244 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



yield her potent secrets up to the compelling of his frosty 

 breath ! But ha ! ha ! it seems a melancholy farce indeed 

 to the gentle Artist; for well he knows she must have 

 warmth for warmth, sympathy for sympathy, and that her 

 great heart bloometh only for her own ! 



" Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth ;" 

 and she cometh near to her Child, revealing herself in mani- 

 fold ways with most miraculous organ he alone may under- 

 stand. To the insolent Pedant, her words of mild and mighty 

 wisdom must be as an unknown tongue, since he has forgot- 

 ten that earliest language in which she spoke to the dawn 

 of sense in him. But her own Child has not he has kept 

 the first meaning of the many signs of the strange forms of 

 things, of the many sounds of most sweet voices that came 

 together when light from her flowed into darkness unto him ! 



Still, when the morning comes, answers he to her calling, 

 " Here am 1 1" for still, awakening is like birth to him, 

 and upon the renewed glories of her coming do his eyes open 

 with the stare of wondering infancy just born ; still amidst 

 splendor in music, and with pomp does the glad and sweet 

 surprise of being burst through oblivion upon him I for 

 Death and Sleep seem one! Thus he rises ever from her 

 bosom as the strong man refreshed, and the energies of her 

 eternal youth are in the wisdom that she teaches him. 



While he listens to her, he never can grow old; for 

 though he cannot stay the flight of Time, he does not care 

 to, since they become play-fellows, and even when amidst 

 their sportings Time brushes the gloss from off his golden 

 hair with frosty wings, he laughs with him ! 



The gentle, happy Artist! time-frost cannot touch the 

 life within : 



it is a paradise 



Which everlasting Spring has made its own, 



And while drear Winter fills the naked skies, 



Sweet streams of sunny thought and flowers fresh blown 



Are there ! " 



