A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS.
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Of spirits that speak, in a soft under-tongue,
The interpretive sense of the mystical march:
And we cry to them softly, "Come nearer, come nearer,—
And lift up the lap of this Dark, and speak clearer,
And teach us the song that ye sung."
And we smile in our thought, if they answer or no,—
For to dream of a sweetness is sweet as to know!
Wonders breathe in our face,
And we ask not their name;
And love takes all the blame
Of the world's prison-place.
And we sing back the songs as we guess them, aloud;
And we send up the lark of our music that cuts,
Untired through the cloud,
To beat with its wings at the lattice Heaven shuts:
Yet the angels look down, and the mortals look up,
As the little wings beat,
And the poet is blessed with their pity or hope.
'Twixt the Heavens and the earth, can a poet despond?
O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!
The interpretive sense of the mystical march:
And we cry to them softly, "Come nearer, come nearer,—
And lift up the lap of this Dark, and speak clearer,
And teach us the song that ye sung."
And we smile in our thought, if they answer or no,—
For to dream of a sweetness is sweet as to know!
Wonders breathe in our face,
And we ask not their name;
And love takes all the blame
Of the world's prison-place.
And we sing back the songs as we guess them, aloud;
And we send up the lark of our music that cuts,
Untired through the cloud,
To beat with its wings at the lattice Heaven shuts:
Yet the angels look down, and the mortals look up,
As the little wings beat,
And the poet is blessed with their pity or hope.
'Twixt the Heavens and the earth, can a poet despond?
O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!
Then we wring from our souls their applicative strength,
And bend to the cord the strong bow of our ken;
And bringing our lives to the level of others,
Hold the cup we have filled, to their uses at length.
"Help me, God! love me, man!—I am man among men,—
And my life is a pledge
Of the ease of another's!"
From the fire and the water we drive out the steam,
With a rush and a roar, and the speed of a dream!
And the car without horses, the car without wings,
Roars onward and flies
On its pale iron edge,
'Neath the heat of a Thought sitting still in our eyes—
And the hand knots in air, with the bridge that it flings,
Two peaks far disrupted by ocean and skies—
And, lifting a fold of the smooth-flowing Thames,
And bend to the cord the strong bow of our ken;
And bringing our lives to the level of others,
Hold the cup we have filled, to their uses at length.
"Help me, God! love me, man!—I am man among men,—
And my life is a pledge
Of the ease of another's!"
From the fire and the water we drive out the steam,
With a rush and a roar, and the speed of a dream!
And the car without horses, the car without wings,
Roars onward and flies
On its pale iron edge,
'Neath the heat of a Thought sitting still in our eyes—
And the hand knots in air, with the bridge that it flings,
Two peaks far disrupted by ocean and skies—
And, lifting a fold of the smooth-flowing Thames,
