Ah! how beautiful life's ocean seem'd that gentle cloudless

noon,

Like a moonlight sea that slumbers underneath the summer

moon,

When the stars steal hearts responsive to their own wild

eloquence,

And a strange sweet music o'er us comes, we know not, heed not, whence,

From the skies, or from the falling of melodious drops of

foam,

Or from deeper spirit-fountains welling in our spirit-home. Few, methinks, are such blest havens on the shores of time and earth;

Seldom broods there peace so tranquil over life's exuberant mirth.

But I must not linger, brother, on the brightness of thy

track,

When dark spectres round mine own with spells are whispering me back.

List! I do not wish that others should partake my sinful

load,

Yet I sometimes think the streamlet from that bitter foun

tain flow'd:

For when harsh unkindness pruned and stunted all affection's shoots,

Then perhaps the canker enter'd, festering at my being's

roots:

For with sickening heart I turn'd from human faces, as from blight,

Since they never lit with love, and never read my feelings

right,

To the world of thought and fancy-that, my countrybooks, my friends;

Fool, fool! deeming heartless things for gushing hearts would make amends.

Yet at first how strangely lovely seem'd that icy crystal air, To a lonely nestless bird upon its first wild entrance there. Day by day the spirit finding eagle strength within its wings,

Proudly tracking truth and beauty there 'mid everlasting

things;

Never pausing, resting never on its flight intensely keen, Deeming it would touch the boundary of that dark-blue

vault serene.

If I gazed below, the mists were wrapping all in vaporous

fold,

Mists of selfishness and meanness, chilling blight, and

sordid gold:

All along whose cloudy skirts base ignis-fatuus lights would

flame,

Luxury, and ease, and riches, and perhaps some petty

fame.

"Let them flame and flare,” I shouted, "round those spirits'

prison bars,

Mine are the free boundless heavens, mine the lightnings,

And aloft I clapp'd my pinions, soaring on for days and

weeks,

After some fresh burning hope still kindling o'er fresh

mountain-peaks.

Ah, I knew not that, though earthborn lamps might never

mount so high,

There are meteors that deceive, and stars1 that wander in

the sky.

Ah, I saw not that the pole-star, Faith, was waning fast

and dim,

And of God-fool, fool! I thought not in

But from far I heard a whisper of the fontal light divine, Reason, human earthly Reason, sheds within the spirit's

shrine.

Syren-like that music falling, like a gush of holy tears

On deep waves, flow'd on and whisper'd 'twas the music of the spheres,

Bidding me come up and follow to its own dear home on

high,

Maddening while it tranced my soul, and blinding while it lured mine eye;

Till I rear'd my adoration higher than God's eternal throne: Reason was the God I worshipp'd-trusting, clinging there alone.

And I follow'd-poor fond climber—leaving faith and

trust above

To low grovelling minds of earth, or fond enthusiasts'

frantic love,

Till I stood in naked horror on the sceptic's precipice,

All my darling visions staring on me there, like things of

ice.

Oh, the solitude that crush'd me! oh, that dreary word

" alone"!

Not a kindred heart to lean on, not an anchor for mine

own

Without truth and love and beauty, human love or love of

God

Not a gleam to point the pathway of return the way I

trode:

But the meteors, I had follow'd, sicken'd one by one and

died,

And the dark1 of darkness o'er them closed for ever far and

wide,

Woe was me! for in that midnight I could neither pray

nor weep

Had I pray'd an Ear was open, and an Eye that could not

sleep.

But when all without was desert, and wild desert all within, Plunged I with a maniac's madness, down the treacherous gulf of sin.

Whilome I had often sneer'd at others from the height of

fame,

Finding what they deem'd enjoyment in the haunts of sin

and shame;

Now-but no— -I will not drag thee to the gloomy dens

of guilt —

List! their spectral voices haunt me

go and ask them if

thou wilt:

1 οἷς ὁ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους εἰς αἰῶνα τετήρηται. — Jude 13