Poems (Trask)/Awakened

by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

AWAKENED.

There is a new-born glory in the skies!
The sunsets never showed such radiant dyes,
The stars ne'er shone with such bewildering eyes!
All things created are to beauty given,
And earth has borrowed the delights of heaven!

The birds and streams sing more melodious airs,
The wild old forest a new splendor wears:
All that I view with love my heart ensnares!
When the whole soul its full love-wealth is giving,
There is an ecstasy in simply living!

The atmosphere is full of rare, sweet stills,
A mystic something all the broad space fills;
The winds that touch me sweep the Eternal Hills;
And through the crimson clouds of mist that rise
I almost catch a glimpse of Paradise!

A life like this were fullest perfectness!
Heaven, to be heaven, must own no glory less,
Else would it lack in royal blessedness;
And even there, amid the waste of flowers,
Our longing hearts might turn to these charmed hours!

Beloved! it is a gracious thing to know
Thyself beloved! and more than all below
That love should cherished be; but ah, not so!
For a true woman, loving while she lives,
Loves not the love she takes, but that she gives!