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, I wonder as I turn the leaves What further changes yet may be, EDMUND GOSSE. THE CHARCOAL-BURNER He lives within the hollow wood, From one clear dell he seldom ranges; 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 I track the woodland by his fire, It seems among the serious trees 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 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 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, And through this sympathy perchance, 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 : |