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 ha^e 
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 ! — 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 thougrit and flowers fresh blown 
Are there ! — " 
