God has made
This world a strife of atoms and of spheres;
With every breath I sigh myself away
And take my tribute from the wandering wind
To fan the flame of life's consuming fire;
So, while my thought has life, it needs must burn,
And burning, set the stubble-fields ablaze,
Where all the harvest long ago was reaped
And safely garnered in the ancient barns,
But still the gleaners, groping for their food,
Go blindly feeling through the close-shorn straw,
While the young reapers flash their glittering steel
Where later suns have ripened nobler grain!
We listened to these lines in silence. They were evidently written
honestly, and with feeling, and no doubt meant to be reverential. I
thought, however, the Lady looked rather serious as he finished reading.
The Young Girl's cheeks were flushed, but she was not in the mood for
criticism.
As we came away the Master said to me--The stubble-fields are mighty slow
to take fire. These young fellows catch up with the world's ideas one
after another,--they have been tamed a long while, but they find them
running loose in their minds, and think they are ferae naturae. They
remind me of young sportsmen who fire at the first feathers they see, and
bring down a barnyard fowl. But the chicken may be worth bagging for all
that, he said, good-humoredly.
Pages:
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317