POETRY.
"GRASS OF PARNASSUS."
0 Harry singers, and happy song, That had never a pang of birth, When first in the human heart grew strong Earth, and the wonder of Earth !
Had I, too, lived when the Earth was young, Earth that is now so old,—
'When Faith and Fancy were of one tongue, That are aliens now, and cold ; 'Then half of fancy, and half of faith, I had woven, fair flower, for thee A dream-like legend of love and death, To match thy purity.
For not the drooping flower by the stream, Nor the flower that is written with woe, 'To the Earth has lent a lovelier gleam, To the heart a holier glow.
But now I should mock thy loveliness, Or do thee despite, fair flower, By a fable fashioned in antique dress, As an actor tricked for an hour.
Rather I gather thee reverently From thy place in the rush-grown sod, And think, frail flower, were it only for thee, I should know that God is God !
For if Imply a power that was not divine, Or the forces of earth or air, Could have moulded matter to life like mine, Or made thee a form so fair ; • Yet only the God whom we love as Love Could so have made me and thee, That thou by thy simple beauty canst move Such a world of love in me.
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