The Heart's Harvest Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

How little we know of each other!
How lightly and loosely are known!
How seldom is brother with brother
The same that he is when alone;
Though relatives round a man gather,
Though cordial he seem with his friend,
Not even the child and its father
As spirit with spirit can blend.

The depths of a man are not sounded,
The heights of his thoughts are not seen,
The breadth of his feelings unbounded
Is veil'd by Society's screen;
We none of us heed what a greatness
Is hidden away in the Heart
That, mask'd in a well-bred sedateness,
Is playing its company part.

O Soul! that in solitude yearnest
For tenderer knowledge of friends,
The intimate, honest, and earnest,
Untainted by Self and its ends,--
Alas! for the lies of romances,
And stolid reality's truth;
Alas! for the generous fancies
That gladden'd a man in his youth!

Not here, where in spirit thou starvest,
Athirst for the flagons of love,
Not here -- is the happy heart-harvest
That gladdens the blessed above;
In heavenly meads we may reap it,--
But now the heart's garden is found
With scarcely one flower to keep it
Mapp'd out from the wilderness round!

Those 'spirits made perfect' in glory!
I long their companion to be,
That Love's ever musical story
Be sung by those reapers -- and me;
That Heart may discover its treasures
Unfearing, to dear ones above,
And all the full harvest of pleasures
Be reap'd by the Spirit of Love!