VARIOUS POEMS
Life, when the harper tunes his shrillest string,
As to low thunder lends a finer ear
Unseen. Niagara's slow vibrating
Is but the treble of the greater sphere,
Whose lightest orchestras such movements play
As mock the forest's moan, the bass profound
Of surges that against deep barriers stay
Their might, in throes which shake the ancient ground.
Will, consciousness, the tenant lord of all,
Self-tenanted, is still the wrinkled wave
Which climbs a wave upon the clambering wall
Beyond, or in the hollow seeks a grave.
We time the ray, we pulsate with the fling
Of ether—feel the sure magnetic thrill
Make answer to each sombre vortex ring
Whirled with the whirling sun that binds us still;
That binds us, bound itself from girth to pole
By some unconquerable deathless force
Akin to this which thinks, acts, feels,—the soul
Of man, forever eddying like its source.
Passion and jest, the laugh and wail of earth,
High thought and speech, the rare considerings
Of beauty that to fairer art gives birth,
The winnowing of poesy's swift wings,—
These—though the hoary century inurn
Our great—no gathering mould of time shall clod:
They bide their hour, they pass but to return
With men, as now, the progeny of God.
1892.
458
