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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=115719" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Self Communion</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The mist is resting on the hill;<br>The smoke is hanging in the air;<br>The very clouds are standing still:<br>A breathless calm broods everywhere.<br>Thou pilgrim through this vale of tears,<br>Thou, too, a little moment cease<br>Thy anxious toil and fluttering fears,<br>And rest thee, for a while, in peace.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I would, but Time keeps working still<br>And moving on for good or ill:<br>He will not rest or stay.<br>In pain or ease, in smiles or tears,<br>He still keeps adding to my years<br>And stealing life away.<br>His footsteps in the ceaseless sound<br>Of yonder clock I seem to hear,<br>That through this stillness so profound<br>Distinctly strikes the vacant ear.<br>For ever striding on and on,<br>He pauses not by night or day;<br>And all my life will soon be gone<br>As these past years have slipped away.<br>He took my childhood long ago,<br>And then my early youth; and lo,<br>He steals away my prime!<br>I cannot see how fast it goes,<br>But well my inward spirit knows<br>The wasting power of time.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Time steals thy moments, drinks thy breath,<br>Changes and wastes thy mortal frame;<br>But though he gives the clay to death,<br>He cannot touch the inward flame.<br>Nay, though he steals thy years away,<br>Their memory is left thee still,<br>And every month and every day<br>Leaves some effect of good or ill.<br>The wise will find in Memory's store<br>A help for that which lies before<br>To guide their course aright;<br>Then, hush thy plaints and calm thy fears;<br>Look back on these departed years,<br>And, say, what meets thy sight?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I see, far back, a helpless child,<br>Feeble and full of causeless fears,<br>Simple and easily beguiled<br>To credit all it hears.<br>More timid than the wild wood-dove,<br>Yet trusting to another's care,<br>And finding in protecting love<br>Its only refuge from despair, -<br>Its only balm for every woe,<br>The only bliss its soul can know; -<br>Still hiding in its breast.<br>A tender heart too prone to weep,<br>A love so earnest, strong, and deep<br>It could not be expressed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Poor helpless thing! what can it do<br>Life's stormy cares and toils among; -<br>How tread this weary desert through<br>That awes the brave and tires the strong?<br>Where shall it centre so much trust<br>Where truth maintains so little sway,<br>Where seeming fruit is bitter dust,<br>And kisses oft to death betray?<br>How oft must sin and falsehood grieve<br>A heart so ready to believe,<br>And willing to admire!<br>With strength so feeble, fears so strong,<br>Amid this selfish bustling throng,<br>How will it faint and tire!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That tender love so warm and deep,<br>How can it flourish here below?<br>What bitter floods of tears must steep<br>The stony soil where it would grow!<br>O earth! a rocky breast is thine <br>A hard soil and a cruel clime,<br>Where tender plants must droop and pine,<br>Or alter with transforming time.<br>That soul, that clings to sympathy,<br>As ivy clasps the forest tree,<br>How can it stand alone?<br>That heart so prone to overflow<br>E'en at the thought of others' woe,<br>How will it bear its own?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How, if a sparrow's death can wring<br>Such bitter tear-floods from the eye,<br>Will it behold the suffering<br>Of struggling, lost humanity?<br>The torturing pain, the pining grief,<br>The sin-degraded misery,<br>The anguish that defies relief?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Look back again - What dost thou see?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I see one kneeling on the sod,<br>With infant hands upraised to Heaven,<br>A young heart feeling after God,<br>Oft baffled, never backward driven.<br>Mistaken oft, and oft astray,<br>It strives to find the narrow way,<br>But gropes and toils alone:<br>That inner life of strife and tears,<br>Of kindling hopes and lowering fears<br>To none but God is known.<br>'Tis better thus; for man would scorn<br>Those childish prayers, those artless cries,<br>That darkling spirit tossed and torn,<br>But God will not despise!<br>We may regret such waste of tears<br>Such darkly toiling misery,<br>Such 'wildering doubts and harrowing fears,<br>Where joy and thankfulness should be;<br>But wait, and Heaven will send relief.