Thy skyey arches with exulting | Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men ; To write some earnest verse or line, Which, seeking not the praise of art, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart. He who doth this, in verse or prose, May be forgotten in his day, But surely shall be crowned at last with those Who live and speak for aye. RHŒCUS. GOD sends His teachers unto every age, To every clime, and every race of men, With revelations fitted to their growth And shape of mind, nor gives the realm of Truth Into the selfish rule of one sole race: Therefore each form of worship that hath swayed The life of man, and given it to grasp The master-key of knowledge, reverence, Infolds some germs of goodness and of right; Else never had the eager soul, which loathes The slothful down of pampered ignorance, Found in it even a moment's fitful rest. in vain, But all things have within their hull of use, A wisdom and a meaning which may speak Of spiritual secrets to the ear And from the niggard hands of falsehood wring Its needful food of truth, there ever is A sympathy with Nature, which reveals, Not less than her own works, pure gleams of light And earnest parables of inward lore. Hear now this fairy legend of old Greece, As full of freedom, youth, and beauty still As the immortal freshness of that grace Carved for all ages on some Attic frieze. Then Rhocus, with a flutter at the heart, Yet, by the prompting of such beauty bold, Answered: "What is there that can satisfy The endless craving of the soul but love? Give me thy love, or but the hope of that Which must be evermore my nature's goal." After a little pause she said again, But with a glimpse of sadness in her tone, "I give it, Rhocus, though a perilous gift; An hour before the sunset meet me here." He started and beheld with dizzy And straightway there was nothing eyes he could see |