Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1866-06-09
POETRY.
B6- This is great poem. tits truly
From the Louisville Journal.l .fr ai
THE BURIAL OF GOD.
A DREAM THAT WAS DREAMED.


dreamed thst God was dead. Anawful dread
Overwhelmed my soul. A universe bereaved
In blasted orphanage, with tokens DARK
OF woes illimitable, aghast and still,
Paled in the vaults q space. Ihe 5 sn OIL 'ie
Creating forms and tints and tones, ana all
The energies Of palpitatng life
Through countless planes and magnitudes ana
without their God, were not. All His works.
BY instinct omnipresent, paused and died,
The stars, IMPOSED and toppled Ger, along :,
Their crystal paths were strewn. IKE stranaeo
And far around creations outer walls
They glared like fun'ral torches. pale and sad.
And darkness came and stood before the stars,
The darkness, yet consumed it not-both light
And darkness one. Hope came with pianchins
And died. Love signing. looked Its last sad wish;
And died afsd Hope eams-aspartins eame-aha
The angels with their hushed and strinsless
harps,
Archangels, cherubim and seraphim.
And spirits of the beautiful and just
The princely Son and mighty Spirit came :,
To swell the pageant dire. Time came, with all
Its bloody. fearful. Christ bright scroll en-
Around lis serpent fern, like nufiing hood
The furtive visage Of the noiseless thief;
Eternity, with all its seconds, came;
And Space in all its countless points-e en- Death
Triumphant. came, in awe, to die with 1od'
All things seemed dual and yet one--a dead
And living universe embraced. Around,
Above, below, an emptiness not empty,
phantom werld all paipable--a world
To sense aliye-to dreaming consciousness
All dead--a contradiction infinite
dreamed, that then, by strange consent, as II
All skies and world and depths and sentient
things
Were swayed by one omniscient thought and
will,
The universe in boundless gloom and awe
And pomp of State unutterable. prepared
The funeral of God Nought moved or spoke.
And yet, in dreams. perplexed by lifeless lie,
BY stagnant motion and BY toneless sounds, {"
BY signals strange and rayless fires along
The beacon nights Of goddess empires grand
felt that-Hs shroud unwoven and
Outhowing like a wool Of light HIS grave
Dug BY no mortal hand Himself his tomb,
Begirt and watched by clouds. IN circuits VIDE,
Piled onward in Titantic masonry
As topless walls of gloom His hearse and bier
In distance screened in mystery sublime;
His knell the tolling deep of bells unwrought
Heard only in the car of waiting taought,
And swung on high in ever deep ming domesi
His dirge, unrhym'd. voiceless, spectral-tohtd,
And chanted BY unmoying lips of choiIs.
Innumerable, mingling silent signs
OF wingless winds with loud and solemn roa's
OF oceans dead; His pail the dusky skirts
OF woven shadows dim-I felt that all
ALL-ALI.--was ready, mute1y waiting for
The dicfal Jnfol Of COP.
Appalled,. could bear no more. The dreamer
woke
Joy. 10Y, We sad mortalsl The horror is past,
The dreaming had cnded-the days breaking
fast
The sun on the hills and its sheen in the air
Inscribe on the spheres that our God Il stlil
there
The food in the fields and he buds on the stems,
The worlds round His brows like glitte'ine
gems, a.. 49,,
The bannering clouds and wide-rolling tides
Proclaims that His power forever abldes.
w.
Without our God what things could be
In earth or air or heaving sea;
What sounds arise, what colors glow
Upon earth canvas here below
See the kindness,
See the gladness.
In our blindness.
In our madness.
he forever pours upon us,
Sinking downward TO our dustl
Obi the ioy and oh the bliss
We poor mortals have in this
Our father God
All good things giyeth
Our Father God.
Forever ireth
W. H. PLATT.
LOUISVILLE, May, 1866.