The Picture Of St John Author:Bayard Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PICTURE OF ST. JOHN BOOK I. THE ARTIST. S OMPLETE the altar stands: my task is done. Awhile from sacred toil and silent prayer I rest, and ne... more »ver shone the vale so fair As now, beneath the mellow autumn sun, And overbreathed by tinted autumn air! In drowsy murmurs slide the mountain rills, And, save of light, the whole wide heaven is bare Above the happy slumber of the hills. Here, as a traveller whose feet have clomh A weary mountain-slope, may choose his seat, And resting, track the ways that he hath come,— The broken landscapes, level far below, The turf that kissed, the flints that tore his feet, And each dim speck that once was bliss or woe, - I breathe a space, between two sundered lives, And view what now is ended, what survives. For, truly, he that reverently holds The wonder of his being, bowed in awe Of what divine or dread himself infolds, And boundless liberty and sternest law Commingled, he alone is counted worth The veil from Life's dim countenance to draw,— To face the solemn facts of Death and Birth, And break his path across the wilds of Earth! Such as I am, I am: in soul and sense Distinct, existing in my separate right, And though a Power, beyond my clouded sight, Spun from a thousand gathered filaments My cord of life, within its inmost core That life is mine: its torture, its delight, Repeat not those that ever were before Or ever shall be: mine are Day and Night. God gives to most an order which supplies Their passive substance, and they move therein. To some He grants the beating wings that rise In endless aspiration, till they win An awful vision of a deeper sin And loftier virtue, other earth and skies: And those their common help from each may draw, But these must perish, save they...« less