POETRY.
FREE-WILL.
STRENGTH of the beautiful day, green and blue and white ! Voice of leaf and of bird !
Low voice of mellow surf far down the curving shore t Strong white clouds and grey, slow and calm in your flight, Aimless, majestic, unheard, You walk in air, and dissolve, and vanish for evermore Lying here midst poppies and maize, tired of the loss and the gain, Dreaming of rest, oh ! fain
Would I, like ye, transmute the terror of fate into,. praise.
Yet thou, 0 Earth ! art a slave, orderly without care, Perfect thou know'st not why, For He whose Word is thy life has spared thee the gift of Will!
We men are not so brave, our lives are not so fair, Our law is an eye for an eye, And the light that shines for our good, we use to our ill..
Fails boyhood's hope ere long, for the deed still mocks the plan, And the knave is the honest man.
And thus we grow weak in a world created to make us strong.
But woe to the man who quails before that which makes him man!'
Though Heaven be sweet to win, One thing is sweeter yet,—freedom to side with Sin !
In Man succeeds, or fails, this great creative plan; His liberty to sin Makes worth God's winning the love even God may not compel.
Shall I, then, murmur, and be wroth at Nature's peace?
Though I be ill at ease, I hold one link of the chain of His happiness in my hand JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
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