These are but the cosmic strings
To the harp of Beauty,
To that instrument which sings
In our souls of love that brings
Peace and faith and duty.
15
She, seriously:
Duty?—Comfort of the sinner
And the saint!—when grief and trial
Weigh us, and within our inner
Selves,—responsive to love's viol,—
Hope's soft voice grows thin and thinner,
It is kin to self-denial.
Self-denial!—through whose feeling
We are gainer though we're loser;
All the finer force revealing
Of our natures. No accuser
Is the conscience then, but healing
Of the wound of which we're chooser.
Some one said no flower knoweth
Of the fragrance it revealeth;
Song, its soul that overfloweth,
Never nightingale's heart feeleth—
Such the love the spirit groweth,
Love unconscious if it healeth.
16
He, after a pause, lightly:
An elf there is who stables the hot
Red wasp that stings on the apricot;
An elf who rowels his spiteful bay
Like a mote on a ray, away, away;
An elf who saddles the hornet lean
To din i' the ear o' the swinging bean;
Who straddles, with cap cocked all awry,
The bottle-blue back o' the dragon-fly.