36
SONGS OF THE SPIRIT
SONNET.
THE woods are very quiet, and the stream
Hardly awakes the stilled ear with its word ;
The voice of wind above like dawn is heard,
And all the air moves up, a sultry steam,
Here in the flower-land, where I lie and
dream
And understand the silence of the bird ;
My sorrow and my weakness are interred
In the deep water where the pebbles gleam.
I rouse the force persistent of my will .
To compel matter to the soul’s desire,
To make [leaven aid the mind that would
aspire
To touch its borders, and to drink their fill
At those far fountains whence one drop of
dew!
Descends upon my head from yonder blue.
IN the grim woods when all the bare black
branches
Creak out their curses like a gallows-tree,
When the miasmal pestilence-light dances,
A. spectre-flame, through midnight’s in-
famy,
My blood grows chill and stagnant with my
shame,
O Love, to speak thy name!
© Life! O Tleaven!
Ve Spirits
Rising unbidden from [lope’s cobwebbed *
door,
Ve quick desires that every soul inherits,
Q) dreams long dead!
Leave me to weep, and Corture me no
more !
My face grows grey with sheer despair; |
shrink
Irom dreams 3 [ dare not think.
1 The Anorita, ov elixir of Tnimortality.
2 Because long shut, as in the story of Bruce
and the spider.
I had a poet’s dreams.
ing
To grasp the firmament and hold it fast,
To reach toward God, and, from His shrine
returning,
To sing in magic melodies the vast
Desires of God towards man—O dreams! O
years
Drowned in these bitter tears!
My soul was yearn-
I felt the springs of youth within me leap-
ing,
Let loose my pleasure, never guessed that
pain
Was worth the holding—now, my life is
weeping
Itself away, those agonies to gain
Which are my’one last hope. that by some
cross
Eld may avenge youth’s loss !
Yet still youth burns !
wasted
Compel their bitter memories to grow
sweet ;
Like some warm-perfumed poison if I tasted,
Felt its fierce savour pulse, and burn, and
heat ;
Yet in my veins its sleepy fire might bring
Strange dreams of some sweet thing.
The hours its pleasure
Half'a regret and half a shuddering terror,
The past lies desolate and yet is here,
Half guide, half tempter toward the stream
of error,
Oa whose fresh bosum many a mariner
Puts out with silken sail-—to find his grave
In tts voluptuous wave.
Here are few rocks whereon a ship hath
peril ;
No storms inay ruffle tts insidious stream ;
Oualy, no fish iivade its waters sterile,
No white-winged birds above it glance and
elaun,
Only, i hath no shore, no wave, but ¢eloom
Wraps it within her wok,