Hail, trackless waste! a heart made desolate
Speeds from a sterner solitude to thee!
O, let me, lost in contemplation, be
Among thy children numbered-at the gate
Of Mercy, meekly pleading, still to wait,
With lifted eye and penitential knee,
The silent herald of Eternity-
The swift, relentless messenger of Fate!
Heaven weeps not here o'er man's ingratitude,
Where, from the heart perpetual fountains flow;
But Love, in cloudless majesty revealed,
Sustains the soul with Hope's celestial food,
Till, life to Life, the flame supernal grows,
And dust to dust the parting spirit yield.