*

THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS

We travelled in the print of olden wars;
Yet all the land was green;
And love we found, and peace,
Where fire and war had been.
They pass and smile, the children of the sword--
No more the sword they wield;
And O, how deep the corn
Along the battlefield!

*

To reckon dangers too curiously, to hearken too intently
for the threat that runs through all the winning music of
the world, to hold back the hand from the rose because of
the thorn, and from life because of death: this it is to be
afraid of Pan. Highly respectable citizens who flee life's
pleasures and responsibilities and keep, with upright hat,
upon the midway of custom, avoiding the right hand and the
left, the ecstasies and the agonies, how surprised they
would be if they could hear their attitude mythologically
expressed, and knew themselves as tooth-chattering ones,
who flee from Nature because they fear the hand of
Nature's God!

*