Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/303

Her soft, magnetic thrill you feel,
 You love her presence, and she woos
Your languid moods but to reveal
 The soul of Nature’s veiled truths.
So mute and silent is her way
 The coarser mind can never heed,
She pleads with you to stay and stay
 And Nature’s subtle page to read.

To gather up the trifles sweet
 The busier eye can never see
And make the broken chains complete
 That link “finite infinity,”
The struggling mosses of the sod
 The weeds that vex the earth and curse
To hold them up and call them God
 The primal of the universe;
To probe the dreamy mystery wrought
 By insects rearing coral bars,
Then reach up with thy poet-thought
 And read the lives of all the stars;
To teach the weary, weary heart
 To rest and drink life’s sweetness in,
To draw the flimsy veil apart
 That shrouds the Beautiful in Sin.
She bids you lay your toil aside
 And gladly bear her magic wand,
And in her dreamy realms abide
 Till the dull world shall understand.
And little waifs that float unseen,
 Brushed by the careless hand away
Shall settle, wooed, in peace serene
 Upon the soul of men, and stay.

My muse, less kind, or more discreet,
 Deigns not my lonely steps to guide,
And never dares with me to meet
 Except with one or more beside.