Scenes and Hymns of Life, with Other Religious Poems/A Thought of Paradise
A THOUGHT OF PARADISE.
We receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold of higher worth
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd;
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element.
Coleridge.
Green spot of holy ground!
If thou couldst yet be found,
Far in deep woods, with all thy starry flowers;
If not one sullying breath
Of time, or change, or death,
Had touched the vernal glory of thy bowers;
Might our tired pilgrim-feet,
Worn by the desert's heat,
On the bright freshness of thy turf repose?
Might our eyes wander there
Through heaven's transparent air,
And rest on colours of the immortal rose?
Say, would thy balmy skies
And fountain-melodies
Our heritage of lost delight restore?
Could thy soft honey-dews
Through all our veins diffuse
The early, child-like, trustful sleep once more?
And might we, in the shade
By thy tall cedars made,
With angel voices high communion hold?
Would their sweet solemn tone
Give back the music gone,
Our Being's harmony, so jarred of old?
Oh! no—thy sunny hours
Might come with blossom showers,
All thy young leaves to spirit lyres might thrill;
But we—should we not bring
Into thy realms of spring
The shadows of our souls to haunt us still?
What could thy flowers and airs
Do for our earth-born cares?
Would the world's chain melt off and leave us free?
No!—past each living stream,
Still would some fever dream
Track the lorn wanderers, meet no more for thee!
Should we not shrink with fear,
If angel steps were near,
Feeling our burdened souls within us die?
How might our passions brook
The still and searching look,
The star-like glance of seraph purity?
Thy golden-fruited grove
Was not for pining love;
Vain sadness would but dim thy crystal skies!
Oh! Thou wert but a part
Of what man's exiled heart
Hath lost—the dower of inborn Paradise!