Ode to Heaven
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT:Palace-roof of cloudless nights!Paradise of golden lights!Deep, immeasurable, vast,Which art now, and which wert thenOf the Present and the Past,Of the eternal Where and When,Presence-chamber, temple, home,Ever-canopying dome,Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee,Earth, and all earth's company;Living globes which ever throngThy deep chasms and wildernesses;And green worlds that glide along;And swift stars with flashing tresses;And icy moons most cold and bright,And mighty suns beyond the night,Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god,Heaven! for thou art the abodeOf that Power which is the glassWherein man his nature sees.Generations as they passWorship thee with bended knees.Their unremaining gods and theyLike a river roll away:Thou remainest such--alway!--
SECOND SPIRIT:Thou art but the mind's first chamber,Round which its young fancies clamber,Like weak insects in a cave,Lighted up by stalactites;But the portal of the grave,Where a world of new delightsWill make thy best glories seemBut a dim and noonday gleamFrom the shadow of a dream!
THIRD SPIRIT:Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scornAt your presumption, atom-born!What is Heaven? and what are yeWho its brief expanse inherit?What are suns and spheres which fleeWith the instinct of that SpiritOf which ye are but a part?Drops which Nature's mighty heartDrives through thinnest veins! Depart!
What is Heaven? a globe of dew,Filling in the morning newSome eyed flower whose young leaves wakenOn an unimagined world:Constellated suns unshaken,Orbits measureless, are furledIn that frail and fading sphere,With ten millions gathered there,To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
Sign in to like, rate and collect poems, and keep track of what you've read.