The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Volume 2

EARTH AND HER PRAISERS

IThe Earth is old;Six thousand winters make her heart a-cold;The sceptre slanteth from her palsied hold.She saith, "'Las me! God's word that I was 'good'Is taken back to heaven,From whence when any sound comes, I am rivenBy some sharp bolt; and now no angel wouldDescend with sweet dew-silence on my mountains,To glorify the lovely river fountainsThat gush along their side:I see – O weary change! – I see insteadThis human wrath and pride,These thrones and tombs, judicial wrong and blood,And bitter words are poured upon mine head —'O Earth! thou art a stage for tricks unholy,A church for most remorseful melancholy;Thou art so spoilt, we should forget we hadAn Eden in thee, wert thou not so sad!'Sweet children, I am old! ye, every one,Do keep me from a portion of my sun.Give praise in change for brightness!That I may shake my hills in infinitenessOf breezy laughter, as in youthful mirth,To hear Earth's sons and daughters praising Earth."IIWhereupon a child beganWith spirit running up to manAs by angels' shining ladder,(May he find no cloud above!)Seeming he had ne'er been sadderAll his days than now,Sitting in the chestnut grove,With that joyous overflowOf smiling from his mouth o'er browAnd cheek and chin, as if the breezeLeaning tricksy from the treesTo part his golden hairs, had blownInto an hundred smiles that one.III"O rare, rare Earth!" he saith,"I will praise thee presently;Not to-day; I have no breath:I have hunted squirrels three —Two ran down in the furzy hollowWhere I could not see nor follow,One sits at the top of the filbert-tree,With a yellow nut and a mock at me:Presently it shall be done!When I see which way these two have run,When the mocking one at the filbert-topShall leap a-down and beside me stop,Then, rare Earth, rare Earth,Will I pause, having known thy worth,To say all good of thee!"IVNext a lover, – with a dream'Neath his waking eyelids hidden,And a frequent sigh unbidden,And an idlesse all the dayBeside a wandering stream,And a silence that is madeOf a word he dares not say, —Shakes slow his pensive head:"Earth, Earth!" saith he,"If spirits, like thy roses, grewOn one stalk, and winds austereCould but only blow them near,To share each other's dew; —If, when summer rains agreeTo beautify thy hills, I knewLooking off them I might seeSome one very beauteous too, —Then Earth," saith he,"I would praise … nay, nay – not thee!"VWill the pedant name her next?Crabbèd with a crabbèd textSits he in his study nook,With his elbow on a book,And with stately crossèd knees,And a wrinkle deeply thridThrough his lowering brow,Caused by making proofs enowThat Plato in "Parmenides"Meant the same Spinoza did, —Or, that an hundred of the gropingLike himself, had made one Homer,Homeros being a misnomerWhat hath he to do with praiseOf Earth or aught? Whene'er the slopingSunbeams through his window dazeHis eyes off from the learned phrase,Straightway he draws close the curtain.May abstraction keep him dumb!Were his lips to ope, 't is certain"Derivatum est" would come.VIThen a mourner moveth paleIn a silence full of wail,Raising not his sunken headBecause he wandered last that wayWith that one beneath the clay:Weeping not, because that one,The only one who would have said"Cease to weep, beloved!" has goneWhence returneth comfort none.The silence breaketh suddenly, —"Earth, I praise thee!" crieth he,"Thou hast a grave for also me."VIIHa, a poet! know him byThe ecstasy-dilated eye,Not uncharged with tears that ranUpward from his heart of man;By the cheek, from hour to hour,Kindled bright or sunken wanWith a sense of lonely power;By the brow uplifted higherThan others, for more low decliningBy the lip which words of fireOverboiling have burned whiteWhile they gave the nations light:Ay, in every time and placeYe may know the poet's faceBy the shade or shining.VIII'Neath a golden cloud he stands,Spreading his impassioned hands."O God's Earth!" he saith, "the signFrom the Father-soul to mineOf all beauteous mysteries,Of all perfect imagesWhich, divine in His divine,In my human only areVery excellent and fair!Think not, Earth, that I would raiseWeary forehead in thy praise,(Weary, that I cannot goFarther from thy region low,)If were struck no richer meaningsFrom thee than thyself. The leaningOf the close trees o'er the brimOf a sunshine-haunted streamHave a sound beneath their leaves,Not of wind, not of wind,Which the poet's voice achieves:The faint mountains, heaped behind,Have a falling on their tops,Not of dew, not of dew,Which the poet's fancy drops:Viewless things