Page:Songs, Legends, and Ballads.djvu/50

Not Dante-like, who cannot swim in death
And view its secrets, but must swiftly rise,—
They meet the light with introverted eyes.
And hands that clutch a few dim mysteries!

Our life a harp is, with unnumbered strings,
And tones and symphonies; but our poor skill
Some shallow notes from its great music brings.
We know it there; but vainly wdsh and will.

O, things symbolic! Things that mock our sense—
Our five-fold, pitiable sense—and say
A thousand senses could not show one day
As sight infinite sees it; fruitful clay,
And budding bough, and nature great with child
And chill with doom and death—is all so dense
That our dull thought can never read thy words,
Or sweep with knowing hand thy hidden chords?

Have men not fallen from fair heights, once trod
By nobler minds, who saw the works of God,