Methinks there is no blessedness in life
More full than that which springs in solitude;
A fount unruffled by the outer world,
Unmingled with its honey or its gall;
But welling through the spirit silently,
Like a pure rill within a garden's bounds.
Let my life float, like the sad Indian's lamp,
Along the waves of Time, unpiloted
Save by the breath of heaven, and the stirred tide,
Till when its course be run it sink to rest
Beyond the ken and fathoming of man;
Let me not be a legend mouthed about
By empty gossips o'er their clinking cups,
Who tell the last sad tale and with a smack
Turn to the merits of the passing wine.
'Twere something to be wept for by the young
And beautiful, but tears are things that dry
Sooner than dew upon the waking flowers,
Leaving the heart e'en gladder for their flow.
O could my life subside into a dream
Rising amid the stillness of calm sleep,
Filling the soul with radiant images
Of love, and grace, and beauty, all serene
And shadowless as yon blue sky is now!--
Would that the outward shows and forms of things
Could melt away from cold reality
To the warm brightness of the spiritual,
Losing the grossness of this present world,
As a fair face doth mirror'd in a glass--
And thus, reposing in seraphic trance,
Let the few years of earth's existence pass,
Like minutes in the quietness of sleep,
And waken to the glorious dawn of Heaven,
Refreshed, and scatheless from mortality.