Smooth sails the ship of either realm,
Kaiser and Jesuit at the helm;
75We look down the depths, and mark
Silent workers in the dark
Building slow the sharp-tusked reefs,
Old instincts hardening to new beliefs;
Patience a little; learn to wait;
80Hours are long on the clock of Fate.
Spin, spin, Clotho, spin!
Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever!
Darkness is strong, and so is Sin,
But only God endures forever!
THE NIGHTINGALE IN THE STUDY.
"Come forth!" my catbird calls to me,
"And hear me sing a cavatina
That, in this old familiar tree,
Shall hang a garden of Alcina.
5"These buttercups shall brim with wine
Beyond all Lesbian juice or Massic;
May not New England be divine?
My ode to ripening summer classic?
"Or, if to me you will not hark,
10By Beaver Brook a thrush is ringing
Till all the alder-coverts dark
Seem sunshine-dappled with his singing.
"Come out beneath the unmastered sky,
With its emancipating spaces,
15And learn to sing as well as I,
Without premeditated graces.
"What boot your many-volumed gains,
Those withered leaves forever turning,
To win, at best, for all your pains,
20A nature mummy-wrapt in learning?
"The leaves wherein true wisdom lies
On living trees the sun are drinking;
Those white clouds, drowsing through the skies,
Grew not so beautiful by thinking.