Life Poem by Joanna Baillie

THE ministering spirits from above
Descend with energy creative fraught,
They breathe on nature with the breath of love,
And lo! she wakens into life and thought.
Where all was dull and dark, inert and cold,
Now power and motion, light and heat abound;
The heavens are bright with azure and with gold,
And green and rosy hues adorn the ground.
With life the waters tremble, every hour
New tints, new forms of loveliness appear;
The limpid dew breathes odour in the flower,
And new-born music fills the vernal air.
But not alone through matter's fairest forms
And genial powers, does beauteous order reign,
The lightning's flash, the blast of angry storms,
And the tumultuous raging of the main,

Alike are engines of Eternal Will,
For good and useful ends: that Will whose sway
Has ever acted, and is acting still,
Whilst planets, worlds, and systems all obey;
Without whose power creative, mortal things
Were still and dead,--an inharmonious band,
Silent as are the harp's untuned strings,
Without the touches of the minstrel's hand:
But for whose power conserving; they would pass
Back into chaos, stars on stars would fall;
Suns would be darken'd, and the mighty mass
Of nature rest beneath her funeral pall.
A portion of the one Intelligence,
Th' immortal mind of man its image bears,
Vested with organs in the world of sense,
Oppress'd, but not subdued by human cares.
A germ preparing in the winter's frost,
To rise and bud and blossom in the spring;
A new-plum'd eagle by the tempest tost,
And gaining from its fury strength of wing:

The child of trial, to mortality
And all its changeful influences given,
Yet dimly conscious of its destiny,
And that its high inheritance is heaven:
Feeling its life amidst the forms of death
To be eternal, not a spark that flies
But a pure portion of th' immortal breath,
Kindling a flame where'er its essence lies:
Though clouded, still to feel that flame endure,
By joy exalted or by pain refin'd,
Till sense is lost in passion high and pure,
And intellectual light absorbs the mind:
Soon as it breathes to feel the mother's form
Of orbed beauty thro' its organs thrill,
To press the limbs of life with rapture warm,
And drink with transport from a living rill:
To view the skies with morning radiance bright,
Majestic mingling with the ocean blue,
Or bounded by green hills or mountains white,
Or peopled plains of rich and varied hue:

To feel pure pleasure at the wond'rous face
Of nature! but a higher joy to prove,
In viewing living charms, expression, grace,
Awakening sympathy, compelling love:
The heavenly balm of mutual hope to taste,
Soother of life, affection's bliss to share,
Sweet as the stream amidst the desert waste,
As the first blush of arctic day-light fair:
The father's sacred name in joy to bless,
Whilst life's sweet op'ning blossoms round him rise,
With virtue's odours, hues of happiness,
Binding with flowery wreaths his civic ties:
To mingle with its kindred, to descry
The path of power, in public life to shine;
To gain the voice of popularity,
The idol of to-day, the man divine:
To govern others by an influence strong,
As that high law which moves the murm'ring main,
Raising and carrying all its waves along,
Beneath the full-orb'd moon's meridian reign:

How quickly palsied the strong arm of power,
The breath of praise how mutable,--to know,
The thunder-storm dissolving in the shower,
The winter's zephyr trembling on the snow:
To view the mighty victims of the lust
Of domination fall'n--the statesman low
As the poor peasant in ignoble dust:
And those whose triumphs kept the world in awe,
Who play'd with sceptres and dispos'd of thrones,
Whose great achievements wondering millions sung,
Dying without a trophy for their bones,
Or in inglorious exile, not a tongue
Daring, except in whisp'rings low to speak
Of their high deeds:--To feel that glory's light
Rising from arms and empire, when the weak
Or lose their freedom in th' unequal fight,
Or for their country and their laws expire,--
Is, as the red volcano's wond'rous birth,
Fair in the distance,--near, an awful fire,
Which desolates the green and fertile earth:

To wake from low ambition's splendid dream,
Its gauds, its pomps, its toys, to feel how vain,
Like glitt'ring foam upon the turbid stream,
Or Iris' tints, upon the falling rain:
To dwell upon utility alone,
As the true source of honour, to aspire
To something which posterity may own,
A guiding lamp, not a consuming fire:
To hail those pure and hallow'd sympathies,
Which into future ages bear the mind,
Th' eternal converse with the good and wise,
The high abstracted love of human kind:
To forests to retire, amidst the whole
Of natural forms, whose generations rise
In lovely change, in beauteous order roll,
On land, in ocean, in the glitt'ring skies:
To live in pure and happy solitude,
In adoration of th' Eternal Cause,
And wonder of his works with love imbued
Of inspiration gain'd from nature's laws:

To feel, as its decaying organs fade,
That mortal burdens seem to pass away,
And in the glimm'ring through its twilight shade,
To hail the dawning of a glorious day;
So in the northern summer, morning beams
Ere the last western purple leaves the skies;
So in th' autumnal night the moonshine gleams,
Pointing to where the orient sunbeams rise:
His soil'd and wearying earthly vest to tear,
To give to nature all her borrowed powers,
Dust to the earth, and moisture to the air,
And balm to cheer the fainting herbs and flowers:
Then, as awak'ning from a dream of pain,
Its pristine form of glory to assume,
Untouch'd by Time, and free from mortal stain,
The raptured seraph's everlasting bloom:
To its first source of being to return,
To bask in the eternal Fount of light,
With hope amidst fruition still to burn
In the unsated love of knowledge infinite.