Page:A Treasury of South African Poetry.djvu/107

 QUATRAINS.

not thy lids on idle dreams,
 * O voyaging soul aghast!

Safe through the mazes of life's streams
 * No dreamer ever passed.

Who fails in his allotted march
 * To make one step for right,

Spoils the wide curve of heaven's arch,
 * And mars the infinite.

The soul that dies by flesh o'erwon,
 * Is like some tender growth

On which a fetid adder coils,
 * And kills in folds of sloth.

. Eagles mount on easy wing;
 * Larks are light of feather;

Man, the heavy-footed thing,
 * Adds stars and suns together.