POETRY.
THE PARTING AND THE MEETING OF THE WATERS.
BENEATH the twin grey summits oozed a spring, And trickled through the brown and spongy moss, And wore a channel down the stony fell; And the thin runnel grew a noisy beck, And the beck swelled into a stormy stream, But a bluff headland stemmed it, and it split.
One of the twain limbs of the cloven stream, Through timbered valleys and smooth meadow-lands
Went, clear and patient, with an even flow,—
Quiet as a deep thought, it stole along, Quiet as feeling, silent with great joy.
The silvery willow-shadows o'er it fell, And gleams, subdued and lambent, of green lights, The large-eyed kine leaned o'er it as in dream, And ofttimes in the amber evening air, Along its reedy brinks, were breathed bright words, Most magical, most musical of life.
But swept the other on in sterner mood, Swirling around the spurs of granite hills, Flying, like Fear, through darkness of the woods, Through the dinned, shuddering gorges plunging down, Then pausing in the hushed, unsounded pool That broods above the misty water-leap, And again onward in the same wild way.
Yet ever and anon the torrent knew .A. want was aching in its turbid depth, A want of beauty, and tranquillity, And sunny comfort of assuaged desire : It longed for the low voice of its lost love, And the lone spirit of the river spake "Amid the passion of my rush I pine, I pine for thee, 0 lost and lovely stream; Shall we not meet again, sweet valley stream P Wilt thou not mix thy sweetness with my strength ?
Shall not my brawling tumult sink and die In the soft song of all thy flowing life P Shall we not meet and mingle into one Before we enter the sepulchral sea?"
And so it came to pass they met again, That gentle water and the torrent strong ; Where the hills dipped into a meadowy vale They met again, and melted into one ; And placid with the peace of the fair land, And stained with the far blue of the pure heaven, The bleat abounding river journeyed by, Rippled and surged, gloomed, beamed, and bounded on, (Like Life its protean analogue, sleepless Life, That vocal soul of the dumb universe, The lyric stream that shoots with tones of light Through the mute apparitions of the world), Smiled past dim villages and drowsy farms, Sighed at the ruined priory's crumbling foot, Folded its cradling arm round famous towns, And pinnacled minsters where entombed repose The lords of power, imagination, song, Bore outward the majestic ships that roam O'er all the lonesome oceans of the earth, And brimmed and jubilant sought the final sea.
JOSEPH TRUMAN.
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