III.
"Wait till the laurel bursts its buds,
And creeping ivy flings its graces
About the lichened rocks—and floods
Of sunshine fill the shady places.
IV.
"Then, when the sky, the air, the grass,
Sweet Nature all, is glad and tender—
Then bear me through the Goshen Pass,[1]
Amid the hush of May-day splendour,"
V.
So will we bear him—human heart
To Nature's own drew never nearer;
And never stooped she to impart
Her love to one who held it dearer.
VI.
The stars had secrets for him; seas
Revealed the depths their waves were screening;
The winds gave up their mysteries;
The tidal flows confessed their meaning.
VII.
Of ocean paths the tangled clue
He taught the nations to unravel,
And showed the track where safely through
The lightning-footed thought might travel.
VIII.
And yet unspoiled by all the store
Of Nature's grander revelations,
Who bowed more lovingly before
The lowliest of her fair creations!
IX.
No sage of all the ages past,
Ambered in Plutarch's limpid story.
Upon his living age has cast
A radiance touched with truer glory.
- ↑ See page 319.
