Life

A train of gay and clouded daysDappled with joy and grief and praise,Beauty to fire us, saints to save,Escort us to a little grave.

No fate, save by the victim's fault, is low,For God hath writ all dooms magnificent,So guilt not traverses his tender will.

Around the man who seeks a noble end,Not angels but divinities attend.

From high to higher forcesThe scale of power uprears,The heroes on their horses,The gods upon their spheres.

This shining moment is an edificeWhich the Omnipotent cannot rebuild.

Roomy EternityCasts her schemes rarely,And an aeon allowsFor each quality and partOf the multitudinousAnd many-chambered heart.

The beggar begs by God's command,And gifts awake when givers sleep,Swords cannot cut the giving handNor stab the love that orphans keep.

In the chamber, on the stairs,Lurking dumb,Go and comeLemurs and Lars.

Such another peerless queenOnly could her mirror show.

Easy to match what others do,Perform the feat as well as they;Hard to out-do the brave, the true,And find a loftier way:The school decays, the learning spoilsBecause of the sons of wine;How snatch the stripling from their toils?--Yet can one ray of truth divineThe blaze of revellers' feasts outshine.

Of all wit's uses the main oneIs to live well with who has none.

The tongue is prone to lose the way,Not so the pen, for in a letterWe have not better things to say,But surely say them better.

She walked in flowers around my fieldAs June herself around the sphere.

Friends to me are frozen wine;I wait the sun on them should shine.

You shall not love me for what daily spends;You shall not know me in the noisy street,Where I, as others, follow petty ends;Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet;Nor when I'm jaded, sick, anxious or mean.But love me then and only, when you knowMe for the channel of the rivers of GodFrom deep ideal fontal heavens that flow.

To and fro the Genius flies,A light which plays and hoversOver the maiden's headAnd dips sometimes as low as to her eyes.Of her faults I take no note,Fault and folly are not mine;Comes the Genius,--all's forgot,Replunged again into that upper sphereHe scatters wide and wild its lustres here.

LoveAsks nought his brother cannot give;Asks nothing, but does all receive.Love calls not to his aid events;He to his wants can well suffice:Asks not of others soft consents,Nor kind occasion without eyes;Nor plots to ope or bolt a gate,Nor heeds Condition's iron walls,--Where he goes, goes before him Fate;Whom he uniteth, God installs;Instant and perfect his accessTo the dear object of his thought,Though foes and land and seas betweenHimself and his love intervene.

The brave Empedocles, defying fools,Pronounced the word that mortals hate to hear--"I am divine, I am not mortal made;I am superior to my human weeds."Not Sense but Reason is the Judge of truth;Reason's twofold, part human, part divine;That human part may be described and taught,The other portion language cannot speak.

Tell men what they knew before;Paint the prospect from their door.

Him strong Genius urged to roam,Stronger Custom brought him home.

That each should in his house abide.Therefore was the world so wide.

Thou shalt make thy houseThe temple of a nation's vows.Spirits of a higher strainWho sought thee once shall seek again.I detected many a godForth already on the road,Ancestors of beauty comeIn thy breast to make a home.

The archangel HopeLooks to the azure cope,Waits through dark ages for the morn,Defeated day by day, but unto victory born.

As the drop feeds its fated flower,As finds its Alp the snowy shower,Child of the omnific Need,Hurled into life to do a deed,Man drinks the water, drinks the light.

Ever the Rock of Ages meltsInto the mineral air,To be the quarry whence to buildThought and its mansions fair.

Go if thou wilt, ambrosial flower,Go match thee with thy seeming peers;I will wait Heaven's perfect hourThrough the innumerable years.

Yes, sometimes to the sorrow-strickenShall his own sorrow seem impertinent,A thing that takes no more root in the worldThan doth the traveller's shadow on the rock.

But if thou do thy best,Without remission, without rest,And invite the sunbeam,And abhor to feign or seemEven to those who thee should loveAnd thy behavior approve;If thou go in thine own likeness,Be it health, or be it sickness;If thou go as thy father's son,If thou wear no mask or lie,Dealing purely and nakedly,--

Ascending thorough just degreesTo a consummate holiness,As angel blind to trespass done,And bleaching all souls like the sun.

From the stores of eldest matter,The deep-eyed flame, obedient water,Transparent air, all-feeding earth,He took the flower of all their worth,And, best with best in sweet consent,Combined a new temperament.