116
Orion.
[Book III.
So came thy love upon Orion's heart,
Oh life-awakening Queen of early light,
And the devotion he, at first, had deemed
All spiritual, now warmed, filled, attained
Entire vitality, and that highest state
Which every noblest faculty employs
With self-enjoyment and beneficence.
Oh life-awakening Queen of early light,
And the devotion he, at first, had deemed
All spiritual, now warmed, filled, attained
Entire vitality, and that highest state
Which every noblest faculty employs
With self-enjoyment and beneficence.
True happiness no idle course endures,
But by activity renews its strength,
Which else would fail, and happiness revolve
Within itself, still dwindling to the point
Where pain first stings. Far otherwise it fared
With thee, Orion. Watchful tow'rds the world
His eye oft turned. The pure realm where he dwelt
Absorbed not all his sympathies in itself,
Which yet sprang forth, and sighed o'er ills below;
Like one uplifted in abstraction's mood,
Who sits alone, and gazes in the fire,
Watching red ruins as they fall and change
To glorious fabrics,—which forthwith dissolve,
Or by some hideous conflict sink to nought,
While from a black mass issues tawny smoke,
Followed by a trumpet flame. War, and the waste,
But by activity renews its strength,
Which else would fail, and happiness revolve
Within itself, still dwindling to the point
Where pain first stings. Far otherwise it fared
With thee, Orion. Watchful tow'rds the world
His eye oft turned. The pure realm where he dwelt
Absorbed not all his sympathies in itself,
Which yet sprang forth, and sighed o'er ills below;
Like one uplifted in abstraction's mood,
Who sits alone, and gazes in the fire,
Watching red ruins as they fall and change
To glorious fabrics,—which forthwith dissolve,
Or by some hideous conflict sink to nought,
While from a black mass issues tawny smoke,
Followed by a trumpet flame. War, and the waste,
