And blessed is he in whose spirit The crown and the sceptre of Love; He only shall look on the face, and behold the great beauty, of God. In the midst of the forest His shrine is ; The shore of the desolate sea Hath hearkened and knows that divine is The Voice that from Nature to thee Still speaks 'mid the lonely recesses, from mountain and desert and mere. It tells of the infinite beauty Of life hidden far from the world, And Joy with her banner unfurled Goes forth with the children of light, with the living and loving and true. All worship in Nature the glory, The seasons and years shall not cease To chant with clear voices immortal the high, holy rapture of life. WILLIAM BELL SCOTT Contentment in the Dark WE ask not to be born: 'tis not by will That we are here beneath the battle-smoke, Without escape; by good things as by ill, By facts and mysteries enchained: no cloak Of an Elijah, no stars whereupon Angels ascending and descending shine Over the head here pillowed on a stone, Anywhere found ;—so say they who repine. But each year hath its harvest, every hour Some melody, child-laughter, strengthening strife, For mother Earth still gives her child his dower, And loves like doves sit on the boughs of life. Ought we to have whate'er we want, in sooth? stair; Alchemists' treasures, everlasting youth, Or aught that may not stand our piercing air? Nay, even these are ours, but only found By Poet in these fabulous vales, due east, Where grows the amaranth in charmed ground; And he it was thenceforth became the Priest, And raised Jove's altar when the world was young; He too it was, in Prophet's vesture stoled, Spake not but sang until life's roof-tree rung, And we who hear him still are crowned with gold. Simple Nature G. J. ROMANES BE it not mine to steal the cultured flower From any garden of the rich and great, Nor seek with care, through many a weary hour, Some novel form of wonder to create. Enough for me the leafy woods to rove, And gather simple cups of morning dew, Or, in the fields and meadows that I love, Find beauty in their bells of every hue. Thus round my cottage floats a fragrant air, And though the rustic plot be humbly laid, Yet, like the lilies gladly growing there, I have not toil'd, but take what God has made. My Lord Ambition pass'd, and smil'd in scorn; I pluck'd a rose, and, lo! it had no thorn. JEFFERIES The Gamekeeper IN N personal appearance he would be a tall man were it not that he has contracted a slight stoop in the passage of the years, not from weakness or decay of nature, but because men who walk much lean forward somewhat, which has a tendency to round the shoulders. The weight of the gun, and often of a heavy game-bag dragging downwards, has increased this defect of his figure, and, as is usual after a certain age, even with those who lead a temperate life, he begins to show signs of corpulency. But these shortcomings only slightly detract from the manliness of his appearance, and in youth it is easy to see that he must have been an athlete. There is still plenty of power in the long sinewy arms, brown hands, and bull-neck, and intense vital energy in the bright blue eye. He is an ash-tree man, as a certain famous writer would say; hard, tough, unconquerable by wind or weather, fearless of his fellows, yielding but by slow and imperceptible degrees to the work of time. His neck has become the colour of mahogany, sun and tempest have left their indelible marks upon his face; and he speaks from the depth of his broad chest, as men do who talk much in the open air, shouting across the fields and through T the copses. There is a solidity in his very footstep, and he stands like an oak. He meets your eye full and unshirkingly, yet without insolence; not as the labourers do, who either stare with sullen ill will or look on the earth. In brief, freedom and constant contact with nature have made him every inch a man; and here in this nineteenth century of civilised effeminacy may be seen some relic of what men were in the old feudal days when they dwelt practically in the woods. EDWARD CARPENTER In a Manufacturing Town As S I walked restless and despondent through the gloomy city, And saw the eager unresting to and fro-as of ghosts in some sulphurous Hades ; And saw the crowds of tall chimneys going up, and the pall of smoke covering the sun, covering the earth, lying heavy against the very ground; And saw the high refuse heaps writhing with children picking them over, And the ghastly, half-roofless, smoke-blackened houses, and the black river flowing below ; As I saw these, and as I saw again far away the Capitalist quarter |