PRAYER OF THE LONELY STUDENT. Soul of our souls! and safeguard of the world! Restore their languid spirits, and recall Their lost affections unto thee and thine. WORDSWORTH. NIGHT-holy night!—the time For mind's free breathings in a purer clime! Night!—when in happier hour the unveiling sky Woke all my kindled soul, To meet its revelations, clear and high, With the strong joy of immortality! Now hath strange sadness wrapp'd me-strange and deep And my thoughts faint, and shadows o'er them roll, E'en when I deem'd them seraph-plumed, to sweep Far beyond earth's control. Wherefore is this?—I see the stars returning, They shine-but faintly, through a quivering haze- They, that unfolding to more thoughtful sight, The harmony of their magnificence, Drew silently the worship of my youth To the grave sweetness on the brow of truth; Shall they shower blessing, with their beams divine, Down to the watcher on the stormy sea, And to the pilgrim toiling for his shrine Through some wild pass of rocky Appennine, On wastes of Afric thrown, And not to me? Am I a thing forsaken, And is the gladness taken From the bright-pinioned nature which hath soar'd And, bathing there in streams of fiery light, And now an alien !-Wherefore must this be? How shall I rend the chain? How drink rich life again From those pure urns of radiance, welling free? Father of Spirits! let me turn to thee! Oh! if too much exulting in her dower, My soul, not yet to lowly thought subdued, Hath stood without thee on her hill of A fearful and a dazzling solitude !— power And therefore from that haughty summit's crown, Shine on him through the cloud! Let the now darken'd earth and curtain'd heaven Bear him on high once more, But in thy strength to soar, And wrapt and still'd by that o'ershadowing might, Forth on the empyreal blaze to look with chasten'd sight. Or if it be, that like the ark's lone dove, My thoughts go forth, and find no resting-place, No sheltering home of sympathy and love, In the responsive bosoms of my race, And back return, a darkness and a weight, Till my unanswer'd heart grows desolateYet, yet sustain me, Holiest !-I am vow'd To solemn service high; And shall the spirit, for thy tasks endow'd, Sink on the threshold of the sanctuary, Fainting beneath the burden of the day, Because no human tone, Unto the altar-stone, Of that pure spousal fane inviolate, Where it should make eternal truth its mate, May cheer the sacred solitary way? Oh! be the whisper of thy voice within Enough to strengthen! Be the hope to win A more deep-seeing homage for thy name, Far, far beyond the burning dream of fame! Make me thine only!-Let me add but one To those refulgent steps all undefiled, Which glorious minds have piled |