And drops upon his burning brow
The coolness of her kisses,
That turns his fevered eyes around -
My mother! where's my mother?".
As if such tender words and looks
Could come from other!
any
The fever gone, with leaps of heart,
He sees her bending o'er him;
Her face all pale from watchful love,
The unweary love she bore him! -
Thus, woke the poet from the dream,
His life's long fever gave him,
Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes,
Which closed in death, to save him!
Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth
Could image that awaking,
Wherein he scarcely heard the chant
Of seraphs, round him breaking,
Or felt the new immortal throb
Of soul from body parted;
But felt those eyes alone, and knew
My Saviour! not deserted!
Deserted! who hath dreamt that when
The Cross in darkness rested, Upon the Victim's hidden face, No love was manifested?
What frantic hands outstretched have e'er The atoning drops averted,
What tears have washed them from the soul, That one should be deserted?
Deserted! God could separate
From His own essence rather :
And Adam's sins have swept between
The righteous Son and Father ;
Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry,
His universe hath shaken
It went up single, echoless,
"My God, I am forsaken!"
It went up from the Holy's lips
Amid His lost creation,
That, of the lost, no son should use
Those words of desolation;
That earth's worst frenzies, marring hope,
Should mar not hope's fruition,
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see
His rapture, in a vision!
I THINK We are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the cope
Of yon gray blank of sky, we might be fain
To muse upon eternity's constraint
Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop
For a few days consumed in loss and faint?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted;
And like a cheerful traveller, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints? At least it may be said,
"Because the way is short, I thank Thee, God!"
OR is our being's only end and aim To add new glories to our Maker's name, As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? Does earth send upwards to the Eternal's ear The mingled discords of her jarring sphere To swell His anthem, while Creation rings With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? Is it for this the immortal Artist means These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines?
Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind
In chains like these the all-embracing mind;
No! two-faced bigot! thou dost ill reprove
The sensual selfish, yet benignant Jove,
And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride,
Who loves himself, and cares for nought beside
Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night,
A thousand laws, and not a single right;
A heart to feel and quivering nerves to thrill,
The sense of wrong, the death-defying will;
Who girt thy senses with this goodly frame,
Its earthly glories and its orbs of flame,
Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought,
Poor helpless victim of a life unsought,
But all for him, unchanging and supreme,
The heartless centre of thy frozen scheme!
Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll,
Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul;
The God of love, who gave the life that warms
All breathing dust in all its varied forms,
Asks not the tribute of a world like this
To fill the measure of His perfect bliss.
Though winged with life through all its radiant shores, Creation flowed with unexhausted stores,
Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed!
For this He called thee from the quickening void!
Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine,
A mightier purpose swelled His vast design;
Thought; conscience; will; to make them all thine.
He rent a pillar from the eternal throne !
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