his eyes can viewDriftings of his dream do lightAll the skies by day and night,And the seas that deepest rollCarry murmurs of his soul.'Earth, I praise thee! praise thou me!God perfecteth his creationWith this recipient poet-passion,And makes the beautiful to be.I praise thee, O belovèd sign,From the God-soul unto mine!Praise me, that I cast on theeThe cunning sweet interpretation,The help and glory and dilationOf mine immortality!"IXThere was silence. None did dareTo use again the spoken airOf that far-charming voice, untilA Christian resting on the hill,With a thoughtful smile subdued(Seeming learnt in solitude)Which a weeper might have viewedWithout new tears, did softly say,And looked up unto heaven alwayWhile he praised the Earth —"O Earth,I count the praises thou art worth,By thy waves that move aloud,By thy hills against the cloud,By thy valleys warm and green,By the copses' elms between,By their birds which, like a spriteScattered by a strong delightInto fragments musical,Stir and sing in every bush;By thy silver founts that fall,As if to entice the stars at nightTo thine heart; by grass and rush,And little weeds the children pull,Mistook for flowers!– Oh, beautifulArt thou, Earth, albeit worseThan in heaven is callèd good!Good to us, that we may knowMeekly from thy good to go;While the holy, crying BloodPuts its music kind and low'Twixt such ears as are not dull,And thine ancient curse!X"Praisèd be the mosses softIn thy forest pathways oft,And the thorns, which make us thinkOf the thornless river-brinkWhere the ransomed tread:Praisèd be thy sunny gleams,And the storm, that worketh dreamsOf calm unfinishèd:Praisèd be thine active days,And thy night-time's solemn need,When in God's dear book we readNo night shall be therein:Praisèd be thy dwellings warmBy household faggot's cheerful blaze,Where, to hear of pardoned sin,Pauseth oft the merry din,Save the babe's upon the armWho croweth to the crackling wood:Yea, and, better understood,Praisèd be thy dwellings cold,Hid beneath the churchyard mould,Where the bodies of the saintsSeparate from earthly taintsLie asleep, in blessing bound,Waiting for the trumpet's soundTo free them into blessing; – noneWeeping more beneath the sun,Though dangerous words of human loveBe graven very near, above.XI"Earth, we Christians praise thee thus,Even for the change that comesWith a grief from thee to us:For thy cradles and thy tombs,For the pleasant corn and wineAnd summer-heat; and also forThe frost upon the sycamoreAnd hail upon the vine!"

THE VIRGIN MARY TO THE CHILD JESUS

But see the Virgin blestHath laid her babe to rest.Milton's Hymn on the Nativity.ISleep, sleep, mine Holy One!My flesh, my Lord! – what name? I do not knowA name that seemeth not too high or low,Too far from me or heaven:My Jesus, that is best! that word being givenBy the majestic angel whose commandWas softly as a man's beseeching said,When I and all the earth appeared to standIn the great overflowOf light celestial from his wings and head.Sleep, sleep, my saving One!IIAnd art Thou come for saving, baby-browedAnd speechless Being – art Thou come for saving?The palm that grows beside our door is bowedBy treadings of the low wind from the south,A restless shadow through the chamber waving:Upon its bough a bird sings in the sun,But Thou, with that close slumber on Thy mouth,Dost seem of wind and sun already weary.Art come for saving, O my weary One?IIIPerchance this sleep that shutteth out the drearyEarth-sounds and motions, opens on Thy soulHigh dreams on fire with God;High songs that make the pathways where they rollMore bright than stars do theirs; and visions newOf Thine eternal Nature's old abode.Suffer this mother's kiss,Best thing that earthly is,To glide the music and the glory through,Nor narrow in Thy dream the broad upliftingsOf any seraph wing.Thus noiseless, thus. Sleep, sleep my dreaming One!IVThe slumber of His lips meseems to runThrough my lips to mine heart, to all its shiftingsOf sensual life, bringing contrariousnessIn a great calm. I feel I could lie downAs Moses did, and die,7– and then live most.I am 'ware of you, heavenly Presences,That stand with your peculiar light unlost,Each forehead with a high thought for a crown,Unsunned i' the sunshine! I am 'ware. Ye throwNo shade against the wall! How motionlessYe round me with your living statuary,While through your whiteness, in and outwardly,Continual thoughts of God appear to go,Like light's soul in itself. I bear, I bearTo look upon the dropt lids of your eyes,Though their external shining testifiesTo that beatitude within which wereEnough to blast an eagle at his