<br>Let patience have her perfect work:<br>Lo, strength and wisdom spring from grief,<br>And joys behind afflictions lurk!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It asked for light, and it is heard;<br>God grants that struggling soul repose<br>And, guided by His holy word,<br>It wiser than its teachers grows.<br>It gains the upward path at length,<br>And passes on from strength to strength,<br>Leaning on Heaven the while:<br>Night's shades departing one by one,<br>It sees at last the rising sun,<br>And feels his cheering smile.<br>In all its darkness and distress<br>For light it sought, to God it cried;<br>And through the pathless wilderness,<br>He was its comfort and its guide.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'So was it, and so will it be:<br>Thy God will guide and strengthen thee;<br>His goodness cannot fail.<br>The sun that on thy morning rose<br>Will light thee to the evening's close,<br>Whatever storms assail.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'God alters not; but Time on me<br>A wide and wondrous change has wrought:<br>And in these parted years I see<br>Cause for grave care and saddening thought.<br>I see that time, and toil, and truth,<br>An inward hardness can impart, -<br>Can freeze the generous blood of youth,<br>And steel full fast the tender heart.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Bless God for that divine decree! -<br>That hardness comes with misery,<br>And suffering deadens pain;<br>That at the frequent sight of woe<br>E'en Pity's tears forget to flow,<br>If reason still remain!<br>Reason, with conscience by her side,<br>But gathers strength from toil and truth;<br>And she will prove a surer guide<br>Than those sweet instincts of our youth.<br>Thou that hast known such anguish sore<br>In weeping where thou couldst not bless,<br>Canst thou that softness so deplore -<br>That suffering, shrinking tenderness?<br>Thou that hast felt what cankering care<br>A loving heart is doomed to bear,<br>Say, how canst thou regret<br>That fires unfed must fall away,<br>Long droughts can dry the softest clay,<br>And cold will cold beget?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Nay, but 'tis hard to feel that chill<br>Come creeping o'er the shuddering heart.<br>Love may be full of pain, but still,<br>'Tis sad to see it so depart, -<br>To watch that fire whose genial glow<br>Was formed to comfort and to cheer,<br>For want of fuel, fading so,<br>Sinking to embers dull and drear, -<br>To see the soft soil turned to stone<br>For lack of kindly showers, -<br>To see those yearnings of the breast,<br>Pining to bless and to be blessed,<br>Drop withered, frozen one by one,<br>Till, centred in itself alone,<br>It wastes its blighted powers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, I have known a wondrous joy<br>In early friendship's pure delight, -<br>A genial bliss that could not cloy -<br>My sun by day, my moon by night.<br>Absence, indeed, was sore distress,<br>And thought of death was anguish keen,<br>And there was cruel bitterness<br>When jarring discords rose between;<br>And sometimes it was grief to know<br>My fondness was but half returned.<br>But this was nothing to the woe<br>With which another truth was learned: -<br>That I must check, or nurse apart,<br>Full many an impulse of the heart<br>And many a darling thought:<br>What my soul worshipped, sought, and prized,<br>Were slighted, questioned, or despised; -<br>This pained me more than aught.<br>And as my love the warmer glowed<br>The deeper would that anguish sink,<br>That this dark stream between us flowed,<br>Though both stood bending o'er its brink;<br>Until, as last, I learned to bear<br>A colder heart within my breast;<br>To share such thoughts as I could share,<br>And calmly keep the rest.<br>I saw that they were sundered now,<br>The trees that at the root were one:<br>They yet might mingle leaf and bough,<br>But still the stems must stand alone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O love is sweet of every kind!<br>'Tis sweet the helpless to befriend,<br>To watch the young unfolding mind,<br>To guide, to shelter, and defend:<br>To lavish tender toil and care,<br>And ask for nothing back again,<br>But that our smiles a blessing bear<br>And all our toil be not in vain.<br>And sweeter far than words can tell<br>Their love whose ardent bosoms swell<br>With thoughts they need not hide;<br>Where fortune frowns not on their joy,<br>And Prudence seeks not to destroy,<br>Nor Reason to deride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whose love may freely gush and flow,<br>Unchecked, unchilled by doubt or fear,<br>For in their inmost hearts they know<br>It is not vainly nourished there.