Eden, lost to all but fancy,
Was it ever aught but legend
Handed down from sire to son,
As descriptive of the region,
Of the sunny haunts of love?
Famous garden where the passion,
Bursting first disclosed the morn
Whose effulgent, beaming glory
Cleft old Chaos, brain and spine;
Lit up incense burning shrine,
In the heart of man for Eve.
'Round that shrine the zeal of Adam,
Glowing like the flaming sword,
Soon forgot his peaceful Eden,
And the order of his lord;
Left the garden to its thistles,
And his Master to His wrath,
Bartered Eden for a woman,
Braved the fates to please his wife;
Took her from the lap of nature
Just as God had fashioned her,
In her rare bewitchery.
Ever since that fatal error,
Whether fact or mythic story,
From the ancient tomes of thought,
Brought by art through mystic glory,
They have journeyed, both astray,
Over many steeps of woe;
Through the fens and bogs of shame,
Fled from sorrow unto sorrow,
Sounding all the deeps of pain;
But never crossed, nor can again,
Eden in their pilgrimage.
Talked with God in burning bushes,
Held the seas till Isr'el passed;
Ate of manna fresh from heaven;
Took a town with trumpet blast;
Slept with lions, stood in fire;
And, in Prince of Bethlehem,
Had a God to mourn their dead,
And vivify the corpse again;
But ne'er since man squandered Eden
On the fancy of a maiden,
Has he found the land of bliss.
May be, after all, old Eden
Is wrapped within our meaner selves
Hid beneath our pride ard envy;
That the sword which us repels;
Is our secret wickedness:
Could we deftly lift the curtain
Which the cunning serpent draws,
Like the veil of night about us,
We would find that paradise,
Like a flower in winter, lies
'Neath the stubbles of our souls,
'So near and yet so far away',
For who has ever purged his heart,
Of all the guilt that in it lies,
Though the purging would impart
To him the bliss of paradise?
Who does not harbor in his breast
The fruitage of forbidden things
Culled from beauty's lips and heart,
And folded in between the leaves
Of memory's roll of reveries:
A charm, a hope, a dream!
Whether truth, fancy or legend
Is what allures our faith through fears,
Let us hope beyond the shadows
Of this wilderness of tears,
We shall reach the blest dominion
That so long has failed us here;
Where our friends will cease to doubt us,
Where our foes will learn to love;
Still let's hope to find the Eden
Whence we wandered with our maiden;
If not here, beyond the bourn.
Let us hope life's pilgrimage,
Has some other goal than Hell;
Hope that we may find the glory,
Whence the first degenerate fell;
Hope to foil the shafts of envy;
Hope to sooth the pangs of pain;
Hope to find our dead are living;
Hope to find our living dead
To the errors time is weaving;
To lip service and deceiving
Hope to conquer death at last.