of wealth, and hapless circumstance,
And, sweeping on its own unaided wings,
Measures the circuit of the boundless sky?
What is thy wealth, that fadeth in the use,
And all the pomp and vanity it buys,
To the rich treasure of undying thought,
Encreasing evermore, till like a dower
It benizon humanity for aye?
All thy poor gold resolveth into dust
Before the test of such a scene as this:
Can it charm forth the blossom of a flower
Ere summer bids it with her gentle smile?
Can it restore the verdure to the leaf
When yellow Autumn marks it for her own?
Or, in the noontide bid the dew-shower rise
To fill one rosy chalice to the brim?
Go! gild thee with it, worldling, as thou wilt,
Yet all thy pains will leave thee but a fool!

Ay! there is love to beckon me away
And lead me to a fountain of delight,
Gliding before me in its purity,
Like some bright angel guiding souls to heaven.
O Love! have I not drained thee to the dregs,
Thy pleasures and thy sorrows equally;
Clinging unto thee as the Arab doth
To his low fountain in the wilderness?
Have I not gazed into thy tender eyes
And read the secret of thy holiness,
Cleansing my soul in humbleness and faith,
To shrine thee in thy fulness evermore?
Have I not clasped thee in my frenzied arms
And heard thy heart-beats answer back to mine,
Fainter and fainter till the deep voice stilled
In the eternal silence of the grave?
O be to me henceforth but some sweet dream
Illumining the sky of Memory:
A fixed star of everlasting light
To pilot me along the sea of life,
And keep the bearings of the spirit true.
Visit me in imagination's train,
The sweetest and the fairest child of Thought,
Till thro' my being, as thro' columned aisles
When incense from the altar upward wreaths,
There float the fragrance of thy breath divine.
Circle my soul in its far wanderings
Thro' spirit lands and empyrean heights,
Where though it sink in wide bewilderment,
Thou wilt enfold it in thy dewy arms,
And pillow it to strength and fearlessness!
Be to me like a heaven beyond all Time,
Dreamt of, and worshipped in this pilgrimage--
The habitation of all pure desire,
Solace of sorrow, and the home of rest,
Where I may lay me from life's troublous way,
And feel Eternity rise in my soul!
No, World! the cords that bound me unto thee
Are snapt in sunder ne'er to join again,
Thy voice is w