Volume II Part 31 (1/2)

Yet shall she not our mistress live, As doth the moon of ocean, Though gently as the moon she give Our thoughts a light and motion: More like a harp of many lays, Moving its master while he plays.

XXII.

No sod in all that island doth Yawn open for the dead; No wind hath borne a traitor's oath; No earth, a mourner's tread; We cannot say by stream or shade, ”I suffered _here_,--was _here_ betrayed.”

XXIII.

Our only ”farewell” we shall laugh To s.h.i.+fting cloud or hour, And use our only epitaph To some bud turned a flower: Our only tears shall serve to prove Excess in pleasure or in love.

XXIV.

Our fancies shall their plumage catch From fairest island-birds, Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch, Born singing! then our words Unconsciously shall take the dyes Of those prodigious fantasies.

XXV.

Yea, soon, no consonant unsmooth Our smile-tuned lips shall reach; Sounds sweet as h.e.l.las spake in youth Shall glide into our speech: (What music, certes, can you find As soft as voices which are kind?)

XXVI.

And often, by the joy without And in us, overcome, We, through our musing, shall let float Such poems,--sitting dumb,-- As Pindar might have writ if he Had tended sheep in Arcady;

XXVII.

Or aeschylus--the pleasant fields He died in, longer knowing; Or Homer, had men's sins and s.h.i.+elds Been lost in Meles flowing; Or Poet Plato, had the undim Unsetting G.o.dlight broke on him.

XXVIII.

Choose me the cave most worthy choice, To make a place for prayer, And I will choose a praying voice To pour our spirits there: How silverly the echoes run!

_Thy will be done,--thy will be done._

XXIX.

Gently yet strangely uttered words!

They lift me from my dream; The island fadeth with its swards That did no more than seem: The streams are dry, no sun could find-- The fruits are fallen, without wind.

x.x.x.

So oft the doing of G.o.d's will Our foolish wills undoeth!

And yet what idle dream breaks ill, Which morning-light subdueth?

And who would murmur and mis...o...b.., When G.o.d's great sunrise finds him out?

_THE SOUL'S TRAVELLING._

~ede noerous Petasai tarsous.~

SYNESIUS.

I.

I dwell amid the city ever.