sun:I fall not on my sad clay face before ye, —I look on His. I knowMy spirit which dilateth with the woeOf His mortality,May well contain your glory.Yea, drop your lids more low.Ye are but fellow-worshippers with me!Sleep, sleep, my worshipped One!VWe sate among the stalls at Bethlehem;The dumb kine from their fodder turning them,Softened their hornèd facesTo almost human gazesToward the newly Born:The simple shepherds from the star-lit brooksBrought visionary looks,As yet in their astonied hearing rungThe strange sweet angel-tongue:The magi of the East, in sandals worn,Knelt reverent, sweeping round,With long pale beards, their gifts upon the ground,The incense, myrrh and goldThese baby hands were impotent to hold:So let all earthlies and celestials waitUpon Thy royal state.Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!VII am not proud – meek angels, ye investNew meeknesses to hear such utterance restOn mortal lips, – "I am not proud" —not proud!Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son,Albeit over Him my head is bowedAs others bow before Him, still mine heartBows lower than their knees. O centuriesThat roll in vision your futuritiesMy future grave athwart, —Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keepWatch o'er this sleep, —Say of me as the Heavenly said – "Thou artThe blessedest of women!" – blessedest,Not holiest, not noblest, no high nameWhose height misplaced may pierce me like a shameWhen I sit meek in heaven!For me, for me,God knows that I am feeble like the rest!I often wandered forth, more child than maidenAmong the midnight hills of GalileeWhose summits looked heaven-laden,Listening to silence as it seemed to beGod's voice, so soft yet strong, so fain to pressUpon my heart as heaven did on the height,And waken up its shadows by a light,And show its vileness by a holiness.Then I knelt down most silent like the night,Too self-renounced for fears,Raising my small face to the boundless blueWhose stars did mix and tremble in my tears:God heard them falling after, with His dew.VIISo, seeing my corruption, can I seeThis Incorruptible now born of me,This fair new Innocence no sun did chanceTo shine on, (for even Adam was no child,)Created from my nature all defiled,This mystery, from out mine ignorance, —Nor feel the blindness, stain, corruption, moreThan others do, or I did heretofore?Can hands wherein such burden pure has been,Not open with the cry "unclean, unclean,"More oft than any else beneath the skies?Ah King, ah, Christ, ah son!The kine, the shepherds, the abasèd wiseMust all less lowly waitThan I, upon Thy state.Sleep, sleep, my kingly One!VIIIArt Thou a King, then? Come, His universe,Come, crown me Him a King!Pluck rays from all such stars as never flingTheir light where fell a curse,And make a crowning for this kingly brow! —What is my word? Each empyreal starSits in a sphere afarIn shining ambuscade:The child-brow, crowned by none,Keeps its unchildlike shade.Sleep, sleep, my crownless One!IXUnchildlike shade! No other babe doth wearAn aspect very sorrowful, as Thou.No small babe-smiles my watching heart has seenTo float like speech the speechless lips between,No dovelike cooing in the golden air,No quick short joys of leaping babyhood.Alas, our earthly goodIn heaven thought evil, seems too good for Thee;Yet, sleep, my weary One!XAnd then the drear sharp tongue of prophecy,With the dread sense of things which shall be done,Doth smite me inly, like a sword: a sword?That "smites the Shepherd." Then, I think aloudThe words "despised," – "rejected," – every wordRecoiling into darkness as I viewThe Darling on my knee.Bright angels, – move not – lest ye stir the cloudBetwixt my soul and His futurity!I must not die, with mother's work to do,And could not live-and see.XIIt is enough to bearThis image still and fair,This holier in sleepThan a saint at prayer,This aspect of a childWho never sinned or smiled;This Presence in an infant's face;This sadness most like love,This love than love more deep,This weakness like omnipotenceIt is so strong to move.Awful is this watching place,Awful what I see from hence —A king, without regalia,A God, without the thunder,A child, without the heart for play;Ay, a Creator, rent asunderFrom His first glory and cast awayOn His own world, for me aloneTo hold in hands created, crying – Son!XIIThat tear fell not on Thee,Beloved, yet thou stirrest in thy slumber!Thou, stirring not for glad sounds out of numberWhich through the vibratory palm-trees runFrom summer-wind and bird,So quickly hast thou heardA tear fall silently?Wak'st thou, O loving One? —

AN ISLAND

