And attributes and energies of God which man may never guess. Not in vain, O brother, hath soul the spurs of en terprise, Nor aimlessly panteth for adventure, waiting at the cave of mystery : Not in vain the cup of curiosity, sweet and richly spiced, Is ruby to the sight, and ambrosia to the taste, and redolent with all fragrance: Thou shalt drink, and deeply, filling the mind with marvels; Thou shalt watch no more, lingering, disappointed of thy hope; Thou shalt roam where road is none, a traveller untrammelled, Speeding at a wish, emancipate, to where the stars are suns! Count, count your hopes, heirs of immortality and love; And hear my kindred faith, and turn again to bless me. For lo, my trust is strong to dwell in many worlds, And cull of many brethren there, sweet knowledge ever new: I yearn for realms where fancy shall be filled, and the estacies of freedom shall be felt, And the soul reign gloriously, risen to its royal destinies : I look to recognise again, through the beautiful mask of their perfection, The dear familiar faces I have somewhile loved on earth: I long to talk with grateful tongue of storms and perils past, And praise the mighty Pilot that hath steered us through the rapids: He shall be the focus of it all, the very heart of gladness, My soul is athirst for God, the God who dwelt in Man! Prophet, priest, and king, the sacrifice, the substitute, the Saviour, Rapture of the blessed in the hunted one of earth, the Pardoner in the victim: How many centuries of joy concentrate in that theme, How often a Methusalem might count his thousand years, and leave it unexhausted. And lo the heavenly Jerusalem, with all its gates one pearl, That pearl of countless price, the door by which we entered,― Come, tread the golden streets, and join that glorious throng, The happy ones of heaven and earth, ten thousand times ten thousand: Hark, they sing that song,-and cast their crowns before him; Their souls alight with Love,-Glory, and Praise, and Immortality! Veil thine eyes: no son of time may see that holy vision, And even the seraph at thy side hath covered his face with wings. oth he not speak parables?-each one goeth on his way, Ye that hear, and I that counsel, go on our ways forgetful. For the terrible realities whereto we tend, are hidden from our eyes, We know but heed them not, and walk as if the temporal were all things. Vanities buzzing on the ear, fill its drowsy chambers, Slow to dread those coming fears, the thunder and the trumpet ; Motes steaming on the sight, dim our purblind eyes, L Dark to see the ponderous orb of nearing Immor tality: Hemmed in by hostile foes, the trifler is busied on an epigram ;(20) The dull ox, driven to slaughter, careth but for pasture by the way. Alas, that the precious things of truth, and the everlasting hills, The mighty hopes we spake of, and the consciousness we feel, Alas, that all the future, and its adamantine facts, Clouded by the present with intoxicating fumes,Should seem even to us, the great expectant heirs, To us, the responsible and free, fearful sons of reason, Only as a lovely song, sweet sounds of solemn music, A pleasant voice, and nothing more,-doth he not speak parables? Look to thy soul, O man, for none can be surety for his brother: Behold, for heaven-or for hell,-thou canst not escape from Immortality! 219 Of Ideas. Mind is like a volatile essence, flitting hither and thither, A solitary sentinel of the fortress body, to show himself everywhere by turns : Mind is indivisible and instant, with neither parts nor organs, That it doeth, it doth quickly, but the whole mind doth it: An active versatile agent, untiring in the principle of energy, Nor space, nor time, nor rest, nor toil, can affect the tenant of the brain; His dwelling may verily be shattered, and the furni ture thereof be disarranged, But the particle of Deity in man slumbereth not, neither can be wearied: |