The Silken Tassel/The Life Beyond
The Life Beyond
Oh World! thy flower but hides the thorn,
Black night but follows every morn,
Within thy pot of Joy is born
The plant of Grief:
Here Man is ever weary and worn,
Without relief;
Thou hast but broken arcs of light,
Thy Beauty is half-drown’d in blight,
Thy Love is scatter’d light in night.
Black night but follows every morn,
Within thy pot of Joy is born
The plant of Grief:
Here Man is ever weary and worn,
Without relief;
Thou hast but broken arcs of light,
Thy Beauty is half-drown’d in blight,
Thy Love is scatter’d light in night.
Thy good is nipt within its bud,
Thy golden streams are stain’d with mud,
Thy songs are wrought of tears and blood
For smiling bloom,
Thy music is lost in the flood
Of raining gloom:
What smiles will scatter roses pure?
What hopes the noblest fruit ensure?
What power our highest thoughts endure?
Thy golden streams are stain’d with mud,
Thy songs are wrought of tears and blood
For smiling bloom,
Thy music is lost in the flood
Of raining gloom:
What smiles will scatter roses pure?
What hopes the noblest fruit ensure?
What power our highest thoughts endure?
Oh that I dive below thy deep,
A deeper deep, where I can creep,
Not in thy half-unconscious sleep,
But in my light,
Or that I higher soar and sweep
Beyond thy height:
To gain my sight a larger scope,
The glorious gates of mind to ope,
To reap the harvest of my hope!
A deeper deep, where I can creep,
Not in thy half-unconscious sleep,
But in my light,
Or that I higher soar and sweep
Beyond thy height:
To gain my sight a larger scope,
The glorious gates of mind to ope,
To reap the harvest of my hope!
There Life is real, Life is true:
There life is Joy, all through and through:
A perfect Art, and Justice due,
And solid Good:
Of many a sweetest sound and hue
A Brotherhood:
Where every height doth higher prove,
Where Thought is Power all things above,
Where Love is Light and Light is Love!
There life is Joy, all through and through:
A perfect Art, and Justice due,
And solid Good:
Of many a sweetest sound and hue
A Brotherhood:
Where every height doth higher prove,
Where Thought is Power all things above,
Where Love is Light and Light is Love!