Thou art the unanswered question;

Couldst see thy proper eye,

Alway it asketh, asketh,

And each answer is a lie.

So take thy quest through nature, It through thousand natures ply, Ask on, thou clothed eternity,— Time is the false reply.'

Uprose the merry Sphynx,

And crouched no more in stone,

She melted into purple cloud,

She silvered in the moon,

She spired into a yellow flame,
She flowered in blossoms red,
She flowed into a foaming wave,

She stood Monadnoc's head.

Thorough a thousand voices

Spoke the universal dame, 'Who telleth one of my meanings, Is master of all I am.'

EACH AND ALL.

LITTLE thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;

And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,

Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm ;

The sexton tolling the bell at noon,

Dreams not that great Napoleon

Stops his horse, and lifts with delight,

Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;

Nor knowest thou what argument

Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent :

All are needed by each one,

Nothing is fair or good alone.

I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even ;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;

For I did not bring home the river and sky;

He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;

The bubbles of the latest wave

Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;

And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me;

I wiped away the weeds and foam,

And fetched my sea-born treasures home;

But the poor, unsightly, noisome things

Had left their beauty on the shore

With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.

The lover watched his graceful maid
As 'mid the virgin train she strayed,

Nor knew her beauty's best attire

Was woven still by the snow-white quire;

At last she came to his hermitage,

Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,—

The gay enchantment was undone,

A gentle wife, but fairy none.

Then I said, 'I covet Truth;

Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,

I leave it behind with the games of youth.'

As I spoke, beneath my feet.

The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs ;

I inhaled the violet's breath;

Around me stood the oaks and firs;

Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;

Above me soared the eternal sky,

Full of light and deity;

Again I saw, again I heard,

The rolling river, the morning bird ;—

Beauty through my senses stole,

I yielded myself to the perfect whole.

THE PROBLEM.

I LIKE a church, I like a cowl,

I love a prophet of the soul,

And on my heart monastic aisles

Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles;

Yet not for all his faith can see,

Would I that cowled churchman be.

Why should the vest on him allure,
Which I could not on me endure?

Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought;
Never from lips of cunning fell

The thrilling Delphic oracle;

Out from the heart of nature rolled,

The burdens of the Bible old;

The litanies of nations came,

Like the volcano's tongue of flame,

Up from the burning core below,
The canticles of love and woe.

The hand that rounded Peter's dome,

And groined the aisles of Christian Rome,

Wrought in a sad sincerity,

Himself from God he could not free;

He builded better than he knew,

The conscious stone to beauty grew.

Know'st thou what wove yon woodbird's nest

Of leaves and feathers from her breast;

Or how the fish outbuilt its shell,

Painting with morn each annual cell;
Or how the sacred pinetree adds

To her old leaves new myriads?