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| MY friend conceived the soul hereafter dwells | |
| In any heaven the inmost heart desires, | |
| The heart, which craves delight, at pain rebels, | |
| And balks, or obeys the soul till life expires. | |
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| He deem’d that all the eternal Force contrives | 5 |
| Is wrought to revigorate its own control, | |
| And that its alchemy some strength derives | |
| From every tested and unflagging soul. | |
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| He deem’d a spirit which avails to guide | |
| A human heart, gives proof of energy | 10 |
| To be received in That which never bides, | |
| But ever toils for what can never be— | |
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| A perfect All—toward which the Eternal strives | |
| To urge for ever every atom’s range, | |
| The Ideal, which never unto Form arrives, | 15 |
| Because new concept emanates from change. | |
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| He deem’d the inmost heart is what aligns | |
| Man’s aspiration, noble or impure, | |
| And that immortal Tolerance assigns | |
| Each soul what Aspiration would secure. | 20 |
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| And if it choose what highest souls would rue— | |
| Some endless round of mortal joys inane— | |
| Such fate befits what souls could not subdue | |
| The heart’s poor shrinking from the chrism of pain. * * * * * | |
| My friend review’d, nigh death, how staunch the soul | 25 |
| Had waged in him a conflict, never done, | |
| To rule the dual self that fought control, | |
| Spirit and flesh inextricably one. | |
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| His passionless judgement ponder’d well the past, | |
| Patient, relentless, ere he spoke sincere,— | 30 |
| ‘Through all the strife my soul prevail’d at last, | |
| It rules my inmost heart’s desire here; | |
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| ‘My Will craves not some paradise of zest | |
| Where mortal joys eternally renew, | |
| Nor blank nirvana, nor elysian rest, | 35 |
| Nor palaced pomp to bombast fancy true; | |
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| ‘It yearns no whit to swell some choiring strain | |
| In endless amplitudes of useless praise; | |
| It dares to aspire to share the immortal pain | |
| Of toil in moulding Form from phase to phase. | 40 |
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| ‘To me, of old, such fate some terror bore, | |
| But now great gladness in my spirit glows, | |
| While death clings round me friendlier than before, | |
| To loose the soul that mounts beyond repose.’ * * * * * | |
| Yet, at the end, from seeming death he stirr’d | 45 |
| As one whose sleep is broke by sudden shine, | |
| And whisper’d Christ, as if the soul had heard | |
| Tidings of some exceeding sweet design. | |
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