: So runs my dream but what am I? An infant crying for the light: LV. The wish, that of the living whole Are God and Nature then at strife, That I, considering everywhere I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares Upon the great world's altar-stairs That slope thro' darkness up to God, I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, And faintly trust the larger hope. LXII. Tho' if an eye that's downward cast Could make thee somewhat blench or fail, Then be my love an idle tale, And fading legend of the past; And thou as one that once declined, And breathes a novel world, the while LXIV. Dost thou look back on what hath been, Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, Who makes by force his merit known Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, The limit of his narrower fate, While yet beside its vocal springs Who ploughs with pain his native lea XCIV. How pure at heart and sound in head, With what divine affections bold Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour's communion with the dead. In vain shalt thou, or any, call Except, like them, thou too canst say, They haunt the silence of the breast, The memory like a cloudless air, But when the heart is full of din, XCVI. You say, but with no touch of scorn, I know not one indeed I knew Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds, There lives more faith in honest doubt, CVIII. I will not shut me from my kind, What profit lies in barren faith, And vacant yearning, tho' with might To scale the heaven's highest height, Or dive below the wells of Death? What find I in the highest place, But mine own phantom chanting hymns? And on the depths of death there swims The reflex of a human face. I'll rather take what fruit may be 'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleeps with thee. CXIII. 'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise; For can I doubt, who knew the keen To strive, to fashion, to fulfil- I doubt not what thou wouldst have been: A life in civic action warm, A soul on highest mission sent, Should licensed boldness gather force, With thousand shocks that come and go, With overthrowings, and with cries, CXIV. Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail But on her forehead sits a fire: She sets her forward countenance Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain— Of Demons ? fiery-hot to burst For power. Let her know her place; She is the second, not the first. A higher hand must make her mild, For she is earthly of the mind, But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. O, friend, who camest to thy goal So early, leaving me behind, I would the great world grew like thee, Who grewest not alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity. CXV. Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now bourgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow. Now rings the woodland loud and long, The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drown'd in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, On winding stream or distant sea ; Where now the seamew pipes, or dives From land to land; and in my breast And buds and blossoms like the rest. |