TRANSFIGURED LIFE

As growth of form or momentary glance

In a child's features will recall to mind

The father's with the mother's face combin'd,—

Sweet interchange that memories still enhance:

And yet, as childhood's years and youth's advance,

The gradual mouldings leave one stamp behind,

Till in the blended likeness now we find

A separate man's or woman's countenance:—

So in the Song, the singer's Joy and Pain,

Its very parents, evermore expand

To bid the passion's fullgrown birth remain,

By Art's transfiguring essence subtly spann'd;

And from that song-cloud shaped as a man's hand

There comes the sound as of abundant rain.