  Ruler and hero, shining in the west With great bright eye, Rain down thy luminous arrows in this breast With influence calm and high, And speak to me of many things gone by. Rememberest thou—'tis years since, wandering star— Those eves in June, When thou hung'st quivering o'er the tree-tops far, Where, with discordant tune, Many-tongued rooks hailed the red-rising moon? Some watched thee then with human eyes like mine, Whose boundless gaze May now pierce on from orb to orb divine Up to the Triune blaze Of glory—nor be dazzled by its rays. All things they know, whose wisdom seemed obscure; They, sometime blamed, Hold our best purities as things impure: Their star-glance downward aimed, Makes our most lamp-like deeds grow pale and shamed. Their star-glance?—What if through those rays there gleam Immortal eyes Down to this dark? What if these thoughts, that seem Unbidden to arise, Be souls with my soul talking from the skies? I know not. Yet awhile, and I shall know!— Thou, to thy place Slow journeying back, there startlingly to shew Thy orb in liquid space, Like a familiar death-lost angel face— O planet! thou hast blotted out whole years Of life's dull round; The Abel-voice of heart's-blood and of tears Sinks dumb into the ground, And the green grass waves on with lulling sound. |
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