COULD we but know The land that ends our dark, uncertain travel, Where lie those happier hills and meadows low; Ah! if beyond the spirit’s inmost cavil Aught of that country could we surely know, Who would not go? Might we but hear The hovering angels’ high imagined chorus, Or catch, betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear One radiant vista of the realm before us,— With one rapt moment given to see and hear, Ah, who would fear? Were we quite sure To find the peerless friend who left us lonely, Or there, by some celestial stream as pure, To gaze in eyes that here were lovelit only,— This weary mortal coil, were we quite sure, Who would endure?
The Undiscovered Country
More from Poet
-
World’s Fair, St. Louis O THOU, 1 whose glorious orbs on high Engird the earth with splendor round, From out Thy secret place draw nigh The courts and temples of this ground; Eternal Light, Fill with Thy might These domes that in Thy purpose grew, And lift a nation’s...
-
SO 1 that soldierly legend is still on its journey,— That story of Kearny who knew not to yield! ’T was the day when with Jameson, fierce Berry, and Birney, Against twenty thousand he rallied the field. Where the red volleys poured, where the clamor rose highest, Where the dead lay in...
-
From “Alice of Monmouth” OUR good steeds snuff the evening air, Our pulses with their purpose tingle; The foeman’s fires are twinkling there; He leaps to hear our sabres jingle! HALT! Each carbine send its whizzing ball: Now, cling! clang! forward all, Into the fight! Dash on...
-
Here where the curfew Still, they say, rings, Time rested long ago, Folding his wings; Here, on old Norwich’s Out-along road, Cousin Lucretia Had her abode. Norridge, not Nor-wich (See Mother Goose), Good enough English For a song’s use. Side and roof shingled, All of...
-
HARP of New England Song, That even in slumber trembled with the touch Of poets who like the four winds from thee waken All harmonies that to thy strings belong,— Say, wilt thou blame the younger hands too much Which from thy laurelled resting place have taken Thee crowned...