Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/368

 358 COA'SOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

" How can this be, O ancient man ?

For we below are wont to hear That the god bids all climb who can,

And drink those waters fresh and clear. Hath he not willed that all who mount Shall grow inspired at his own fount? "

" Deem not Castalia's crystal tides E'er yet the gift of song inspired !

Thither the crafty serpent glides, Where once the thirsty god retired ;

The soaring and the creeping thing

Both stoop to drink at the same spring.

"Both rise refreshed — the snake to bite, The god more fit for sacred duty ;

One hastens straight to shun the light. The other seeks the world of beauty.

Each strengthened, or for good or ill,

Departs — what Nature made him still ! "

��A VISION OF THE WESTERN WORLD.

Where, in the far and boundless west, The sire of waters proudly flows,

Bears the tall ship upon his breast, And scatters plenty as he goes, —

Where 'twixt green plains and headlands bleak The raft glides like a floating town,

While steamers swift, with piercing shriek. In panting haste ply up and down, —

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