pur

I would sit at your feet for long days,
To hear the sweet Muse of the Wild
Speak out through the sad and the passionate lays
Of her first and her favourite Child.

I would sit at your feet, for my soul
Delights in the solitudes free;
And I stand where the creeks and the cataracts roll
Whensoever I listen to thee!

I would sit at your feet, for I love
By the gulches and torrents to roam;
And I long in this city for woodland and grove,
And the peace of a wild forest home.

I would sit at your feet, and we'd dwell
On the scenes of a long-vanished time,
While your thoughts into music would surge and would swell
Like a breeze of our beautiful clime.

I would sit at your feet, for I know,
Though the World in the Present be blind,
That the amaranth blossoms of Promise will blow
When the Ages have left you behind.

I would sit at your feet, for I feel
I am one of a glorious band
That ever will own you and hold you their Chief,
And a Monarch of Song in the land!

The River and the Hill

And they shook their sweetness out in their sleep,
On the brink of that beautiful stream,
But it wandered along with a wearisome song
Like a lover that walks in a dream:
So the roses blew
When the winds went through,
In the moonlight so white and so still;
But the river it beat
All night at the feet
Of a cold and flinty hill--
Of a hard and senseless hill!

I said, "We have often showered our loves
Upon something as dry as the dust;
And the faith that is crost, and the hearts that are lost--
Oh! how can we wittingly trust?
Like the stream which flows,
And wails as it goes,
Through the moonlight so white and so still,
To beat and to beat
All night at the feet
Of a cold and flinty hill--
Of a hard and senseless hill?

"River, I stay where the sweet roses blow,
And drink of their pleasant perfumes!
Oh, why do you moan, in this wide world alone,
When so much affection here blooms?
The winds wax faint,
And the Moon like a Saint
Glides over the woodlands so white and so still!
But you beat and you beat
All night at the feet
Of that cold and flinty hill--
Of that hard and senseless hill!"

The Fate of the Explo