III.
Orpheus.
The music of the Sirens found
Ulysses weak, though cords were strong;
But happier Orpheus stood unbound,
And shamed it with a sweeter song.
His mode be mine. Of Heav’n I ask,
May I, with heart-persuading might,
Pursue the Poet’s sacred task
Of superseding faith by sight,
Till ev’n the witless Gadarene,
Preferring Christ to swine, shall know
That life is sweetest when it’s clean.
To prouder folly let me show
Earth by divine light made divine;
And let the saints, who hear my word,
Say, ‘Lo, the clouds begin to shine
About the coming of the Lord!’
IV.
Nearest the Dearest.
Till Eve was brought to Adam, he
A solitary desert trod,
Though in the great society
Of nature, angels, and of God.
If one slight column counterweighs
The ocean, ’tis the Maker’s law,
Who deems obedience better praise
Than sacrifice of erring awe.
V.
Perspective.
What seems to us for us is true.
The planet has no proper light,
And yet, when Venus is in view,
No primal star is half so bright.
ACCEPTED.
1
What fortune did my heart foretell?
What shook my spirit, as I woke,
Like the vibration of a bell
Of which I had not heard the stroke?
Was it some happy vision shut
From memory by the sun’s fresh ray?
Was it that linnet’s song; or but
A natural gratitude for day?
Or the mere joy the senses weave,
A wayward ecstasy of life?
Then I remember’d, yester-eve
I won Honoria for my Wife.