Poems, Chiefly Lyrical/Love
LOVE.
I.Thou, from the first, unborn, undying love,Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near,Before the face of God did'st breathe and move,Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here.Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere,The very throne of the eternal God:Passing through thee the edicts of his fearAre mellowed into music, borne abroadBy the loud winds, though they uprend the sea,Even from its central deeps: thine empery Is over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse; Thou goest and returnest to His lips Like lightning: thou dost ever brood above The silence of all hearts, unutterable Love.
II. To know thee is all wisdom, and old age Is but to know thee: dimly we behold thee Athwart the veils of evil which infold thee. We beat upon our aching hearts in rage; We cry for thee; we deem the world thy tomb. As dwellers in lone planets look upon The mighty disk of their majestic sun, Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom, Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee. Come, thou of many crowns, whiterobéd love, Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee; Heaven crieth after thee; earth waiteth for thee: Breathe on thy wingéd throne, and it shall moveIn music and in light o'er land and sea.
III.And now—methinks I gaze upon thee now,As on a serpent in his agoniesAwestricken Indians; what time laid lowAnd crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies,When the new year warmbreathéd on the earth,Waiting to light him with her purple skies,Calls to him by the fountain to uprise.Already with the pangs of a new birthStrain the hot spheres of his convulséd eyes,And in his writhings awful hues beginTo wander down his sable-sheeny sides,Like light on troubled waters: from withinAnon he rusheth forth with merry din,And in him light and joy and strength abides;And from his brows a crown of living lightLooks through the thickstemmed woods by day and night.