A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass. Lowell Amy

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СКАЧАТЬ Centre Stone of the earth's diadem!

      . … .

       Centre Stone of the Crown of the World,

       "Sincerity" graved on your youth!

       And your eyes hold the blue-bird flash,

       The sapphire shaft, which is truth.

Petals

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      Life is a stream

       On which we strew

       Petal by petal the flower of our heart;

       The end lost in dream,

       They float past our view,

       We only watch their glad, early start.

       Freighted with hope,

       Crimsoned with joy,

       We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;

       Their widening scope,

       Their distant employ,

       We never shall know. And the stream as it flows

       Sweeps them away,

       Each one is gone

       Ever beyond into infinite ways.

       We alone stay

       While years hurry on,

       The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

Venetian Glass

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      As one who sails upon a wide, blue sea

       Far out of sight of land, his mind intent

       Upon the sailing of his little boat,

       On tightening ropes and shaping fair his course,

       Hears suddenly, across the restless sea,

       The rhythmic striking of some towered clock,

       And wakes from thoughtless idleness to time:

       Time, the slow pulse which beats eternity!

       So through the vacancy of busy life

       At intervals you cross my path and bring

       The deep solemnity of passing years.

       For you I have shed bitter tears, for you

       I have relinquished that for which my heart

       Cried out in selfish longing. And to-night

       Having just left you, I can say: "'T is well.

       Thank God that I have known a soul so true,

       So nobly just, so worthy to be loved!"

Fatigue

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      Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,

       Seal up my eyes, I would not look so far,

       Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,

       Bow down my head lest I behold a star.

       Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities

       Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,

       Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences

       Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.

       Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,

       Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,

       Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,

       Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.

       Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,

       Unlit by sunshine, unscarred by storm;

       Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness—

       The law exacts obedience. Instruct, I will conform.

A Japanese Wood-Carving

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      High up above the open, welcoming door

       It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.

       Once, long ago, it was a waving tree

       And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves

       Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.

       The winter snows had bent its branches down,

       The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,

       Summer had run like fire through its veins,

       While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,

       And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.

       Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among

       Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;

       But every now and then broad sunlit days

       Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.

       Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us

       It does not speak of mossy forest ways,

       Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;

       But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!

       An artist once, with patient, careful knife,

       Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.

       Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back

       By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the СКАЧАТЬ