Page:The college beautiful, and other poems.djvu/69

Rh

WO shepherds sate in a cavern gate
 * And plained for the frozen rills,

The pale clouds low with the heavy snow,
 * And the flock-forsaken hills.

Their empty pipes on their silent lips
 * Lay chill as the icy spears

That grow where the snow from the tree-bough drips
 * Like a wood-nymph's falling tears,

A nymph hid dark in the rugged bark
 * From the unbelieving years.

"I will go," saith one, "to seek the Sun,
 * And his daughter, the Spring, to spy,

In the windy east where they lie and feast
 * In a nook of the misted sky."

So he clasped his pipe to his songless breast,
 * The shepherd who sought the Spring,

And left his fellow to scorn the quest
 * And wait for her steps to bring

The music gift that his heart should lift
 * To the level where high hearts sing.

'Neath the morning star, by the ocean far,
 * The seeker the Spring did find.