Page:Leaves of Grass (1882).djvu/188

182

Over the mountain-growths disease and sorrow,

An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,

High in the purer, happier air.

From imperfection's murkiest cloud,

Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,

One flash of heaven's glory.

To fashion's, custom's discord,

To the mad Babel-din, the deafening orgies,

Soothing each lull a strain is heard, just heard,

From some far shore the final chorus sounding.

O the blest eyes, the happy hearts,

That see, that know the guiding thread so fine,

Along the mighty labyrinth.

And thou America,

For the scheme's culmination, its thought and its reality,

For these (not for thyself) thou hast arrived.

Thou too surroundest all,

Embracing carrying welcoming all, thou too by pathways broad and new,

To the ideal tendest.

The measur'd faiths of other lands, the grandeurs of the past,

Are not for thee, but grandeurs of thine own,

Deific faiths and amplitudes, absorbing, comprehending all,

All eligible to all.

All, all for immortality,

Love like the light silently wrapping all,

Nature's amelioration blessing all,

The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,

Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.

Give me O God to sing that thought,

Give me, give him or her I love this quenchless faith,

In Thy ensemble, whatever else withheld withhold not from us,

Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in Time and Space,

Health, peace, salvation universal.