Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Never wrote I one line that I could greet

A twelvemonth after with a brow of fire. Thus then I walk my way and find no rest— Only the beauty unattain'd, the cry After the inexpressible unexpressed,

The unsatiated insatiable desire

Which at once mocks and makes all poesy.

REV. FATHER RYDER.

PHOTOGRAPHIC ALBUM

A book of friends who still are friends,
With friendship waxing stronger;
A books of friends who once were friends,
But now are friends no longer.

I wonder as I turn the leaves

What further changes yet may be,
Or e'er the Master bind the sheaves
And friends are friends eternally.

EDMUND GOSSE.

THE CHARCOAL-BURNER

He lives within the hollow wood,

From one clear dell he seldom ranges;
His daily toil in solitude

Revolves but never changes.

A still old man, with grizzled beard,

Grey eye, bent shape, and smoke-tanned features, His quiet footstep is not feared

By shyest woodland creatures.

I love to watch the pale blue spire
His scented labour builds above it;

I track the woodland by his fire,
And, seen afar, I love it.

It seems among the serious trees
The emblem of a living pleasure,

It animates the silences

As with a tuneful measure.

And dream not that such humdrum ways

Fold naught of nature's charm around him;

The mystery of soundless days

Hath sought for him and found him.

He hides within his simple brain
An instinct innocent and holy,
The music of a wood-bird's strain-
Not blithe, nor melancholy.

But hung upon the calm content

Of wholesome leaf and bough and blossomAn unecstatic ravishment

Born in a rustic bosom.

He knows the moods of forest things,

He holds, in his own speechless fashion,

For helpless forms of fur and wings
A mild paternal passion.

Within his horny hand he holds

The warm brood of the ruddy squirrel; Their bushy mother storms and scolds, But knows no sense of peril.

The dormouse shares his crumb of cheese,
His homeward trudge the rabbits follow;
He finds, in angles of the trees,
The cup-nest of the swallow.

And through this sympathy perchance,
The beating heart of life he reaches
Far more than we who idly dance
An hour beneath the beeches.

Our science and our empty pride,

Our busy dream of introspection, To God seem vain and poor beside This dumb, sincere reflection.

Yet he will die unsought, unknown,

A nameless headstone stand above him, And the vast woodland, vague and lone, Be all that's left to love him.

MR. JOHNSTONE.

THE GARDENER'S BURIAL

This is the grave prepared; set down the bier :
Mother, a faithful son we bring thee here,
In loving ease to lie beneath thy breast,
Which many a year with loving toil he drest.
His was the eldest craft, the simple skill
That Adam plied, ere good was known by ill;
The throstle's song at noon his spirit tuned;
He set his seeds in hope, he grafted, pruned,
Weeded and mow'd, and with a true son's care
Wrought thee a mantle of embroidery rare.
The snowdrop and the winter aconite
Came at his call ere frosts had ceased to bite :
He bade the crocus flame as with a charm ;
The nestling violets bloom'd, and fear'd no harm,
Knowing that for their sakes a champion meek
Did bloodless battle with the weather bleak:
But when the wealthier months with largess came
His blazon'd beds put heraldry to shame,
And on the summer air such perfume cast
As Saba or the Spice Isles ne'er surpassed.
The birds all loved him for he would not shoot
Even the winged thieves that stole his fruit;
And he loved them-the little fearless wren,
The red-breast, curious in the ways of men,
The pilgrim swallow, and the dearer guest
That sets beneath our eaves her plaster'd nest:
The merry whitethroat, bursting with his song,
Fluttered within his reach and fear'd no wrong,
And the mute fly-catcher forgot her dread
And took her prey beside his stooping head.

« AnteriorContinuar »