Mystic Poetry

[Skull]

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come

Wordsworth

 

[Skull]

Insect and reptile, fish and bird and beast,
Cast their worn robes aside, fresh robes to don;
Tree, flower, and moss, put new year's raiments on;
Each natural type, the greatest as the least,
Renews its vesture when its use hath ceased.
How should man's spirit keep in unison
With the world's law of outgrowth, save it won
New robes and ampler as its girth increased ?
Quit shrunken creed, and dwarfed philosophy !
Let gently die an art's decaying fire !
Work on the ancient lines, but yet be free
To leave and frame anew, if God inspire !
The planets change their surface as they roll :
The force that binds the spheres must bind the soul.

Henry G. Hewlett

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Insect and reptile, fish and bird and beast,
Cast their worn robes aside, fresh robes to don;
Tree, flower, and moss, put new year's raiments on;
Each natural type, the greatest as the least,
Renews its vesture when its use hath ceased.
How should man's spirit keep in unison
With the world's law of outgrowth, save it won
New robes and ampler as its girth increased ?
Quit shrunken creed, and dwarfed philosophy !
Let gently die an art's decaying fire !
Work on the ancient lines, but yet be free
To leave and frame anew, if God inspire !
The planets change their surface as they roll :
The force that binds the spheres must bind the soul.

Henry G. Hewlett

Molting Is Revolting

This follows the "new and improved" faddishness. Old School puts New Age to shame.

 

[Skull]

Truth dwells in gulphs, whose deeps hide shades so rich
That Night sits muffled there in clouds of pitch,
More darke than Nature made her: and requires
(To cleare her tough mists) heaven's great fire of fires
To wrestle with those heaven-strong mysteries.

George Chapman

 

[Skull]

Gradatim​

by Josiah Gilbert Holland

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true,
That a noble deed is a step toward God,
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To a purer air and a broader view.

We rise by things that are 'neath our feet;
By what we have mastered of good and gain,
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,
When the morning calls us to life and light;
But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night,
Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.

We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,
And we think that we mount the air on wings
Beyond the recall of sensual things,
While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.

Wings for angels, but feet for men!
We may borrow the wings to find the way;
We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray;
But our feet must rise, or we fall again.

Only in dreams is a ladder thrown
From the weary earth to the sapphire walls,
But the dreams depart, and the vision falls,
And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.

Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.