The vesper bells are softly peeling
A call to prayer;
Like angel’s songs the sounds are stealing
Far up the azure aisles of air.
A wish, truth’s offspring, now is winging
To realms untold—
Through the high heaven of thought upspringing
To the _true_ temple of the soul.
Hope, like a weary pilgrim, kneeling,
Stoops at the shrine
And worships with a holy feeling,
Half human seeming, half divine.
Now thoughts flit through fond mem’ry’s temple
To times of old,
When worship at the heart’s high altar—
Pure as the stars—but ne’er so cold.
And ’mid the future’s sky is gleaming
Hope’s burning star,
And Fancy’s eye drinks in its beaming,
Undying brightness from afar.
The heart is like mind; her empire—
Wide as the sky—
Vast in its spirit realm, it maketh
All that we are of Deity.
Thou lovely world of heaven, thy vision,
Surpassing rare,
Shall mock my mind’s ideal Elysium
With joys that ever cycle there.
Though oft in gloom its dawn comes stealing,
And tear-drops stream,
Dimming its light, the spirit healing,
Wings its far flight pure and serene.
The incense of the soul is stealing
Beyond the sky,
From censers lit with fire of feeling,
To spirit realms of Deity.
Those evening bells, once softly peeling,
No longer ring;
But thoughts, as pure as seraphs kneeling,
Ascend to an eternal spring.
Now eventide is hushed in rest—
Day has departed,
And blithe come forth the bold and blest,
And low the sad and broken-hearted,
But as successive years may roll
Their waves away,
Those bells may break upon the soul,
Sweet to the low and sadly to the gay.
* * * * *