Among the wondrous ways of men and time He went as one that ever found and sought And bore in hand the lamplike spirit of thought To illume with instance of its fire sublime The dusk of many a cloudlike age and clime. No spirit in shape of light and darkness wrought, No faith, no fear, no dream, no rapture, nought That blooms in wisdom, nought that burns in crime, No virtue girt and armed and helmed with light, No love more lovely than the snows are white, No serpent sleeping in some dead soul's tomb, No song-bird singing from some live soul's height, But he might hear, interpret, or illume With sense invasive as the dawn of doom. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WIND IN A FROLIC by WILLIAM HOWITT BELISARIUS by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ON THE BIRTH OF A FRIEND'S ELDEST SON by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD ABER STATIONS: STATIO SEXTA by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 23 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |