The snake's wit evadeth not, It should count thee for nothing. Thine own eye divineth thee, Thine own soul arraigneth thee; God himself cannot shrive thee Till that judge forgive thee. Joseph Kussell Taplor THE FLUTE PUFFED up with luring to her knees Grouped round the dreaming oaten quill Tune done, that agile fancy stopped, A lilt that charmed and lulled to mute And all that warbling ecstasy Upon her. The third tune was caught Arthur Colton A SONG WITH A DISCORD THOUGH Winter come with dripping skies, And laden winds and strong, Yet I'll read summer in her eyes Whose voice is summer's song. Who grieves because the world is old, Or cares how long it last, LIGHTER than dandelion down, Or feathers from the white moth's wing, Out of the gates of bramble-town The silkweed goes a-gypsying. Too fair to fly in autumn's rout, All winter in the sheath it lay; Through mullein, bramble, brake, and fern, Up from their cradle-spring they fly, Softly, as if instinct with thought, They float and drift, delay and turn; And one avoids and one is caught Between an oak-leaf and a fern. And one holds by an airy line The spider drew from tree to tree; And if the web is light and fine, 'Tis not so light and fine as he ! SOLITUDE As one advances up the slow ascent In stature and in power till Solitude Loved, serving God, and built himself a home. Man smooths an acre on the rolling earth, Turns up the mould and reaps the gifts of God; Plucks down the apple from the tree, the tree From empire in the forest, builds a home; In this high epic of the human life. be, |