All hail! beloved Poesy,
For dearer thou hast been to me
Than light, and life, and liberty—
Soul of each scene—
Yea, the very breath of life,
In the tumult and the strife,
To me thou'st been.

In life's lowest vale thou found'st me,
Threw thy mystic spells around me,
And with cords of love thou bound'st me,
As magic strains
Fill'd my soul with aspirations,
While thy mystic incantations
Cours'd thro' my veins.

Currents of celestial fire
All my spirit did inspire;
Ever mounting higher, higher,
My spirit reeled.
Yet I stood, amid the hum,
Silent, stupefied, and dumb—
My lips were sealed.

Dumb and baffled in the breach,
Vainly did I try to reach
After the celestial speech;
Thou took'st my hand,
Then thou led'st me to the mountains,
To the torrents and the fountains
Of fatherland.

Then first I felt those awful thrills,
In presence of the soul that fills
The great old everlasting hills—
That soul sublime,
Forever calmly looking through
The great o'erhanging arch of blue
Down upon time.

Then ev'ry rock and mountain hoar
Were rooted in my bosom's core,
And ocean, moaning evermore,
Gave me no rest.
Oh! how those mighty waves did roll,
And heave, and struggle in my soul
To be expressed.

And often, in thine awful moods,
We scaled those star-lit altitudes,
Where Wonder everlasting broods
'Mong worlds sublime—
The planets in their mystic dance—
Astronomy, thou grand romance
Of space and time!

On your wonders unexpounded,
On your magnitudes unbounded,
Gazing, till I grew confounded,
I could only sigh;
For my intellectual pride
Ruthlessly thou dash'd aside,
For what was I?

Upon that sea without a coast,
My own identity was lost,
All stagger'd by a powerful host,
Baffled, amazed;
And yet, tho' humbled by the view,
My spirit wide and wider grew
The more I gazed.

Then Poesy, thou brought'st to view
Forms ever beautiful and new,
Fairer than aught that ever grew
Upon this earth;
Seen only by the inner eye,
Alighting from yon mystic sky,
Their place of birth.

What draughts of glory then were mine!
All Nature was indeed divine,
I worshiped at no other shrine;
But yet I sought
After something that I wanted,
By a strange idea haunted,
Hardly knowing what.

Then thou did'st touch thy sacred lyre,
And all my spirit didst inspire,
Even with a holy fire,
Diviner strains—
And saidst, “Behold the true sublime;
Look past the fleeting things of time
To higher planes.

“Worship Nature as of yore;
Love her in thy bosom's core;
But believe there's something more
To souls is given.
Be assur'd that Moral Duty
Is the highest form of beauty
In earth or heaven.”