WHAT is the message of the thunderous main? Or secret of the lone, untrodden hills? What spell the starry midnight silence fills? Or wakes the tossing woods to shrieks of pain? They are but water, earth or air; Shall things material, dread or fair, Our soaring flights and heavenward aims control, And within mundane limits chain the imperious soul? What is the glamour of the kindling eye, The golden locks, the lip, the cheek of youth? They are but forgeries of hidden Truth, Which Time, unheeding, flouts and passes by, Thin, fleeting visions swiftly past, But such fair dreams can longer last And deeper than reality inspire The prisoned soul, and touch her lips with fire. The soul it is! the soul! which sits alone And mirrors all things in her depths and draws Brute Nature to her own sufficing laws, And on the Heights of Being maketh moan For Fate, for fixed Necessity Which rules her, nor will set her free But snatches her thro' endless wastes of space On strong dark wings, but veils its awful face. Therefore on all things would she set her sign, Mirroring in her deeps all things that are, Projects herself beyond the faintest star, Seeking where'er she flies a Face Divine, And, being Time's first-born and chief, Nurses some fixed yet vague belief, Half fearful lest some alien Presence rise And blight her hope with unregarding eyes. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CHAMBER MUSIC: 21 by JAMES JOYCE THE SMALLISH SON by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE IMPORTANCE OF GREEN by JAMES GALVIN THE GIFT TO SING by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON TO NANNETTE FALK-AUERBACH by SIDNEY LANIER SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: BARNEY HAINSFEATHER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |