Oh, wondrous transformation! when with wand Of wakening might, that all-uplifting power Waved o'er the cross where hung fond hopes impaled, Waved o'er the tomb where loved ambitions lay, Touched the strewn fragments of my shattered dream, Bidding the dead arise in bodies new, Building, on ruined hope, faith's battlement, 70 Love's palace, peace-domed, pinnacled in light, In glory greater than earth's grandest dream, Than glittering fame's most splendid spectacle; Ideal transcending ideality, Ideal made real past all reality! Whose earth-dimmed eye could see what then I saw? Whose earth-dulled ear such harmonies could hear? When the all-searching Spirit tore the veil Of things that seem, and showed me things that are. Beauty, both good and evil--lamp to heaven 80 Or lure-light o'er the marshes of despair. Beauty, divine--but not divinity; Not parent--child of purity and truth; Nor fount, nor stream, but bubble lost in air, Nor tree, nor fruit--only a fragrant flower, Flung from ambrosial gardens[4], here to grow That life might be the less a wilderness. But lo! a loveliness that blooms for aye, That, withering here, is there revivified, A loveliness made lovelier evermore; 90 The beauty of the restful and the risen, Of Paradise[5] and Glory's higher home. Pure as the mountain monarch's ice-crowned crest, Pure as the snow-king's mantle, diamond-strewn, Pure as the cascade's limpid crystalline, Leaping from cliff to chasm, the breeze-flung flood Blown into spirit spray of dazzling sheen; So pure the love that warmed my boyish breast, And lit the yearning of my youthful eye. But pure love, e'en the purest, may be blind. 100 Truth spake--then fell the blindness from Love's eyes[6], Revealing life in hues of hopefulness; Love's rainbow dream, that only time's vale spans To human vision, widening now till lost Beyond the pale peaks of eternity. Heaven's gold love is, though mixt with earth's alloy-- Dross, that betimes a needful part doth play In nature's wise and true economy. Love dies not--'t is love's seeming that dissolves, Low to its serpent level, native dust, 110 A grave unmemoried in lethean ground[7]. The while see heaven-born, heaven-aspiring love, Immortal spirit of the universe, Soaring past sun and stars to worlds unknown! Heir to herself, a self-succeeding queen, Still regnant on life's throne when life is o'er. O thou, of beauty[8], loveliest form and phase! Kindler and keeper of the quenchless flame! Partner and peer of human majesty! Sharing with him life's dual sovereignty, 120 Well canst thou wait for thrones and diadems. Queen of the future, Eve of coming worlds, Mother of spirits that shall people stars, And hail thee empress of a universe!