Entity enzoned
By no wild wraths nor bitter homage loud.
When from the summit of some sudden steep
Of speculation you have strength to turn
To things too boundless for the broken sweep
Of finer comprehension, wait and learn
That God hath been "His own interpreter"
From first to last. So you will understand
The tribe who best succeed, when men most err,
To suck through fogs the fatness of the land.
One thing is surer than the autumn tints
We saw last week in yonder river bend--
That all our poor expression helps and hints,
However vaguely, to the solemn end
That God is truth; and if our dim ideal
Fall short of fact--so short that we must weep--
Why shape specific sorrows, though the real
Be not the song which erewhile made us sleep?
Remember, truth draws upward. This to us
Of steady happiness should be a cause
Beyond the differential calculus
Or Kant's dull dogmas and mechanic laws.
A man is manliest when he wisely knows
How vain it is to halt and pule and pine;
Whilst under every mystery haply flows
The finest issue of a love divine.
Mountain Moss
It lies amongst the sleeping stones,
Far down the hidden mountain glade;
And past its brink the torrent moans
For ever in a dreamy shade.
A little patch of dark-green moss,
Whose softness grew of quiet ways
(With all its deep, delicious floss)
In slumb'rous suns of summer days.
You know the place? With pleasant tints
The broken sunset lights the bowers;
And then the woods are full with hints
Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!
'Tis often now the pilgrim turns
A faded face towards that seat,
And cools his brow amongst the ferns;
The runnel dabbling at his feet.
There fierce December seldom goes,
With scorching step and dust and drouth;
But, soft and low, October blows
Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.
And Autumn, like a gipsy bold,
Doth gather near it grapes and grain,
Ere Winter comes, the woodman old,
To lop the leaves in wind and rain.
O, greenest moss of mountain glen,
The face of Rose is known to thee;
But we shall never share with men
A knowledge dear to love and me!
For are they not between us saved,
The words my darling used to say,
What time the western waters laved
The forehead of the fainting day?
Co
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