How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender...
That clime is not like this dull clime of ours;
All, all is brightness there;
A sweeter influence breathes around its flowers,
And a benigner air.
No calm below is like that calm above,
No region here is like that realm of love;
Earth’s softest spring ne’er shed so soft a light,
Earth’s brightest summer never shone so bright....
Two worlds there are. To one our eyes we strain,
Whose magic joys we shall not see again;
Bright haze of morning veils its glimmering shore.
Ah, truly breathed we there
Intoxicating air—
Glad were our hearts in that sweet realm of
Nevermore.
The lover there drank her delicious breath
Whose love...
“WHO would not go”
With buoyant steps, to gain that blessed portal,
Which opens to the land we long to know?
Where shall be satisfied the soul’s immortal,
Where we shall drop the wearying and the woe
In resting so?
“Ah, who would fear?”
Since, sometimes through the distant pearly portal,
...
FOREVER with the Lord!
Amen! so let it be!
Life from the dead is in that word,
And immortality.
Here in the body pent,
Absent from him I roam,
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s march nearer home.
My Father’s house on high,
Home of my soul! how near,
At times, to faith’s foreseeing eye...
From the Persian by William R. Alger
TO heaven approached a Sufi Saint,
From groping in the darkness late,
And, tapping timidly and faint,
Besought admission at God’s gate.
Said God, “Who seeks to enter here?”
“’T is I, dear Friend,” the Saint replied,
And trembling much with hope and fear.
“If it be thou, without abide...
From “Night Thoughts,” Night VI.
AS in a wheel, all sinks, to reascend:
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.
With this minute distinction, emblems just,
Nature revolves, but man advances; both
Eternal, that a circle, this a line.
That gravitates, this soars. Th’ aspiring soul,
Ardent, and tremulous, like flame, ascends,
Zeal...
From “Festus,” Scene: “A Country Town”
FESTUS.— Oh! there is
A life to come, or all ’s a dream.
LUCIFER.— And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God’s? Fear not! Some morning God may waken....
O Beauteous God! uncircumscribèd treasure
Of an eternal pleasure!
Thy throne is seated far
Above the highest star,
Where thou preparest a glorious place,
Within the brightness of thy face,
For every spirit
To inherit
That builds his hopes upon thy merit,
And loves thee with a holy charity.
What ravished heart,...
Father! thy wonders do not singly stand,
Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed;
Around us ever lies the enchanted land,
In marvels rich to thine own sons displayed.
In finding thee are all things round us found;
In losing thee are all things lost beside;
Ears have we, but in vain strange voices sound;
And to our eyes the vision...
