| |
THE SPIRITS I have raised abandon me, | |
| The spoils which I have studied baffle me, | |
| The remedy I recked of tortures me: | |
| I lean no more on superhuman aid, | |
| It hath no power upon the past; and for | 5 |
| The future, till the past be gulfed in darkness, | |
| It is not of my search. My mother earth, | |
| And thou, fresh breaking day, and you, ye mountains, | |
| Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. | |
| And thou, the bright eye of the universe, | 10 |
| That openest over all, and unto all | |
| Art a delight,—thou shin’st not on my heart. | |
| And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge | |
| I stand, and on the torrent’s brink beneath | |
| Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs | 15 |
| In dizziness of distance; when a leap, | |
| A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring | |
| My breast upon its rocky bosom’s bed, | |
| To rest forever,—wherefore do I pause? | |
| I feel the impulse, yet I do not plunge; | 20 |
| I see the peril, yet do not recede; | |
| And my brain reels, and yet my foot is firm: | |
| There is a power upon me which withholds, | |
| And makes it my fatality to live, | |
| If it be life to wear within myself | 25 |
| This barrenness of spirit, and to be | |
| My own soul’s sepulchre, for I have ceased | |
| To justify my deeds unto myself,— | |
| The last infirmity of evil. Ay, | |
| Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, | 30 |
| |
(An eagle passes.) Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, | |
| Well mayst thou swoop so near me,—I should be | |
| Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets: thou art gone | |
| Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine | |
| Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, | 35 |
| With a pervading vision. Beautiful! | |
| How beautiful is all this visible world! | |
| How glorious in its action and itself! | |
| But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, | |
| Half dust, half deity, alike unfit | 40 |
| To sink or soar, with our mixed essence, make | |
| A conflict of its elements, and breathe | |
| The breath of degradation and of pride, | |
| Contending with low wants and lofty will, | |
| Till our mortality predominates, | 45 |
| And men are—what they name not to themselves, | |
| And trust not to each other. Hark! the note, | |
| |
(The shepherd’s pipe in the distance is heard.) The natural music of the mountain reed,— | |
| For here the patriarchal days are not | |
| A pastoral fable,—pipes in the liberal air, | 50 |
| Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd; | |
| My soul would drink those echoes. O that I were | |
| The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, | |
| A living voice, a breathing harmony, | |
| A bodiless enjoyment,—born and dying | 55 |
| With the blest tone which made me! | |
| |
