Oh, let me not die young, A brother unclaimed among The countless millions of thy happy flock, Whose deepest joy is to obey, Whereby they feel the measured sway Of thy life in them, their own living part, Whether in centuried pulses of the rock By slow disintegration Ascending to its higher, Or the quick fluttering of the Storm-god's heart,-- An instant's palpitation Through all its arteries of fire! One common blood runs down life's myriad veins, From Archangelic Hierarchs who float Broad-winged in the God-glory, to the mote That trembles with a braided dance In the warm sunset's vivid glance; And one great Heart that boundless flow sustains! In all the creatures of thy hand divine Thy love-light is a living guest, Whether a petal's palm confine Its glitter to a lily's breast, Or in unbounded space a starry line Stretches, till flagging Thought must droop her wing to rest. Oh, let me not die young, A powerless child among The ancient grandeurs of thy awful world! I catch some fragment of the mighty song Which, ere to darkness hurled, My elder brothers in the eternal throng Have caught before,-- Faint murmurs of the surge, The deep, surrounding, everlasting roar Of a life-ocean without port or shore,-- Ere I depart, compelled to urge My fragile bark with trembling from the verge Of this Earth-island, into that Unknown, Where worlds, like souls forlorn, go wandering alone! Oh, let me not die young, With all that song unsung, A swift and voiceless fugitive, From darkness coming and in darkness lost, Before thy solemn Pentecost, Dawning within the soul, shall give The burning utterance of its flaming tongue,-- The boon whereby to other souls we live! Thy worlds are flashing with immortal splendor, For human speech on heights of human song Faintly to render, And pour back along Its mountain grandeur, the accumulate rain Of star-light, dream-light, thoughts of joy and pain, Of love, hate, right and wrong, In floods of utterance sublime and strong, In dewy effluence beautiful and tender. The kindred darknesses Of caverned earth and fathomless thought, Of Life and Death, and their twin mysteries, Before and After, on my spirit press Tempting and awful, with high promise fraught, And guardian terrors, whose out-flashing swords Beleaguer Paradise and the holy Tree Sciential. Step by step the way is fought That leads from Darkness, through her miscreant hordes, Back to the heavens of wise, and true, and free: Minerva's Gorgon, Ammon's cyclic Asp, And the fierce flame-sword of the Cherubim, That flashed like hate across the pallid gasp Of exiled Eve and Adam, flare, and glare, And hiss venenate, round the steps of him Who thirsts for heavenly Wisdom, if he dare Climb to her bosom, or with artless grasp Pluck the sweet fruits that hang around him, ripe and fair.