| ALL around him Patmos lies, | |
| Who hath spirit-gifted eyes, | |
| Who his happy sight can suit | |
| To the great and the minute. | |
| Doubt not but he holds in view | 5 |
| A new earth and heaven new; | |
| Doubt not but his ear doth catch | |
| Strain nor voice nor reed can match: | |
| Many a silver, sphery note | |
| Shall within his hearing float. | 10 |
| |
| All around him Patmos lies, | |
| Who unto God’s priestess flies: | |
| Thou, O Nature, bid him see, | |
| Through all guises worn by thee, | |
| A divine apocalypse. | 15 |
| Manifold his fellowships: | |
| Now the rocks their archives ope; | |
| Voiceless creatures tell their hope | |
| In a language symbol-wrought; | |
| Groves to him sigh out their thought; | 20 |
| Musings of the flower and grass | |
| Through his quiet spirit pass. | |
| ’Twixt new earth and heaven new | |
| He hath traced and holds the clue, | |
| Number his delights ye may not; | 25 |
| Fleets the year but these decay not. | |
| Now the freshets of the rain, | |
| Bounding on from hill to plain, | |
| Show him earthly streams have rise | |
| In the bosom of the skies. | 30 |
| Now he feels the morning thrill, | |
| As upmounts, unseen and still, | |
| Dew the wing of evening drops. | |
| Now the frost, that meets and stops | |
| Summer’s feet in tender sward, | 35 |
| Greets him, breathing heavenward. | |
| Hieroglyphics writes the snow, | |
| Through the silence falling slow; | |
| Types of star and petaled bloom | |
| A white missal-page illume. | 40 |
| By these floating symbols fine, | |
| Heaven-truth shall be divine. | |
| |
| All around him Patmos lies, | |
| Who hath spirit-gifted eyes; | |
| He need not afar remove, | 45 |
| He need not the times reprove, | |
| Who would hold perpetual lease | |
| Of an isle in seas of peace. | |
