196 
Floral Poetry. 
“ Saunting to come before 
Our own age evermore, 
In a loneness, in a loneness, 
And the nobler for that oneness. 
“ But if alone we be, 
Where is our empiry? 
And if none can reach our stature, 
Who will mate our lofty nature? 
“ What bell will yield a tone 
Save in the air alone ? 
If no brazen clapper bringing, 
Who can bear the chimed ringing? 
“ What angel but would seem 
To sensual eyes glent-dim ? 
And without assimilation, 
Vain is interpenetration ! 
“ Alas ! what can we do, 
The Rose and poet too, 
Who both antedate our mission 
In an unprepared season ? 
“ Drop, leaf—be silent, song— 
Cold things we came among ! 
We must warm them, we must warm them, 
Ere we even hope to charm them. 
“ Howbeit”—here his face 
Heightened around the place, 
So to mark the outward turning 
Of his spirit’s inward burning— 
“ Something it is to hold 
In God’s world’s manifold, 
First revealed to creatures’ duty, 
A new form of His mild beauty. 
“ Whether that form respect 
The sense or intellect, 
Holy rest in soul or pleasance, 
The chief beauty’s sign of presence. 
“ Holy in me and thee, 
Rose fallen from the tree, 
Though the world stand dumb around us. 
All unable to expound us. 
“ Though none us deign to bless, 
Blessed are we natheless ; 
Blessed age and consecrated 
In that, Rose, we were created ! 
“ Oh, shame to poet’s lays, 
Sung for the dole of praise— 
Hoarsely sung upon the highway, 
With an ‘ obolum da mihi'! 
“ Shame ! shame to poet’s soul, 
Pining for such a dole, 
When heaven-called to inherit 
The high throne of his own spirit ! 
“ Sit still upon your thrones, 
O ye poetic ones ! 
And if, sooth, the world decry you, 
Why, let that world pass by you ! 
“Ye to yourselves suffice, 
Without its flatteries ; 
Self-contentedly approve you 
Unto Him who sits above you. 
“ In prayers that upward mount, 
Like to a sunned fount, 
And, in gushing back upon you, 
Bring the music they have won you ! 
