Читать книгу Poems of Progress - Doten Lizzie - Страница 7

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“The bond which unites the human to the divine is Love, and Love is the longing of the Soul for Beauty; the inextinguishable desire which like feels for like, which the divinity within us feels for the divinity revealed to us in Beauty. Beauty is Truth.”—Plato.

I have come from the heart of all natural things,

Whose life from the Soul of the Beautiful springs;

You shall hear the sweet waving of corn in my voice,

And the musical whisper of leaves that rejoice,

For my lips have been touched by the spirit of prayer,

Which lingers unseen in the soft summer air;

And the smile of the sunshine that brightens the skies,

Hath left a glad ray of its light in my eyes.

On the sea-beaten shore—’mid the dwellings of men—

In the field, or the forest, or wild mountain glen;

Wherever the grass or a daisy could spring,

Or the musical laughter of childhood could ring;

Wherever a swallow could build ’neath the eaves,

Or a squirrel could hide in his covert of leaves,

I have felt the sweet presence, and heard the low call,

Of the Spirit of Nature, which quickens us all.

Grown weary and worn with the conflict of creeds,

I had sought a new faith for the soul with its needs,

When the love of the Beautiful guided my feet

Through a leafy arcade to a sylvan retreat,

Where the oriole sung in the branches above,

And the wild roses burned with their blushes of love,

And the purple-fringed aster, and bright golden-*rod,

Like jewels of beauty adorned the green sod.

O, how blesséd to feel from the care-laden heart

All the sorrows and woes that oppressed it depart,

And to lay the tired head, with its achings, to rest

On the heart of all others that loves it the best;

O, thus is it ever, when, wearied, we yearn

To the bosom of Nature and Truth to return,

And life blossoms forth into beauty anew,

As we learn to repose in the Simple and True.

No longer with self or with Nature at strife,

The soul feels the presence of Infinite Life;

And the voice of a child, or the hum of a bee—

The somnolent roll of the deep-heaving sea—

The mountains uprising in grandeur and might—

The stars that look forth from the depths of the night—

All speak in one language, persuasive and clear,

To him who in spirit is waiting to hear.

There is something in Nature beyond our control,

That is tenderly winning the love of each soul;

We shall linger no longer in darkness and doubt,

When the Beauty within meets the Beauty without.

Sweet Spirit of Nature! wherever thou art,

O, fold us like children, close, close to thy heart;

Till we learn that thy bosom is Truth’s hallowed shrine,

And the Soul of the Beautiful is—the Divine.