All goeth but Goddis will. – Old Poet.IMy dream is of an island-placeWhich distant seas keep lonely,A little island on whose faceThe stars are watchers only:Those bright still stars! they need not seemBrighter or stiller in my dream.IIAn island full of hills and dells,All rumpled and unevenWith green recesses, sudden swells,And odorous valleys drivenSo deep and straight that always thereThe wind is cradled to soft air.IIIHills running up to heaven for lightThrough woods that half-way ran,As if the wild earth mimicked rightThe wilder heart of man:Only it shall be greener farAnd gladder than hearts ever are.IVMore like, perhaps, that mountain pieceOf Dante's paradise,Disrupt to an hundred hills like these,In falling from the skies;Bringing within it, all the rootsOf heavenly trees and flowers and fruits:VFor – saving where the grey rocks strikeTheir javelins up the azure,Or where deep fissures miser-likeHoard up some fountain treasure,(And e'en in them, stoop down and hear,Leaf sounds with water in your ear, – )VIThe place is all awave with trees,Limes, myrtles purple-beaded,Acacias having drunk the leesOf the night-dew, faint-headed,And wan grey olive-woods which seemThe fittest foliage for a dream.VIITrees, trees on all sides! they combineTheir plumy shades to throw,Through whose clear fruit and blossom fineWhene'er the sun may go,The ground beneath he deeply stains,As passing through cathedral panes.VIIIBut little needs this earth of oursThat shining from above her,When many Pleiades of flowers(Not one lost) star her over,The rays of their unnumbered huesBeing all refracted by the dews.IXWide-petalled plants that boldly drinkThe Amreeta of the sky,Shut bells that dull with rapture sink,And lolling buds, half shy;I cannot count them, but betweenIs room for grass and mosses green,XAnd brooks, that glass in different strengthsAll colours in disorder,Or, gathering up their silver lengthsBeside their winding border,Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden,By lilies white as dreams in Eden.XINor think each archèd tree with eachToo closely interlacesTo admit of vistas out of reach,And broad moon-lighted placesUpon whose sward the antlered deerMay view their double image clear.XIIFor all this island's creature-full,(Kept happy not by halves)Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull,Then low back at their calvesWith tender lowings, to approveThe warm mouths milking them for love.XIIIFree gamesome horses, antelopes,And harmless leaping leopards,And buffaloes upon the slopes,And sheep unruled by shepherds:Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice,Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and butterflies.XIVAnd birds that live there in a crowd,Horned owls, rapt nightingales,Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud,Self-sphered in those grand tails;All creatures glad and safe, I deemNo guns nor springes in my dream!XVThe island's edges are a-wingWith trees that overbranchThe sea with song-birds welcomingThe curlews to green change;And doves from half-closed lids espyThe red and purple fish go by.XVIOne dove is answering in trustThe water every minute,Thinking so soft a murmur mustHave her mate's cooing in it:So softly doth earth's beauty roundInfuse itself in ocean's sound.XVIIMy sanguine soul bounds forwarderTo meet the bounding waves;Beside them straightway I repair,To live within the caves:And near me two or three may dwellWhom dreams fantastic please as well.XVIIILong winding caverns, glittering farInto a crystal distance!Through clefts of which shall many a starShine clear without resistance,And carry down its rays the smellOf flowers above invisible.XIXI said that two or three might chooseTheir dwelling near mine own:Those who would change man's voice and use,For Nature's way and tone —Man's veering heart and careless eyes,For Nature's steadfast sympathies.XXOurselves, to meet her faithfulness,Shall play a faithful part;Her beautiful shall ne'er addressThe monstrous at our heart:Her musical shall ever touchSomething within us also such.XXIYet shall she not our mistress live,As doth the moon of ocean,Though gently as the moon she giveOur thoughts a light and motion:More like a harp of many lays,Moving its master while he plays.XXIINo sod in all that island dothYawn open for the dead;No wind hath borne a traitor's oath;No earth, a mourner's tread;We cannot say by stream or shade,"I suffered here, – was here betrayed."XXIIIOur only "farewell" we shall laughTo shifting cloud or hour,And use our only epitaphTo some bud turned a flower:Our only tears shall serve to proveExcess in pleasure or in love.XXIVOur