"To vision profounder, At no goal will arrive ; The heavens that now draw him With sweetness untold, Once found, for new heavens He spurneth the old. “Pride ruined the angels, Their shame them restores; Who is noble and free? I would he were nobler "Eterne alternation Now follows, now flies; Under pleasure, pain lies. Heart-heaving alway; "Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits; Thy sight is growing blear; Rue, myrrh and cummin for the Sphinx, Her muddy eyes to clear!" The old Sphinx bit her thick lip, Said, "Who taught thee me to name? I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow, "Thou art the unanswered question; Couldst see thy proper eye, Alway it asketh, asketh; And each answer is a lie. So take thy quest through nature, It through thousand natures ply: Ask on, thou clothed eternity; Time is the false reply." Uprose the merry Sphinx, And crouched no more in stone; She melted into purple cloud, She silvered in the moon ; She spired into a yellow flame; She flowered in blossoms red; She flowed into a foaming wave; She stood Monadnoc's head. Thorough a thousand voices EACH AND ALL. LITTLE thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown Stops his horse, and lists with delight, Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height; Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, I brought him home, in his nest, at even; I fetched my sea-born treasures home; But the poor, unsightly, noisome things Had left their beauty on the shore With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar. The lover watched his graceful maid, As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, Nor knew her beauty's best attire Was woven still by the snow-white choir. At last she came to his hermitage, Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage; The gay enchantment was undone, A gentle wife, but fairy none. Then I said, 'I covet truth; Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth:'. As I spoke, beneath my feet The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, I inhaled the violet's breath; Around me stood the oaks and firs; Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground; Over me soared the eternal sky, Full of light and of deity; Again I saw, again I heard, The rolling river, the morning bird;- THE PROBLEM. I LIKE a church; I like a cowl; Why should the vest on him allure, Not from a vain or shallow thought The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled Like the volcano's tongue of flame, The hand that rounded Peter's dome Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew. Know'st thou what wove yon wood bird's nest |