Thus I Set My Printless Feet O'er

If The Will, Which In The Law Of Our Nature, Were Withdrawn From Our Memory, Fancy, Understanding, And Reason, No Other Hell Could Equal, For A Spiritual Being, What We Should Then Feel From The Anarchy Of Our Powers. It Would Be Conscious Madness,--a Horrid Thought!

A Thousand Fantasies Begin To Throng Into My Memory, Of Calling Shapes, And Beckoning Shadows Dire, And Airy Tongues That Syllable Men's Names On Sands And Shores And Desert Wildernesses

But God Himself Is Truth; In Propagating Which, As Men Display A Greater Integrity And Zeal, They Approach Nearer To The Similitude Of God, And Possess A Greater Portion Of His Love.

Is It True, O Christ In Heaven, That The Highest Suffer The Most? That The Strongest Wander Furthest And Most Hopelessly Are Lost? That The Mark Of Rank In Nature Is Capacity For Pain? That The Anguish Of The Singer Makes The Sweetness Of The Strain?

A Broad And Ample Road, Whose Dust Is Gold, And Pavement Stars,--as Stars To Thee Appear Seen In The Galaxy, That Milky Way Which Nightly As A Circling Zone Thou Seest Powder'd With Stars.