Ay! yonder cloud,
Bright with the last faint glances of the sun,
Bears my soul thither.
Spirit.
All the Beautiful
Points like the pilot-flower, magnetically,
To Heaven, where beauty is accomplish'd. Earth
Is but the reproduction of one form,
Whose perfectness is heaven, and thus the mind,
Unblinded by the blighting mist of sin,
Sees emblems of its everlasting hope
In Nature's loveliness. This quiet hour
When the calm'd heart cries truce unto itself,
And lays the weapons of resentment down,
And bitterness and anger, yields the bliss
That in completeness is the bliss of Heaven.
The Earth is ne'er so sweet as when it seems
By intuition to the soul like Heaven,
And in the spirit earthliness dissolves
Like mist before the sunshine.
Man.
There's a power
Within the soul that makes it yearn to soar
Up to the Infinite, and, eagle-like,
Bask in the unveiled glory of the sun;
But this frame clogs its aspirations all,
Like gyves that press the struggling captive down.
Tell me of other worlds?
Spirit.
There is a world
Bright as yon star that flecks the wing of night,
And sheds its glory o'er the Universe,
Made up of such pure loveliness within,
That like a gem it glistens through the crust,
And makes heaven luminous. A chasten'd sound
Of never failing melody still floats
About it, like an ocean, undulating
To the sweet breath of summer scented airs,
From hill to dale and leafy-tufted woods,
That catch the humours of the golden sun,
And deck them in his livery. There falls
From the soft twilight gloom of sparry grots,
And crystal pillar'd caverns, many a stream
That breaks in light and music on the soul,
And like a diamond-sandall'd spirit glides
In beauty through the land, margined by flowers
That mirror in its tide, and seem like stars
In heaven. There are flowers everywhere, in vale
Hill-side and woodland, in the sun and shade,
That whether dreams be on them, or they wake,
Send evermore sweet incense to the heavens.
Sun-crested mountains, softened into grace
By the blue tints of distance, lend new charms
To verdant swarded valleys, in whose lap
As in a mother's bosom, waters lie
And ripple to the wooing of the winds.
The very clouds that scan the blue of heaven,
Fused sometimes by the sunshine as with soul,
Or flaked by the light fancies of the gale,
Form to the vision labyrinths of grace
And beauty, that melt into space, and spread
A hemisphere of magic o'er the orb—
And thro' this world at morning, noon, and night,
A dreamy sweetness wanders, varying
From blessing unto blessing, that the sense
Of pleasure dull not with satiety.
Man.
And it is habited?