Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain! Clearness divine! Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign Of languor, though so calm, and though so great Are yet untroubled and unpassionate; Who, though so noble, share in the world’s toil, And, though so tasked, keep free from dust and soil! I will not say that your mild deeps retain A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain Who have longed deeply once, and longed in vain; But I will rather say that you remain A world above man’s head, to let him see How boundless might his soul’s horizons be, How vast, yet of what clear transparency! How it were good to live there, and breathe free; How fair a lot to fill Is left to each man still! _THE BURIED LIFE._ Light flows our war of mocking words; and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet! I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll. Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile! But there’s a something in this breast, To which thy light words bring no rest, And thy gay smiles no anodyne; Give me thy hand, and hush awhile, And turn those limpid eyes on mine, And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul. Alas! is even love too weak To unlock the heart, and let it speak? Are even lovers powerless to reveal To one another what indeed they feel? I knew the mass of men concealed Their thoughts, for fear that if revealed They would by other men be met With blank indifference, or with blame reproved; I knew they lived and moved Tricked in disguises, alien to the rest Of men, and alien to themselves--and yet The same heart beats in every human breast! But we, my love! doth a like spell benumb Our hearts, our voices? must we too be dumb? Ah! well for us, if even we, Even for a moment, can get free Our heart, and have our lips unchained; For that which seals them hath been deep-ordained! Fate, which foresaw How frivolous a baby man would be,-- By what distractions he would be possessed, How he would pour himself in every strife, And well-nigh change his own identity,-- That it might keep from his capricious play His genuine self, and force him to obey Even in his own despite his being’s law, Bade through the deep recesses of our breast The unregarded river of our life Pursue with indiscernible flow its way; And that we should not see The buried stream, and seem to be Eddying at large in blind uncertainty, Though driving on with it eternally.