FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   609   610   611   612   613   614   615   616   617   618   619   620   621   622   623   624   625   626   627   628   629   630   631   632   633  
634   635   636   637   638   639   640   641   642   643   644   645   646   647   648   649   650   651   652   653   654   655   656   657   658   >>   >|  
sing for joy? Heaven must be compassed in a narrow space, And offer more than room enough for all That pass its portals; but the underworld, The godless realm, the place where demons forge Their fiery darts and adamantine chains, Must swarm with ghosts that for a little while Had worn the garb of flesh, and being heirs Of all the dulness of their stolid sires, And all the erring instincts of their tribe, Nature's own teaching, rudiments of "sin," Fell headlong in the snare that could not fail To trap the wretched creatures shaped of clay And cursed with sense enough to lose their souls! Brother, thy heart is troubled at my word; Sister, I see the cloud is on thy brow. He will not blame me, He who sends not peace, But sends a sword, and bids us strike amain At Error's gilded crest, where in the van Of earth's great army, mingling with the best And bravest of its leaders, shouting loud The battle-cries that yesterday have led The host of Truth to victory, but to-day Are watchwords of the laggard and the slave, He leads his dazzled cohorts. God has made This world a strife of atoms and of spheres; With every breath I sigh myself away And take my tribute from the wandering wind To fan the flame of life's consuming fire; So, while my thought has life, it needs must burn, And burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze, Where all the harvest long ago was reaped And safely garnered in the ancient barns, But still the gleaners, groping for their food, Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn straw, While the young reapers flash their glittering steel Where later suns have ripened nobler grain! We listened to these lines in silence. They were evidently written honestly, and with feeling, and no doubt meant to be reverential. I thought, however, the Lady looked rather serious as he finished reading. The Young Girl's cheeks were flushed, but she was not in the mood for criticism. As we came away the Master said to me--The stubble-fields are mighty slow to take fire. These young fellows catch up with the world's ideas one after another,--they have been tamed a long while, but they find them running loose in their minds, and think they are ferae naturae. They remind me of young sportsmen who fire at the first feathers they see, and bring
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   609   610   611   612   613   614   615   616   617   618   619   620   621   622   623   624   625   626   627   628   629   630   631   632   633  
634   635   636   637   638   639   640   641   642   643   644   645   646   647   648   649   650   651   652   653   654   655   656   657   658   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
feeling
 

fields

 

stubble

 

thought

 

reapers

 

ripened

 

tribute

 
glittering
 

gleaners

 
harvest

ablaze

 

burning

 

consuming

 

reaped

 

safely

 
wandering
 

blindly

 
groping
 

garnered

 

ancient


honestly

 
fellows
 

Master

 

mighty

 

remind

 

naturae

 

sportsmen

 
feathers
 

running

 

criticism


written
 

reverential

 
evidently
 

silence

 

listened

 

cheeks

 

flushed

 

reading

 

finished

 

looked


nobler

 

erring

 

instincts

 
Nature
 
stolid
 

dulness

 
teaching
 

rudiments

 

creatures

 

wretched