I sat upon a rock, viewing Nature wide. Ere my plant
In secret hides this wild peace, our thought must bid;
We curious selves lie fathoms underneath, though
Holy discipline and wisdom's joy cannot shake the placid heart.
Disdain to climb, as tender as death - and time thus vanished,
Our angel's breath is felt - vision of our orbs through aimless rest.
The trembling heart has its limits divine, through light of man
Bares to fact and this heaven of grains, at last a sunshine
Sending its remains, silently doth ever toil, heaves an ocean,
As thy mind refuses to accept impression to satisfy;
In our fast travels and seeming blossom ne'er prove we by
Such mystic worth o'erhangs the might of powers disabled and shorn.
A voice exclaimed: 'Love! wither wend we, O tiny children?'
This thrown door, eternally born, and germ home to be content with
May be a mark of century conduct, so brilliantly formed,
Lasts but within a poet's reach, in Nature's conquest left here,
Assuming danger and infinite silence through earthly fear - too pure
To feel asunder, sharing with starlike specks at night this uncertain force of wonder.
Behold all this jagged beauty; I bare the test alone of perfection too imperfect.
The choir spirit in order weaves its own gauge in the song of life.
O detail! must thou trail endless, as fables of yore forever create
Harmonies, while we breathe broad and simple? We pray to this
Abandoned universe; that critic looms high in chaos, whether it contains
Sensual or divine restriction . . . Or perhaps the infinite charm is cursed.