The politics are base;

The letters do not cheer;

And ’tis far in the deeps of history,

The voice that speaketh clear.

Trade and the streets ensnare us,

Our bodies are weak and worn;

We plot and corrupt each other,

And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits

Some figure of noble guise, –

Our angel, in a stranger’s form,

Or woman’s pleading eyes;

Or only a flashing sunbeam

In at the window-pane;

Or Music pours on mortals

Its beautiful disdain.

The inevitable morning

Finds them who in cellars be;

And be sure the all-loving Nature

Will smile in a factory.

Yon ridge of purple landscape,

Yon sky between the walls,

Hold all the hidden wonders,

In scanty intervals.

Alas! the Sprite that haunts us

Deceives our rash desire;

It whispers of the glorious gods,

And leaves us in the mire.

We cannot learn the cipher

That’s writ upon our cell;

Stars help us by a mystery

Which we could never spell.

If but one hero knew it,

The world would blush in flame;

The sage, till he hit the secret,

Would hang his head for shame.

But our brothers have not read it,

Not one has found the key;

And henceforth we are comforted, –

We are but such as they.

Still, still the secret presses,

The nearing clouds draw down;

The crimson morning flames into

The fopperies of the town.

Within, without the idle earth,

Stars weave eternal rings;

The sun himself shines heartily,

And shares the joy he brings.

And what if Trade sow cities

Like shells along the shore,

And thatch with towns the prairie broad,

With railways ironed o’er? –

They are but sailing foam-bells

Along Thought’s causing stream,

And take their shape and sun-color

From him that sends the dream.

For Destiny does not like

To yield to men the helm;

And shoots his thought, by hidden nerves,

Throughout the solid realm.

The patient Dæmon sits,

With roses and a shroud;

He has his way, and deals his gifts, –

But ours is not allowed.

He is no churl nor trifler,

And his viceroy is none, –

Love-without-weakness, –

Of Genius sire and son.

And his will is not thwarted;

The seeds of land and sea

Are the atoms of his body bright,

And his behest obey.

He serveth the servant,

The brave he loves amain;

He kills the cripple and the sick,

And straight begins again.

For gods delight in gods,

And thrust the weak aside;

To him who scorns their charities,

Their arms fly open wide.

When the old world is sterile,

And the ages are effete,

He will from wrecks and sediment

The fairer world complete.

He forbids to despair;

His cheeks mantle with mirth;

And the unimagined good of men

Is yeaning at the birth.

Spring still makes spring in the mind,

When sixty years are told;

Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,

And we are never old.

Over the winter glaciers,

I see the summer glow,