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Your answer comes; your splendor passing down
Clothes the Soul and blesses it in return;
Man's love for Nature returns to himself
In gifts of light; he sees, he feels, he knows,
And inspiration uplifts him
To the poet's height. Take your child, sweet Nature!
Speak in the winds of evening, speak in light!
Speak in the revelations of the stars!
And in the terror of the midnight hush—
In which the lonely sea washes far away—
Reveal yourself and speak! "So you are a child no more"—
This mystical Nature speaks to the Soul—
"But in essence, you are as old as I,
And ever young, forever changed and born;
And through the procession of created things
Of which I am made, yet which are all a part of you,
You slowly pass toward the furthest point;
And all my light goes with you, all my hopes
Spread wings before you; and the end, the end,
Is not so distant, but its glory streams
Far and away—not from the East or West,
Oh, not from star or sun—far and away,
Where the heart rests—not where the clouds hang out
And the flame flashes—all is in the light, the light—
The light of truth and the light of love, the splendor of the over-soul
The "over-soul" is a concept of a supreme underlying unity or spirit that guides and connects all things.
Making the soul a splendor, and your form,
Which is the circle of created things,
Glows in your glory, revels in your light;
I am not cut off from you, but am that which joins
The encompassing God to you within."
And in the fading splendor of the west,
When exhausted larks drop and waters merge in mist,
Whoever wishes may read this message of God's light,
And find already in their inmost self
The first faint glimmers foregleams of that glory shine.