| |
| ONCE when the wind was on the roof, | |
| And nature seemed to question fate, | |
| A fiery angel, in a dream, | |
| Called on a soul to contemplate. | |
| |
| “Look well about thy precincts, learn | 5 |
| What is thy gain, thy final stock, | |
| Obtained from living day by day.” | |
| (Hark, how the winds the elm-trees rock!) | |
| |
| The man’s soul cast a glance about. | |
| The place wherein it dwelt was small,— | 10 |
| No vast horizon; every side | |
| Was bounded by a narrow wall. | |
| |
| But well it knew those precincts, well | |
| The carven furniture; the shelf, | |
| Laden with books; the tinted wall | 15 |
| Adorned with pictures of itself, | |
| |
| And of the Father and the Son, | |
| And myriad saints; and then the earth | |
| With all the senses’ arabesques, | |
| That man had planned since man had birth. | 20 |
| |
| “Are these thy treasures? These are dead,” | |
| The fiery angel, in despite, | |
| Cried out: “What wouldst thou gain for these, | |
| If thou shouldst stand in God’s own light?— | |
| |
| “If He should rive these walls away? | 25 |
| What sayest thou? Lo, the drifting sun, | |
| The moon, the stars, the sky, God’s sky, | |
| Are sights a soul should look upon. | |
| |
| “Pray Him to break these walls away.” | |
| The soul shrank back, with hanging head: | 30 |
| “The moon rides free, the stars dance high, | |
| The sun shines bright: these sights I dread.” | |
| |
| The walls seemed riven by a sword; | |
| The moon rode free, the wind blew sweet, | |
| The stars danced high; then sunshine lay | 35 |
| In glory at the soul’s free feet. | |
| |
| It seemed to stand in a wide land; | |
| Around it high the heavens soared; | |
| It seemed to wither with the light, | |
| Yet joy through all its being poured. | 40 |
| |
| Then darkened grew the sky on high, | |
| And suddenly the sunshine fled; | |
| The wind howled shrill; the soul, aghast, | |
| A woke and trembled on its bed. | |
| |
| It saw the carven furniture, | 45 |
| The painted pictures on the wall, | |
| The shelf, bowed under heavy lore, | |
| The costly treasures one and all. | |
| |
| Moonlight lay ghostly over them | |
| (Outside the wind was in the trees, | 50 |
| The wind blew free, the stars shone high), | |
| And all the life seemed gone from these. | |
| |
| The soul arose and paced about. | |
| “It was a vision of the night; | |
| Still must I linger in this place: | 55 |
| But O the wind, the sun, the light!” | |
| |
