Imatges de pàgina
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With lighter steps than mine, may stray
In radiant summers yet to come.

But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I:
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve

Or dawn is painting wave and sky;

How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day;

Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,
Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,
Shall add, to life's abounding joy,
The charmed repose to suffering dear.

Still waits kind Nature to impart
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of pain.

Forever from the Hand that takes
One blessing from us others fall;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all!

O, watched by Silence and the Night,
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,

Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
Be thou the mirror of God's love.

THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.

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THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.

O, STRONG, upwelling prayers of faith,
From inmost founts of life ye start-
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!

From pastoral toil, from traffic's din,
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.

For man, the living temple is:

The mercy-seat and cherubim,

And all the holy mysteries,

He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love,
Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds,
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.

Which brings to God's all-perfect will
That trust of his undoubting child,
Whereby all seeming good and ill
Are reconciled.

And, seeking not for special signs
Of favor, is content to fall

Within the providence which shines
And rains on all.

Alone, the Thebaid hermit leaned
At noontime o'er the sacred word.
Was it an angel or a fiend
Whose voice he heard?

It broke the desert's hush of awe,
A human utterance, sweet and mild
And, looking up, the hermit saw
A little child.

A child, with wonder-widened eyes,
O'erawed and troubled by the sight
Of hot, red sands, and brazen skies,
And anchorite.

"What dost thou here, poor man? No shade Of cool, green doums, nor grass, nor well, Nor corn, nor vines." The hermit said: "With God I dwell.

"Alone with Him in this great calm,
I live not by the outward sense;
My Nile his love, my sheltering palm
His providence."

The child gazed round him. "Does God live
Here only ?-where the desert's rim

Is green with corn, at morn and eve,
We pray to Him.

"My brother tills beside the Nile

His little field : beneath the leaves

My sisters sit and spin the while,
My mother weaves.

“And when the millet's ripe heads fall,
And all the bean-field hangs in pod,
My mother smiles, and says that all
Are gifts from God.

THE HERMIT OF THE THEBAID.

“And when to share our evening meal,
She calls the stranger at the door,
She says God fills the hands that deal
Food to the poor."

Adown the hermit's wasted cheeks
Glistened the flow of human tears;
“Dear Lord!” he said, " Thy angel speaks,
Thy servant hears."

Within his arms the child he took,
And thought of home and life with men;
And all his pilgrim feet forsook

Returned again.

The palmy shadows cool and long,

The eyes that smiled through lavish locks,
Home's cradle-hymn and harvest-song,
And bleat of flocks.

"O, child!" he said, "thou teachest me
There is no place where God is not;
That love will make, where'er it be,
A holy spot."

He rose from off the desert sand,

And, leaning on his staff of thorn,

Went, with the young child, hand in hand,
Like night with morn.

They crossed the desert's burning line,
And heard the palm-tree's rustling fan,
The Nile-bird's cry, the low of kine,
And voice of man.

Unquestioning, his childish guide.
He followed as the small hand led
To where a woman, gentle-eyed,
Her distaff fed.

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She rose, she clasped her truant boy,
She thanked the stranger with her eyes
The hermit gazed in doubt and joy
And dumb surprise.

And, lo!—with sudden warmth and light
A tender memory thrilled his frame;
New-born, he world-lost anchorite
A man became.

"O, sister of El Zara's race,

Behold me !-had we not one mother? She gazed into the stranger's face ;— "Thou art my brother?"

"O, kin of blood!-Thy life of use

And patient trust

more than mine;

And wiser than the gray recluse

This child of thine.

"For, taught of him whom God hath sent,
That toil is praise, and love is prayer,
I come, life's cares and pains content
With thee to share."

Even as his foot the threshold crossed,
The hermit's better life began;
Its holiest saint the Thebaid lost,
And found a man !

BURNS.

ON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM

No more these simple flowers belong
To Scottish maid and lover;
Sown in the common soil of song,

They bloom the wide world over.

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