the gray

A homeless, troubled age,
Pale setting of a weary day;
Too dull his ear for voice of praise,
Too sadly worn his brow for bays.

Pride, lust of power and glory, slept;
Yet still his heart its young dream kept,
And, wandering like the deluge-dove,
Still sought the resting-place of love.

And, mateless, childless, envied more
The peasant's welcome from his door
By smiling eyes at eventide,
Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.

Until, in place of wife and child,
All-pitying Nature on him smiled,
And gave to him the golden keys
To all her inmost sanctities.

155

times,

Up to thy sevenfold brightness climbs,
While still his grosser instinct clings
To earth, like other creeping things!

So rich in words, in acts so mean;
So high, so low; chance-swung between
The foulness of the penal pit

And Truth's clear sky, millenniumlit!

Vain pride of star-lent genius!- vain
Quick fancy and creative brain,
Unblest by prayerful sacrifice,
Absurdly great, or weakly wise !

Midst yearnings for a truer life,
Without were fears, within was strife;
And still his wayward act denied
The perfect good for which he sighed.

The love he sent forth void returned; The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,

Burning, yet cold and drear and lone, A fire-mount in a frozen zone !

Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed, 54

Seen southward from his sleety mast,
About whose brows of changeless frost
A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.

Far round the mournful beauty played
Of lambent light and purple shade,
Lost on the fixed and dumb despair
Of frozen earth and sea and air!

A man apart, unknown, unloved By those whose wrongs his soul had moved,

He bore the ban of Church and State,
The good man's fear, the bigot's hate!

Forth from the city's noise and throng,
Its and shame, its sin and wrong,
pomp
The twain that summer day had strayed
To Mount Valerien's chestnut shade.

To them the green fields and the wood
Lent something of their quietude,
And golden-tinted sunset seemed
Prophetical of all they dreamed.

The hermits from their simple cares The bell was calling home to prayers,

"And, bright with wings of cherubim Visibly waving over him, . Seen through his life, the Church had seemed

All that its old confessors dreamed.

"I would have been," Jean Jaques replied,

"The humblest servant at his side,
Obscure, unknown, content to see
How beautiful man's life may be !

"O, more than thrice-blest relic, more
Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
The holy life of one who trod
The foot-marks of the Christ of God!

"Amidst a blinded world he saw
The oneness of the Dual law;
That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth
began,

And God was loved through love of

man.

"He lived the Truth which reconciled
The strong man Reason, Faith the child:
In him belief and act were one,
The homilies of duty done!"

So speaking, through the twilight gray The two old pilgrims went their way.

What seeds of life that day were sown, The heavenly watchers knew alone.

Time passed, and Autumn came to fold Green Summer in her brown and gold; Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow Dropped on the grave-mound of Rous

seau.

"The tree remaineth where it fell, The pained on earth is pained in hell!" So priestcraft from its altars cursed The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.

Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,
"Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!"
Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above,
And man is hate, but God is love!

No Hermits now the wanderer sees,
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
A morning dream, a tale that 's told,
The wave of change o'er all has rolled.
Yet lives the lesson of that day;
And from its twilight cool and gray
Comes up a low, sad whisper,
"Make
The truth thine own, for truth's own
sake.

"Why wait to see in thy brief span
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
No saintly touch can save; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr's palm.
"Midst soulless forms, and false pre-

tence

Of spiritual pride and pampered sense, A voice saith, 'What is that to thee? Be true thyself, and follow Me!'

"In days when throne and altar heard The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, And pomp of state and ritual show Scarce hid the loathsome death below,

"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,

The losel swarm of crown and cowl, White-robed walked François Fenelon, Stainless as Uriel in the sun!

"Yet in his time the stake blazed red, The poor were eaten up like bread; Men knew him not: his garment's hem No healing virtue had for them.

66

QUESTIONS OF LIFE.

And the angel that was sent unto me, whose name was Uriel, gave me an answer and said, Thy heart hath gone too far in this world, and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High?"

Then said I," Yea, my Lord."

Then said he unto me, "Go thy way, weigh me the weight of the fire or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past."-2 Esdras, chap iv.

A BENDING staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.

And yet, at times, when over all
A darker mystery seems to fall,
(May God forgive the child of dust,
Who seeks to know, where Faith should
trust!)

I raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch,
And, speech-confounded, build again
The baffled tower of Shinar's plain.

I am how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A centred self, which feels and is;
A cry between the silences;
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life;