Hence, ye profane! Rapt in the Spirit, lo,
My mind dwells in its own eternity,
Beholds life's source and aim, its ebb and flow;
I am become a Seër, and am free
To speak. Now listen. Know, that Mind it is
Creates the light whereby the Eye doth see,
And the night cometh, be the mind remiss
Or absent; nor is then its orb the Eye,
More than its ruins are Persepolis.
No Sun is here to measure o'er the sky
Day; Moon nor Stars, to rule the night, or tell Of seasons: here is no variety
Of Time, nor Time himself.
Of my own being a pure sphere of light
I can project, and shape and syllable
With Form and Name; or on the darkness drear,
E'en as the eye of Childhood doth, create
Pictures and friezes indistinct or clear.
These may poetic fancy aggregate
In her own time and space, eath as the sense
Of Euclid could construct and demonstrate
Ideas, as his own intelligence
Perfect and pure, by power of his own mind,
Shaped by its prescript, and proceeding thence.
What I behold, no poet hath combined,
Nor skill of cunning painter could pourtray-
Path the Soul travels to her place assigned.
Adown that unimaginable way,
Him I perceived of whom I spake erewhile,
Present and vanished ere that I could say,
"Behold!" The dying Saint, with a calm smile,
So, the same instant, leaves this world beneath,
And reaches th' other, passing no defile,
Of toil or travel; with his farewell breath,
Smoothly transported to a blessed goal:
Of Past or Future no account with Death.
All indivisible as his own Soul,
Eternity broods o'er the Infinite,
Time has no lapse and Space is one and whole.
Therefore it was, his transit on my sight
Glanced and was gone, returning through the void
To his far home, a disembodied sprite.
Upon what errand came he? Self-employed?
Or sent? revisiting the quaking earth,
Then trembling as about to be destroyed.
What name of old bare he? where was his birth?
Who knows not Amos' son? The Prophet wept
Of Israel's doom the darkness and the dearth,
And saw, (i'th' year that King Uzziah slept,)
The Lord upon his Throne, and with his train
The temple filled, where his high state he kept.
The six-winged Seraphim o'ercrowned the fane,
With twain they clad their face, with twain their feet,
And flew, a volant canopy, with twain.
His lips with live coal from the Altar's seat
Were touched, and he foretold the Virgin's seed,
What keystone should Creation's arch complete.
And now in Paradise, with holy heed,
Rumour of that event was heard; for there
John, as on earth, Messiah did precede,
And the glad Prisoners of Hope prepare
For his great coming, to lead captive thence
Captivity in triumph through the air.
And now Hell quakes with the intelligence
Of what was done on Earth; and all the Saints
And Seërs old thrilled with desire intense,
Wherewith inspired, and quit from all restraints By grace divine, with eagerness upborne,
Love that fears not, and Faith that never faints,
Isaiah, swifter than the wings of morn,
Bare confirmation of the glorious news,
To comfort all who dwell in that sojourn.
Place visited yet never by the Muse,
Profane or sacred, in her voyages;
Nor wonder, though adventurous, she refuse,
A chasm so deep, a gulf so bottomless,
To plunge down thither; or discern it not,
So well-concealed in such remote recess;
An obscure and unfathomable spot,
There where the spirits of men repose apart,
In expectation of their final lot;
The womb of Nature, and of Earth the Heart.
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.
SAY, have the Gates of Death been oped to thee?
The portals of his Shadow hast thou seen
Within the Valley of his Mystery?
Beyond that boundless gulph they stand between
The bottomless chasm, the abyss ineffable,
And those far gardens of perpetual green;
Gardens of hope where happy spirits dwell,
And that dark bourn of terror where the bad
Pine in their prison, expectant of worse hell.
Lo, there the Gate of Paradise makes glad
The mighty desert with its golden face;
Thereat a shadow, pensive but not sad,
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