Yet there in the parlour sits The inevitable morning Finds them who in cellars be; And be sure the all-loving Nature Yon ridge of purple landscape, Yon sky between the walls, In scanty intervals. Alas, the sprite that haunts us It whispers of the glorious gods, If but one hero knew it, The world would blush in flame; Still, still the secret presses, E Within, without the idle earth And what if trade sow cities And thatch with towns the prairie broad They are but sailing foam-bells Along Thought's causing stream, And take their shape and sun-colour From him that sends the dream. For Destiny does not like To yield to men the helm, And shoots his thought by hidden nerves Throughout the solid realm. The patient Dæmon sits With roses and a shroud; He has his way, and deals his oifts— He is no churl or trifler, The seeds of land and sea Are the atoms of his body bright, And his behest obey. He serveth the servant, The brave he loves amain, He kills the cripple and the sick, And straight begins again; For gods delight in gods, And thrust the weak aside; To him who scorns their charities Their arms fly open wide. When the old world is sterile, He will from wrecks and sediment He forbids to despair, His cheeks mantle with mirth, And the unimagined good of men Spring still makes spring in the mind When sixty years are told; Love wakes anew this throbbing heart, And we are never old. Over the winter glaciers And through the wild-piled snowdrift HAMATREYA. MINOTT, Lee, Willard, Hosmer, Meriam, Flint, Where are those men? Asleep beneath their grounds, They added ridge to valley, brook to pond, We must have clay, lime, gravel, granite-ledge, The land is well,-lies fairly to the south. 'Tis good, when you have crossed the sea and back, Him to his land, a lump of mould the more. To them and to their heirs Who shall succeed Without fail For evermore. Here is the land, Fled like the flood's foam; They called me theirs, Who so controlled me; Yet every one Wished to stay, and is gone. How am I theirs, If they cannot hold me, When I heard the Earth-song, Like lust in the chill of the grave. WOOD-NOTES. I. FOR this present, hard Is the fortune of the bard Born out of time; All his accomplishment From Nature's utmost treasure spent When the pine tosses its cones With none has he to do, And none seek him, Nor men below, Nor spirits dim. Sure some good his eye enchants; In the wood he travels, glad What he knows nobody wants,— |