Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/18

Rh The rich magnolia, with its foliage fair, High priestess of the flowers, whose censer fills the air.

Might not such incense please thee, Lord of love? Thou, who with bounteous hand dost deign to show Some foretaste of thy Paradise above, To cheer the way-worn pilgrim here below? Bidd'st thou mid parching sands the flow'ret meek Strike its frail root, and raise its tinted cheek, And the slight pine defy the arctic snow, That even the sceptic's frozen eye may see On Nature's beauteous page, what lines she writes of Thee?

What groups, at Sabbath morn, were hither led! Dejected men, with disappointed frown, Spoil'd youths, the parents' darling and their dread, From castles in the air hurl'd ruthless down, The sea-bronz'd mariner, the warrior brave, The keen gold-gatherer, grasping as the grave; Oft, mid these mouldering walls, which nettles crown, Stern breasts have lock'd their purpose and been still, And contrite spirits knelt, to learn their Maker's will.

Here, in his surplice white, the pastor stood, A holy man, of countenance serene, Who, mid the quaking earth, or fiery flood Unmoved, in truth's own panoply, had been