Hesperus Part 5

Smiling with a zealous pride On the shepherd and his bride--

Playmates of their early days; For their walks in wisdom's ways, Ever crowned with honoured bays Of esteem and ardent praise.

XII.

Well done, servant of the Lord!

Grave expounder of His Word,

Who in distant Galilee Graced the marriage feast, that He, With all due solemnity, Might commission such as thee

To do likewise, and unite Souls like these in marriage plight.

With what manly, gentle pride, The glad Shepherd clasps his Bride!

Love like theirs, so true and tried, Ever true love must abide!

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XIII.

Ye whose souls are strong and firm, In whom love's electric germ

Has been fanned into a flame At the mention of a name; Ye whose souls are still the same As when first the Victor came,

Stinging every nerve to life, In the beatific strife,

Till the man's divinest part Ruled triumphant in the heart, And, with shrinking, sudden start, The bleak old world stood apart,

Periling the wild Ideal By the presence of the Real:

Ye, and ye alone, can know How these twain souls burn and glow, Can interpret every throe Of the full heart's overflow,

That imparts that light serene To the brow of Mariline.

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THE HAPPY HARVESTERS.

A CANTATA.

I.

Autumn, like an old poet in a haze Of golden visions, dreams away his days, So Hafiz-like that one may almost hear The singer's thoughts imbue the atmosphere; Sweet as the dreamings of the nightingales Ere yet their songs have waked the eastern vales, Or stirred the airy echoes of the wood That haunt the forest's social solitude.

His thoughts are pastorals; his days are rife With the calm wisdom of that inner life That makes the poet heir to worlds unknown, All s.p.a.ce his empire, and the sun his throne.

As the bee stores the sweetness of the flowers, So into autumn's variegated hours Is hived the Hybla richness of the year; Choice souls imbibing the ambrosial cheer, As autumn, seated on the highest hills, Gleans honied secrets from the pa.s.sing rills; While from below, the harvest canzonas Link vale to mountain with a chain of praise.

Foremost among the honoured sons of toil Are they who overcome the stubborn soil; Brave Cincinnatus in his country home Was even greater than when lord of Rome.

Down sinks the sun behind the lofty pines That skirt the mountain, like the straggling lines

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Of Ceres' army looking from the height On the dim lowlands deepening into night; Soft-featured twilight, peering through the maze, Sees the first starbeam pierce the purple haze; Through all the vales the vespers of the birds Cheer the young shepherds homeward with their herds; And the stout axles of the heavy wain Creak 'neath the fulness of the ripened grain, As the swarth builders of the precious load, Returning homewards, sing their Autumn Ode.

AUTUMN ODE.

G.o.d of the Harvest! Thou, whose sun Has ripened all the golden grain, We bless Thee for Thy bounteous store, The cup of Plenty running o'er, The suns.h.i.+ne and the rain.

The year laughs out for very joy, Its silver treble echoing Like a sweet anthem through the woods, Till mellowed by the solitudes It folds its glossy wing.

But our united voices blend From day to day unweariedly; Sure as the sun rolls up the morn, Or twilight from the eve is born, Our song ascends to Thee.

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Where'er the various-tinted woods, In all their autumn splendour dressed, Impart their gold and purple dyes To distant hills and farthest skies Along the crimson west:

Across the smooth, extended plain, By rus.h.i.+ng stream and broad lagoon, On shady height and sunny dale, Wherever scuds the balmy gale, Or gleams the autumn moon:

From inland seas of yellow grain, Where cheerful Labour, heaven-blest, With willing hands and keen-edged scythe, And accents musically blythe, Reveals its lordly crest:

From clover-fields and meadows wide, Where moves the richly-laden wain To barns well-stored with new-made hay, Or where the flail at early day Rolls out the ripened grain:

From meads and pastures on the hills, And in the mountain valleys deep, Alive with beeves and sweet-breathed kine Of famous Ayr or Devon's line, And shepherd-guarded sheep:

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The spirits of the golden year, From crystal caves and grottoes dim, From forest depths and mossy sward, Myriad-tongued, with one accord Peal forth their harvest hymn.

II.

Their daily labour in the happy fields A two-fold crop of grain and pleasure yields, While round their hearths, before their evening fires, Wh.o.r.e comfort reigns, whence weariness retires, The level tracts, denuded of their grain, In calm dispute are bravely shorn again, Till some rough reaper, on a tide of song, Like a bold pirate, captivates the throng:

A SONG FOR THE FLAIL.

A song, a song for the good old Flail, And the brawny arms that wield it, Hearty and hale, in our yeoman mail, Like intrepid knights we'll s.h.i.+eld it.

We are old nature's peers, Right royal cavaliers!

Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail, We're Princes in our own right--our sceptre is the Flail.

A song, a song for the golden grain, As it wooes the flail's embraces, In wavy sheaves like a golden main, With its bright spray in our faces.

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Mirth hastens at our call, Jovial hearts have we all!

Knights of the Plough! for no Golden Fleece we sail, We're Princes in our own right--our sceptre is the Flail.