Chapter XXXV: Part IV: Love After Death

Cold the loiterer who refuseth
At the well of life to drink,
Till the wave a sparkle loseth,
And the silver cord a link.

But the flagging of the forces
In the journey of the soul,
If the first draught waste the sources,
If the first touch break the bowl!--

On the surface bright with pleasure
Still thy distant shade was cast;
Ah! the heart was where the treasure,
And the Present with the Past.

If from Fame, the all-deceiver,
Toil contending garlands sought,
Oft our force if but our fever,
And our swiftness flight from Thought.

Hollow Pleasure, vain Ambition,
Give me back the impulse free--
Hope that seem'd its own fruition,
Life contented but to be,

When the earth with Heaven was haunted
In the shepherd age of gold,
And the Venus rose enchanted
From the sunny seas of old.

Cease, not mine the ignoble moral
Of an unresisted grief;
Can the lightning sear the laurel,
Or the winter fade its leaf?

Flowerless, fruitless, to the dying,
Green as when the sap began,
Bolt and winter both defying,--
So be manhood unto man.

Once I wander'd forth dejected
In the later times of gloom;
And the icy moon reflected
_One_ still shadow o'er thy tomb.

There, in desolation kneeling,
Snows around me, stars above,
Came that second world of feeling,
Came that second birth of Love,

When regret grows aspiration,
When o'er chaos moves the breath;
And a new-born dim creation
Rising, wid'ning, dawns from death.

Then methought my soul was lifted
From the anguish and the strife;
With a finer vision gifted
For the Spirituals of Life;

For the links that, while they thrall us,
Upward mount in just degree,
Knitting even, if they gall us,
Life to Immortality;

For the subtler glories blending
With the common air we know,
Ansel hosts to heaven ascending
Up the ladder based below.

Straight each harsher iron duty
Did the sudden light illume;
Oh, what streams of solemn beauty
Take their sources in the tomb!