Herself must be her saviour. Side by side
Spring poisonous weed and helpful antidote
Within her tangled herbage; lonely pride
And humble fellow-service; dreams that dote, Deeds that aspire; foul sloth, free labor: she Hath power to choose, and what she wills, to be.
HERE might I rest forever; here,
Till death, inviolate of fear,
Descended cloud-like on calm eyes,
Enjoy the whisper of the waves
Stealing around those azure caves,
The gloom and glory of the skies!
Great mother, Nature, on thy breast
Let me, unsoiled by sorrow, rest,
By sin unstirred, by love made free:
Full-tried am I by years that bring
The blossoms of the tardy spring
Of wisdom, thine adept to be.
In vain I pray: the wish expires
Upon my lip, as fade the fires
Of youth in withered veins and weak;
Not mine to dwell, the neophyte
Of Nature, in her shrine of light,
But still to strive and still to seek.
I have outgrown the primal mirth
That throbs in air and sea and earth;
The world of worn humanity
Reclaims my care; at ease to range
Those hills, and watch their interchange
Of light and gloom, is not for me.
Dread Pan, to thee I turn: thy soul
That through the living world doth roll,
Stirs in our heart an aching sense
Of beauty, too divinely wrought
To be the food of mortal thought,
For earth-born hunger too intense.
Breathless we sink before thy shrine;
We pour our spirits forth. like wine;
With trembling hands we strive to lift
The veil of airy amethyst,
That shrouds thy godhood like a mist;
Then, dying, forth to darkness drift.
Thy life around us laughs, and we
Are merged in its immensity;
Thy chanted melodies we hear,
The marrying chords that meet and kiss
Between two silences; but miss
The meaning, though it seems so clear.
From suns that sink o'er silent seas,
From myrtles neath the mountain breeze
Shedding their drift of scented snow,
From fleeting hues, from sounds that swoon
On pathless hills, from night and noon,
The inarticulate passions flow,
That are thy minions, mighty Pan!
No priest hast thou; no muse or man
Hath ever told, shall ever tell,
But each within his heart alone,
Awe-struck and dumb hath learned to own
The burden of thine oracle.
I FOUND him lying neath the vines that ran
Grape-laden o'er gray frames of oak and beech;
A fair and jocund Faun, whose beard began,
Like dewy down on quince or blushing peach,
To soften chin and cheek. He bade me reach
My hand to his, and drew me through the screen
Of clusters intertwined with glistening green.
Sunrise athwart us fell- -a living fire,
That touching turned our tendrilled roof to red;
Network of shade from many a flickering spire
And solid orb upon the youth was shed;
With purple grapes and white his comely head
Was crowned, and in his hand a bunch he pressed
Against the golden glory of his breast.
Gourds with the grapes, and hops, and serpentine
Wreaths of blue bindweed tangling built a bower,
Where lying we could watch 'twixt vine and vine
Young men and maidens move, and singing shower
On wattled crates the fruit whose hoary flower
With dew still glistened; for the kiss of night
Lay yet on vale and mountain misty-bright.
Some trod the press; some climbed the elms that hung
Vine-burdened; and beneath, a beardless boy
Tuning his melancholy lute-strings sung
A wild shrill song, that spake of only joy,
But was so sad that virgins cold and coy
Melted, and love mid sorrow-sweetness fell
On careless hearts that felt the powerful spell.
BLEST is the man whose heart and hands are pure!
He hath no sickness that he shall not cure,
No sorrow that he may not well endure:
His feet are steadfast and his hope is sure.
Oh, blest is he who ne'er hath sold his soul,
Whose will is perfect, and whose word is whole,
Who hath not paid to common sense the toll
Of self-disgrace, nor owned the world's control!
Through clouds and shadows of the darkest night
He will not lose a glimmering of the light,
Nor, though the sun of day be shrouded quite,
Swerve from the narrow path to left or right.
AGNES MARY FRANCES ROBINSON.
SHE lived in the hovel alone, the beautiful child.
Alas, that it should have been so!
But her father died of the drink, and the sons went wild;
And where was the child to go?
Her brothers left her alone in the lonely hut.
Ah, it was dreary at night
When the wind whistled right through the door that never would shut,
And sent her sobbing with fright.
She never had slept alone; for the stifling room
Held her, brothers, father - all.
Ah, better their violence, better their threats, than the gloom
That now hung close as a pall!
When the hard day's washing was done, it was sweeter to stand
Hearkening praises and vows,
To feel her cold fingers kept warm in a sheltering hand, Than crouch in the desolate house.
Ah, me! she was only a child; and yet so aware
Of the shame which follows on sin.
A poor, lost, terrified child! she stept in the snare,
Knowing the toils she was in.
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