Obiit MDCCCXXXIII, CXVII–CXXV

Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, not as one that weeps I come once more; the city sleeps; I smell the meadow in the street;

I hear a chirp of birds; I see Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn A light-blue lane of early dawn, And think of early days and thee,

And bless thee, for thy lips are bland And bright the friendship of thine eye; And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh I take the pressure of thine hand.

I trust I have not wasted breath: I think we are not wholly brain, Magnetic mockeries; not in vain, Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;

Not only cunning casts in clay: Let Science prove we are, and then What matters Science unto men, At least to me? I would not stay.

Let him, the wiser man who springs Hereafter, up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape, But I was born to other things.

Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun And ready, thou, to die with him, Thou watchest all things ever dim And dimmer, and a glory done:

The team is loosen’d from the wain, The boat is drawn upon the shore; Thou listenest to the closing door, And life is darken’d in the brain.

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, By thee the world’s great work is heard Beginning, and the wakeful bird; Behind thee comes the greater light:

The market boat is on the stream, And voices hail it from the brink; Thou hear’st the village hammer clink, And see’st the moving of the team.

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed; thou art the same.

Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, While I rose up against my doom, And strove to burst the folded gloom, To bare the eternal Heavens again,

To feel once more, in placid awe, The strong imagination roll A sphere of stars about my soul, In all her motion one with law;

If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now, And enter in at breast and brow, Till all my blood, a fuller wave,

Be quicken’d with a livelier breath, And like an inconsiderate boy, As in the former flash of joy, I slip the thoughts of life and death;

And all the breeze of Fancy blows, And every dew-drop paints a bow; The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose.

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

That which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith, our ghastliest doubt; He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess;

I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye; Nor thro’ the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun:

If e’er when faith had fall’n asleep, I heard a voice ‘believe no more’ And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason’s colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer’d ‘I have felt.’

No, like a child in doubt and fear: But that blind clamour made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near;

And what I seem beheld again What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro’ nature, moulding men.

Whatever I have said or sung, Some bitter notes my harp would give, Yea, tho’ there often seem’d to live A contradiction on the tongue,

Yet Hope had never lost her youth; She did but look thro’ dimmer eyes; Or Love but play’d with gracious lies, Because he felt so fix’d in truth:

And if the song were full of care, He breathed the spirit of the song; And if the words were sweet and strong He set his royal signet there;

Abiding with me till I sail To seek thee on the mystic deeps, And this electric force, that keeps A thousand pulses dancing, fail.

Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring.

Love is and was my King and Lord, And will be, tho’ as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and sleep Encompass’d by his faithful guard,

And hear at times a sentinel That moves about from place to place, And whispers to the vast of space Among the worlds, that all is well.

And all is well, tho’ faith and form Be sunder’d in the night of fear; Well roars the storm to those that hear A deeper voice across the storm,

Proclaiming social truth shall spread, And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again The red fool-fury of the Seine Should pile her barricades with dead.

But woe to him that wears a crown, And him, the lazar, in his rags: They tremble, the sustaining crags; The spires of ice are toppled down,

And molten up, and roar in flood; The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the vast Æon sinks in blood,

And compass’d by the fires of Hell, While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O’erlook’st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well.