Part 23 (1/2)

Have faith in G.o.d. For whosoever lists To calm conviction in these days of strife, Will learn that in this steadfast stand exists The scholars.h.i.+p severe of human life.

This face to face with doubt! I know how strong His thews must be who fights and falls and bears, By sleepless nights and vigils lone and long, And many a woeful wraith of wrestling prayers.

Yet trust in Him! Not in an old man throned With thunders on an everlasting cloud, But in that awful Ent.i.ty enzoned By no wild wraths nor bitter homage loud.

When from the summit of some sudden steep Of speculation you have strength to turn To things too boundless for the broken sweep Of finer comprehension, wait and learn

That G.o.d hath been ”His own interpreter”

From first to last. So you will understand The tribe who best succeed, when men most err, To suck through fogs the fatness of the land.

One thing is surer than the autumn tints We saw last week in yonder river bend-- That all our poor expression helps and hints, However vaguely, to the solemn end

That G.o.d is truth; and if our dim ideal Fall short of fact--so short that we must weep-- Why shape specific sorrows, though the real Be not the song which erewhile made us sleep?

Remember, truth draws upward. This to us Of steady happiness should be a cause Beyond the differential calculus Or Kant's dull dogmas and mechanic laws.

A man is manliest when he wisely knows How vain it is to halt and pule and pine; Whilst under every mystery haply flows The finest issue of a love divine.

Mountain Moss

It lies amongst the sleeping stones, Far down the hidden mountain glade; And past its brink the torrent moans For ever in a dreamy shade.

A little patch of dark-green moss, Whose softness grew of quiet ways (With all its deep, delicious floss) In slumb'rous suns of summer days.

You know the place? With pleasant tints The broken sunset lights the bowers; And then the woods are full with hints Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!

'Tis often now the pilgrim turns A faded face towards that seat, And cools his brow amongst the ferns; The runnel dabbling at his feet.

There fierce December seldom goes, With scorching step and dust and drouth; But, soft and low, October blows Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.

And Autumn, like a gipsy bold, Doth gather near it grapes and grain, Ere Winter comes, the woodman old, To lop the leaves in wind and rain.

O, greenest moss of mountain glen, The face of Rose is known to thee; But we shall never share with men A knowledge dear to love and me!

For are they not between us saved, The words my darling used to say, What time the western waters laved The forehead of the fainting day?

Cool comfort had we on your breast While yet the fervid noon burned mute O'er barley field and barren crest, And leagues of gardens flushed with fruit.

Oh, sweet and low, we whispered so, And sucked the pulp of plum and peach; But it was many years ago, When each, you know, was loved of each.

The Glen of Arrawatta

A sky of wind! And while these fitful gusts Are beating round the windows in the cold, With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape A settler's story of the wild old times: One told by camp-fires when the station drays Were housed and hidden, forty years ago; While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew, And crowded round the friendly gleaming flame That lured the dingo, howling, from his caves, And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.