A mystic separation 'twixt those twain,—
The life beyond us and our souls in pain,—
We miss the prospect which we are called unto
By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong,
O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large windows pure from wrong;
That so, as life's appointment issueth,
Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
*
THE LOST PLEIAD.
Not in the sky,
Where it was seen,
Nor on the white tops of the glistening wave,
Nor in the mansions of the hidden deep,—
Though green,
And beautiful, its caves of mystery;—
Shall the bright watcher have
A place, and as of old high station keep.
Gone, gone!
Oh, never more to cheer
The mariner who holds his course alone
On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep,
Shall it appear,
With the sweet fixedness of certain light,
Down-shining on the shut eyes of the deep.
Vain, vain!
Hopeless most idly then, shall he look forth,
That mariner from his bark.
Howe'er the north
Does raise his certain lamp, when tempests lower—
He sees no more that perished light again!
And gloomier grows the hour
Which may not, through the thick and crowding dark,
Restore that lost and loved one to her tower.