Volume I Part 33 (2/2)

The riotous companies melt to a pair.

Bless them, mother of kindness!

A star has nodded through The depths of the flying blue.

Time only to plant the light Of a memory in the blindness.

But time to show me the sight Of my life thro' the curtain of night; s.h.i.+ning a moment, and mixed With the onward-hurrying stream, Whose pressure is darkness to me; Behind the curtain, fixed, Beams with endless beam That star on the changing sea.

Great Mother Nature! teach me, like thee, To kiss the season and shun regrets.

And am I more than the mother who bore, Mock me not with thy harmony!

Teach me to blot regrets, Great Mother! me inspire With faith that forward sets But feeds the living fire, Faith that never frets For vagueness in the form.

In life, O keep me warm!

For, what is human grief?

And what do men desire?

Teach me to feel myself the tree, And not the withered leaf.

Fixed am I and await the dark to-be And O, green bounteous Earth!

Bacchante Mother! stern to those Who live not in thy heart of mirth; Death shall I shrink from, loving thee?

Into the breast that gives the rose, Shall I with shuddering fall?

Earth, the mother of all, Moves on her stedfast way, Gathering, flinging, sowing.

Mortals, we live in her day, She in her children is growing.

She can lead us, only she, Unto G.o.d's footstool, whither she reaches: Loved, enjoyed, her gifts must be, Reverenced the truths she teaches, Ere a man may hope that he Ever can attain the glee Of things without a destiny!

She knows not loss: She feels but her need, Who the winged seed With the leaf doth toss.

And may not men to this attain?

That the joy of motion, the rapture of being, Shall throw strong light when our season is fleeing, Nor quicken aged blood in vain, At the gates of the vault, on the verge of the plain?

Life thoroughly lived is a fact in the brain, While eyes are left for seeing.

Behold, in yon stripped Autumn, s.h.i.+vering grey, Earth knows no desolation.

She smells regeneration In the moist breath of decay.

Prophetic of the coming joy and strife, Like the wild western war-chief sinking Calm to the end he eyes unblinking, Her voice is jubilant in ebbing life.

He for his happy hunting-fields Forgets the droning chant, and yields His numbered breaths to exultation In the proud antic.i.p.ation: Shouting the glories of his nation, Shouting the grandeur of his race, Shouting his own great deeds of daring: And when at last death grasps his face, And stiffened on the ground in peace He lies with all his painted terrors glaring; Hushed are the tribe to hear a threading cry: Not from the dead man; Not from the standers-by: The spirit of the red man Is welcomed by his fathers up on high.

MARTIN'S PUZZLE

I

There she goes up the street with her book in her hand, And her Good morning, Martin! Ay, la.s.s, how d'ye do?

Very well, thank you, Martin!--I can't understand!

I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe!

I can't understand it. She talks like a song; Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a gla.s.s; She seems to give gladness while limping along, Yet sinner ne'er suffer'd like that little la.s.s.

<script>