Waft of soul’s wing!
What lies above?
Sunshine and Love,
Sky-blue and Spring!
Body hides—where?
Ferns of all feather,
Mosses and heather,
Yours be the care!
This is the proem to “La Saisiaz,” one of the most remarkable of the
poet’s works, in which the doctrine of immortality is argued with a
profundity of thought that has perhaps never been surpassed, even in
language freed from the fetters of verse. It also appears as No. III. of
“Pisgah Sights” in the second English series of selections. Both of
these connections suggest the key-note.
Observe the progress in the thought. In the first stanza the soul is
“fretless and free”; in the second it moves onward and upward; in the
third it has reached the region of “Sunshine and Love, Sky-blue and
Spring!” Similarly as to the body—in the first stanza there is the
apparent victory of the grave, “dust to dust”; in the next comes the
thought that, after all, the body may only be slumbering; in the last,
there is the beautiful suggestion that it is only hiding where it is
tenderly cared for, till
“——with the morn those angel faces smile
Which we have loved long since, and lost awhile.”
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