222. Spirit to Spirit

DEAD? Not to thee, thou keen watcher,—not silent, not viewless, to thee,

Immortal still wrapped in the mortal! I, from the mortal set free,

Greet thee by many clear tokens thou smilest to hear and to see.

For I, when thou wakest at dawn, to thee am the entering morn;

And I, when thou walkest abroad, am the dew on the leaf and the thorn,

The tremulous glow of the noon, the twilight on harvests of corn.

I am the flower by the wood-path,—thou bendest to look in my eyes;

The bird in its nest in the thicket,—thou heedest my love-laden cries;

The planet that leads the night legions,—thou liftest thy gaze to the skies.

And I am the soft-dropping rain, the snow with its fluttering swarms;

The summer-day cloud on the hilltops, that showeth thee manifold forms;

The wind from the south and the west, the voice that sings courage in storms!

Sweet was the earth to thee ever, but sweeter by far to thee now:

How hast thou room for tears, when all times marvelest thou,

Beholding who dwells with God in the blossoming sward and the bough!

Once as a wall were the mountains, once darkened between us the sea;

No longer these thwart and baffle, forbidding my passage to thee:

Immortal still wrapped in the mortal, I linger till thou art set free!