Imagens da página
PDF
ePub

O whither, whither dost thou fly?

Where bend unseen thy trackless course?
And in this strange divorce,

Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I?
To the vast ocean of empyreal flame

From whence thy essence came

Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base encumbering weed?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,

Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be?
O say, what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee?

Life! we have been long together,

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;—
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;

Say not Good-night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good-morning!

Anna Letitia Barbauld [1743-1825]

DYING HYMN

EARTH, with its dark and dreadful ills,
Recedes, and fades away;

Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills;
Ye gates of death, give way!

My soul is full of whispered song,

My blindness is my sight;
The shadows that I feared so long

Are all alive with light.

The while my pulses faintly beat,
My faith doth so abound,

I feel grow firm beneath my feet
The green immortal ground.

[blocks in formation]

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,
And behold! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses throbbed through the river,
Those lights in the harbor at last,
The heavenly harbor at last!

I feel it is over! over!

For the winds and the waters surcease;
Ah, few were the days of the rover
That smiled in the beauty of peace!
And distant and dim was the omen
That hinted redress or release:-
From the ravage of life, and its riot,
What marvel I yearn for the quiet

Which bides in the harbor at last,-.
For the lights, with their welcoming quiver,
That throb through the sanctified river,
Which girdle the harbor at last,
This heavenly 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:
Life, like a tempest of ocean,

Hath outbreathed its ultimate blast:
There's but a faint sobbing to seaward,
While the calm of the tide deepens leeward;
And behold! like the welcoming quiver
Of heart-pulses throbbed through the river,
Those lights in the harbor at last,

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,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more 'gainst time or fate,
For, lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,

And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day,

The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?

I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.

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;
The tidal wave comes to the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
John Burroughs [1837-

IN THE DARK

ALL moveless stand the ancient cedar-trees
Along the drifted sand-hills where they grow;
And from the dark west comes a wandering breeze,
And waves them to and fro.

A murky darkness lies along the sand,

Where bright the sunbeams of the morning shone,
And the eye vainly seeks, by sea and land,
Some light to rest upon.

No large, pale star its glimmering vigil keeps;
An inky sea reflects an inky sky;

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;
I strain my eyes into the heavy night;

Blackness of darkness!-Father, hear my prayer!
Grant me to see the light!

George Arnold [1834-1865]

LAST VERSES

WHEN I beneath the cold red earth am sleeping,
Life's fever o'er,

Will there for me be any bright eye weeping
That I'm no more?

Will there be any heart still memory keeping
Of heretofore?

« AnteriorContinuar »