Over the ruin

See I the promise;
Crisp waves the cornfield,
Peace-walled, the homestead
Waits open-doored.

There lies the New Land;
Yours to behold it,
Not to possess it;
Slowly Fate's perfect
Fulness shall come.

Then from your strong loins
Seed shall be scattered,
Men to the marrow,
Wilderness tamers,
Walkers of waves.

Jealous, the old gods Shut it in shadow, Wisely they ward it, Egg of the serpent, Bane to them all.

Stronger and sweeter New gods shall seek it Fill it with man-folk Wise for the future. Wise from the past.

Here all is all men's,
Save only Wisdom;
King he that wins her;
Him hail they helmsman,
Highest of heart.

Might makes no master
Here any longer;
Sword is not swayer;
Here e'en the gods are
Selfish no more.

Walking the New Earth,
Lo, a divine One
Greets all men godlike,
Calls them his kindred,
He, the Divine.

Is it Thor's hammer Rays in his right hand? Weaponless walks he; It is the White Christ, Stronger than Thor.

Here shall a realm rise
Mighty in manhood;
Justice and Mercy
Here set a stronghold
Safe without spear.

Weak was the Old World,
Wearily war-fenced;
Out of its ashes,
Strong as the morning,
Springeth the New.

Beauty of promise,
Promise of beauty,
Safe in the silence
Sleep thou, till cometh
Light to thy lids!

Thee shall awaken
Flame from the furnace,
Bath of all brave ones,
Cleanser of conscience,
Welder of will.

Mahmood paused a moment, silenced by the silent face

That, with eyes of stone unwavering, awed the ancient place.

Then the Brahmins knelt before him, by his doubt made bold, Pledging for their idol's ransom countless gems and gold.

Gold was yellow dirt to Mahmood, but

of precious use, Since from it the roots of power suck a potent juice.

"Were yon stone alone in question,

this would please me well, Mahmood said; "but, with the block

there, I my truth must sell.

"Wealth and rule slip down with For

tune, as her wheel turns round; He who keeps his faith, he only cannot be discrowned.

"Little were a change of station, loss

of life or crown,

But the wreck were past retrieving if the Man fell down."

So his iron mace he lifted, smote with

might and main,

And the idol, on the pavement tumbling, burst in twain.

Luck obeys the downright striker; from the hollow core, Fifty times the Brahmins' offer deluged all the floor.

INVITA MINERVA.

THE Bardling came where by a river grew

The pennoned reeds, that, as the westwind blew,

Gleamed and sighed plaintively, as if they knew

What music slept enchanted in each

stem,

Till Pan should choose some happy one of them,

And with wise lips enlife it through and through.

'T IS a woodland enchanted!
By no sadder spirit

Than blackbirds and thrushes,
That whistle to cheer it
All day in the bushes,

This woodland is haunted:
And in a small clearing,
Beyond sight or hearing
Of human annoyance,
The little fount gushes,
First smoothly, then dashes
And gurgles and flashes,
To the maples and ashes
Confiding its joyance;
Unconscious confiding,
Then, silent and glossy,
Slips winding and hiding
Through alder-stems mossy,
Through gossamer roots
Fine as nerves,
That tremble, as shoots
Through their magnetized curves
The allurement delicious
Of the water's capricious
Thrills, gushes, and swerves.

Hear its low inward singing, With level wings swinging On green tasselled rushes, To dream in the sun.

III.

'T is a woodland enchanted !
The great August noonlight,
Through myriad rifts slanted,
Leaf and bole thickly sprinkles
With flickering gold;

There, in warm August gloaming,
With quick, silent brightenings,
From meadow-lands roaming,
The firefly twinkles

His fitful heat-lightnings;
There the magical moonlight

With meek, saintly glory

Steeps summit and wold;

There whippoorwills plain in the solitudes hoary

With lone cries that wander
Now hither, now yonder,
Like souls doomed of old
To a mild purgatory;

But through noonlight and moonlight
The little fount tinkles
Its silver saints'-bells,
That no sprite ill-boding
May make his abode in
Those innocent dells.

