I like a cow's breath in sweet spring; I like the breath of babes new-born; A maid's breath is a pleasant thing,But oh, the breath of sudden morn!

Of sudden morn, when every pore Of Mother Earth is pulsing fast With life, and life seems spilling o'er With love, with love too sweet to last:

Of sudden morn beneath the sun, By God's great river wrapped in gray, That for a space forgets to run, And hides his face, as if to pray.

QUESTION?

60

1876.

In the days when my mother, the Earth, was young,

And you all were not, nor the likeness of you,

She walk'd in her maidenly prime among The moonlit stars in the boundless blue.

Then the great sun lifted his shining shield,

And he flash'd his sword as the soldiers do,

And he moved like a king full over the field,

And he look'd, and he loved her brave and true.

SONGS FROM SAPPHO AND

PHAON

SONG FIRST

"In the beginning God-" When God's spirit moved upon The water's face, and vapors curled Like incense o'er deep-cradled dawn That dared not yet the mobile world,—

When deep-cradled dawn uprose,
Ere the baby stars were born,
When the end of all repose
Came with that first wondrous morn,-

In the morning of the world
When light lept,-a giant born:
O that morning of the world,
That vast, first, tumultuous morn!

SONG SECOND

"And God said, 'Let there be light."" Rise up! How brief this little day! We can but kindle some dim light Here in the darkened, wooded way Before the gathering of night. Come, let us kindle it. The dawn Shall find us tenting further on. Come, let us kindle ere we go

We know not where; but this we know. Night cometh on, and man needs light. Come! camp-fire embers, ere we grope 10 Yon gray archway of night.

Life is so brief, so very brief, So rounded in, we scarce can see The fruitage grown about the leaf And foliage of a single tree In all God's garden; yet we know That goodly fruits must grow and grow Beyond our vision. We but stand In some deep hollow of God's hand, Hear some sweet bird its little day, See cloud and sun a season pass, And then, sweet friend, away!

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Clouds pass, they come again; and we, Are we, then, less than these to God? Oh, for the stout faith of a tree That drops its small seeds to the sod, Safe in the hollow of God's hand, And knows that perish from the land It shall not! Yea, this much we know, That each, as best it can, shall grow As God has fashioned, fair or plain, To do its best, or cloud or sum Or in His still, small rain.

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