Page:Flora (Heinemann 1919).djvu/66

 In this grave picture mortal Man may see

That all his knowledge ends in mystery.

From mother’s womb he breaks. With tortured sighs

Her racked heart sweetens at his angry cries.

Teaching his feet to walk, his tongue to express

His infant love, she pours her tenderness.

Her milk and honey he doth taste and sip;

Sleeps with her kiss of kindness on his lip.

But with the vigour mastering time doth yield

He exults in freedom; ventures him afield;

Down to the sea goes, and in ship sets sail,

Crazed with the raving of love’s nightingale,

And trumps of war, and danger’s luring horn,

And dark’s faint summons into dreams forlorn.

Pride in earth’s vanquished secrets fills his breast;

Yet still he pines for foregone peace and rest,

And prays in untold sorrow at last to win

To a long-lost Paradise an entering-in.

O yearning eyes that through earth’s ages scan

The “glorious miser” ’tis to be a man;

Secure in thy still arms our Saviour be,

Whose name is Innocency. 38