Edward Rowland Sill (1841–1887)

WEARY, and marred with care and pain

And bruising days, the human brain

Draws wounded inward,—it might be

Some delicate creature of the sea,

That, shuddering, shrinks its lucent dome,

And coils its azure tendrils home,

And folds its filmy curtains tight

At jarring contact, e’er so light;

But let it float away all free,

And feel the buoyant, supple sea

Among its tinted streamers swell,

Again it spreads its gauzy wings,

And, waving its wan fringes, swings

With rhythmic pulse its crystal bell.

So let the mind, with care o’erwrought,

Float down the tranquil tides of thought:

Calm visions of unending years

Beyond this little moment’s fears;

Of boundless regions far from where

The girdle of the azure air

Binds to the earth the prisoned mind.

Set free the fancy, let it find

Beyond our world a vaster place

To thrill and vibrate out through space,—

As some auroral banner streams

Up through the night in pulsing gleams,

And floats and flashes o’er our dreams;

There let the whirling planet fall

Down—down, till but a glimmering ball,

A misty star: and dwindled so,

There is no room for care, or woe,

Or wish, apart from that one Will

That doth the worlds with music fill.