3 Before I understood this place4 Appointed for my second race,5 Or taught my soul to fancy ought6 But a white, celestial thought;7 When yet I had not walk’d above8 A mile or two from my first love,9 And looking back (at that short space)10 Could see a glimpse of his bright face;11 When on…
Each day and hour he is on wing,Rests not a span ;Then having lost the sun and light,By clouds surpris’d,He keeps a commerce in the nightWith air disguis’d.Hadst Thou given to this active dustA state untir’d,The lost son had not left the husk,Nor home desir’d.That was Thy secret, and it isThy mercy too ;For when…
Hath dull’d thee thus ; when death shall freezeThy blood to ice, and thou must stayTenant for years, and centuries ;How wilt thou brook’t ?Body.I cannot tell ;But if all sense wings not with thee,And something still be left the dead,I’ll wish my curtains off, to freeMe from so dark and sad a bed :A…
3 And wind and curl, and wink and smile,4 Shifting thy gate and guile;5 Though thy close commerce nought at all imbars6 My present search, for eagles eye not stars,7 And still the lesser by the best8 And highest good is blest;9 Yet, seeing all things that subsist and be,10 Have their commissions from divinity,11…
The Rock of Ages! in whose shadeThey live unseen, when here they fade;Thou knew’st this paper when it wasMere seed, and after that but grass;Before ’twas dressed or spun, and whenMade linen, who did wear it then:What were their lives, their thoughts, and deeds,Whether good corn or fruitless weeds.Thou knew’st this tree when a green…
Pass’d o’er thy head; many light hearts and wings,Which now are dead, lodg’d in thy living bowers.And still a new succession sings and flies;Fresh groves grow up, and their green branches shootTowards the old and still enduring skies,While the low violet thrives at their root.But thou beneath the sad and heavy lineOf death, doth waste…
At once and die, is but to liveEnlarged, without the scant reprieveOf pulse and air: whose dull returnsAnd narrow circles the soul mourns.But to be dead alive, and stillTo wish, but never have our will:To be possessed, and yet to miss;To wed a true but absent bliss:Are lingering tortures, and their smartDissects and racks and…
