Joy for the promise of our loftier homes!
Joy for the promise of another birth!
For oft oppressive unto pain becomes
The riddle of the earth.
A weary weight it lay upon my youth
Ere I could tell of what I should complain
My very childhood was not free, in truth,
From something of that pain.
Hours of a dim despondency were there,
Like clouds that take its colour from the rose,
Which, knowing not the darkness of the air,
But its own sadness knows.
Youth grew in strength—to bear a stronger chain;
In knowledge grew—to know itself a slave;
And broke its narrower shells again, again,
To feel a wider grave.
What woe into the startled spirit sank
When first it knew the inaudible recall,—
When first in the illimitable blank
It touched the crystal wall!
Far spreads this mystery of death and sin,
Year beyond year in gloomy tumult rolls;
And day encircling day clasps closer in
Our solitary souls.
O for the time when in our seraph wings
We veil our brows before the Eternal Throne—
The day when drinking knowledge at its springs,
We know as we are known.