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, contains - each 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. 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 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! Know also when the day is nigh, Thou hast thine office; we have ours; Our day, for Him, is long enough, 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, From its toiling at the mill. Then the great moon on a sudden 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, "Once my love, my love forever, - 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, "There thou 'It find the humble postern 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. Forward leaped she o'er the threshold, 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: My wonder, then, was not unmixed I saw its trembling arms enclose Now even such men as Nature forms Who knows, thought I, but he has come Behind my wainscot buried? About that garb outlandish — "I come from Plymouth, deadly bored |