MARGERY.

“Truth lights our minds as sunrise lights the world.

The heart that shuts out truth, excludes the light

That wakes the love of beauty in the soul;

And being foe to these, despises God,

The sole Dispenser of the gracious bliss

That brings us nearer the celestial gate.

They who might feed on rose-leaves of the True,

And grow in loveliness of heart and soul,

Catch at Deception's airy gossamers,

As children clutch at stars. To some, the world

Is a bleak desert, parched with blinding sand,

With here and there a mirage, fair to view,

But insubstantial as the visions born

Of Folly and Despair. Could we but know

How nigh we are to the true light of heaven;

In what a world of love we live and breathe;

On what a tide of truth our souls are borne!

Yet we're but bubbles in the whirl of life,

Mere flecks upon its ever-restless sea,

Meteors in its ever-changing sky.

Eternity alone is worth the thought

That we expend upon the passing hour,

Chasing the gaudy butterflies that lure

Our footsteps from the path that leads us home.

We will not see the beacon on the rock;

The prompter is unheeded; and the spark

Of the true spirit quenched in utter night,

As we rush headlong, wrecked on Error's shoals.

Some hearts will never open; all their wards

Have grown so rusty, that the golden key

Of Love Divine must fail to move the bolt

That Self has drawn to keep God's angels out.”

So spake the merry Margery, the while

Her fingers lengthened out a filigree,

That seemed to me so many golden threads

Of thought between her fingers and her brain,

Bestrung with priceless pearls; her lightsome mood,

Worn as occasion might necessitate,

Replaced to-night by sober-sided Sense,

That made her beauty like an eve in June,

Just as the moon is risen. I, to mark

My approbation of her present mood,

Rehearsed a rambling lyric of my own,

That seemed prophetic of her thoughts to-night:

Within my mind there ever lives

A yearning for the True,

The Beautiful and Good. God gives

These, as He gives the dew

That falls upon the flowers at night,

The grass, the thirsty trees,

Because‘ tis needful; and the light

That suns my mind from these —

Truth — Beauty — Goodness, doth but fill

A void within my soul;

And I fall prone before the Will

Of Him who gave the whole —

The wondrous life — the power to think,

And love, and act, and speak.

Standing, half-poised, upon the brink

Of being — strong, yet weak —

Strong in vast hopes, but weak in deeds,

I lift my heart and pray,

That where the tangled skein of creeds

Excludes the light of day

From human minds, God's purposes

May be made plain, that all

May walk in truth's and wisdom's ways,

And lay aside the thrall

Of enmity, whose clouds have kept

Their souls as dark as night;

That they whose love and hope have slept,

May come into the light,

And live as men, with minds to grasp

Within the sphere of thought

The boundless universe, and clasp

The good the wise have sought,

As if it were a long-lost dove,

Or a stray soul returned

To worship in the fane of love,

That it so long had spurned.

Where'er I gaze, my eyes behold

Nought but the beautiful.

The world is grand as it is old;

The only fitting school

For man, where he may learn to live,

And live to learn that what

He needs heaven will in mercy give.

Whatever be his lot,

He shapes it for himself; his mind

Is his own heaven or hell:

Just as he peoples it, he'll find

Himself compelled to dwell

With good or evil. Good abounds

In this delightful sphere;

But man will walk his daily rounds,

And evermore give ear

To the false promptings that waylay

His steps at every turn;

Flinging the true and good away

For joys that he should spurn,

As being all unworthy of

His greatness as a man.

Why, man!— why tremble at the scoff

Of fools and bigots? Scan

The mental firmament, and see

How men in every age,

Who strove for immortality —

Whose errand was to wage

Not War, but Peace — men of pure minds,

Who sought and found the truth,

And treasured it, as one who finds

The secret of lost Youth

Restored and made immortal — see

How they were scorned, because

Their Sphinx-lives spake of mystery

To those to whom the laws

Of nature are as claspèd books!—

Poets, who ruled the world

Of Thought; in whose prophetic looks

And minds there lay impearled,

But hidden from the vulgar sight,

Such universal truths,

That many, blinded by the light —

Gray-haired, green-gosling youths,

With whips of satire, looks of scorn,

And finger of disdain,

Have crushed these harbingers of morn,

But could not kill the strain

That was a part of nature's mind,

And therefore can not die.

That which men spurned, angels have shrined

Among God's truths on high.

And so‘ t will ever be, till man

Knows more of Goodness, Truth,

And Beauty — more of nature's plan,

And Love that brings back youth

To hearts that have grown frail and old

By groping in the dark

With blinded eyes; their idol, Gold,

And Gain, their Pleasure-bark!

“‘ Tis well that nature hath her ministers,”

She said, her voice and looks so passing sweet;

“Great-hearts that let in love, and keep it there,

Like the true flame within the diamond's heart,

Informing, blessing, chastening their lives.

Man has but one great love — his love for God;

All other loves are lesser and more less

As they recede from Him, as are the streams

The farthest from the fountain. God is Love.

Who loves God most, loves most his fellow-men;

Sees the Creator in the creature's form

Where others see but man — and he, so frail

The very devils are akin to him!

There is no light that is not born of love;

No truth where love is not its guiding star;

Faith without love is noonday without sun,

For love begetteth works both good and true,

And these give faith its immortality.”

We parted at the outer door. The stars

Seemed never half so bright or numberless

As they appeared to-night. Margery's laugh

Tripped after me in merry cadences,

Like the quick steps of fairies in the air

United to the chorus of their hearts

Breathed into silvery music. Happy soul!

Nature's epitome in all her moods.