I.--Life

SUFFERING! and yet majestical in pain;
Mysterious! yet, like spring-showers in the sun,
Veiling the light with their melodious rain,
Life is a warp of gloom and glory spun;
Its darkling phases are is clouds that mourn
Beneath the loftier splendors of an arch
Where deathless orbs in golden daylight burn,
And God's great pulses beat their music march.
The heaven we worship dimly girt with tears,
The spirit-heaven, what is it but a life,
Lifting its soul beyond our mortal years
That oft begin and ever end with strife:
Strife we must pass to win a happier height,
Nature but travails to reveal us--light.