Thou, that at life's close dost sit
Smiling by ambition's grave,
When the sun doth shine on it,
And the storms have ceased to rave,

When Meditation's self is born from thee,
Her life and wisdom nursed by MEMORY!

A SOUL'S ASPIRATION.

I.

I WATCHED the HEAVENS while I stood

Beside a new-made grave:

I saw the galaxying flood

Of lights around me wave: The palace of Infinitude

Was opened to its height,

Its floor with starry chaplets strewed,
Enroofed with cressets bright.

II.

Mortality's remains were flung
Around my feet in their decay;
I stood the worms and dead among;
The skulls beneath me had a tongue,
And told me I must be as they:

I felt in me the prescient soul

That knew, but shrunk from the control Of death it must obey.

III.

Ambition beckoned to the sky,
And told me I was great:
Faith spoke of immortality,
A purer, loftier state;

That I should flee from star to star
In infinite progression, joined
With things that everlasting are,
By God enshrined.

IV.

The aspiration passed: a chill
Arose from forth the earth;

'I felt that I was mortal still!
I looked, and saw my birth
Was from the bed beneath me lying:
Whate'er my soul might dare,

In hope and faith with heaven allying,
My grave and cradle there:

V.

That all the great and mighty things

We boast of man are vain,

Created from imaginings:

That if he soar on Angel's wings,

He sinks to earth again;

He dares the heights he cannot reach; The words of wisdom he doth preach,

His daily deeds arraign.

VI.

Yet hath he striven, since time began,
His impotence to hide :

Yea, preached the dignity of man,
Self-reverence and pride;

O GOD! what dignity have we?
What is the life we hold from Thee?
A lightning flash a moment seen,
The future and the past between,

VII.

Quenched in their dark eternities:
Unknown and Everlasting! thou,
When forth the homeless spirit flies,
Alone canst deathless life allow :
Stars generate from their decay
New life, leaves spring again as they;
Shall man, last type Thou didst create,
Alone become annihilate ?

VIII.

He, prescient of immortal birth,

The faith and feeling drawn from thee? Who delved the secrets of the earth,

Who portioned out infinity:

Who felt within himself a soul
To fill, to comprehend the whole?
Who owned, as vision widening grew,
Thy Spirit prompted all he knew?

IX.

Ineffable! whose altar is

The universe, whom all have sought: The humble from their lowliness,

The sophist on the wings of thought: Thou Mover of majestic heaven! Creator of time, life, and space, Whose being by thyself is given; Infinity thy dwelling-place;

X.

Thou ONE, of whom we nothing know,
But feel that Thou art near,
Pervading round, above, below,
Thy lowliest creature hear!
My mortal bed beneath me lies,
I must for death prepare;
Shut out from me the joyous skies,
Unconscious Thou art there:

XI.

Duration measureless rolled on,

When I was not, time still shall be:
Yon stars eternally have shone,
They emanate from Thee:

Gazing on their bright foreheads, I
So worthless all, yet would not die;
I feel in me the spark divine

Of life was lighted, LORD, from thine.

XII.

Oh! if amid yon starry host,
Sand-grains upon the ocean's shore,
Worlds, systems, are as atoms lost,

Dare man his nothingness deplore?
The moth was dazzled by the rays
That blinded its bewildered gaze;
From aching darkness of the night
Its weakness turned to Thee for light!

XIII.

Even now a calmer, holier feeling,
My chastened breast overflows;
A grateful influence o'er me stealing:
The trust and the repose!

I value not life's pageants shown,
Its triumphs or its fame:

Upon the brass, or scroll, or stone,

I sigh not for a name:

XIV.

Such visions from my Soul are swept;
They only ruled me while it slept:
Sublimer faith and hope are mine,
An aspiration more divine:

To escape this mortal coil and be

As those bright things where I would flee, The chill, the doubt from earth we bear, Forgot in deathless being there.