Over the morning of my day. Now entreating Burning Fire, O, when will the morning rise? I THE MENTAL TRAVELLER. TRAVELL'D through a land of men, And heard and saw such dreadful things For there the babe is born in joy Just as we reap in joy the fruit Which we in bitter tears did sow :* And if the babe is born a boy, Who nails him down upon a rock, She binds iron thorns around his head, She cuts his heart out at his side, To make it feel both cold and heat. *Psalm cxxvi. 5. M Her fingers number every nerve, Just as a miser counts his gold; She lives upon his shrieks and cries, And she grows young as he grows old: Till he becomes a bleeding youth, And binds her down for his delight. He plants himself in all her nerves, An aged Shadow, soon he fades, And these are the gems of the human soul, The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye, The countless gold of the aching heart, The martyr's groan, and the lover's sigh. They are his meat, they are his drink; He feeds the beggar and the poor, And the wayfaring traveller, For ever open is his door. His grief is their eternal joy; They make the roofs and walls to ring— Till from the fire on the hearth A little female babe does spring; And she is all of solid fire And gems and gold, that none his hand Dares stretch to touch her baby form, Or wrap her in his swaddling band. But she comes to the man she loves, He wanders, weeping, far away, And to allay his freezing age, The poor man takes her in his arms; The cottage fades before his sight, The garden and its lovely charms; The guests are scatter'd through the land, The stars, sun, moon, all shrink away, The honey of her infant lips, The bread and wine of her sweet smile, The wild game of her roving eye, For as he eats and drinks, he grows Wander in terror and dismay. |