A vision

I saw a spirit standing, Man,

Where thou dost stand an hour ago,

And round his feet three rivers ran

Of equal depth and equal flow

A Golden Stream, and one like blood

And one like sapphire, seemed to be

But where they joined their triple flood

It tumbled in an inky sea

The spirit bent his dazzling gaze

Down on that ocean's gloomy night,

Then kindling all with sudden blaze,

The glad deep sparkled wide and bright

White as the sun, and far more fair

That their divided sources were!

And for that spirit Seer,

I've watched and sought my lifetime long

Sought him in Heaven, Hell, Earth and Air

An endless search and always wrong!

Had I but seen his glorious eye

Once light the cloud surrounding me,

I ne'er had raised this coward cry

To cease to think and cease to me.