<br>They know that in a kindred breast<br>Their long desires have found a home,<br>Where heart and soul may kindly rest,<br>Weary and lorn no more to roam.<br>Their dreams of bliss were not in vain,<br>As they love they are loved again,<br>And they can bless as they are blessed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O vainly might I seek to show<br>The joys from happy love that flow!<br>The warmest words are all too cold<br>The secret transports to unfold<br>Of simplest word or softest sigh,<br>Or from the glancing of an eye<br>To say what rapture beams;<br>One look that bids our fears depart,<br>And well assures the trusting heart.<br>It beats not in the world alone -<br>Such speechless rapture I have known,<br>But only in my dreams.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My life has been a morning sky<br>Where Hope her rainbow glories cast<br>O'er kindling vapours far and nigh:<br>And, if the colours faded fast,<br>Ere one bright hue had died away<br>Another o'er its ashes gleamed;<br>And if the lower clouds were grey,<br>The mists above more brightly beamed.<br>But not for long; - at length behold,<br>Those tints less warm, less radiant grew;<br>Till but one streak of paly gold<br>Glimmered through clouds of saddening hue.<br>And I am calmly waiting, now,<br>To see that also pass away,<br>And leave, above the dark hill's brow,<br>A rayless arch of sombre grey.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'So must it fare with all thy race<br>Who seek in earthly things their joy:<br>So fading hopes lost hopes shall chase<br>Till Disappointment all destroy.<br>But they that fix their hopes on high<br>Shall, in the blue-refulgent sky,<br>The sun's transcendent light,<br>Behold a purer, deeper glow<br>Than these uncertain gleams can show,<br>However fair or bright.<br>O weak of heart! why thus deplore<br>That Truth will Fancy's dreams destroy?<br>Did I not tell thee, years before,<br>Life was for labour, not for joy?<br>Cease, selfish spirit, to repine;<br>O'er thine own ills no longer grieve;<br>Lo, there are sufferings worse than thine,<br>Which thou mayst labour to relieve.<br>If Time indeed too swiftly flies,<br>Gird on thine armour, haste, arise,<br>For thou hast much to do; -<br>To lighten woe, to trample sin,<br>And foes without and foes within<br>To combat and subdue.<br>Earth hath too much of sin and pain:<br>The bitter cup - the binding chain<br>Dost thou indeed lament?<br>Let not thy weary spirit sink;<br>But strive - not by one drop or link<br>The evil to augment.<br>Strive rather thou, by peace and joy,<br>The bitter poison to destroy,<br>The cruel chain to break.<br>O strive! and if thy strength be small,<br>Strive yet the more, and spend it all<br>For Love and Wisdom's sake!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O I have striven both hard and long<br>But many are my foes and strong.<br>My gains are light - my progress slow;<br>For hard's the way I have to go,<br>And my worst enemies, I know,<br>Are these within my breast;<br>And it is hard to toil for aye, -<br>Through sultry noon and twilight grey<br>To toil and never rest.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'There is a rest beyond the grave,<br>A lasting rest from pain and sin,<br>Where dwell the faithful and the brave;<br>But they must strive who seek to win.'<br>"Show me that rest - I ask no more.<br>Oh, drive these misty doubts away;<br>And let me see that sunny shore,<br>However far away!<br>However wide this rolling sea,<br>However wild my passage be,<br>Howe'er my bark be tempest tossed,<br>May it but reach that haven fair,<br>May I but land and wander there,<br>With those that I have loved and lost:<br>With such a glorious hope in view,<br>I'll gladly toil and suffer too.<br>Rest without toil I would not ask;<br>I would not shun the hardest task:<br>Toil is my glory - Grief my gain,<br>If God's approval they obtain.<br>Could I but hear my Saviour say, -<br>"I know thy patience and thy love;<br>How thou hast held the narrow way,<br>For my sake laboured night and day,<br>And watched, and striven with them that strove;<br>And still hast borne, and didst not faint," -<br>Oh, this would be reward indeed!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Press forward, then, without complaint;<br>Labour and love - and such shall be thy meed.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Anne+Bront%C3%AB">Anne Brontë</a><div class=q>
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