FRAGMENTS:

I felt myself alone—alone as one Who leapt in joy from starry rock to rock Across creations stream, and joyed to know Himself alone in starry solitudes, Communing with his soul and God; and clomb The heights of glory, there amazed to see The wilderness of worlds, and feel the want Of other hearts to share excess of bliss. Alone!—it startled me with such a fear— A daring fear, as only spirits can have. At once I would be every where—on all The peopled globes where'er myself had been; My lonely being would I spread through all. I thought, with the velocity of thought Which disembodied souls alone may know— I thought, I willed, myself in thousand places In quick and successive instants, quick as one; And so around again, and still around, Without an interval. Soon as a flash, A thousand selves were scattered o'er the deep Of distant space; and, urging on my soul, Around and on, with energy immortal, And swifter still, at last I seemed to grow Ubiquitous—a multipresence dread, A loneliness enlarged, more awful yet— Until, in thought's extreme rapidity, The distant selves were blended into one, And space was gone! The universe was lost In me—in nothingness. Soon it returned And stood resplendent; space again became A mode of thought, as thought resumed its calm, And motion ceased with will. I found myself Far off in outer coasts of light....

.... The vision changed; for still The cherub Fancy sports beyond the grave, Led by the hand of Reason. Once again, My memory rose, a painted canvas, framed In golden mouldings of immortal joy. But now the perfect copy of a life, With all the colors glorified, began To melt in slow dissolving views of truth. From out the crowded scene of mortal deeds, A group enraged, colossal in its shapes: Self—a dead giant, hideous and deformed, Lay, slain with lightning, while, upon his head, Stood holy Love, her eyes upturned to Heaven, Her hands extended o'er the kneeling forms Of Faith and Hope....

Nor were the splendors silent all. To spirits 'Tis ever one to see, to hear, to feel— The music of the spheres is therefore truth, And, now, no more I heard the noise confused Of humming stars and murmuring moons, in tones Discordant; but as in the focal point Of whispering rooms, so here I found at last The centre where the perfect chords combine— Where the full harmonies of rolling worlds Are poring evermore in billowy seas Of sounds, that break in thundered syllables Unutterable to men. A naked soul Within the central court of space, to me The trill of myriad stars, the heavy boom Of giant suns that slowly came and went, The whistlings, sweet and far, of lesser orbs, And the low thunder of more distant deeps, Ever commingling, grew to eloquence No mortal brain may bear. The universe Had found a voice....

"Look to thy God." I flamed at Him with will intense, And soon a sea of light and love arose And bathed my soul, and filled the empty space With overflowing glory. All was heaven; And all the joy, the splendor, I had known In space, to this was but the prelude harsh Of brazen instruments, before the song Of some incarnate seraph, breathes and rolls A flood of fulness o'er a tranced world. Enough to say, whate'er we wish of scene, Society, occupation, pleasure— Whenever wished, is ours; and this is Heaven; This is the prize of earthly self-denial. Freedom, the boundless freedom of the pure— This the reward of holy self-restraint.