Dark as a tomb, glows warm; the cloudy pall
Exhales; he wears fair flowers for a dress,
Pure outbirth of a child's meek holiness!
His own sweet self haunts memory!
Who but he,
When I remember, thrilleth me
Out of his own eternity?
The dead, the distant, all are with us still;
Yea, they may be more with us if we will,
For deepening our roots, and branching higher,
Illusions shrivel in God's unconsuming fire,
And we find one another
Where is no death to hide, no mortal life to smother,
But spirits lie awake, and one upon their mighty Mother!
EVENING.
Now pearl-grey ocean blent with opal skies,
We know no more dim airs from aery main;
In smooth clear mirrors a winged vesse lies,
While many a slender purple ocean-stain
Hangs like a cloud; the shallop in still even
Seems a white sail slow sailing up to heaven;
A ghostly glow receives it; lo! it fades,
Unbodied, in the heart of ever-deepening shades!
