Hope of Future Communion with Nature

If e’er again my spirit be allow’d
Converse with Nature in her chambers deep,
Where lone, and mantled with the rolling cloud,
She broods o’er new-born waters, as they leap
In sword-like flashes down the heathery steep
From caves of mystery;--if I roam once more
Where dark pines quiver to the torrent’s roar,
And voiceful oaks respond;--may I not reap
A more ennobling joy, a loftier power,
Than e’er was shed on life’s more vernal hour
From such communion? Yes! I then shall know
That not in vain have sorrow, love, and thought
Their long, still work of preparation wrought,
For that more perfect sense of God reveal’d below.