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ry craft where Inexperience dreams, And subtle Fancy builds its airy halls, In blest imagination pictures most Of bright or lovely that adorn life's banks, With the blue vault of heaven over all; On that serene and wizard afternoon, As hunters chase the wild and timid deer {161} We chased the quiet of Medonte's shades Through the green windings of the forest road, Past Nature's venerable rank and file Of primal woods--her Old Guard, sylvan-plumed-- The far-off Huron, like a silver thread, The clue to some enchanted labyrinth, Dimly perceived beyond the stretch of woods, Th' approaches tinted by a purple haze, And softened into beauty like the dream Of some rapt seer's Apocalyptic mood; And when at Rockridge we sat looking out Upon the softened shadows of the night, And the wild glory of the throbbing stars; Where'er we bent our Eden-tinted way: My brain was a weird wilderness of Thought: My heart, love's sea of passion tossed and torn, Calmed by the presence of the loving souls By whom I was surrounded. All the while They deemed me passing tame, and wondered when My dreamy castle would come toppling down. I was but driving back the aching past, And mirroring the future. And these leaves Of meditation are but perfumes from The censer of my feelings; honied drops Wrung from the busy hives of heart and brain; Mere etchings of the artist; grains of sand From the calm shores of that unsounded deep Of speculation, where all thought is lost Amid the realms of Nature and of God. {162} I. My soul goes out to meet her, and my heart Flings wide the portals of its love, and yearns To have her enter its serene retreat. A poor stray lamb, not wand'ring from the fold, But all unstudied in the worldling's art, Turning life's mintage into seeming gold, Wherewith to purchase love and love's returns; Unknowing that love's waters, though so sweet, Lead to some bitter Marah. So my soul Goes out to meet her, and it clasps her home, And seeks to bear her upward to the goal At which the righteous enter. From the dome Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come, To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat. {163} II. 'Tis summer still, yet now and then a leaf Falls from some stately tree. True type of life! How emblamatic of the pangs that grief W
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