Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14.djvu/684

Or bright-robed Hope doth deck the sober truth
With many-colored garments, pointing on
To lighter days and envied honors won,—
Or Fancy, taking many a meaner thing,
Doth gild it o'er with bright imagining,—
Alas! alas!
Light as the circling smoke, they fade and pass,
What time the last thin wreath hath faintly sped
Up from the embers dying, dying, dead!
So earth's best blessings fade and fleet away,—
Nought left but ashes, smoke, and empty clay.

Awake, my soul! 't is time thou wert awaking!
For radiant spirits, innocent and fair,
Walking beside thee, hovering in the air
Adown the past, thronging thy future way,
Wait but thy calling and the thraldom's breaking,
Which, all unworthily, to sense hath bound thee,
To bless thy days and make the night around thee
As bright and beautiful and fair as day.
Call thou on these, my soul, and fix thee there!
Name nought divine which hath not godlike in it;
And if thou burnest incense, let it be
That of the heart, enkindled thankfully;
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,
Nor let it poison all thy sight forever;
Whate'er thou hast to do of worth, begin it,
Nor leave the issue free to any doubt,
Forgetting never what thou art, and never
Whither thou goest, to the far Forever.
And then shall gentle Memory, pointing back,
Show blessings scattered all along thy track;
And bright-robed Hope, shaming thy dreams of youth,
Shall lead thee up from dreaming to the truth;
And Fancy, leaving every meaner thing,
Shall see fulfilled each bright imagining.
Then shall the ashes of thy musing be
Only the ashes of thy naughtiness;
The smoke, the remnant of thy vanity
And thorny passions, which entangled thee
Till thou didst pray deliverance; the clay,
That empty clay e'en, hath a power to bless,—
Empty for that a gem hath passed away,
To shine forever in eternal day.