quote · Legacy record

The fancy I had to-day, Fancy which turned a fear! I swam far out in the bay, Since waves laughed warm and clear. I lay and looked at the sun, The noon-sun looked at me: Between us two, no one Live creature, that I could see. Yes! There came floating by Me, who lay floating too, Such a strange butterfly! Creature as dear as new: Because the membraned wings So wonderful, so wide, So sun-suffused, were things Like soul and nought beside.... What if a certain soul Which early slipped its sheath, And has for its home the whole Of heaven, thus look beneath. Thus watch one who, in the world, But lives and likes life’s way, Nor wishes the wings unfurled That sleep in the worm, they say? But sometimes when the weather Is blue, and warm waves tempt To free oneself of tether, And try a life exempt From worldly noise and dust, In the sphere which overbrims With passion and thought,—why, just Unable to fly, one swims!... Emancipate through passion And thought, with sea for sky, We substitute, in a fashion, For heaven—poetry: Which sea, to all intent, Gives flesh such noon-disport As a finer element Affords the spirit sort. Whatever they are, we seem: Imagine the thing they know; All deeds they do, we dream; Can heaven be else but so? And meantime, yonder streak Meets the horizon’s verge; That is the land, to seek If we tire or dread the surge: Land the solid and safe— To welcome again (confess!) When, high and dry, we chafe The body, and don the dress. Does she look, pity, wonder At one who mimics flight, Swims—heaven above, sea under, Yet always earth in sight?

The fancy I had to-day, Fancy which turned a fear! I swam far out in the bay, Since waves laughed warm and clear. I lay and looked at the sun, The noon-sun looked at me: Between us two, no one Live creature, that I could see. Yes! There came floating by Me, who lay floating too, Such a strange butterfly! Creature as dear as new: Because the membraned wings So wonderful, so wide, So sun-suffused, were things Like soul and nought beside.... What if a certain soul Which early slipped its sheath, And has for its home the whole Of heaven, thus look beneath. Thus watch one who, in the world, But lives and likes life’s way, Nor wishes the wings unfurled That sleep in the worm, they say? But sometimes when the weather Is blue, and warm waves tempt To free oneself of tether, And try a life exempt From worldly noise and dust, In the sphere which overbrims With passion and thought,—why, just Unable to fly, one swims!... Emancipate through passion And thought, with sea for sky, We substitute, in a fashion, For heaven—poetry: Which sea, to all intent, Gives flesh such noon-disport As a finer element Affords the spirit sort. Whatever they are, we seem: Imagine the thing they know; All deeds they do, we dream; Can heaven be else but so? And meantime, yonder streak Meets the horizon’s verge; That is the land, to seek If we tire or dread the surge: Land the solid and safe— To welcome again (confess!) When, high and dry, we chafe The body, and don the dress. Does she look, pity, wonder At one who mimics flight, Swims—heaven above, sea under, Yet always earth in sight?

Approximate author period: c. 1850 AD · industrial