IT is a place where poets crowned | |
| May feel the heart’s decaying— | |
| It is a place where happy saints | |
| May weep amid their praying; | |
| Yet let the grief and humbleness, | 5 |
| As low as silence, languish— | |
| Earth surely now may give her calm | |
| To whom she gave her anguish. | |
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| O poets! from a maniac’s tongue | |
| Was poured the deathless singing! | 10 |
| O Christians! at your cross of hope | |
| A hopeless hand was clinging! | |
| O men! this man, in brotherhood, | |
| Your weary paths beguiling, | |
| Groaned inly while he taught you peace, | 15 |
| And died while ye were smiling! | |
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| And now, what time ye all may read | |
| Through dimming tears his story— | |
| How discord on the music fell, | |
| And darkness on the glory— | 20 |
| And how, when one by one, sweet sounds | |
| And wandering lights departed, | |
| He wore no less a loving face, | |
| Because so broken-hearted— | |
| He shall be strong to sanctify | 25 |
| The poet’s high vocation, | |
| And bow the meekest Christian down | |
| In meeker adoration; | |
| Nor ever shall he be in praise | |
| By wise or good forsaken— | 30 |
| Named softly, as the household name | |
| Of one whom God hath taken! | |
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| With sadness that is calm, not gloom, | |
| I learn to think upon him; | |
| With meekness that is gratefulness, | 35 |
| On God whose heaven hath won him— | |
| Who suffered once the madness-cloud | |
| Toward his love to blind him; | |
| But gently led the blind along | |
| Where breath and bird could find him; | 40 |
| And wrought within his shattered brain | |
| Such quick poetic senses | |
| As hills have language for, and stars | |
| Harmonious influences! | |
| The pulse of dew upon the grass, | 45 |
| His own did calmly number; | |
| And silent shadow from the trees | |
| Fell o’er him like a slumber. | |
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| The very world, by God’s constraint, | |
| From falsehood’s chill removing, | 50 |
| Its women and its men became, | |
| Beside him, true and loving!— | |
| And timid hares were drawn from woods | |
| To share his home-caresses, | |
| Uplooking to his human eyes | 55 |
| With sylvan tendernesses. | |
| But while in blindness he remained | |
| Unconscious of the guiding, | |
| And things provided came without | |
| The sweet sense of providing, | 60 |
| He testified this solemn truth, | |
| Though frenzy desolated— | |
| Nor man nor nature satisfy, | |
| When only God created! | |
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| Like a sick child that knoweth not | 65 |
| His mother while she blesses, | |
| And droppeth on his burning brow | |
| The coolness of her kisses; | |
| That turns his fevered eyes around— | |
| “My mother! where’s my mother?”— | 70 |
| As if such tender words and looks | |
| Could come from any other— | |
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| The fever gone, with leaps of heart | |
| He sees her bending o’er him; | |
| Her face all pale from watchful love, | 75 |
| Th’ unweary love she bore him! | |
| Thus woke the poet from the dream | |
| His life’s long fever gave him, | |
| Beneath these deep pathetic eyes | |
| Which closed in death to save him! | 80 |
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| Thus! O, not thus! no type of earth | |
| Could image that awaking, | |
| Wherein he scarcely heard the chant | |
| Of seraphs, round him breaking— | |
| Or felt the new immortal throb | 85 |
| Of soul from body parted; | |
| But felt those eyes alone, and knew | |
| “My Saviour! not deserted!” | |
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| Deserted! who hath dreamt that when | |
| The cross in darkness rested, | 90 |
| Upon the victim’s hidden face | |
| No love was manifested? | |
| What frantic hands outstretched have e’er | |
| Th’ atoning drops averted— | |
| What tears have washed them from the soul— | 95 |
| That one should be deserted? | |
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| Deserted! God could separate | |
| From His own essence rather; | |
| And Adam’s sins have swept between | |
| The righteous Son and Father— | 100 |
| Yea! once, Immanuel’s orphaned cry | |
| His universe hath shaken— | |
| It went up single, echoless, | |
| “My God, I am forsaken!” | |
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| It went up from the Holy lips | 105 |
| Amid His lost creation, | |
| That of the lost no son should use | |
| Those words of desolation; | |
| That earth’s worst frenzies, marring hope, | |
| Should mar not hope’s fruition; | 110 |
| And I, on Cowper’s grave, should see | |
| His rapture, in a vision! | |
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