Paul Hamilton Hayne

The True Heaven

THE bliss for which our spirits pine,
That bliss we feel shall yet be given,
Somehow, in some far realm divine,
Some marvellous state we call a heaven.

Is not the bliss of languorous hours
A glory of calm, measured range,
But life which feeds our noblest powers
On wonders of eternal change?

A heaven of action, freed from strife,
With ampler ether for the scope
Of all immeasurable life
And an unbaffled, boundless hope.

A heaven wherein all discords cease,
Self-torment, doubt, distress, turmoil,
The core of whose majestic peace
Is godlike power of tireless toil.

Toil, without tumult, strain or jar,
With grandest reach of range endued,
Unchecked by even the farthest star
That trembles thro' infinitude;

In which to soar to higher heights
Through widening ethers stretched abroad,
Till in our onward, upward flights
We touch at last the feet of God.

Time swallowed in eternity!
No future evermore; no past,
But one unending NOW, to be
A boundless circle round us cast!