Poems (McDonald)/Thought

by Mary Noel McDonald

THOUGHT.

I.

Boundless, illimitable, who can trace
 Thy varied journeyings through the realms of air
Thou mock'st each barrier of time or space,
 And fliest on swiftest pinions every where;
By thee we track the past, long ages gone,
 Lost in the dark abyss of buried time,
Or strive to pierce the future, dim, unknown,
 Or, soaring upward, seek th' eternal clime:
We revel 'mid the stars, in the high dome
 Of God's all glorious temple richly spread,
Make 'mid their shining hosts the spirit's home,
 Among their living lights where seraphs tread;
Hold our free course unchecked, tin lost, amazed,
We sink again to earth, with our bright pathway dazed.

II.

But thou hast earthly rovings, boundless Thought!
 O'er the wide world thine eager wing is flying,
 To vine-clad realms, where fragrant winds are sighing;
To fairy-haunted grove, or storied grot,
Thither thou lead'st us: hoary mountains piled
 High in the clouds, broad lakes, and rivers fair,
And green savannas stretching vast and wild—
 We know them all, by thee borne swiftly there.
The lava-buried cities, ancient Rome,
 Judea's queen, so honored, so debased,
Where lie, the Man of Grief, vouchsafed to come,
 And through her streets his path of sorrow traced—
To these we speed us, what can stay thy flight
Ethereal essence!—swift as flash of light?

III.

And yet a power more dear is thine, O Thought.
By thee, long-parted friends together meet,
Though seas divide them, by thy magic brought
In close companionship again! how sweet
To speak kind words of sympathy, once more
 To linger spell-bound on some long-loved face,
 Again each faded lineament retrace,
Till faithful memory all their charms restore!
The lonely mother at her cottage hearth,
 Shudders to hear the storm go rushing past;
And as in fitful and demoniac mirth,
 Shrieks forth in trumpet-tones the maddened blast—
She sees in thought, while roll the blackened clouds,
 Her sea-boy's form, rocked in the spray-wreathed shrouds.