Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/159

1830-40.] WILLIAM D. GALL A GHER. U3 Thou art thyself thine enemy ! And palaces of hope, that disappear The great ! — wliat better they than thou? Ere well completed ; still, through many As theirs, is not thy will as free ? a year. Has God with equal favors thee Vain repetitions of this toil and sweat Neglected to endow ? Go on, until the heart is lone and sere. And weary, and oppressed ; and even yet True, wealth thou hast not : 'tis but dust ! Men plod and plant, and reap earth's fever Nor place ; uncertain as the wind ! and its fret. But that thou hast, which, with thy crust And water may despise the lust And others deem this land the land of Of both — a noble mind. woe, — And fill it with vague shapes, chimeras With this, and passions under ban, dire. True faith, and holy trust in God, Sights, sounds, portents, that hither come Thou art the peer of any man. and go. Look up, then — that thy little span Melting midst ice, and freezing amid Of life may be well trod ! fire — Each feeling its own hate, and cither's ire — Seething and bubbling like a storm-tossed sea — With wailings ever born, that ne'er ex- THE LAND OF LIFE. pire — Primeval ills, from which in vain they flee- I WANDER ever in a land of dreams. All horrors man can taste, or touch, or Where flowers perpetual bloom about hear, or see. my way, And where faint murmurs of meandering But, ne'ertheless, this is the land of dreams : streams Unto the Land of Life, through this we Open and close the glory of each day : — go, Cool, spicy airs upon my temples play ; From out the land of darkness, wherefrom Wild, ravishing songs of birds enchant my streams ears ; No ray, that thence we might its secret Odors and exhalations, where I stray. know : Sweeten and beautify the lapsing years ; Unto the Land of Life, through this we And through whatever is, what is to be ap- go — pears. Through this, the land of di-eams ; and dimly here Some deem this laud of dreams the Land Perceive, while wandering trustful to of Life, — and fro. And, moved by high ambitions, build Things that in full-robed glory there ap- them here pear. Mansions of pride, that fill erewhile with Around the Eternal One, throughout the strife, Eternal Year.