Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/517

 1850-(i0.] OB ED J.WILSON. 501 Still bearing to your distant goal The freshness of your primal dawn ; And shining out as purely bright As in the ages past ye shone ; When Chaldee's shepherds watched by night, Your march along yon blazing zone. Ye pilgrims round the eternal throne, With censers filled with living light, My thoughts go wandering forth alone To track with you the wastes of night ; Above the clouds and tempests' rage, Across yon blue and radiant arch, Upon your long, high pilgrimage, I watched your glittering armies march. Along the blue, ethereal plain, Your living splendors meet and blend. Forming a constellated chain, Without beginning, break, or end ; And on this telegraph of light. Worlds beyond worlds, far out in space. Send down across the Infinite, Their tidings from God's dwelling-place. What myriad rills of pearly beams Come rippling down the slopes of even. The sources of whose living streams Are in those far-off founts of heaven : But whose the hand that e'er supplies. Age after age their drainless springs, And bids them gush along the skies. When night abroad her mantle flings ? Make answer, ocean, with thy full, And deep, and solemn undertone ; Make answer, earth, all beautiful With life, and love, and blossoms strown ; Make answer, heart and soul within. Make answer, thoughts that rove abroad; And ye, bright minstrelsy, begin, And in your chorus answer, God ! LINES. I FEAR not scandal, though its tongue My reputation blast. And o'er a name I've stainless kept Its withering venom cast; For virtues that might pass unknown In fortune's sunny day. When slandered by the lips of guile, Shed forth their gentlest ray. I fear not hatred, though it arm Itself in secret guile ; For kindness changeth it to love. And charms it with her smile : Till where dark passions lurked before. Plotting their deeds of wrong. Meek virtue makes her dwelling-place, And loving grows, and strong. I fear not poverty and want, — Misfortune's haggard train, — Contentment mailed in cheerfulness Disarmeth them of pain : She strews the sloping walks of life With roses rich and rare. And they who tread her pleasant paths Will find no serpents there. I fear not sorrow, robed in weeds, — Affliction's tearful child, — It wins me from a world of sin That else had love beguiled ; And points me to a Better Land Far o'er Time's stormy main. Where long-lost friends, death sundered here, Shall meet and love again. I fear not sickness and disease, Though pains companion them ; They can but mar the casket. They may not soil its gem : They teach me that the ills of life Are blessings in disguise, — The mingled good and ill we heir From distant Paradise.