A Cluster of Grapes | Page 8

to
be gone!"
"Soon--ah, too soon!" says the Soul, with a pitiful gaze,
"Soon!--for I
rose like a star, and for aye would have shone! See the pale shuddering
dawn, that must wither my rays,
Leaps from the mountains--and I
must make haste to be gone!"
AT EVENTIDE

At morn I saw the level plain
So rich and small beneath my feet,
A
sapphire sea without a stain,
And fields of golden-waving wheat;

Lingering I said, "At noon I'll be
At peace by that sweet-scented tide.

How far, how fair my course shall be,
Before I come to the
Eventide!"
Where is it fled, that radiant plain?
I stumble now in miry ways;

Dark clouds drift landward, big with rain,
And lonely moors their
summits raise.
On, on with hurrying feet I range,
And left and right
in the dumb hillside
Grey gorges open, drear and strange,
And so I
come to the Eventide!
IN A COLLEGE GARDEN
Birds, that cry so loud in the old, green bowery garden,
Your song is
of _Love! Love! Love!_
Will ye weary not nor cease?
For the
loveless soul grows sick, the heart that the grey days harden; I know
too well that ye love! I would ye should hold your peace.
I too have seen Love rise, like a star; I have marked his setting; I
dreamed in my folly and pride that Life without Love were peace. But
if Love should await me yet, in the land of sleep and forgetting-- Ah,
bird, could you sing me this, I would not your song should cease!
ANNA BUNSTON (Mrs de BARY)
A MORTGAGED INHERITANCE
I knew a land whose streams did wind
More winningly than these,

Where finer shadows played behind
The clean-stemmed beechen
trees.
The maidens there were deeper eyed,
The lads more swift and
fair,
And angels walked at each one's side--
Would God that I were
there!
Here daffodils are dressed in gold,
But there they wore the sun,
And
here the blooms are bought and sold,
But there God gave each one.


There all roads led to fairyland
That here do lead to care,
And stars
were lamps on Heaven's strand--
Would God, that I were there!
Here worship crawls upon her course
That there with larks would
cope,
And here her voice with doubt is hoarse
That there was sweet
with hope.
O land of Peace! my spirit dies
For thy once tasted air,

O earliest loss! O latest prize!
Would God that I were there!
THE WILDERNESS
From Life's enchantments,
Desire of place,
From lust of getting

Turn thou away, and set thy face
Toward the wilderness.
The tents of Jacob
As valleys spread,
As goodly cedars,
Or fair
lign aloes, white and red,
Shall share thy wilderness.
With awful judgments,
The law, the rod,
With soft allurements

And comfortable words, will God
Pass o'er the wilderness.
The bitter waters
Are healed and sweet,
The ample heavens
Pour
angel's bread about thy feet
Throughout the wilderness.
And Carmel's glory
Thou thoughtest gone,
And Sharon's roses,

The excellency of Lebanon
Delight thy wilderness.
Who passeth Jordan
Perfumed with myrrh,
With myrrh and incense?

Lo! on his arm Love leadeth her
Who trod the wilderness.
UNDER A WILTSHIRE APPLE TREE
Some folks as can afford,
So I've heard say,
Sets up a sort of cross

Right in the garden way
To mind 'em of the Lord.
But I, when I do see
Thic apple tree
An' stoopin' limb
All spread
wi' moss,
I think of Him
And how he talks wi' me.

I think of God
And how he trod
That garden long ago:
He walked,
I reckon, to and fro
And then sat down
Upon the groun'
Or some
low limb
What suited Him
Same as you see
On many a tree,

And on this very one
Where I at set o' sun
Do sit and talk wi' He.
An' mornings, too, I rise an' come
An' sit down where the branch be
low;
A bird do sing, a bee do hum,
The flowers in the border blow,

An' all my heart's so glad an' clear
As pools be when the sun do
peer:
As pools a laughin' in the light
When mornin' air is swep' an'
bright,
As pools what got all Heaven in sight
So's my heart's cheer

When He be near.
He never pushed the garden door,
He left no footmark on the floor;

I never heard 'Un stir nor tread
An' yet His Hand do bless my head,

And when 'tis time for work to start
I takes Him with me in my heart.
And when I die, pray God I see
At very last thic apple tree
An'
stoopin' limb,
An' think o' Him
And all He been to me.
G. K. CHESTERTON
SONNET WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON
(To a popular leader, to be congratulated on the avoidance of a strike at
Christmas.)
I know you. You will hail the huge release,
Saying the sheathing of a
thousand swords,
In silence and injustice, well accords
With
Christmas bells. And you will gild with grease
The papers, the
employers, the police,
And vomit up the void your windy words
To
your new Christ; who bears no whip of cords
For them that traffic in
the doves of peace.
The feast of friends, the candle-fruited tree,

I have not failed to
honour. And I say
It would be better for such men as we
And we be

nearer Bethlehem,