Southward, the slope of a summer hill, The rapid rake and the gleaming fork Tossing its load on the growing pile; Farmer and wife and children at work, Sharing the labor; and all the while One little maiden down on the shore, Just where the land and water meet, Wandering free till the work is o'er Chasing the waves with gleaming feet; Singing clearly across the bay, All unconscious of listening ear, Simple ballads, so light and gay We hushed our words as we leaned to hear. Songs of our school-days long agone, Dreamily drifting by Deer Isle, We lay and listened with strange surprise; Feeling a blessing of peace the while Dropping down from the quiet skies; Feeling our deeper life touched at its core By the simple song of the glad child-heart; And peace in the boat and peace on the shore Were so near and yet so far apart. MORE SEA. Living our lives out day by day, 145 Do we know who may be leaning to hear? THIN MORE SEA. HINK thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die. shore, Thou say'st" Man's measured path is all gone o'er : Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Even I, am he whom it was destined for." How should this be? Art thou then so much more Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby? Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea. D. G. Rossetti. ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER. MUCH have I travelled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne : Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold : He stared at the Pacific-and all his men John Keats. PATMOS. ALL around him Patmos lies, Who hath spirit-gifted eyes, Who his happy sight can suit A new earth and heaven new; Many a silver, sphery note Shall within his hearing float. PATMOS. All around him Patmos lies, Who unto God's priestess flies: Now the rocks their archives ope; 'Twixt new earth and heaven new 147 By these floating symbols fine, All around him Patmos lies, He need not the times reprove, Edith Thomas. E VERY age, MOUNT ATHOS. Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned By those who have not lived past it. We'll suppose Mount Athos carved, as Alexander schemed, The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear, Up there, in fact, had travelled five miles off To all the country pastures. 'Tis even thus With times we live in,- -evermore too great To be apprehended near. Mrs. Browning. |