And full of holiness, that every look, The greatness of her woman's soul revealing, Unto me bringeth blessing, and a feeling As when I read in God's own holy book. A graciousness in giving that doth make The small'st gift greatest, and a sense most meek Of worthiness, that doth not fear to take From others, but which always fears to speak Its thanks in utterance, for the giver's sake ; The deep religion of a thankful heart, Which rests instinctively in Heaven's clear law With a full peace, that never can depart From its own steadfastness;-a holy awe For holy things,-not those which men call holy, But such as are revealed to the Whether with German skies above, Or here our granite rocks among. THE BEGGAR. A BEGGAR through the world am I, From place to place I wander by. A little of thy steadfastness, And I yield gently to and fro, While my stout-hearted trunk below And firm-set roots unshaken be. Some of thy stern, unyielding might, Enduring still through day and night Rude tempest-shock and withering blight, That I may keep at bay Give me, old granite gray. Some of thy pensiveness serene, And deck me in a robe of white, A little of thy merriment, Ye have been very kind and good To me, since I've been in the wood; Ye have gone nigh to fill my heart; But good-bye, kind friends, every one, Out of the stillness, with a gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves, which now decreases, Now lulls, now swells, and all the while increases, The huddling trample of a drove of sheep Tilts the loose planks, and then as gradually ceases In dust on the other side; life's emblem deep, A confused noise between two silences, Finding at last in dust precarious peace. On the wide marsh the purple blossomed grasses Soak up the sunshine; sleeps the brimming tide, Save when the wedge-shaped wake in silence passes, Of some slow water-rat, whose sinuous glide Wavers the long green sedge's shade from side to side; But up the west, like a rockshivered surge, Climbs a great cloud edged with sun-whitened spray; Huge whirls of foam boil toppling o'er its verge, And falling still it seems, and yet it climbs alway. The upturned leaves first whiten and flutter, Then droop to a fitful rest; Up from the stream with sluggish flap Struggles the gull and floats away; Nearer and nearer rolls the thunder-clap, We shall not see the sun go down to-day: Now leaps the wind on the sleepy marsh, And tramples the grass with terrified feet, The startled river turns leaden and harsh. You can hear the quick heart of the tempest beat. Look! look! that livid flash! And instantly follows the rattling thunder, As if some cloud-crag, split asunder, Fell, splintering with a ruinous crash, On the Earth, which crouches in silence under: And now a solid gray wall of rain Shuts off the landscape, mile by mile; For a breath's space I see the blue wood again, And ere the next heart-beat, the wind-hurled pile, That seemed but now a league aloof, Bursts crackling o'er the sunparched roof; Against the windows the sun comes dashing, Through tattered foliage the hail tears crashing, The blue lightning flashes, The rapid hail clashes, The white waves are tumbling, And, in one baffled roar, Like the toothless sea mumbling A rock-bristled shore, The thunder is rumbling And crashing and crumbling,Will silence return nevermore? Hush! Still as death, |