Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine

PART VI.

November days are dusk and dull,
And yet they teach the heart to ponder;
Of sober depth the skies are full,
While fades from earth its garb of won-
der.

We breathe at whiles so charmed an air,

By sound each leaf's light fall we learn;
No breeze disturbs the spider's snare,
That hangs with dew the stately fern.
3.

Soon heaves within the boundless frame,
A strong and sullen gust of life,
And rolling waves and woods proclaim
The darkened world's increasing strife.
4.

'Mid boom, and clang, and stormy swell,

And shadows dashed by blast and rain, Leaves heaped, whirled, routed, sweep the dell,

And glimpses course the leaden main.

5. And yet, though inward drawn and still, There beats a hidden heart of joy; Beneath the old year's mantle chill Sleeps, mute and numb, the unconscious boy.

16.

His love was no unblest device
To lengthen falsehood's coward mood,
Nor purchased liking at the price
Of calling evil-good.

17.

He woke the sense, he warned the breast,

Affirming truths supreme,

And let the voice within attest
He told no misty dream.

18.

Each feeling thus that moved the child,
As each in turn awoke,

To its fixed law was reconciled,
And owned the strengthening yoke.

19.

So still the God revealed below

He stood with zeal the untaught to As one great Will of Good to all,

teach,

He taught for Sire and Judge to know, On whom for aid all needs may call.

20.

Amid his poor, unknowing throng
Of little learners pleased he stood;
To him their murmur hummed a song,
And every face had germs of good.
21.

And when the exhausted aching frame
Would fain have sunk away to rest,

He thought how high the teacher's aim,

What seeds his sleep would leave suppressed.

22.

So have I seen upon a hill

A fair green tree of milk-white flowers, Where bees sucked out their honeyed fill

Through all the long day's basking hours.

23.

To its green cells and vases white,
That yield an odorous air,
The swarm with musical delight
For their sweet gold repair.

24.

But dark decay may mine the tree,
Or lightning-bolt may blast,
And not a flower for wind or bee
Delight the saddening waste.
25.

The winter pressed with gloom and chill
Round Henry's wavering thread of life,
And though the eye shone boldly still,
The cheek grew thin amid the strife.

26.

And while at solitary night