Men now seek to explore each thing from within and without too! How canst thou make thy escape, Truth, from their eager pursuit? That they may catch thee, with nets and poles extended they seek thee...
She comes, she comes the burden of the deeps! Beneath her wails the universal sea! With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps, And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!...
Whither was it that my spirit wended When from thee my fleeting shadow moved? Is not now each earthly conflict ended? Say, have I not lived, have I not loved?
"I Can love thee well, believe me, As a sister true; Other love, Sir Knight, would grieve me, Sore my heart would rue. Calmly would I see thee going, Calmly, too, appear;...
Oh, nobly shone the fearful cross upon your mail afar, When Rhodes and Acre hailed your might, O lions of the war! When leading many a pilgrim horde, through wastes of Syrian gloom;...
Within a vale, each infant year, When earliest larks first carol free, To humble shepherds cloth appear A wondrous maiden, fair to see. Not born within that lowly place...
The clouds fast gather, The forest-oaks roar A maiden is sitting Beside the green shore, The billows are breaking with might, with might, And she sighs aloud in the darkling night,...
Humanity's bright image to impair. Scorn laid thee prostrate in the deepest dust; Wit wages ceaseless war on all that's fair, In angel and in God it puts no trust;...
I see her still - by her fair train surrounded, The fairest of them all, she took her place; Afar I stood, by her bright charms confounded, For, oh! they dazzled with their heavenly grace....
Where sails the ship? It leads the Tyrian forth For the rich amber of the liberal north. Be kind, ye seas winds, lend your gentlest wing, May in each creek sweet wells restoring spring!...
"How far beneath me seems the earthly ball! The pigmy race below I scarce can see; How does my art, the noblest art of all, Bear me close up to heaven's bright canopy!"...