ay! some there were so lovely, that the eye
Dreamt of them in its night, when they were gone;
But when I search'd them, like a single flower
The outer blossoms parted, and showed nought within.
Oh! then I fled, as one whose own wild thoughts
Bid him outstrip the curbless winds of heaven,
And storm the bulwarks of sublime desire.
Want grew within me as a famine grows
With every hour that fleets unsatisfied;
But in my wanderings there rose a spot,
Where man had wrought pure nature's counsel out,
Nor reared a shrine to mock her loveliness;
Yet this I heeded not, for there was one
Who came to me on sudden with such joy
That I stirred not, but like one weak with thirst,
Let the life draught flow o'er my powerless lips.
O! yet I see her, with those blessed eyes
Slaying my soul with beauty; eyes so deep,
That in their azure ocean of soft light
Thought shrank into a fathom length; and smiles,
Stealing their sweetness from a heaven of love,
And joy, and immortality within,
Whence all emotion, angel-like, came forth,
Clad in a vesture of celestial light.
Her face beamed on me like a glimpse of heaven
Caught in the rapture of prophetic trance,
That in all day-light thoughts, and shaded dreams,
Haunts the deep soul for ever. As she went,
Grace lapt its mantle o'er her, like the gold
On fleecy-bosomed clouds in sunny skies.
O Spirit! she was beautiful! a thing
Guileless and pure, as though her youth had past
With Heaven's own children in the light of God,
Thence come to make a paradise of earth,
And breathe the transports of transcendant bliss
Like floral exhalations through my soul.
And I—I loved her with the love of heaven,
That melts down time and space, and all between,
And clasps an essence in the soul's embrace;
And from her being there would ever flow
Full streams of holy melody, that lapt
Earth, air, and heaven, and all terrestrial forms
With charms bright as heaven's new-created light.
And as she gazed on the blue firmament,
And shrined the stars with her pure thoughts, and dreamt
Of that which lay beyond; I gazed on her,
And drew Elysian theories of Heaven,
As though borne thither by wing'd seraphims.
Oh! what is there in love that wreathes all things
With an unfading halo of sweet light,
Making the mystery of Nature clear?
Spirit.
Love, like the sun, clears from the soul all clouds
That darken understanding, and wrap earth
Round with a misty curtain, through whose folds
The lineaments of beauty glimmer forth
In undefined luxuriance. 'Tis a spell
That brings by sympathetic influence
The soul-deep glory from the universe.
All things are beautiful to those who love,
Whether in mind or matter. Life becomes
A pathway of soft light and radiance,
Whereon the spirit glideth unto heaven
As angels up the sunshine. Thought and deed
Are blessed in the framing and the act,
Fashioned and temper'd with pure charity,
That knits man unto man, and grants the weak
Exemption from the thraldom of the strong;—
And things inanimate, that yet are pierced
Through with the spirit of eternal love,
As with a life that circulates and glows
In ruddy currents throughout all their frame,
By gracious intuition stand revealed
In all the plenitude of Eden charms.
Then Nature's language reaches to the heart,
As through the modulations of a song
Sweet thoughts flow o'er the spirit. What was fair
Seems fairer, what was vividless grows bright.
Man.
Ay! she made all things beautiful to me,
Drawing, with youth's pure privilege, the sting
Of guilt and wrong from life—'twas as the sun
Rose on a sphere seen but by night before.
Ah! bitter image of a transient thing,
That shineth with Promethean glory, then
Sinks 'neath the shadow of Eternity!
Oh Spirit! day by day I saw her fade,
The life within her grew more spiritual,
Triumphing in the weakness of the flesh,
And in her eyes supernal brightness shone,
As from the glory of approaching heaven.
Dear child! that kisses could not keep awake,
Or woo from the sweet love of Mother-land.
She lay within these arms, and angels came
And whispered her away with them to Heaven,
So softly, that I knew it not, but still
Murmured my heart to her. To sense she lay
Upon my breast, and yet she was in heaven;
This but the earthly mantle she had shed.
There were those silken locks that curtained her,
And her sweet lips that I had kissed but now;
From whence, as from a living spring of love,
Trickled pure heaven streams o'er my life's dull waste.
But Oh! I kissed the soft lids from her eyes,
And knew my desolation, for the soul
That was their soul, as light is day's, no more
Stood in their dewy portals, like a queen
Swaying true-hearted multitudes. Oh heaven!
'Twas wonderful to fold her thus unto me,
With life's ripe bloom upon her cheeks, and grace
Clinging round her like a bridal robe,
Yet feel that she, the verity, the self,
Was floating, worlds-off, on the stream of souls
To God. Oh mind! 'tis ever thus with thee!
Thou graspest at material shadowings,
Whilst that the immaterial substance of all good
Flies from thee like a vapour from the wind;
So that thou hast a clod within thine hand,
Life seems eternal, till the crumbling dust
Runs through thy clenching fingers, and thy gage
Mocks thee up from the mould'ring frame of Earth.
There is no mystery like Death; it comes
Sightless as the first breath of infant life,
And goes to an unsearched Eternity—
The End and the Beginning are alike.