Chapter CXXXVII

When man sinks awed, watching a myriad globes,
How shrunk his purpose and his works appear!
All his achievement ne’er can weave such robes;
He can but gaze, despair confounds his fear:
Yet there’s a link that binds weak man to God,
And earth hath heavens as bright as all those stars;
Beauty, ever-living, need but inspire the sod,
And, lo! the substance of those golden cars.
Spirit of Beauty, quicken, purge my soul;
Raise it more near the substance of thy form;
Then, mounting gradual, I shall reach the goal,
Where individual life’s no longer warm;
Where Beauty in itself transpicuous shines,
And, universal, dazzles life’s dim mines.

CXXXVIII.

I cease, and bid farewell to who hath swayed,
This tribute’s mite of unmelodious verse;
With many a billow my bark’s idly play’d,
My thoughts enamoured but of thee, their hearse;
And think not, though life drags a tedious chain,
And all it offers, shows on trial nought,
Believe not, I will sorrow, or complain;
Hast thou not stored all summer in my thought?
And, watching the bright heavens, or the glad ocean,
I’ll think thou look’st, and they repeat thy smile;
Nor shall life’s utmost favour of commotion
Bid homage spurn my Sovereign from love’s isle:
To live in mortal’s mouths, be others’ aim;
To dwell within thy heart, my only claim.

HERTFORD:
PRINTED BY STEPHEN AUSTIN.