The International Weekly Miscellany - Volume I, No. 5 | Page 9

tell you."
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Truth is altogether ineffably, holily beautiful. Beauty has always truth
in it, but seldom unadulterated.
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The poet's soul should be like the ocean, able to carry navies, yet
yielding to the touch of a finger.
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ORIGINAL POETRY
AZELA.
BY MISS ALICE CAREY.
From the pale, broken ruins of the heart, The soul's bright wing,
uplifted silently, Sweeps thro' the steadfast depths of the mind's heaven,
Like the fixed splendor of the morning star-- Nearer and nearer to the
wasteless flame That in the centres of the universe Burns through the
o'erlapping centuries of time. And shall it stagger midway on its path,
And sink its radiance low as the dull dust, For the death-flutter of a
fledgling hope? Or, with the headlong phrensy of a fiend, Front the
keen arrows of Love's sunken sun, For that, with nearer vision it
discerns What in the distance like ripe roses seemed Crimsoning with
odorous beauty the gray rocks Are the red lights of wreckers! Just as
well The obstinate traveler might in pride oppose His puny shoulder to
the icy slip Of the blind avalanche, and hope for life; Or Beauty press
her forehead in the grave, And think to rise as from the bridal bed. But
let the soul resolve its course shall be Onward and upward, and the
walls of pain May build themselves about it as they will, Yet leave it
all-sufficient to itself. How like the very truth a lie may seem!-- Led by

that bright curse, Genius, some have gone On the broad wake of visions
wonderful And seemed, to the dull mortals far below, Unraveling the
web of fate, at will. And leaning on their own creative power, As on the
confident arm of buoyant Love. But from the climbing of their
wildering way Many have faltered, fallen,--some have died, Still
wooing from across the lapse of years The faded splendour of a
morning dream, And feeding sorrow with remembered smiles. Love,
that pale passion-flower of the heart, Nursed into bloom and beauty by
a breath, With the resplendence of its broken light, Even on the
outposts of mortality, Dims the still watchfires of the waiting soul. O,
tender-visaged Pity, stoop from heaven, And from the much-loved
bosom of the past Draw back the nestling hand of Memory, Though it
be quivering and pale with pain; And with the dead dust of departed
Hope Choke up and wither into barrenness The sweetest fountain of the
human heart, And stay its channels everlastingly From the endeavor of
the loftier soul. Nay, 'twere a task outbalancing thy power, Nor can the
almost-omnipotence of mind Away from aching bind the bleeding heart,
Or keep at will its mighty sorrow down. And, were the white flames of
the world below Binding my forehead with undying pain, The lily
crowns of heaven I would put back, If thou wert there, lost light of my
young dream!-- Hope, opening with the faint flowers of the wood,
Bloomed crimson with the summer's heavy kiss, But autumn's dim feet
left it in the dust, And like tired reapers my lorn thoughts went down
To the gloom-harvest of a hopeless love, For past all thought I loved
thee: Listening close From the soft hour when twilight's rosy hedge
Sprang from the fires of sunset, till deep night Swept with her cloud of
stars the face of heaven, For the quick music, from the pavement rung
Where beat the impatient hoof-strokes of the steed, Whose mane of
silver, like a wave of light, Bathed the caressing hand I pined to clasp!
It is as if a song-lark, towering high In pride of place, should stoop her
sun-bathed wing, Low as the poor hum of the grasshopper. I scorn thee
not, old man; no haunting ghost Born of the darkness of thy perjury
Crosses the white tent of my dreaming now But for myself, that I
should so have loved!-- The sweet folds of that blessed charity, Pure as
the cold veins of Pentelicus, Were all too narrow now to hide away One
burning spot of shame--the wretched price Of proving traitor to the
wondrous star That with a cloud of splendor wraps my way. And yet,

from the bright wine-cup of my life, The rosy vintage, bubbling to the
brim, Thou With a passionate lip didst drain away And to God's sweet
gift--human sympathy-- Making my bosom dumb as the dark grave,
Didst leave me drifting on the waste of life, A fruitless pillar of the
desert dust; For, from the ashes of a ruined hope There springs no life
but an unwearied woe That feeding upon sunken lip and cheek Pushes
its victims from mortality. Vainly the light rain of