Poems (Whitney)/Continence
SONNETS.
CONTINENCE.
I pledge you in a cup not overbrimming.
Though heirs to all, God knows our weak hearts best,
And tempts us gently from our downy nest,
To the wide air. Yon fresh horizon, dimming,
And tempering to our thought, the abysses gleaming
Beyond; eternity's severe, pure light
Soft prismed by time; and love, the infinite,
Through human founts intelligibly streaming,
Teach us that heaven withholdeth but to fill:
Grasping thou would'st lose all. Wait then and see,
In the old press of duty steadfast still,
How comes the unexpected god to thee;
How the wild Future, that now mocks thy clasp,
Lies trembling in the Present's nervous grasp.
Though heirs to all, God knows our weak hearts best,
And tempts us gently from our downy nest,
To the wide air. Yon fresh horizon, dimming,
And tempering to our thought, the abysses gleaming
Beyond; eternity's severe, pure light
Soft prismed by time; and love, the infinite,
Through human founts intelligibly streaming,
Teach us that heaven withholdeth but to fill:
Grasping thou would'st lose all. Wait then and see,
In the old press of duty steadfast still,
How comes the unexpected god to thee;
How the wild Future, that now mocks thy clasp,
Lies trembling in the Present's nervous grasp.