Classic Poem

XV

I closed my eyes to fix the living vision I had raised;
Faces that were familiar lights again upon me gazed;
I heard their words, dream-music, by wind wakened, when it flings
Its spirit-thrilling touches on the harp's electric strings.

XVI

The thistle that waved by me broke that dream of shadows; I
Alone stood on the heath before the wind and open sky:
The past receded, cloud-like, o'er youth's far horizon seen;
I stood within the present, and yearned back to what had been.

XVII

Where are they now, those forms and faces, shadows still endeared,
Those ardent hearts that beat like mine, that hoped, aspired, or feared?
Or dead, or living, changed, transfused through other being, they
Are creatures of another world whose mould has passed away!

XVIII

Almighty Nature! take again thy child unto thy breast;
Let me again return to thee, by weight of life oppressed;
Before thy awful countenance repress each earthlier thought;
Again before thy altar bowed, and nearer Godhead brought.

XIX

Give back to me while breathing here for moments all the love
I had for thee, the faith, the feeling gathered from above,
When, childlike, I looked up to heaven and in the depths of air
I deemed I saw thy dwelling-place, that Thou wert present there.

XX

O let me be the thing I was, the pure and free once more,
The creature of the Maker, not to question, but adore;
When life and love alone were mine, the faith and hope elate,
The ashes of the knowledge-tree rejected, but too late.

XXI

O lonely Pilgrim! thou dost stand before a sacred shrine,
Thy altar-place of opening youth and grave; and is it thine,
This altered form, this blanching hair and cheek, say! can it be
This grey-haired thoughtful man is all that now remains of thee?