200 APOSTROPHE AT MIDNIGHT. 



And why have human hearts e'er fled in terror 



From the unknown ? why shook at thought of you ? 



Immortal ones ! that once were like ourselves. 



I cannot fly you ; come, if ye mai/ come, 



Walk with me here. The starry lamps shall light 



Our footsteps, or else mine, for you need not 



Light, except that which is your very essence 



And makes our brightest sunshine dark and chill. 



Come ! I can bear your presence ; bid my soul 



Rush to meet yours, and in that meeting joy 



With glorious and unutterable gladness. 



This is an hour (for beautiful and great 



Here mingle, and raise up our earthly feeling 



To cope with yours) — this is an hour to bring 



Such intercourse, and melt the icy barrier 



That shuts us out from you. The fairest forms 



Of heaven and earth, are only now a vail 



Between, which but a breath of yours would rend. 



And can this be forbidden ? are our natures. 



Once even the same, so separated now 



That it were sin to hold communication 



Of thought to thought? Must we still linger out 



Our penal years, and wait until this coil 



Be shaken off*, and we become as you ? 



There hangs the mystery I Is knowledge sin ? 



Or are you speechless, and incapable 



Of making our dull senses take impression 



From your pure nature, thus refined above 



The grossness e'en of this fair habitation, 



Esteemed God's noblest work beheld below ? 



But come it will ! the hour which shall unveil 



The viewless worlds of knowledge on our gaze; 



When ye too shall be visible, and known 



Eve/1 as ye know, — for we shall be like you, 



The saved from doubt, to rest in certainty. 



S. D. 



