lamp, with steady blaze,
Shines on the hallowed scenes of other days,
While Fancy's torch, prophetic, flashing through
The vistas of the future, brings to view
Scenes passing strange, but scenes that yet shall be,
Which I can see, but which he can not see
Whose dazzled orbs find nothing hid away
Beyond the brilliant margin of today.

To me the radiant world forever gleams
With the rich halo of my boyish dreams;
The faces I have loved no wrinkles know;
My dear ones' eyes ne'er lose their cherished glow;
The hair of gold ne'er turns to silver hair;
The young are young, the fair are always fair.

With reason strengthened, feelings more intense,
The senses, multiples of former sense,
Vicarious servants for dead sight become.
I see the city in the city's hum;
I catch its subtle undertone of trade;
I hear of fortunes lost and fortunes made,
In sounds to him a mystery profound
Who, seeing, knows not vision muffles sound.
Distinct to him must sound become, to whom
Life walks in darkness--call it not in gloom.
'Tis only an exchange of good for good,
A new plant growing where the old one stood,
Old blessings taken, and new blessings given;
Sweet compensation, thou wert born in heaven!

There is not silence unto him whose soul
In darkness sits and listens. Like a scroll
On which the secrets of the world are traced,
Blindness is but a sea-shell kindly placed
Beside the ear, and in its varying tone,
Who will, may make life's secret all his own.
And thus misfortunes bless, for blindness brings
A power to pierce the depths of hidden things,
To walk where reason and fair fancy lead,
To read the riddle of men's thoughts, to read
The soul's arcana in each subtler tone,
And make man's joys and sorrows all my own.

Nor can I sit repining at my lot
As bitter or unjust, or curse the shot
Which tore away my sight. The world is kind
And gentle to her sons. Though I am blind,
Smooth paths of enterprise have always stood
Open for me, and, doing what I could,
With hand or brain, with simple earnestness,
Have gathered what was due me of success.

O you, who sit in darkness, moaning o'er
Your dead and vanished vision, mourn no more!
Keep in the current. Be you brave and strong!
The busy world is singing--join the song,
And y