The Ruling Thought

Omnipotent and kind,
Lord of the deep recesses of my mind;
In terrors clad, yet dear
Gift of the skies; so near
In my gloom-darkened days,
Thought upon which so oft I fix my gaze:

Thy nature unrevealed
Who doth not contemplate? Who wears a shield
Impervious to thy power?
Though tongue of man must say
What passion in his bosom beareth sway,
All thou may'st utter seemeth new for aye.

How like a hermit lone
Was this my spirit made
Even from the time thou didst my mind invade!
As rapidly as lightnings flash and die,
My other thoughts did fade,
Not one remaining. Like a strong tower, high
On solitary plain,
Thou, lonely giant, o'er my soul dost reign.

What to my visionary gaze became
All things of earth, and all
That life can give, alone excepting thee!
How on my spirit pall
The labours and the leisure,
And vain desiring of still vainer pleasure,
Compared unto that joy,
That heavenly joy, which maketh thee my treasure!

As from the naked peaks
Of rugged Appenine,
With longing gaze the weary pilgrim seeks
The verdant meads that in the distance shine:
Thus from the harsh and dry
Scene of the world, to thee I gladly fly,
As to a beauteous garden, and I find
Thy fair abode unto my spirit kind.

I scarcely can believe
That I this life and our ignoble world
For years of weary length
Without thee had the strength
To bear. Hard to conceive
It is that men aspire,
Ignoring thee, to many a vain desire.

Ne'er from the hour when first
Experience taught me what this life can be,
Did fear of death bring terror to my heart;
And now a jest to me
Seems what the world so base
At times extols, but never dares to face,
The necessary end:
If any peril falleth to my part,
Before its threat my spirit doth not bend.

I always held in scorn
The craven and the mean;
Now every deed, of lowly baseness born,
Doth move my spirit keen;
My soul doth flash with ire
When human vileness desolates my view.
This haughty age untrue,
Feeding itself on barren hopes and vain,
To folly gentle, and to virtue dire,
That asks for things of use,
Nor sees by what abuse
Our life becometh useless more and more,
I loathe, arising o'er
Its meanness. Human acts I ne'er esteem;
The crowd that doth disdain
Thy loveliness, in all I worthless deem.

What passion doth not yield
To that inspired by thee?
The one thou hast revealed
Alone rules man in sovran majesty.
Pride, hatred, avarice and fierce disdain,
The zeal to shine and reign,
What else than shadows vain
Are they beside it? One affection lives
Among our race below,
By laws eternal sent
To rule mankind, a lord omnipotent.

Life hath no meaning and not one delight
Except from that which unto man is all,
The sole excuse of Fate
Who placed on earthly soil
Our race to languish in such fruitless toil;
Whereby alone at times,
Not to the rabble, but the gentle heart,
Life more than death appears the better part.
To cull thy joys, O thought divinely sweet!
The weight of human woes,
Of life the weary chain,
Were not endured in utter anguish vain;
And I would even return,
Versed as I am in every earthly ill,
For such a goal to repursue the road.
Of viper's sting and of the sands that burn
I never felt the goad
So much, that, coming unto thy relief,
It gave no balm unto terrestrial grief.

What wondrous worlds, what new
Immensities, what Paradise is there,
Where oft thy wizard power my spirit drew
In lofty flights, and where
By other radiance than on earth e'er shined,
I stray, nor to my mind
My earthly state recall, nor truth unkind!
Such are, methinks, the dreams
Of the immortals. Ah! a dream, in sooth,
Thou art, sweet thought, a garment to adorn
Harsh and unlovely truth,
An error palpable. But even of those
Fair errors Nature shows,
Thou art divine, because so strong and deep,
That 'gainst the real thou thy ground dost keep;
Thy power its equal seems,
And only in death from mortal spirit goes.

And thou, indeed, my thought, unto my days
Alone the vital breath,
Thou cherished cause of infinite despair,
With me shalt fall beneath the stroke of death:
I gather from the signs my soul displays
That thou shalt reign, eternal monarch, there.
All other errors, sweet
Disperse on pinions fleet
At Truth's approach. And even the more I turn
Upon her brow to gaze,
Of whom with thee discoursing my days fly,
The more the joyaunce grows,
The frenzy wild whence my existence flows.
Angelic loveliness!
The fairest face that ever met mine eye,
Methinks like image vain
Attempts to rival thee. Thou art alone
The fountain and the spring
Of every charm that can enchantment bring.

From when I saw thee first,
What other care did ever prompt my heart
Than love of thee? How much of day doth part
Without a thought of thine? In sleep immerst,
When lay my weary soul
By dreams unhaunted of thy sovran form?
As beautiful as dreams
Thy angel vision seems.
On earth below or in the distant spheres:
What hope to me appears
Of finding aught more lovely than thine eyes,
Or sweeter joyaunce than thy thought supplies?