Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder Oh! let her read, nor loudly, nor rolled, And that were true which Nature The doom that bars us from a better never told, Let Wisdom smile not on her conquered field No rapture dawns, no treasure is revealed! elate, fate; But, sad as angels for the good man's sin, Weep to record, and blush to give it in! THOMAS CAREW. ASK ME NO MORE. Ask me no more where Jove bestows, Ask me no more whither do stray Ask me no more whither doth haste Ask me no more if east or west SOLITUDE! Life is inviolate solitude; Eye looks in eye with a question ing wonder, Why are we thus in our meeting asunder? Never was truth so apart from the Why are our pulses so slow and so dreaming As lieth the selfhood inside of the seeming, dull ? Guarded with triple shield out of all Fruitless, fruitionless! Life is fru quest, So that the sisterhood nearest and sweetest, So that the brotherhood kindest, completest, Is but an exchanging of signals at best. Desolate! Life is so dreary and desolate. Women and men in the crowd meet and mingle, Yet with itself every soul standeth single, Deep out of sympathy moaning its moan; Holding and having its brief exultation; Making its lonesome and low lamentation; Fighting its terrible conflicts alone. Separate! Life is so sad and so sep arate. Under love's ceiling with roses for lining, Heart mates with heart in a tender entwining, Yet never the sweet cup of love filleth full. itionless; LIFE'S MYSTERY. LIFE'S sadly solemn mystery, Hangs o'er me like a weight; The glorious longing to be free, The gloomy bars of fate. Alternately the good and ill, The light and dark, are strung; Fountains of love within my heart, And hate upon my tongue. Beneath my feet the unstable ground, No purely pure, and perfect good, |