"Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels:
Its wings are almost free--its home, its harbour found, Measuring the gulph, it stoops and dares the final bound, "Oh I dreadful is the check--intense the agony--
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again;The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.
"Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine, If it but herald death, the vision is divine!"
She ceased to speak, and we, unanswering, turned to go--
We had no further power to work the captive woe:
Her cheek, her gleaming eye, declared that man had given A sentence, unapproved, and overruled by Heaven.
HOPE.
Hope Was but a timid friend;She sat without the grated den, Watching how my fate would tend, Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;Through the bars one dreary day, I looked out to see her there, And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping, Still, in strife, she whispered peace;She would sing while I was weeping;If I listened, she would cease.
False she was, and unrelenting;When my last joys strewed the ground, Even Sorrow saw, repenting, Those sad relics scattered round;Hope, whose whisper would have given Balm to all my frenzied pain, Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven, Went, and ne'er returned again!
A DAY DREAM.
On a sunny brae alone I lay One summer afternoon;It was the marriage-time of May, With her young lover, June.
From her mother's heart seemed loath to part That queen of bridal charms, But her father smiled on the fairest child He ever held in his arms.
The trees did wave their plumy crests, The glad birds carolled clear;And I, of all the wedding guests, Was only sullen there!