me pool)--

Herein is claim of Nature's worth.
Though I forget the forms of earth,
Of gilded cloud and circling planet,
I know His fire lives within their girth.

{74}

Green tracery of fern to rust;
The shouldering hills to level dust,--
This is the law of rhythmic nature,
The ebb and flow of its may and must.

I hear the wind-harp's wilding tones
Sobbing a requiem o'er their bones;
"The golden-globed skies shall perish,"
The harper harps as he wails and moans.

Wild heart, within thy ruby vault
Is flashed a purpose, free of fault
From great High Priest's own breast-plate splendid,--
E'en deathless life out of death's assault.

{75}

What, though the sea-shell cheats the ear,
And from my blood, free-coursing near,
Unspheres the far and murmurous phantom
Of breaking seas that I faintly hear?

Of life beyond there come to me
Hints truer than shell's phantom sea,--
I brood all space, the past, the present,
And timeless realms of eternity!

The rose-lipt thing has lost its pearl,--
Death's chamber is its polished whorl;
I am a life, and feel of Being
No phantom touch, but the vital swirl.

{76}

Says one who with the sad condoles:
"No delicate delight unrolls
But soon o'er it is flung a shadow."
O feeblest folly of shallow souls!

A foolishness all overworn,
Yet deadly as the frost of scorn!
The serious mind is born of sorrow;
On Love's brow rested a crown of thorn.

The shadowland is rift with bright--
It did the deed of deeds incite!
The Son of Man, Jehovah's Servant,
Through shadows passed to His crown of light.

{77}

There ever wakes an evil wraith
To test the courage of my faith,
As life's dark passages are thridded,--
"Alone! Alone!" are the words it saith.

Ah, no! the wraith's an angel one
Whose face is always to the sun,
A guardian of the heart's temptations,
That saves by fear ere the course be run.

'Tis Father love each round of day
That shadows in a twilight grey,
Or with Love's raven pinion covers,
To tempt His child from itself away.

{78}

Far up the brook, beyond the lin,
I hear the impatient bluejay's din,
While in the browning beech, nut-laden,
The chipmunk gathers his harvest in.

(Of all earth's trees exceeding fair,
Thee have I loved beyond compare,
Most human beech! and felt thy spirit