Classic Poem

FIRST PART

1

Spark of Godhead! child
Of infinite desire,
Straining blind and wild
To one absorbing fire!

2

Sun of sy[s]tems! — child
Of infinite desire,
Stricken, edged, and filed,
To spout eternal fire!

3

Keen is thy ordeal!
Rising, throbbing, setting
Through a solemn peal
Learning and forgetting.

4

Thou art taught to feel,
Famine in thy feeding,
By each moment's meal
Languishing and bleeding.

SECOND PART

9

A doubtful Love distempered, —
A fretful, fevered ache, —
A Passion stung and pampered, —
A wrapt self hugging sake.

10

Thoroughly encompassed,
Ocean, Earth, and sky:
Thoroughly encompassed,
Head and heart and eye.

11

The winds about Thee voiceless
Tell neither joy nor woe
They bear Thee onward — choiceless
Onward Thou must go. —

THIRD PART

5

Tho' both to Thee are one —
The emptiness of space —
Moonless, without sun —
Formless without face —

6

Yet ever undivining —
Thou wilt not cease to crave,
Ever, ever pining,
From the heaving wave.

7

To the Light above Thee,
To the Dark beneath,
Something dear to love Thee
Be it Life or Death.

8

Wash'd Thou know'st not whither,
In Thy bounded brain,
Hither and still thither,
On the boundless main.

9

Heavy with Thy mission,
Ceasing not to droop,
Till upon Thy vision,
Dawns the darling Hope.

10

And the Picture, painted —
Meet Thine inner eye,
Of those figures saintid,
Known beneath the sky.

11

Then no longer voiceless —
Chanting winds are heard —
Thou wert never choiceless,
Young immortal bird!!