fancies shall their plumage catchFrom fairest island-birds,Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch,Born singing! then our wordsUnconsciously shall take the dyesOf those prodigious fantasies.XXVYea, soon, no consonant unsmoothOur smile-tuned lips shall reach;Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youthShall glide into our speech:(What music, certes, can you findAs soft as voices which are kind?)XXVIAnd often, by the joy withoutAnd in us, overcome,We, through our musing, shall let floatSuch poems, – sitting dumb, —As Pindar might have writ if heHad tended sheep in Arcady;XXVIIOr Æschylus – the pleasant fieldsHe died in, longer knowing;Or Homer, had men's sins and shieldsBeen lost in Meles flowing;Or Poet Plato, had the undimUnsetting Godlight broke on him.XXVIIIChoose me the cave most worthy choice,To make a place for prayer,And I will choose a praying voiceTo pour our spirits there:How silverly the echoes run!Thy will be done, – thy will be done.XXIXGently yet strangely uttered words!They lift me from my dream;The island fadeth with its swardsThat did no more than seem:The streams are dry, no sun could find —The fruits are fallen, without wind.XXXSo oft the doing of God's willOur foolish wills undoeth!And yet what idle dream breaks ill,Which morning-light subdueth?And who would murmur and misdoubt,When God's great sunrise finds him out?

THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING

Ἤδη νοεροὺςΠέτασαι ταρσούσ.Synesius.II dwell amid the city ever.The great humanity which beatsIts life along the stony streets,Like a strong and unsunned riverIn a self-made course,I sit and hearken while it rolls.Very sad and very hoarseCertes is the flow of souls;Infinitest tendenciesBy the finite prest and pent,In the finite, turbulent:How we tremble in surpriseWhen sometimes, with an awful sound,God's great plummet strikes the ground!IIThe champ of the steeds on the silver bit,As they whirl the rich man's carriage by;The beggar's whine as he looks at it, —But it goes too fast for charity;The trail on the street of the poor man's broom,That the lady who walks to her palace-home,On her silken skirt may catch no dust;The tread of the business-men who mustCount their per-cents by the paces they take;The cry of the babe unheard of its motherThough it lie on her breast, while she thinks of the otherLaid yesterday where it will not wake;The flower-girl's prayer to buy roses and pinksHeld out in the smoke, like stars by day;The gin-door's oath that hollowly chinksGuilt upon grief and wrong upon hate;The cabman's cry to get out of the way;The dustman's call down the area-grate;The young maid's jest, and the old wife's scold,The haggling talk of the boys at a stall,The fight in the street which is backed for gold,The plea of the lawyers in Westminster Hall;The drop on the stones of the blind man's staffAs he trades in his own grief's sacredness,The brothel shriek, and the Newgate laugh,The hum upon 'Change, and the organ's grinding,(The grinder's face being neverthelessDry and vacant of even woeWhile the children's hearts are leaping soAt the merry music's winding;)The black-plumed funeral's creeping train,Long and slow (and yet they will goAs fast as Life though it hurry and strain!)Creeping the populous houses throughAnd nodding their plumes at either side, —At many a house, where an infant, newTo the sunshiny world, has just struggled and cried, —At many a house where sitteth a brideTrying to-morrow's coronalsWith a scarlet blush to-day:Slowly creep the funerals,As none should hear the noise and say"The living, the living must go awayTo multiply the dead."Hark! an upward shout is sent,In grave strong joy from tower to steepleThe bells ring out,The trumpets sound, the people shout,The young queen goes to her Parliament.She turneth round her large blue eyesMore bright with childish memoriesThan royal hopes, upon the people;On either side she bows her headLowly, with a queenly graceAnd smile most trusting-innocent,As if she smiled upon her mother;The thousands press before each otherTo bless her to her face;And booms the deep majestic voiceThrough trump and drum, – "May the queen rejoiceIn the people's liberties!"IIII dwell amid the city,And hear the flow of souls in act and speech,For pomp or trade, for merrymake or folly:I hear the confluence and sum of each,And that is melancholy!Thy voice is a complaint, O crownèd city,The blue sky covering thee like God's great pity.IVO blue sky! it mindeth meOf places where I used to seeIts vast unbroken circle thrownFrom the far pale-peakèd hillOut to the last verge of ocean,As by God's