Vanity, say they, quoting him of old.
Yet, if full knowledge lifted us serene
To look beyond mortality's stern screen,
A reconciling vision could be told,
Brighter than western clouds or shapes of gold
That change in amber fires,--or the demesne
Of ever mystic sleep. Mists intervene,
Which then would melt, to show our eyesight bold
From God a perfect chain throughout the skies,
Like Jacob's ladder light with winged men.
And as this world, all notched to terrene eyes
With Alpine ranges, smoothes to higher ken,
So death and sin and social miseries;
By God fixed as His bow o'er moor and fen.