Page:Poems (1853).djvu/121

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Now do I know, that clad in mortal cuise,
Ne’er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision rise.

That only in the vague, cold realm of thought,
 Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain;
And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought
 The scattered fragments of Osiris slain,
Now do I know that I shall never find
But fragments of thy soul within earth’s clay enshrined.

Thou whom I have not seen, and shall not see,
 Till the sad drama of this life be o’er!
Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee:
 Thou still art mine, I thine, forevermore;
And this belief shall be the funeral pyre
Of all less noble love,—of all less high desire.

Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring
 Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most,
The glow of summer and the bloom of spring,
 And on thy altar lay the holocaust;
And in my faith exulting, I will see
The sacrifice consume, I consecrate to thee.