This world is unto God a work of art,
Of which the unaccomplish'd heavenly plan
Is hid in life within the creature's heart,
And for perfection looketh unto man.
Ah me! those thousand ages: with what slow
Pains and persistence were his idols made,
Destroy'd and made, ere ever he could know
The mighty mother must be so obey'd.

For lack of knowledge and thro' little skill
His childish mimicry outwenThis aim;
His effort shaped the genius of his will;
Till thro' distinction and revolt he came,
True to his simple terms of good and ill,

Before eternity to time had shrunken,
The Friend [God] deep in his glorious self was sunken.
Around his charms a firm-bound girdle hovered:
No one the lonely path to him discovered.
A mirror held he to each wondrous feature,
But shared the vision's bliss with not a creature.
In cradling Naught's abyss alone he rocked him,
No playmate's face or gambols sportive mocked him.
Then rose He up—swift vanished all resistance—
And gave the boundless universe existence.
Now Beauty, sun-clear, from his right side beameth;

Try as you may, you will not forget me,
Because I was never attained and possessed.
Just as your arms were outstretched to enfold me,
Onward I fled, an incarnate Unrest.

Ever denied makes ever desiring,
Ever eluded makes ever pursued.
Still would the chase be on, but that I vanished:
Tired was the Will-o'-the-wisp whom you wooed.

Love and be loved; you will always remember
Mine was the magic that holds men in thrall.
All of you turn from the love that surrenders,
Sighing for that which gives nothing at all!

O LOVE Divine, that circlest all
Our little seas of strife,
So might I feel thy tender thrall
Upon my wayward life,

The restless tides of ocean creep
Into the sheltered bays,
Thy tides through all my being sweep
And fill its water-ways.

O Love Divine, pure sea of light
About a sea of sin,
Thy blessed radiance to-night
Folds all my darkness in,

And soothes to peace the unquiet shore
Where angry waves have lain,
And spreads a silver mantle o'er
The unsightly rocks of pain,

And stills the moaning of the storm

The Loves who many years held all my mind,
A charge so troublesome at last resign'd.
Among my books a feather here and there
Tells what the inmates of my study were.
Strong for no wrestle, ready for no race,
They only serve to mark the left-off place.
'Twas theirs to dip in the tempestuous waves,
'Twas theirs to loiter in cool summer caves;
But in the desert where no herb is green
Not one, the latest of the flight, is seen.

These meagre rhymes, which a returning mood
Sometimes o'errateth, I as oft despise;
And knowing them illnatured, stiff and rude,
See them as others with contemptuous eyes.
Nay, and I wonder less at God's respect
For man, a minim jot in time and space,
Than at the soaring faith of His elect,
That gift of gifts, the comfort of His grace.

O truth unsearchable, O heavenly love,
Most infinitely tender, so to touch
The work that we can meanly reckon of:
Surely—I say—we are favour'd overmuch.
But of this wonder, what doth most amaze

Since not the enamour'd sun with glance more fond
Kisses the foliage of his sacred tree,
Than doth my waking thought arise on thee,
Loving none near thee, like thee nor beyond;
Nay since I am sworn thy slave, and in the bond
Is writ my promise of eternity;
Since to such high hope thou'st encouraged me,
That if thou look but from me I despond;

Since thou'rt my all in all, O think of this:
Think of the dedication of my youth:
Think of my loyalty, my joy, my bliss:
Think of my sorrow, my despair and ruth,
My sheer annihilation if I miss:

Who takes the census of the living dead,
Ere the day come when memory shall o'ercrowd
The kingdom of their fame, and for that proud
And airy people find no room nor stead?
Ere hoarding Time, that ever thrusteth back
The fairest treasures of his ancient store,
Better with best confound, so he may pack
His greedy gatherings closer, more and more?

Let the true Muse rewrite her sullied page,
And purge her story of the men of hate,
That they go dirgeless down to Satan's rage
With all else foul, deform'd and miscreate:

O MY uncared-for songs, what are ye worth,
That in my secret book with so much care
I write you, this one here and that one there,
Marking the time and order of your birth?
How, with a fancy so unkind to mirth,
A sense so hard, a style so worn and bare,
Look ye for any welcome anywhere
From any shelf or heart-home on the earth?

Should others ask you this, say then I yearn'd
To write you such as once, when I was young,
Finding I should have loved and thereto turn'd.
'Twere something yet to live again among

The world comes not to an end: her city-hives
Swarm with the tokens of a changeless trade,
With rolling wheel, driver and flagging jade,
Rich men and beggars, children, priests and wives.
New homes on old are set, as lives on lives;
Invention with invention overlaid:
But still or tool or toy or book or blade
Shaped for the hand, that holds and toils and strives.

The men to-day toil as their fathers taught,
With little better'd means; for works depend
On works and overlap, and thought on thought:
And thro' all change the smiles of hope amend