Through ways unlooked for and through many lands, Far from the rich folds built with human hands, The gracious footprints of his love I trace. And what art thou, own brother of the clod, To scare the sheep out of the wholesome day? Thou hear'st not well the mountain organ-tones To weld anew the spirit's broken chains. God is not dumb, that he should speak no more; And find'st not Sinai, 't is thy soul is poor; There towers the mountain of the Voice no less, Sees it not, neither hears its thundered lore. Slowly the Bible of the race is writ, And not on paper leaves nor leaves of stone; Texts of despair or hope, of joy or moan. While swings the sea, while mists the mountains shroud, While thunder's surges burst on cliffs of cloud, Still at the prophets' feet the nations sit. BEAVER BROOK. HUSHED with broad sunlight lies the hill, And, minuting the long day's loss, The cedar's shadow, slow and still, Creeps o'er its dial of gray moss. Warm noon brims full the valley's cup, The aspen's leaves are scarce astir, Only the little mill sends up Its busy, never-ceasing burr. Climbing the loose-piled wall that hems The road along the mill-pond's brink, From 'neath the arching barberry-stems, My footstep scares the shy chewink. Beneath a bony buttonwood The mill's red door swings open wide; The whitened miller, dust-imbued, Flits past the square of dark, inside. No mountain torrent's strength is here; Heaps its small pitcher to the ear, And gently waits the miller's will. Swift slips Undine along the race The miller dreams not at what cost The quivering mill-stones hum and whirl, Nor how, for every turn, are tost But Summer cleared my happier eyes To see how beauty underlies And more methought I saw that flood No more than doth the miller there, Shut in our several cells, do we Know with what waste of beauty rare Moves every day's machinery. Surely the wiser time shall come When this fine overplus of might, In that new childhood of the world Life of itself shall dance and play, Fresh blood through Time's shrunk veins be hurled, And labor meet delight half-way. |