EAST AND WEST.
In the bare midst of Anglesey they show
Two springs which close by one another play;
And, “Thirteen hundred years agone,” they say,
“Two saints met often where those waters flow.
One came from Penmon westward, and a glow
Whitened his face from the sun’s fronting ray;
Eastward the other, from the dying day,
And he with unsunned face did always go.”
Seiriol the Bright, Kybi the Dark! men said.
The seer from the East was then in light,
The seer from the West was then in shade.
Ah! now ’tis changed. In conquering sunshine bright
The man of the bold West now comes arrayed:
He of the mystic East is touched with night.
THE BETTER PART.
Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare!
“Christ,” some one says, “was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan;
We live no more, when we have done our span.”
“Well, then, for Christ,” thou answerest, “who can care?
From sin which Heaven records not, why forbear?
Live we like brutes our life without a plan!”
So answerest thou; but why not rather say,—
“Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see?