One moment; the dull pain hath left those eyes
Whose yearning pierces time, and space, and tears.
Thou seest what was once, but now is not,--
By Niger thy bright home, thy Paradise,
Unscathed of flame, and foe, and hostile spears.



THE MARVELLOUS WORK.

"Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me"--Whitman


Not yet, for all their quest of it, have men
Cast wholly by the ignoble dread of truth!
Each of God's laws, if but so late discerned
Their faiths upgrew unsuckled in it, fills
Their hearts with angry fears, perchance lest God
Be dwarfed behind his own decrees, or made
Superfluous through his perfectness of deed!
But large increase of knowledge in these days
Is come about us, fraught with ill for them
Whose creeds are cut too straight to hold new growth,
Whose faiths are clamped against access of wisdom;
Fraught with some sadness, too, for those just souls
Who, clothed in rigid teachings found too scant,
Are fain to piece the dear accustomed garb,
Till here a liberal, there a literal fragment,
Here new, there old, here bright, there dark, disclose
Their vestiture a strange discordant motley.