Page:Zinzendorff and Other Poems.pdf/299

                Yea, thou didst find the link
That joins mute Nature to ethereal mind,
And make that link a melody.
                                                The couch
Of thy last sleep, was in the native clime
Of song and eloquence and ardent soul,
Spot fitly chosen for thee. Perchance, that isle
So lov'd of favoring skies, yet bann'd by fate,
Might shadow forth thine own unspoken lot.
For at thy heart, the ever-pointed thorn
Did gird itself, until the life-stream ooz'd
In gushes of such deep and thrilling song,
That angels poising on some silver cloud
Might linger 'mid the errands of the skies,
And listen, all unblam'd.
                                           How tenderly
Doth Nature draw her curtain round thy rest,
And like a nurse, with finger on her lip,
Watch lest some step disturb thee, striving still
From other touch, thy sacred harp to guard.
Waits she thy waking, as the Mother waits
For some pale babe, whose spirit sleep hath stolen
And laid it dreaming on the lap of Heaven?
We say not thou art dead. We dare not. No.
For every mountain stream and shadowy dell
Where thy rich harpings linger, would hurl back
The falsehood on our souls. Thou spak'st alike
The simple language of the freckled flower,
And of the glorious stars. God taught it thee.
And from thy living intercourse with man
Thou shalt not pass away, until this earth
Drops her last gem into the doom's-day flame.