Part 12 (1/2)

The waves beside them danced; but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed--and gazed--but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

--_Wordsworth._

A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF G.o.d.

They say that G.o.d lives very high: But if you look above the pines You cannot see G.o.d. And why?

And if you dig down in the mines You never see him in the gold, Though, from him, all that's glory s.h.i.+nes.

G.o.d is so good, he wears a fold Of heaven and earth across his face-- Like secrets kept for love untold.

But still I feel that his embrace Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place:

As if my tender mother laid On my shut lids her kisses' pressure, Half waking me at night; and said, ”Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?”

--_Mrs. Browning._

FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.[13]

Am I a king that I should call my own This splendid ebon throne?

Or by what reason or what right divine, Can I proclaim it mine?

Only, perhaps, by right divine of song It may to me belong: Only because the spreading chestnut tree Of old was sung by me.

Well I remember it in all its prime, When in the summer time The affluent foliage of its branches made A cavern of cool shade.

There by the blacksmith's forge, beside the street, Its blossoms white and sweet Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive, And murmured like a hive.

And when the winds of autumn, with a shout, Tossed its great arms about, The s.h.i.+ning chestnuts, bursting from the sheath, Dropped to the ground beneath.

And now some fragments of its branches bare, Shaped as a stately chair, Have, by a hearth-stone found a home at last, And whisper of the past.

The Danish king could not in all his pride Repel the ocean tide.

But, seated in this chair, I can in rhyme Roll back the tide of time.

I see again, as one in vision sees, The blossoms and the bees, And hear the children's voices call, And the brown chestnuts fall.

I see the smithy with its fires aglow, I hear the bellows blow, And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat The iron white with heat.

And thus, dear children, have ye made for me This day a jubilee, And to my more than three-score years and ten Brought back my youth again.

The heart hath its own memory, like the mind And in it are enshrined The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought The giver's loving thought.

Only your love and your remembrance could Give life to this dead wood, And make these branches, leafless now so long, Blossom again in song.

--_Longfellow._

[13] Copyrighted by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

A SONG OF EASTER.[14]