Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/425

Rh For sometimes, through the bars, my ravished eyes Have caught brief glimpses of a life divine, And seen afar, mysterious rapture rise Beyond the veil that guards the inmost shrine.

THE AXE AND PINE

All day, on bole and limb the axes ring, And every stroke upon my startled brain Falls with the power of sympathetic pain; I shrink to view each glorious forest king Descend to earth, a wan, discrowne d thing. Ah, Heaven! beside these foliaged giants slain, How small the human dwarfs, whose lust for gain Hath edged their brutal steel to smite and sting! Hark! to those long-drawn murmurings, strange and drear! The wail of Dryads in their last distress; O er ruined haunts and ravished loveliness Still tower those brawny arms; tones coarsely loud Rise still beyond the greenery s waning cloud, While falls the insatiate steel, sharp, cold, and sheer!

MIDSUMMER IN THE SOUTH

I love Queen August s stately sway, And all her fragrant south winds say, With vague, mysterious meanings fraught, Of unimaginable thought; Those winds, mid change of gloom and gleam, Seem wandering thro a golden dream The rare midsummer dream that lies In humid depths of nature s eyes, Weighing her languid forehead down