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October, 1858
ERRATIC Soul of some great Purpose, doomed | |
| To track the wild illimitable space, | |
| Till sure propitiation has been made | |
| For the divine commission unperformed! | |
| What was thy crime? Ahasuerus’ curse | 5 |
| Were not more stern on earth than thine in heaven! | |
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| Art thou the Spirit of some Angel World, | |
| For grave rebellion banished from thy peers, | |
| Compelled to watch the calm, immortal stars | |
| Circling in rapture the celestial void, | 10 |
| While the avenger follows in thy train | |
| To spur thee on to wretchedness eterne? | |
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| Or one of Nature’s wildest fantasies, | |
| From which she flies in terror so profound, | |
| And with such whirl of torment in her breast, | 15 |
| That mighty earthquakes yawn where’er she treads | |
| While War makes red its terrible right hand, | |
| And Famine stalks abroad all lean and wan? | |
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| To us thou art as exquisitely fair | |
| As the ideal visions of the seer, | 20 |
| Or gentlest fancy that e’er floated down | |
| Imagination’s bright, unruffled stream, | |
| Wedding the thought that was too deep for words | |
| To the low breathings of inspirèd song. | |
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| When the stars sang together o’er the birth | 25 |
| Of the poor Babe at Bethlehem, that lay | |
| In the coarse manger at the crowded Inn, | |
| Didst thou, perhaps a bright exalted star, | |
| Refuse to swell the grand, harmonious lay, | |
| Jealous as Herod of the birth divine? | 30 |
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| Or when the crown of thorns on Calvary | |
| Pierced the Redeemer’s brow, didst thou disdain | |
| To weep, when all the planetary worlds | |
| Were blinded by the fulness of their tears? | |
| E’en to the flaming sun, that hid his face | 35 |
| At the loud cry, “Lama Sabachthani!” | |
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| No rest! No rest! the very damned have that | |
| In the dark councils of remotest Hell, | |
| Where the dread scheme was perfected that sealed | |
| Thy disobedience and accruing doom. | 40 |
| Like Adam’s sons, hast thou, too, forfeited | |
| The blest repose that never pillowed Sin? | |
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| No! none can tell thy fate, thou wandering Sphinx! | |
| Pale Science, searching by the midnight lamp | |
| Through the vexed mazes of the human brain, | 45 |
| Still fails to read the secret of its soul | |
| As the superb enigma flashes by, | |
| A loosed Prometheus burning with disdain. | |
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