'Twas your own hand hung the cage door open,
Mother, and your pretty bird is flown.
BP. ALEXANDER.
EPITAPH
("Il vivait, il jouait.")
{Bk. III. xv., May, 1843.}
He lived and ever played, the tender smiling thing.
What need, O Earth, to have plucked this flower from blossoming?
Hadst thou not then the birds with rainbow-colors bright,
The stars and the great woods, the wan wave, the blue sky?
What need to have rapt this child from her thou hadst placed him by —
Beneath those other flowers to have hid this flower from sight?
Because of this one child thou hast no more of might,
O star-girt Earth, his death yields thee not higher delight!
But, ah! the mother's heart with woe for ever wild,
This heart whose sovran bliss brought forth so bitter birth —
This world as vast as thou, even thou, O sorrowless Earth,
Is desolate and void because of this one child!
NELSON K. TYERMAN.
ST. JOHN
("Un jour, le morne esprit.")
{Bk. VI. vii., Jersey, September, 1855.}
One day, the sombre soul, the Prophet most sublime
At Patmos who aye dreamed,
And tremblingly perused, without the vast of Time,
Words that with hell-fire gleamed,
Said to his eagle: "Bird, spread wings for loftiest flight —
Needs must I see His Face!"
The eagle soared. At length, far beyond day and night,
Lo! the all-sacred Place!
And John beheld the Way whereof no angel knows
The name, nor there hath trod;
And, lo! the Place fulfilled with shadow that aye glows
Because of very God.
NELSON R. TYERMAN.
THE POET'S SIMPLE FAITH
You say, "Where goest thou?" I cannot tell,
And still go on. If but the way be straight,
It cannot go amiss! before me lies
Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that
Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see,
And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.
My future is not one of my concerns.
PROF. E. DOWDEN.
I AM CONTENT.
("J'habite l'ombre.")
{1855.}
True; I dwell lone,
Upon sea-beaten cape,
Mere raft of stone;
Whence all escape
Save one who shrinks not from the gloom,
And will not take the coward's leap i' the tomb.
My bedroom rocks
With breezes; quakes in storms,
When dangling locks
Of seaweed mock the forms
Of straggling clouds that trail o'erhead
Like tresses from disrupted coffin-lead.
Upon the sky
Crape palls are often nailed
With stars. Mine eye
Has scared the gull that sailed
To blacker depths with shrillest scream,
Still fainter, till like voices in a dream.
My days become
More plaintive, wan, and pale,
While o'er the foam
I see, borne by the gale,
Infinity! in kindness sent —
To find me ever saying: "I'm content!"
LA LÉGENDE DES SIÈCLES.
CAIN
("Lorsque avec ses enfants Cain se fût enfui.")