| |
[First published 1852. Reprinted 1853, ‘54, ‘57.]
WE cannot kindle when we will | |
| The fire that in the heart resides, | |
| The spirit bloweth and is still, | |
| In mystery our soul abides: | |
| But tasks in hours of insight will’d | 5 |
| Can be through hours of gloom fulfill’d. | |
| |
| With aching hands and bleeding feet | |
| We dig and heap, lay stone on stone; | |
| We bear the burden and the heat | |
| Of the long day, and wish ’twere done. | 10 |
| Not till the hours of light return | |
| All we have built do we discern. | |
| Then, when the clouds are off the soul, | |
| When thou dost bask in Nature’s eye, | |
| Ask, how she view’d thy self-control, | 15 |
| Thy struggling task’d morality. | |
| Nature, whose free, light, cheerful air, | |
| Oft made thee, in thy gloom, despair. | |
| |
| And she, whose censure thou dost dread, | |
| Whose eye thou wert afraid to seek, | 20 |
| See, on her face a glow is spread, | |
| A strong emotion on her cheek. | |
| ‘Ah child,’ she cries, ‘that strife divine— | |
| Whence was it, for it is not mine? | |
| |
| ‘There is no effort on my brow— | 25 |
| I do not strive, I do not weep. | |
| I rush with the swift spheres, and glow | |
| In joy, and, when I will, I sleep.— | |
| Yet that severe, that earnest air, | |
| I saw, I felt it once—but where? | 30 |
| |
| ‘I knew not yet the gauge of Time, | |
| Nor wore the manacles of Space. | |
| I felt it in some other clime— | |
| I saw it in some other place. | |
| —’Twas when the heavenly house I trod. | 35 |
| And lay upon the breast of God.’ | |
| |
