There in the darkness of my doom,
A dewy dawn of one who left
Me moaning, when my heart was cleft?—
A sweet auroral rising of my sun,
Who went out unaware, before his course was run,
And I lay darkling ere my day was well begun?"
III.
But in a tone remonstrant, mild,
Like one who soothes a fevered child,
Methought fair Earth and Sky and Sea
Responded very quietly:
"Do you, then, our poor brother, ask
If all we wear the traitor's mask
On this our festival of gladness?
We pity, pardoning, your madness!
He is not dead whom you so cherish!
How may a human spirit perish?
Spirits! ye dream a lovely dream,
And call it what we only seem!
Ye call us Nature: we are angels,
Who reveal profound evangels,
Tho' you may fathom not their glory,
Beholding, as in sacred story,
Men like trees walking: so God gives
Maturing sense to all that lives.
But once ye dwelt jn Eden—then
