In Youth I Have Known One

5In youth I have known one with whom the Earth

6 In secret communing held — as he with it,

7In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:

8 Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit

9From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth

10 A passionate light such for his spirit was fit —

11And yet that spirit knew — not in the hour

12 Of its own fervor — what had o'er it power.

13Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought

14 To a ferver by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,

15But I will half believe that wild light fraught

16 With more of sovereignty than ancient lore

17Hath ever told — or is it of a thought

18 The unembodied essence, and no more

19That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass

20 As dew of the night-time, o'er the summer grass?

21Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye

22 To the loved object — so the tear to the lid

23Will start, which lately slept in apathy?

24 And yet it need not be — (that object) hid

25From us in life — but common — which doth lie

26 Each hour before us — but then only bid

27With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken

28 T' awake us — 'Tis a symbol and a token —

29Of what in other worlds shall be — and given

30 In beauty by our God, to those alone

31Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven

32 Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,

33That high tone of the spirit which hath striven

34 Though not with Faith — with godliness — whose throne

35With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;

36 Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.