For at thy heart the ever-pointed thorn
Did gird itself, until the life-stream oozed
In gushes of such deep and thrilling song,
That angels poising on some silver cloud
Might linger mid the errands of the skies,
And listen, all unblamed.
How tenderly
Doth Nature draw her curtain round thy rest!
And like a nurse, with finger on her lip,
Watch, lest some step disturb thee, striving still
From other touch, thy sacred harp to guard.
Waits she thy waking, as the mother waits
For some pale babe, whose spirit sleep hath stolen,
And laid it dreaming on the lap of Heaven?
We say not thou art dead. We dare not. No.
For every mountain stream and shadowy dell
Where thy rich harpings linger, would hurl back
The falsehood on our souls. Thou spak’st alike
The simple language of the freckled flower,
And of the glorious stars. God taught it thee.
And from thy living intercourse with man
Thou shalt not pass away, until this earth
Drops her last gem into the doom's-day flame.
Thou hast but taken thy seat with that blest choir,
Whose hymns thy tuneful spirit learned so well
From this sublunar terrace, and so long
Interpreted.