arm it were doneThen for the first time, with the emotionOf that first impulse on it still.Oh, we spirits fly at willFaster than the wingèd steedWhereof in old book we read,With the sunlight foaming backFrom his flanks to a misty wrack,And his nostril reddening proudAs he breasteth the steep thundercloud, —Smoother than Sabrina's chairGliding up from wave to air,While she smileth debonairYet holy, coldly and yet brightly,Like her own mooned waters nightly,Through her dripping hair.VVery fast and smooth we fly,Spirits, though the flesh be by;All looks feed not from the eyeNor all hearings from the ear:We can hearken and espyWithout either, we can journeyBold and gay as knight to tourney,And, though we wear no visor downTo dark our countenance, the foeShall never chafe us as we go.VII am gone from peopled town!It passeth its street-thunder roundMy body which yet hears no sound,For now another sound, anotherVision, my soul's senses have —O'er a hundred valleys deepWhere the hills' green shadows sleepScarce known because the valley-treesCross those upland images,O'er a hundred hills each otherWatching to the western wave,I have travelled, – I have foundThe silent, lone, remembered ground.VIII have found a grassy nicheHollowed in a seaside hill,As if the ocean-grandeur whichIs aspectable from the place,Had struck the hill as with a maceSudden and cleaving. You might fillThat little nook with the little cloudWhich sometimes lieth by the moonTo beautify a night of June;A cavelike nook which, opening allTo the wide sea, is disallowedFrom its own earth's sweet pastoral:Cavelike, but roofless overheadAnd made of verdant banks insteadOf any rocks, with flowerets spreadInstead of spar and stalactite,Cowslips and daisies gold and white:Such pretty flowers on such green sward,You think the sea they look towardDoth serve them for another skyAs warm and blue as that on high.VIIIAnd in this hollow is a seat,And when you shall have crept to it,Slipping down the banks too steepTo be o'erbrowzèd by the sheep,Do not think – though at your feetThe cliffs disrupt – you shall beholdThe line where earth and ocean meet;You sit too much above to viewThe solemn confluence of the two:You can hear them as they greet,You can hear that evermoreDistance-softened noise more oldThan Nereid's singing, the tide spentJoining soft issues with the shoreIn harmony of discontent,And when you hearken to the graveLamenting of the underwave,You must believe in earth's communionAlbeit you witness not the union.IXExcept that sound, the place is fullOf silences, which when you cullBy any word, it thrills you soThat presently you let them growTo meditation's fullest lengthAcross your soul with a soul's strength:And as they touch your soul, they borrowBoth of its grandeur and its sorrow,That deathly odour which the clayLeaves on its deathlessness alwày.XAlway! alway? must this be?Rapid Soul from city gone,Dost thou carry inwardlyWhat doth make the city's moan?Must this deep sigh of thine ownHaunt thee with humanity?Green visioned banks that are too steepTo be o'erbrowzèd by the sheep,May all sad thoughts adown you creepWithout a shepherd? Mighty sea,Can we dwarf thy magnitudeAnd fit it to our straitest mood?O fair, fair Nature, are we thusImpotent and querulousAmong thy workings glorious,Wealth and sanctities, that stillLeave us vacant and defiledAnd wailing like a soft-kissed child,Kissed soft against his will?XIGod, God!With a child's voice I cry,Weak, sad, confidingly —God, God!Thou knowest, eyelids, raised not always upUnto Thy love, (as none of ours are) droopAs ours, o'er many a tear;Thou knowest, though Thy universe is broad,Two little tears suffice to cover all:Thou knowest, Thou who art so prodigalOf beauty, we are oft but stricken deerExpiring in the woods, that care for noneOf those delightsome flowers they die upon.XIIO blissful Mouth which breathed the mournful breathWe name our souls, self-spoilt! – by that strong passionWhich paled Thee once with sighs, by that strong deathWhich made Thee once unbreathing – from the wrackThemselves have called around them, call them back,Back to Thee in continuous aspiration!For here, O Lord,For here they travel vainly, vainly passFrom city-pavement to untrodden swardWhere the lark finds her deep nest in the grassCold with the earth's last dew. Yea, very vainThe greatest speed of all these souls of menUnless they travel upward to the throneWhere sittest Thou the satisfying One,With help for sins and holy perfectingsFor all requirements: while the archangel, raisingUnto Thy face his full ecstatic gazing,Forgets the rush and rapture of his wings.