Page:The poems of George Eliot (Crowell, 1884).djvu/318

 This living lyre, to know its secret will,

Its fine division of the good and ill.

So shall men call me sire of harmony.

And where great Song is, there my life shall be."

Thus glorying as a god beneficent,

Forth from his solitary joy he went

To bless mankind. It was at evening,

When shadows lengthen from each westward thing,

When imminence of change makes sense more fine

And light seems holier in its grand decline.

The fruit-trees wore their studded coronal,

Earth and her children were at festival,

Glowing as with one heart and one consent—

Thought, love, trees, rocks, in sweet warm radiance blent.

The tribe of Cain was resting on the ground,

The various ages wreathed in one broad round.

Here lay, while children peeped o'er his huge thighs,

The sinewy man embrowned by centuries;

Here the broad-bosomed mother of the strong

Looked, like Demeter, placid o'er the throng

Of young lithe forms whose rest was movement too—

Tricks, prattle, nods, and laughs that lightly flew,

And swayings as of flower-beds where Love blew.

For all had feasted well upon the flesh

Of juicy fruits, on nuts, and honey fresh,

And now their wine was health-bred merriment,

Which through the generations circling went,

Leaving none sad, for even father Cain

Smiled as a Titan might, despising pain.

Jabal sat climbed on by a playful ring

Of children, lambs, and whelps, whose gambolling,

With tiny hoofs, paws, hands, and dimpled feet,

Made barks, bleats, laughs, in pretty hubbub meet.