| LET me come nearer Thee, | |
| O Perfect Soul! | |
| Down-looking on me, whereso’er I tread, | |
| With earnest gaze from cliff, and sky o’erhead, | |
| From clustered leaves and buds and bowers of green— | 5 |
| Let me come nearer Thee! | |
| |
| Seeking Thine intercourse | |
| I wander wide | |
| O’er hills and valleys, under moon and stars, | |
| Rapt in a secret tumult of delight | 10 |
| At every passing cloud, and changing light | |
| On stream and mountain side. | |
| |
| I kiss thy cheek, fair rose! | |
| Its pearly hue | |
| Reflects the darker passion blood of mine: | 15 |
| Thy tender breath, responding to the lips, | |
| Is sweeter to the soul than new-mixt wine. | |
| |
| Young veinèd leaf uncurled, | |
| And tendril green, | |
| Clinging about my finger slenderly, | 20 |
| Thou seëst not: what wouldst thou have of me? | |
| What happy sense hast thou, to know the touch | |
| Of the unseen? | |
| |
| Blue dome of heaven that guards | |
| The living world | 25 |
| Like a green gem within a casket rare, | |
| Fretted with brooks, and set in silver seas, | |
| What Breast contains ye both, the moving Earth | |
| And the free Air? | |
| |
| And lo! within my soul | 30 |
| Some happy Thing | |
| Betrayed the secret sigh of heart’s content: | |
| And, from the hollows of the breathless hills | |
| There came a quiet Voice: Look round on Me, | |
| The Presence, the Desire that moves and fills, | 35 |
| The whole—the part! | |
| |
| I rise upon the winds: | |
| I draw the stars | |
| Thro’ realms of night, on paths of trackless dawn! | |
| Mine Eye contains the light of Day: mine Arm | 40 |
| Unfurls the cloud, and flings the grateful shade | |
| On hill and lawn! | |
| |
| In glimmering regions, yet unfound, | |
| I penetrate | |
| The Abyss of Being, and the Springs of Thought: | 45 |
| I order things that be: and blamelessly | |
| Divide the heavens and earth, reproved of nought, | |
| Of Joy and Power, insatiate! | |
| |
| I linger in the twilight land of grief: | |
| With health divine | 50 |
| Breathing on frozen hearts that know me not; | |
| They lift their marred and chilly lips to me, | |
| Swooning into my bosom dreamlessly, | |
| For Grief and Death are mine! | |
| |
| I gather up the fleeting Souls that seem | 55 |
| All day to die: | |
| Their beauty, melting, passeth not away! | |
| Woven into the golden mist of Life | |
| They ’merge again upon the teeming Strife | |
| That worketh endlessly! | 60 |
| |
| And Man, the fairest of my children! Thou | |
| That battlest darkly with thy Destiny, | |
| Whom I have made for god-like liberty, | |
| And fain had lifted up to be with Me— | |
| My son and fellow-worker! know | 65 |
| |
| I only Am: unhasting, uncontrolled, | |
| My Perfect Will | |
| Fulfils its perfect Self, around, above! | |
| MY HIDDEN NAME is Joy! O mortal, yield | |
| Unto the Breath that would thy being fill, | 70 |
| The Breath of Love! | |
