Icicle Drops

FAST from yon icicle's inverted spire,
Yon shining minims, glittering in the sun,
Fall brightly down, sheen drops of fluent fire,
Momently hanging, — sinking, one by one,
Sliding clear beads as down a silver wire ;
So archer-stars shoot thro' abysses dun ;
So blood drips down from the knive's fierce desire ;
So fall our moments ; so our tears do run.
With drop on drop, with everlasting flow,
With changing atom, and revolving sphere,
Our never-resting lives must downward go;
Still hung in momentary brightness here,
Then sinking to that breast toward which incline
The drops that glow, and eke the beams that shine.

The sun, at length, with a more fervent fire,
Hath gained a subtle mastery of the dawn ;
And, still more swiftly, from the less'ning spire
The hastening gems descend, till all are gone.
But, lo ! they come ! The vanish'd ones surprise
In golden mist, my wistful, musing sight ;
Soul o' th' earth, its exhalations rise,
And soon the drops return to air and light.
There shall they hang 'mid purple glooms aloof,
With clouds noon-white, or tinct with crimson eve ;
Or shine supreme in Iris' circling woof,
Wherein his married hues the sun doth weave.
And so this falling life shall not remain
Sunk in the earth ; 'twill rise to Heaven again.