FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
ed in years. Two of these Melodies especially, the third and the fifteenth, contain so positive a profession of faith in the spiritualist doctrines, and carry with them the mark of so elevated a Christian sentiment, that I can not forbear quoting them _in extenso_. IF THAT HIGH WORLD. I. If that high world, which lies beyond Our own, surviving Love endears; If there the cherish'd heart be fond, The eye the same, except in tears-- How welcome those untrodden spheres! How sweet this very hour to die! To soar from earth and find all fears Lost in thy light--Eternity! II. It must be so: 'tis not for self That we so tremble on the brink; And striving to o'erleap the gulf, Yet cling to Being's severing link. Oh! in that future let us think To hold each heart the heart that shares; With them the immortal waters drink, And soul in soul grow deathless theirs! * * * * * WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY. I. When coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah! whither strays the immortal mind? It can not die, it can not stay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? II. Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth or skies display'd, Shall it survey, shall it recall: Each fainter trace that memory holds So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all, that was, at once appears III. Before Creation peopled earth, Its eyes shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, Fix'd in his own eternity. IV. Above our Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly, A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die. There is no passage in Plato, or in St. Augustin, or in Pascal, which can equal the sublimity of these stanzas. It was in this painful state of mind that he s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
survey
 

thought

 

future

 

glance

 

immortal

 
memory
 
recall
 

fainter

 
departed
 

beholds


eternal

 

nameless

 
appears
 

Forgetting

 
display
 

darkly

 
painful
 
stanzas
 

sublimity

 

realms


Pascal

 

Eternal

 

passage

 

unseen

 

boundless

 

Augustin

 

undecay

 

Creation

 

system

 

breaks


earthly

 
quench
 

eternity

 

passionless

 

peopled

 
endure
 

furthest

 
moments
 

dilate

 
rising

heaven
 

spirit

 
Before
 
suffering
 

cherish

 

surviving

 
endears
 

untrodden

 
Eternity
 

spheres