GRADATION
TELL me not of insulations, of affinities distinct,
For all things with one another are indissolubly link’d:
Nature’s work is in gradations, from the life-blood to the stone;
Oh, the infinite commingling! Nothing, nothing stands alone.
Know ye when the gates of morning close against the twilight gray,
And the setting sun’s wet purple flushes out the glare of day?
Can ye mark the point of time when the star, before unseen,
Took its place in the high Heav’ns, trembling into light serene?
Noted ye with due exactness how it paled before the dawn,
Fainting back into the vault, beneath the steady eye of morn,
To carry on its burning, viewless, till another night be born?
Can ye tell when the small seedling push’d inside its parent flower,
And the beech-boughs intermingled in the wondrous leafy shower?
When the throstlecock sang loudest, and the fern was in its pride,
And the flush of the heather crept o’er all the mountain side?
Did ye watch the dewdrop forming? Did ye see the snowdrop rise?
The up-breaking of the Seasons – is that done before your eyes?
Has thy mem’ry served the truly? hast thou certainly defined
When the first ray of intelligence illumed thy crescent mind?
When thy childish thoughts went from the; when thy boyhood ceased to be;
And the red sun of thy manhood rose in glory o’er the sea?
Canst thou tell when Love first whispered, low and softly at thine ear,
Thrilling all thy sense with rapture, and a faint delicious fear?
If thou canst not read this closely, how much less the outward sphere!
In this world can no beginning, nor end of aught be shown;
All things blend in one another; only GOD can stand alone!