LXXVI.

Immortal Spirits! animating still

Our mortal beings with your words, oh! what, What are ye now? where is that stoic will That, with a brow sedate, rose o'er your lot, And triumphed, wherefore?-to be unforgot; But was this all? stern Cato! didst thou die, For this, great Tully! was thy mind o'erwrought? Thy ardent spirit could this satisfy? The limit of thy hopes man's immortality?

LXXVII.

Had ye no nobler goal or aim than this?
This, and the self-reward of your great hearts?
For this, did ye abandon happiness,

Baring your breasts, defencelessly, to darts,

Where Duty scarce sufficing balm imparts,

Till, fainting thus, ye sank before your time?
No!-on Earth's stage when played your mortal parts,
Ye looked beyond shouts, annals, stone, or rhyme,

For some immortal place to prove your souls sublime.

LXXVIII.

Smile not upon me, Sadducee! I stand

A ruin among ruins: I see rise

Grey wrecks left lonely on the desert sand:

The very toys of those whose mental eyes
Looked for eternity beyond the skies;

These, their reared playthings, to amuse the crowd; See, how survive the things they could despise! Where are their ruins, where their dust?—what shroud Holds them dispersed abroad, in wind, flower, wave, or

cloud?

LXXIX.

They are a part of Nature's loveliness,

The feeling and the love which wakes our own,
When, while in blessing her, ourselves we bless;
But whither hath the mind immortal flown
When hurled by Death exulting from its throne ?
Did that sink torpid in the dull cold sod?
That which so proudly soared from dust alone!
Which in Fame's, Virtue's path aspiring trod:

Which pierced the heaven of heavens, and found the nameless God.

LXXX.

Ineffable of name-thou All in All!

Power omnipresent! thou, whose chiefest shrine

Is in our heart of hearts, where we recal

Too darkly, Thee-but feel its life is thine;

Thou, in whose eye, stars dim as sand-grains shine,

To whom earth's base is stubble; here I raise
Myself in thought, while lowly I incline;—
The skeleton fragments of departed days

Lie mouldering at my feet-but in thy heaven I gaze;

LXXXI.

Till my mind dwelling on immortal things,

Assumes their nature, and with vision clear,

Looking beyond its vain imaginings,

Holds commune with the Spirit breathing here,
With awe and reverence unallied to fear;
Doubt ye its influence? ye feel it not;

Unseen, perchance unfelt, but ever near;
Which breathes severe religion round the spot,
And ratifies the hope the aspiring spirit sought.

LXXXII.

Attest with me, truths felt since time began,
By hope, faith, reason, love, and nature told:
The heaven-stamped immortality of man!
Change, and decay, and ruin I behold;

But the clear page within me I unfold,

And read the inspirations of my heart!

There, the same characters for ever hold,

The yearnings which have still been poured apart;

The hope, the faith in thee "Our Father!" as thou art.

LXXXIII.

What? shall the blossom of the mind upreared,

And with such infinite toil-developing

Its plastic energies, be, flower-like, seared,

Withering in age, or dying in its spring,
Whose growth transcended Hope's imagining?

Shall the hived wealth of ages with it die?

Did it for this aside its fetters fling,

And fondly dream of immortality?

Of prophecies, and faith that bound it to the sky ?—

LXXXIV.

Shall the lights that o'er ages shed their ray
Be quenched in darkness? shall the cup of bliss,
Reared to the untasting lips, be dashed away?
Shall the world's millions who have lived in this
Sole hope, fond faith, a future happiness,

Be mocked by dreams? Were they, indeed, but given

To make life's infinite of ills seem less?

Shall disease end thus-chains, and ties be riven?

All buried in the grave-for ever shut from Heaven?

LXXXV.

Yet once again-shall those we loved the dearest,

The fondest, best, return to us no more?

Those hovering spirits that are ever nearest

In dreams, when, waking, our full eyes gush o'er: When they departed for the untrodden shore, Was their farewell to us eternal ?—No!

Why yearn we toward each star, or why deplore

What we shall never see? save that we know

Love there will re-unite the hearts that loved below!

M