IV.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
When the phebe scarce whistles
Once an hour to his fellow,
And, where red lilies flaunted,
Balloons from the thistles
Tell summer's disasters,
The butterflies yellow,
As caught in an eddy
Of air's silent ocean,
Sink, waver, and steady
O'er goats'-beard and asters,
Like souls of dead flowers,
With aimless emotion
Still lingering unready
To leave their old bowers;
And the fount is no dumber,
But still gleams and flashes,
And gurgles and plashes,
To the measure of summer;

The butterflies hear it,
And spell-bound are holden,
Still balancing near it

O'er the goats'-beard so golden.

V.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
A vast silver willow,

I know not how planted,
(This wood is enchanted,
And full of surprises,)
Stands stemming a billow,
A motionless billow
Of ankle-deep mosses;
Two great roots it crosses
To make a round basin,
And there the Fount rises;
Ah, too pure a mirror
For one sick of error
To see his sad face in!
No dew-drop is stiller
In its lupin-leaf setting
Than this water moss-bounded;
But a tiny sand-pillar

From the bottom keeps jetting,
And mermaid ne'er sounded
Through the wreaths of a shell,
Down amid crimson dulses
In some dell of ocean,
A melody sweeter
Than the delicate pulses,
The soft, noiseless metre
The pause and the swell
Of that musical motion:
I recall it, not see it;
Could vision be clearer?
Half I'm fain to draw nearer
Half tempted to flee it ;
The sleeping Past wake not,
Beware!

One forward step take not,
Ah! break not

That quietude rare!

By my step unaffrighted
A thrush hops before it,
And o'er it

A birch hangs delighted,

Dipping, dipping, dipping its tremulous hair;

Pure as the fountain, once
I came to the place,

(How dare I draw nearer?)
Ì bent o'er its mirror,

'T is a woodland enchanted, Where wonderful chances Have sway;

Luck flees from the cold one

But leaps to the bold one
Half-way;

Why should I be daunted?
Still the smooth mirror glances,
Still the amber sand dances,
- then away!

One look,

O magical glass!

Canst keep in thy bosom
Shades of leaf and of blossom
When summer days pass,
So that when thy wave hardens
It shapes as it pleases,
Unharmed by the breezes,
Its fine hanging gardens?
Hast those in thy keeping,
And canst not uncover,
Enchantedly sleeping,
The old shade of thy lover?
It is there! I have found it!
He wakes, the long sleeper!
The pool is grown deeper,
The sand dance is ending,
The white floor sinks, blending
With skies that below me
Are deepening and bending,
And a child's face alone
That seems not to know me,
With hair that fades golden
In the heaven-glow round it,
Looks up at my own;

Ah, glimpse through the portai
That leads to the throne,
That opes the child's olden
Regions Elysian !

Ah, too holy vision

For thy skirts to be holden

By soiled hand of mortal!

'T is a woodland enchanted! you ask me, Where is it?

If

I only can answer,
'Tis past my disclosing;
Not to choice is it granted
By sure paths to visit
The still pool enclosing
Its blithe little dancer;
But in some day, the rarest
Of many Septembers,
When the pulses of air rest,
And all things lie dreaming
In drowsy haze steaming

From the wood's glowing embers,
Then, sometimes, unheeding,
And asking not whither,
By a sweet inward leading
My feet are drawn thither,

And, looking with awe in the magical mirror,

I see through my tears,
Half doubtful of seeing,
The face unperverted,
The warm golden being
Of a child of five years;

And spite of the mists and the error,
And the days overcast,

Can feel that I walk undeserted,
But forever attended

By the glad heavens that bended
O'er the innocent past;
Toward fancy or truth

Doth the sweet vision win me?
Dare I think that I cast
In the fountain of youth
The fleeting reflection
Of some bygone perfection
That still lingers in me?

I will repay thee; all this thou hast done

Unto that Ibrahim who slew thy son!"

"Take thrice the gold," said Yussouf, "for with thee

Into the desert, never to return, My one black thought shall ride away from me;