Page:Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine 33 1833.pdf/3



Soul of our souls! and safeguard of the world! Sustain—Thou only cans't—the sick at heart, Restore their languid spirits, and recall Their lost affections unto Thee and Thine.

—holy night!—the time For Mind's free breathings in a purer clime! Night!—when in happier hour the unveiling sky Woke all my kindled soul, To meet its revelations, clear and high, With the strong joy of Immortality! Now hath strange sadness wrapp'd me—strange and deep— And my thoughts faint, and shadows o'er them roll, E'en when I deem'd them seraph-plumed, to sweep Far beyond Earth's control.

Wherefore is this?—I see the stars returning, Fire after fire in Heaven's rich Temple burning. Fast shine they forth—my spirit-friends, my guides, Bright rulers of my being's inmost tides; They shine—but faintly, through a quivering haze— Oh! is the dimness mine which clouds those rays? They, from whose glance my childhood drank delight! A joy unquestioning—a love intense— They, that unfolding to more thoughtful sight, The harmony of their magnificence, Drew silently the worship of my youth To the grave sweetness on the brow of truth; Shall they shower blessing, with their beams divine, Down to the watcher on the stormy sea, And to the pilgrim, toiling for his shrine, Through some wild pass of rocky Appennine, And to the wanderer lone, On wastes of Afric thrown, And not to me? Am I a thing forsaken, And is the gladness taken From the bright-pinion'd Nature, which hath soar'd Through realms by royal eagle ne'er explored, And, bathing there in streams of fiery light, Found strength to gaze upon the Infinite?

And now an alien!—Wherefore must this be? How shall I rend the chain? How drink rich life again From those pure stores of radiance, welling free? Father of Spirits! let me turn to Thee! Oh! if too much exulting in her dower, My soul, not yet to lowly thought subdued, Hath stood without Thee on her Hill of Power— A fearful and a dazzling solitude!—