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And make hoar age revered for age's sake,

Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride.

So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate,

True hearts compel the sap of stur dier growth,

So between earth and heaven stand simply great,

That these shall seem but their attendants both;

For nature's forces with obedient zeal Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will;

As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel,

And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still.

Lord! all thy works are lessons,

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Much wrestling with the blessed Word To make it yield the sense of the Lord, That he might build a storm-proof creed

To fold the flock in at their need.

At last he builded a perfect faith, Fenced round about with The Lord thus saith;

To himself he fitted the doorway's size, Meted the light to the need of his eyes, And knew, by a sure and inward sign, That the work of his fingers was divine.

Then Ambrose said, "All those shall die

The eternal death who believe not as I";

And some were boiled, some burned in fire,

Some sawn in twain, that his heart's desire,

For the good of men's souls, might be satisfied,

By the drawing of all to the righteous side.

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The figure and features of his mind; And to each in his mercy hath God allowed

His several pillar of fire and cloud."

The soul of Ambrose burned with zeal And holy wrath for the young man's weal:

"Believest thou then, most wretched youth,"

Cried he, "a dividual essence in Truth? I fear me thy heart is too cramped with sin

To take the Lord in his glory in." Now there bubbled beside them where they stood

A fountain of waters sweet and good; The youth to the streamlet's brink drew

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Till the slow mountain's dial-hand Shortens to noon's triumphal hour,— While ye sit idle, do ye think

The Lord's great work sits idle too? That light dare not o'erleap the brink Of morn, because 't is dark with you?

Though yet your valleys skulk in night,

In God's ripe fields the day is cried, And reapers, with their sickles bright, Troop, singing, down the mountainside:

Come up, and feel what health there is

In the frank Dawn's delighted eyes, As, bending with a pitying kiss,

The night-shed tears of Earth she dries !

The Lord wants reapers: O, mount up, Before night comes, and says,-" Too late!"

Stay not for taking scrip or cup,

The Master hungers while ye wait; 'Tis from these heights alone your eyes The advancing spears of day can see, Which o'er the eastern hill-tops rise, To break your long captivity.

II.

Lone watcher on the mountain-height!
It is right precious to behold
The first long surf of climbing light
Flood all the thirsty east with gold;
But we, who in the shadow sit,

Know also when the day is nigh,
Seeing thy shining forehead lit
With his inspiring prophecy.

Thou hast thine office; we have ours;
God lacks not early service here,
But what are thine eleventh hours
He counts with us for morning
cheer;

Our day, for Him, is long enough,
And when he giveth work to do,
The bruised reed is amply tough
To pierce the shield of error through.

But not the less do thou aspire

Light's earlier messages to preach; Keep back no syllable of fire,

Plunge deep the rowels of thy speech. Yet God deems not thine aeried sight

More worthy than our twilight dim,

For meek Obedience, too, is Light, And following that is finding Him.

THE CAPTIVE.

IT was past the hour of trysting,
But she lingered for him still;
Like a child, the eager streamlet
Leaped and laughed adown the hill,
Happy to be free at twilight

From its toiling at the mill.

Then the great moon on a sudden
Ominous, and red as blood,
Startling as a new creation,

O'er the eastern hill-top stood, Casting deep and deeper shadows Through the mystery of the wood.

Dread closed huge and vague about her,

And her thoughts turned fearfully To her heart, if there some shelter From the silence there might be, Like bare cedars leaning inland

From the blighting of the sea.

Yet he came not, and the stillness

Dampened round her like a tomb; She could feel cold eyes of spirits

Looking on her through the gloom, She could hear the groping footsteps Of some blind, gigantic doom.

Suddenly the silence wavered

Like a light mist in the wind,
For a voice broke gently through 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, -
Flesh or spirit still the same;
If I missed the hour of trysting,
Do not think my faith to blame,
I, alas, was made a captive,

As from Holy Land I came.

"On a green spot in the desert,

Gleaming like an emerald star,

Where a palm-tree, in lone silence,
Yearning for its mate afar,
Droops above a silver runnel,
Slender as a scimitar, —

"There thou 'It 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

Surely will not say thee no."

Slept again the aspen silence,

But her loneliness was o'er; Round her heart a motherly patience Wrapt its arms forevermore; From her soul ebbed back the sorrow, Leaving smooth the golden shore.

Donned she now the pilgrim scallop,

Took the pilgrim staff in hand; Like a cloud-shade, flitting eastward, Wandered she o'er sea and land; And her footsteps in the desert

Fell like cool rain on the sand.

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Forward leaped she o'er the threshold,
Eager as a glancing surf;
Fell from her the spirit's languor,

Fell from her the body's scurf;· 'Neath the palm next day some Arabs Found a corpse upon the turf.

THE BIRCH-TREE.

RIPPLING through thy branches goes the sunshine,

Among thy leaves that palpitate for

ever;

Ovid in thee a pining Nymph had prisoned,

The soul once of some tremulous inland river,

Quivering to tell her woe, but, ah! dumb, dumb forever!

While all the forest, witched with slumberous moonshine,

Holds up its leaves in happy, happy silence,

Waiting the dew, with breath and pulse suspended,

I hear afar thy whispering, gleamy islands,

And track thee wakeful still amid the wide-hung silence.

Upon the brink of some wood-nestled lakelet,

Thy foliage, like the tresses of a Dryad, Dripping about thy slim white stem, whose shadow

Slopes quivering down the water's dusky quiet,

Thou shrink'st as on her bath's edge would some startled Dryad.

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,

And thy lithe boughs hang murmuring 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:

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My wonder, then, was not unmixed
With merciful suggestion,
When, as my roving eyes grew fixed
Upon the chair in question,

I saw its trembling arms enclose
A figure grim and rusty,
Whose doublet plain and plainer hose
Were something worn and dusty.

Now even such men as Nature forms
Merely to fill the street with,
Once turned to ghosts by hungry worms,
Are serious things to meet with;
Your penitent spirits are no jokes,
And, though I'm not averse to
A quiet shade, even they are folks
One cares not to speak first to.

Who knows, thought I, but he has come
By Charon kindly ferried,
To tell me of a mighty sum

Behind my wainscot buried?
There is a buccaneerish air

About that garb outlandish —
Just then the ghost drew up his chair
And said, "My name is Standish.

"I come from Plymouth, deadly bored
With toasts, and songs, and speeches,
As long and flat as my old sword,
As threadbare as my breeches :

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