.... Quis prodere tanta relatu
.... possit?
—Claudian.
There is a voice that never stirs the lips,—
Felt, but not heard; that vibrates through the soul,—
A solemn music; but no human speech
Can give that music to the ambient air.
The noblest poem poet ever wrote;
The brightest picture artist ever drew;
The loftiest music lyrist ever sung;
The gentlest accents woman ever spoke,—
Are paraphrases of a felt original,
That lip, or pen, or pencil, cannot show
Unto the seeing eye or listening ear.
The thoughts we utter are but half themselves.
The poet knows this well. The artist knows
His hands bear not the burden of his thoughts
Upon the canvas. The musician knows
His soul must ever perish on his lips.
Even the eye,—“the window of the soul,”—
Though it may shed a light a little way,
Gives but a glimpse of that which burns within.
The sweet, unconscious tenderness of flowers;
The boundless awe of star-encircled night;
The tear that trickles down an old man’s cheek;
Ocean’s loud pulse, that makes our own beat high;
The vocal throb of a great multitude;
The pause when we have heard and said “Farewell,”
And feel the pressure of a hand that’s gone;
The thought that we have wronged our truest friend,
When he is sleeping in the arms of Death;
The silent, fathomless anguish that engulfs
Him who has found the precious power to love,
And sees that all he loves is torn from him;
His dying moments who is void of hope;
Jezebel; Nero; Judas; any one
Of all the hideous things that crawled through life
In human form;—what mortal could express
All that he feels in one or all of these,
Giving the very image of his thought?
Life, Death, Hell, Judgment, Resurrection, GOD—
Who can express their meaning? Who can bound
Awe that is infinite in finite words?
Thus much of us must ever be concealed—
Spite of the high ambition to be born
Of what is noblest in us,—till His breath
Who woke the morning stars to sing their song,
Awakes our souls to fuller utterance.