To Thomas Hempstead
Thy lay-a sweet sung bridal hymn,
Wedding the Old year to the New,
'Mid starry buds, and silver dew,
And brooks, and birds in woodlands dim-

That touched the hidden veins of thought
With the electric force of strife,
Thrilled the dumb marble of my life
Unto a perfect beauty wrought.

And straight, unclasping from my brow
The thorny crown of lost delight,
The solemn grandeur of the night
Flashed on me from old years, as now.

The budding of my days is past!
And May sits weeping in the shade
The weeds on April's grave have made,
Blown slantwise in the sobbing blast.

Ah me! but in the Poet's heart
Some pools of troubled water lie!
The hidden founts of agony,
That keep the better springs apart.

What comfort is there in the Earth!
What height, or depth, where we may hide
Our life long anguish, and abide
The ripening unto newer birth!

But Poet, in thy song is power
To lift the flood gates of my woe,
And bid its solemn surging flow
Far from the triumph of this hour.

Yea, rising from life's evil things,
My soul, long blinded from the light,
Starlit across the purple night
Sweeps the red lightning of her wings!

I will be free! there is a strength
In the full blowing of our youth
To climb the rosied hills of truth
From the dry desert's burning length.

From far a voice shouts to my fate
As shout the choiring Angels, when
The fiery cross of suffering men
Falls broken at the narrow gate!

Be brave! be noble, and sublime
Thyself unto a higher aim-
Keeping thy nature white of blame
In all the dreary walks of time!

Oh musty creeds in mouldy books!
Blind teachers of the blind are ye-
A plainer wisdom talks with me
In God's full psalmody of brooks.

The rustling of a leaf hath force
To wake the currents of my blood,
That sweep, a wild Niagara-flood,
Hurled headlong in its fiery course.

The moaning of the wind hath power
To stir the anthem of my soul,
Unto a mightier thunder roll
Than ever shook a triumph hour.

Betwixt the gorgeous twilight bars
Rare truths flow from melodious lips-
God's all-sublime Apocalypse-
His awful poem writ in stars!

Each ray that spends its burning might
In the alembic of the morn,
Is, in the Triune splendors, born
Of the great uncreated light!

To me the meanest creeping thing
Speaks with a loud Evangel tongue,
Of the far climes forever young
In His all-glorious blossoming.

And thus, oh Poet! hath thy lay-
Woven of brightest buds and flowers
Blowing, in breezy South-land bowers,
Against the blushing face of May-

A passion, and a power, that thrills
My hidden nature unto strife,
To battle bravely, for the life
Across the dim Eternal hills!