POETRY.
INADEQUACY.
THE haste, the bended knee, the cry With eager youth's ideal warm, The sad love in the Master's eye That followed the departing form : Fine ardours quenched in caution cold, Pure dreams that never dawned again— A picture here, to thrall and hold The fleeting memory of men.
0 weak and melancholy doom, To his young heart's bright festival To bid fair guests and not find room, For the most gracious guest of all : To hail the Holy, greet the Just, To ask, and crave, and still not stay, Wistful and frank to almost trust, Yet pass to gilded want away !
0 boundless misery, dismal fate Of minds that self but half subdue, To reach, of loftiest life, the gate, And valour lack to venture thro' : To cheat the infinite desire, To halt and falter near the goal, To kill the spirit's mounting fire, To save the shadow, lose the soul A story old, yet vital now The vision and the voice abide, A beckoning shape with star-bright brow Travels our paltry lives beside; A voice that clear, persistent, low, Softly persuades, and lingers long, Breathes where the ghosts of beauty grow From colour, music, marble, song ; Calls in blue morn's bird-echoing air, Murmurs amid the twilight pines, Whispers in sighing streams, and where The rosy globe of sunset shines ; Speaks from shy blooms in spring that blow, From the still stars that beam above, From lights in conquering eyes that glow, And the strange charm of woman's love.
For duty's self-forgetful pain, For stainless thought, for service high, Still pleads the urgent inward strain While One like God seems gliding by.
But we indifferent, deaf, and blind,
In mean, contented ways drift on—
Some moment we shall start, to find The voice hushed, and the pilot gone.
JOSEPH TRUMAN.
Previous page
