The quest of beauty, and the keen desire
To hold her captive and to gain her throne,
Long time had tilled me with a quenchless fire
To make her sweet perfections all mine own.
Long did I dream, by beauty's spell beguiled;
I saw the substance and satiety
Of all completeness, wholly reconciled
By nature's king, in nature's harmony:
I deemed that he who drinks the draught of song,
Sung by the woods and waves and hills untrod,
And sings in tune thereto, to him belong
The things of beauty, and of beauty's God.
The like is he who makes the marble live,
The poet, and the painter, and the child
Who loves the lowly daisies, and would grieve
To bruise one sylvan sister of the wild:
But when I knew the wonders I admired-
Are phantoms all, imperfect and unblest—
That beauty's self, that all my soul desired,
Evasive soars above my vain request In heaven's high palaces—I fain would wing
Thither my thoughtful flight, for I would know
Beauty's immortal harmony to sing,
And hear her rhythmic ocean throb and flow
In utterance all sweet-toned, and there partake
Of her sweet presence, and the breaths inhale
Of lotus, hourly culled for her sweet sake
With love's anemone, beneath the Pleiads pale.
The stars, the poetry of heaven, reveal
A wealth of beauty, wonderful beyond
The wings of earthly thought—and' yet I feel
The foolishness of him who would despond!
Are they not fashioned of the self -same Mind
That forms the roses? and the tale they tell
Is it not wafted on the odorous wind
From bird to joyful bird, from blade to bell?
Beauty of earth, or song of star sublime
Are echo or reflection incomplete
Of God's great thought upon the thought of time—
Perfection's unsubstantial counterfeit.
O fable false, and faithless, heartless dream!
O deep deception of a beauteous earth!
O base presentment of a glorious theme,
That in high heaven attains a glorious birth!
What can they teach me? They can lead me higher
To bow in praiseful wonderment apart
To Him, the source of every pure desire—
To beauty's Lord to lift my tuneful heart:
To heed His call, to take His impartation
Of life and truth, of love and loveliness,
To be a child of His divine creation,
To right the wrongful, and to stay distress:
And when I see the beautiful, to know
How glorious is His light, if this be but the glow.
