CLXII. TO NATURE. II. DREAD force, in whom of old we loved to see A nursing mother, clothing with her life The seeds of Love divine, with what sore strife We hold or yield our thoughts of Love and thee! Thou art not "calm," but restless as the ocean, Filling with aimless toil the endless years Stumbling on thought and throwing off the spheres, Churning the Universe with mindless motion. Dull fount of joy, unhallowed source of tears, Cold motor of our fervid faith and song, Dead, but engendering life, love, pangs, and fears, Thou crownedst thy wild work with foulest wrong When first thou lightedst on a seeming goal And darkly blundered on man's suffering soul. EMILY PFEIFFER. CLXIII. TO NATURE. III. BLIND Cyclops, hurling stones of destiny, Man's soul revolts against thy work and thee! Slaves by mad chance befooled to think them free, Dead tyrant, tho' our cries and groans pass by thee, The races come and coming evermore, Heaping with hecatombs thy dead-sea shore. CLXIV. TO A MOTH THAT DRINKETH OF THE RIPE OCTOBER. I. A MOTH belated,-sun and zephyr-kist,-- Probing to wildering depths its honeyed cell, A noonday thief, a downy sensualist! Not vainly, sprite, thou drawest careless breath, 'Tis something to be glad! and those fine thrills Which move thee, to my lip have drawn the smile Wherewith we look on joy. Drink! drown thine ills, If ill have any part in thee; erewhile May the pent force-thy bounded life-set free Fill larger sphere with equal ecstasy! BRYAN WALLER PROCTER. CLXV. A STILL PLACE. UNDER what beechen shade or silent oak Lies the mute sylvan now mysterious Pan? Clear from their fountains) as the morning broke, 'Tis said the Satyr with Apollo spoke, And to harmonious strife with his wild reed, Challenged the God, whose music was indeed Divine, and fit for heaven. Each played, and woke Beautiful sounds to life-deep melodies; One blew his pastoral pipe with such nice care, That flocks and birds all answered him; and one Shook his immortal showers upon the air. That music has ascended to the sun; But where the other? Speak, ye dells and trees. CLXVI. THE SEA-IN CALM. Look what immortal floods the sunset pours. Upon us!- Mark how still (as though in dreams The silver margin which aye runneth round Whose strength was all unmatched beneath the sun? No: he reposes. Now his toils are done, More quiet than the babbling brooks is he. So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed, And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be. |