206 For Nature also, cold and warm, Through many agents making strong, Matures the individual form. Meet is it changes should control So let the change which comes be free A saying hard to shape in act; Even now we hear with inward strife A slow-developed strength awaits The warders of the growing hour, Of many changes, aptly joined, A wind to puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made, That we are wiser than our sires. O yet, if Nature's evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war 208 If New and Old, disastrous feud, And this be true, till Time shall close, Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope through shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace; Not less, though dogs of Faction bay, Would love the gleams of good that broke And if some dreadful need should rise, To-morrow yet would reap to-day, As we bear blossom of the dead; Raw Haste, half-sister to Delay. THE GOOSE. I. I KNEW an old wife lean and poor, rags scarce held together; Her There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather. II. He held a goose upon his arm, III. She caught the white goose by the leg, A goose 't was no great matter. The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter. IV. She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf, And ran to tell her neighbors; And blessed herself, and cursed herself, And rested from her labors. And feeding high, and living soft, Until the grave churchwarden doffed, The parson smirked and nodded. VI. So sitting, served by man and maid, But ah! the more the white goose laid, VII. It cluttered here, it chuckled there; And hurled the pan and kettle. |