POETRY.
YOUTH AND SORROW.
As yet I have known no sorrow ; very sweet This murmuring summer life has been to me; My days like lilies under water stir, And God has sheltered me from his own wind ; The darling of his breezes have I been.
Some he creates to grow, and not to strive, Nor ever to suffer, merely to be sweet, The favourites of his rain. My life has been The history of a flower in the air, Liable but to breezes and to Time, As rich and purposeless as is the rose : My simple doom is to be beautiful.
Yet as to one inland, that dreameth lone, Sea-faring men with their sea-weary eyes Round the inn-fire tell of some foreign land ; So aged men, much tossed about in life, Have told me of that country, far Sorrow.
How many goodly barques at anchor lie Within her ports; and even to me indeed Hatt' a sea-rumour through the night been borne..
And I myself remember, and have heard Of men who did believe, women that loved, That were unhappy long, and now are dead; With wounds that no eternity can close, Life had so marked them ; or of others, who Panted toward their end, and came on death Even as sobbing runners breast the tape.
And most I remember, of all human things, My mother; often as a child I pressed My face against her cheek, and felt her tears, Till my own eyes grew ignorantly wet.
But unto me Sorrow is yet far-off.
STEPHEN PHILLIPS.
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