"This cool, unasking Ox
Comes browsing o'er my hills and vales of Time,
And thrusts me out his tongue, and curls it, sharp,
And sicklewise, about my poets' heads,
And twists them in….
and champs and chews,
With slantly-churning jaws and swallows down.">[
[Footnote 38: The deities of Olympus, being immortal, have no need of strenuous haste. They may well move from pleasure to pleasure with stately leisure.]
* * * * *
SELECTIONS FROM FATHER RYAN
SONG OF THE MYSTIC [1]
I walk down the Valley of Silence—[2]
Down the dim, voiceless valley—alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!
Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human—and sin.[3]
I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said: "In the world each Ideal,
That shines like a star on life's wave,
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave."
And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True;
I sought 'mid the Human for Heaven,
But caught a mere glimpse of its Blue;
And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal
Veiled even that glimpse from my view.
And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human,
And I moaned 'mid the mazes of men,
Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar,
And I heard a voice call me. Since then
I walked down the Valley of Silence
That lies far beyond mortal ken.