How pure at heart and sound in head, With what divine affections bold, Should be the man whose thought would hold An hour's communion with the dead. In vain shalt thou, or any, call The spirits from their golden day, Except, like them, thou too canst say, My spirit is at peace with all. They haunt the silence of the breast, Imagination calm and fair, The memory like a cloudless air, The conscience as a sea at rest: But when the heart is full of din, And doubt beside the portals waits, They can but listen at the gates, And hear the household jar within. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SEA GYPSY [OR GIPSY] by RICHARD HOVEY MARTHY VIRGINIA'S HAND [SEPTEMBER 17, 1862] by GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP TO MOSCOW by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR SONNET: 116 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNET: 128 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE TRAGEDY by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM A CONCEPTION by DAISY MAUD BELLIS |