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POEMS.
II.
The centuries are God's days; within his hand,
Held in the hollow, as a balance swings,
Less than its dust, are all our temporal things.
Long are his nights, when darkness steeps the land;
Thousands of years fill one slow dawn's demand;
The human calendar its measure brings,
Feeble and vain, to lift the soul that clings
To hope for light, and seeks to understand.
The centuries are God's days; the greatest least
In his esteem. We have no glass to sweep
His universe. A hand's-breadth distant dies,
To our poor ears, the strain whose echoes keep
All heaven glad. We do but grope and creep.
There always is a day-star in the skies!
Held in the hollow, as a balance swings,
Less than its dust, are all our temporal things.
Long are his nights, when darkness steeps the land;
Thousands of years fill one slow dawn's demand;
The human calendar its measure brings,
Feeble and vain, to lift the soul that clings
To hope for light, and seeks to understand.
The centuries are God's days; the greatest least
In his esteem. We have no glass to sweep
His universe. A hand's-breadth distant dies,
To our poor ears, the strain whose echoes keep
All heaven glad. We do but grope and creep.
There always is a day-star in the skies!
OCTOBER'S BRIGHT BLUE WEATHER.
SUNS and skies and clouds of June,And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather,
When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
