Beautiful Spirit! Angel of the Earth! That glidest through the storm-tost world, And bearest Blessings of peace and rest unto the weak,
Giddy and faint within its vortex whirled; O! fairest, Sweetest Pilot of the wavering soul Through the wide-yawning gulfs and shoals of crime,
Whence issue siren-spells that seek To sink the wayward in their noxious slime; Emblem of Purity! That like the star of Bethlehem dost lume
The wise of heart through this life's deepest gloom To hope, and joy, and blessedness, Hail to thee! Thou art the Priestess of all Holiness!
Standing midway betwixt the earth and heaven, Part shared of either, Mortality inwrought with purer leaven, Good sympathies, sweet thoughts, and stainless love,
That like distillëd perfume float above To charm the breather! O vision of soft eyes and flowing hair, Mild gentle eyes that chasten as they glance,
And on their dewy brightness ever bear The heart's warm language writ in radiance! O blessed smiles! heaven's golden sunrays shed On life's cold stream,
Renewëd summer when the old is fled Like a dream! O voice tinct with the spirit's sweetness, Last tone of heaven's clear harmonies
Ere in the silence of wide space it dies, Music's completeness! O gentle laughters! rising from the crystal spring Of joyance and free-hearted sympathy,
Pure rills to trickle sunnily From eyes and rosy lips in liquid warbling, Sweetly ye win us To shrine the blest spirit of Beauty
Within us! O tender heart! Love's everlasting dwelling, Beautiful fountain of all generous thoughts, From whose unsealëd fulness, ever welling,
Come to mankind their purest pleasure draughts; O gentle heart! Grief's only sanctuary, Safe refuge from the rude assaults of woe, Throbbing with mild compassion constantly,
That never change nor withering can know; From the pure spring of virgin slumbers Peace falls upon the soul when thou art by, Lulling it sweeter than Philomel's numbers,
Lapping it deep within felicity. O brightest! dearest! still there floats to thee The incense of pure minds eternally, Thoughts sown of loveliness, that bud and bloom,
And through the summer-time of after years Shed sweet perfume, Love-imaginings that rise through tears Like rainbows, and soft dreams
That are the heaven-gleams, Caught from the deep Of Elysian sleep!
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