In tracts of fluent heat began,

And grew to seeming-random forms,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,

Till at the last arose the man ;

Who throve and branched from clime to clime, The herald of a higher race,

And of himself in higher place,

If so he type this work of time

Within himself, from more to more;

And, crowned with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And heated hot with burning fears And dipped in baths of hissing tears, And battered with the shocks of doom

To shape and use.

Arise and fly

The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die.

CXVIII.

DOORS, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, not as one that weeps

I come once more; the city sleeps;
I smell the meadow in the street;

I hear a chirp of birds; I see

Betwixt the black fronts long withdrawn
A light-blue lane of early dawn,

And think of early days and thee,

And bless thee, for thy lips are bland,

And bright the friendship of thine eye;
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh

I take the pressure of thine hand.

CXIX.

I TRUST I have not wasted breath:
I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,

Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;

Not only cunning casts in clay :

Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men,

At least to me? I would not stay.

Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.

CXX.

SAD Hesper o'er the buried sun,
And ready, thou, to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim

And dimmer, and a glory done :

The team is loosened from the wain,

The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darkened in the brain.

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,

By thee the world's great work is heard Beginning, and the wakeful bird; Behind thee comes the greater light:

The market-boat is on the stream,

And voices hail it from the brink;
Thou hear'st the village hammer clink,

And seest the moving of the team.

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed, thou art the same.

CXXI.

O, WAST thou with me, dearest, then,
While I rose up against my doom,
And strove to burst the folded gloom,
To bare the eternal Heavens again,

To feel once more, in placid awe,
The strong imagination roll
A sphere of stars about my soul,
In all her motion one with law;

If thou wert with me, and the grave
Divide us not, be with me now,
And enter in at breast and brow,
Till all my blood, a fuller wave,

Be quickened with a livelier breath,
And like an inconsiderate boy,
As in the former flash of joy,
I slip the thoughts of life and death,

And all the breeze of Fancy blows,

And every dew-drop paints a bow; The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose.

CXXII.

THERE rolls the deep where grew the tree.
O earth, what changes hast thou seen!

There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow

From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell,

And dream my dream, and hold it true; For though my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

CXXIII.

THAT which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt;
He, They, One, All; within, without;
The Power in darkness whom we guess;

found Him not in world or sun,

Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye; Nor through the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun :

If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,

I heard a voice, "Believe no more,"
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answered, "I have felt."

No, like a child in doubt and fear :

But that blind clamor made me wise;
Then was I as a child that cries,

But, crying, knows his father near;

And what I seem beheld again

What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach through nature, moulding men.

CXXIV.

WHATEVER I have said or sung,

Some bitter notes my harp would give, Yea, though there often seemed to live A contradiction on the tongue,

Yet Hope had never lost her youth ;

She did but look through dimmer eyes; Or Love but played with gracious lies, Because he felt so fixed in truth:

And if the song were full of care,

He breathed the spirit of the song;
And if the words were sweet and strong,
He set his royal signet there;

Abiding with me till I sail

To seek thee on the mystic deeps,
And this electric force, that keeps

A thousand pulses dancing, fail.

CXXV.

LOVE is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend

To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.

Love is and was my King and Lord,

And will be, though as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and sleep Encompassed by his faithful guard,

And hear at times a sentinel

Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space

In the deep night, that all is well.