O whither, whither dost thou fly? Where bend unseen thy trackless course? Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I? From whence thy essence came Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed Wait, like some spell-bound knight, Life! we have been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime Anna Letitia Barbauld [1743-1825] DYING HYMN EARTH, with its dark and dreadful ills, Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills; My soul is full of whispered song, My blindness is my sight; Are all alive with light. The while my pulses faintly beat, I feel grow firm beneath my feet I THINK it is over, over, I think it is over at last; Voices of foeman and lover, The sweet and the bitter, have passed: Life, like a tempest of ocean, Hath outblown its ultimate blast: There's but a faint sobbing seaward While the calm of the tide deepens leeward, I feel it is over! over! For the winds and the waters surcease; Which bides in the harbor at last,-. I know it is over, over, I know it is over at last! Down sail! the sheathed anchor uncover, For the stress of the voyage has passed: Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast: The heavenly harbor at last! Paul Hamilton Hayne [1830-1886] THE LAST INVOCATION AT the last, tenderly, From the walls of the powerful, fortressed house, From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors, Let me be wafted. Let me glide noiselessly forth; With the key of softness unlock the locks—with a whisper Set ope the doors, O soul! Tenderly-be not impatient! (Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh! Strong is your hold, O love!) Walt Whitman [1819-1892] "DAREST THOU NOW, O SOUL" DAREST thou now, O soul, Walk out with me toward the unknown region, Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow? No map there, nor guide, Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. I know it not, O soul, Waiting Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,— 3275 All waits undreamed of in that region, that inaccessible land. Till when the ties loosen, All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us. Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space, O soul! prepared for them, Equal, equipped at last (O joy! O fruit of all!), them to fulfill, O soul! Walt Whitman [1819-1892] WAITING SERENE, I fold my hands and wait, I stay my haste, I make delays, And what is mine shall know my face. Asleep, awake, by night or day, The friends I seek are seeking me; What matter if I stand alone? I wait with joy the coming years; The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder heights; So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delights. The stars come nightly to the sky; IN THE DARK ALL moveless stand the ancient cedar-trees A murky darkness lies along the sand, Where bright the sunbeams of the morning shone, No large, pale star its glimmering vigil keeps; And the dark river, like a serpent, creeps To where its black piers lie. Strange salty odors through the darkness steal, And through the dark, the ocean-thunders roll; Thick darkness gathers, stifling, till I feel Its weight upon my soul. I stretch my hands out in the empty air; Blackness of darkness!-Father, hear my prayer! George Arnold [1834-1865] LAST VERSES WHEN I beneath the cold red earth am sleeping, Will there for me be any bright eye weeping Will there be any heart still memory keeping |