In Youth I have Known One

 How often we forget all time, when lone 
Admiring Nature's universal throne; 
Her woods - her winds - her mountains - the intense 
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! 

I. 

In youth I have known one with whom the Earth 
In secret communing held - as he with it, 
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth: 
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit 
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth 
A passionate light - such for his spirit was fit - 
And yet that spirit knew - not in the hour 
Of its own fervour - what had o'er it power. 

II. 

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought 
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er, 
But I will half believe that wild light fraught 
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore 
Hath ever told - or is it of a thought 
The unembodied essence, and no more 
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass 
As dew of the night time, o'er the summer grass? 

III. 

Doth o'er us pass, when as th' expanding eye 
To the loved object - so the tear to the lid 
Will start, which lately slept in apathy? 
And yet it need not be - (that object) hid 
From us in life - but common - which doth lie 
Each hour before us - but then only bid 
With a strange sound, as of a harpstring broken 
T' awake us - 'Tis a symbol and a token - 

IV. 

Of what in other worlds shall be - and given 
In beauty by our God, to those alone 
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven 
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone, 
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven 
Though not with Faith - with godliness - whose throne 
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down; 
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.

Form: Lyric

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