Which he with such benignant So every year that falls with noise royalty Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent; less flake Should fill old scars up on the stormward side, All nature seems his vassal proud And make hoar age revered for How towers he, too, amid the bil- So, from the pinched soil of a lowed snows, An unquelled exile from the summer's throne, churlish fate, True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth, Whose plain, uncinctured front So between earth and heaven more kingly shows, Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown. stand simply great, That these shall seem but their attendants both; His boughs make music of the For nature's forces with obedient winter air, Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front zeal Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will; Where clinging snow-flakes with As quickly the pretender's cheat quaint art repair The dints and furrows of time's envious brunt. they feel, And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still. How doth his patient strength the Lord! all thy works are lessons; rude March wind Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, each contains Some emblem of man's all-con And win the soil that fain would Shall he make fruitless all thy be unkind, To swell his revenues with proud increase! He is the gem; and all the land- Make me the least of thy Dodona scape wide (So doth his grandeur isolate the sense) grove, Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Seems but the setting, worthless Speak but a word through me, nor Should man learn how to clasp NEVER, surely, was holier man With bed of iron and scourgings So shining a face, and the good Then Ambrose said, 'All those The soul of Ambrose burned with shall die zeal The eternal death who believe not And holy wrath for the young 20 man's weal: as I;' And some were boiled, some 'Believest thou then, most wretched youth,' burned in fire, Some sawn in twain, that his Cried he, a dividual essence in heart's desire, Truth? For the good of men's souls might I fear me thy heart is too cramped be satisfied with sin By the drawing of all to the right- To take the Lord in his glory in.' eous side. One day, as Ambrose was seeking the truth In his lonely walk, he saw a youth Resting himself in the shade of a tree; Now there bubbled beside them where they stood A fountain of waters sweet and good; 50 The youth to the streamlet's brink drew near It had never been granted him to Saying, 'Ambrose, thou maker of see creeds, look here!' Six vases of crystal then he took, And set them along the edge of the brook. And reapers, with their sickles bright, Troop, singing, down the mountain-side: 'As into these vessels the water I Come up, and feel what health And the water unchanged, in As, bending with a pitying kiss, When Ambrose looked up, he Stay not for taking scrip or cup, stood alone, But not the less do thou aspire Light's earlier messages preach; to Keep back no syllable of fire, Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. She could hear the groping footsteps Of some blind, gigantic doom. Suddenly the silence wavered Yet God deems not thine aeried For a voice broke gently through sight More worthy than our twilight For meek Obedience, too, is Light, THE CAPTIVE IT was past the hour of trysting, Happy to be free at twilight From its toiling at the mill. it, Felt like sunshine by the blind, And the dread, like mist in sunshine, Furled serenely from her mind. 'Once my love, my love forever, I, alas, was made a captive, 'On a green spot in the desert, Gleaming like an emerald star, Where a palm-tree, in lone silence, Yearning for its mate afar, Then the great moon on a sud- Droops above a silver runnel, den Ominous, and red as blood, Startling as a new creation, O'er the eastern hilltop stood, Casting deep and deeper shadows Through the mystery of the wood. Dread closed vast and vague about her, And her thoughts turned fearfully ter Slender as a scimitar, 'There thou 'lt find the humble postern To the castle of my foe; If thy love burn clear and faithful, Strike the gateway, green and low, Ask to enter, and the warder To her heart, if there some shel- Slept again the aspen silence, Like a cloud-shade flitting east ward, Wandered she o'er sea and land; And her footsteps in the desert Fell like cool rain on the sand. THE BIRCH-TREE RIPPLING through thy branches goes the sunshine, Among thy leaves that palpitate forever; Soon, beneath the palm tree's Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had Through her soul a sense of music I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy Thou art the go-between of rustic lovers; Thy white bark has their secrets in its keeping; Reuben writes here the happy name of Patience, Forward leaped she o'er the And thy lithe boughs hang mur threshold, Eager as a glancing surf; Fell from her the spirit's lan guor, Fell from her the body's scurf; 'Neath the palm next day some Arabs Found a corpse upon the turf. muring and weeping Above her, as she steals the mystery from thy keeping. Thou art to me like my beloved maiden, So frankly coy, so full of trembly confidences; |