nature

Children of the elemental mother,
Born upon some lonely island shore
Where the wrinkled ripples run and whisper,
Where the crested billows plunge and roar;
Long-winged, tireless roamers and adventurers,
Fearless breasters of the wind and sea,
In the far-off solitary places
I have seen you floating wild and free!

Here the high-built cities rise around you;
Here the cliffs that tower east and west,
Honeycombed with human habitations,
Have no hiding for the sea-bird's nest:

O academic muse that hast for long
Charmed all the world with thy disciples’ song,
As myrtle bushes must give place to trees,
Our humbler strains can now no longer please.
Look down for once, inspire me in these lays.
In lofty verse to sing our Rector's praise.

The mighty wheel of Time to light has rolled
That golden age by ancient bards foretold.
Minerva now descends upon our land,
And scatters knowledge with unsparing hand;
Long since Ulysses saw the heavenly maid,

Samuel Sewall, in a world of wigs,
Flouted opinion in his personal hair;
For foppery he gave not any figs,
But in his right and honor took the air.
Thus in his naked style, though well attired,
He went forth in the city, or paid court
To Madam Winthrop, whom he much admired,
Most godly, but yet liberal with the port.

And all the town admired for two full years
His excellent address, his gifts of fruit,
Her gracious ways and delicate white ears,
And held the course of nature abolute.

Said Grenfell to my spirit, "You’ve been writing very free
Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me.
You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law,
Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw:
So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat:
But I put a charm upon you and you won’t get over that."
O said Grenfell to my spirit, " Though you write of breezy peaks,
Golden Gullies, wattle sidings, and the pools in she-oak creeks,

Trees in groves,
Kine in droves,
In ocean sport the scaly herds,
Wedge-like cleave the air the birds,
To northern lakes fly wind-borne ducks,
Browse the mountain sheep in flocks,
Men consort in camp and town,
But the poet dwells alone.

God who gave to him the lyre,
Of all mortals the desire,
For all breathing men's behoof,
Straitly charged him, "Sit aloof;"
Annexed a warning, poets say,
To the bright premium,—
Ever when twain together play,
Shall the harp be dumb.
Many may come,

In our family, there were two saints,
my aunt and my grandmother.
But their lives were different.

My grandmother's was tranquil, even at the end.
She was like a person walking in calm water;
for some reason
the sea couldn't bring itself to hurt her.
When my aunt took the same path,
the waves broke over her, they attacked her,
which is how the Fates respond
to a true spiritual nature.

My grandmother was cautious, conservative:
that's why she escaped suffering.
My aunt's escaped nothing;

1 Like to the clear in highest sphere
2 Where all imperial glory shines,
3 Of selfsame colour is her hair,
4 Whether unfolded or in twines:
5 Heigh ho, fair Rosalind.
6 Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
7 Refining heaven by every wink;
8 The gods do fear whenas they glow,
9 And I do tremble when I think:
10 Heigh ho, would she were mine.

11 Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
12 That beautifies Aurora's face,

As home from church we two did plod,
"Grandpa," said Rosy, "What is God?"
Seeking an answer to her mind,
This is the best that I could find. . . .

God is the Iz-ness of our Cosmic Biz;
The high, the low, the near, the far,
The atom and the evening star;
The lark, the shark, the cloud, the clod,
The whole darned Universe - that's God.

Some deem that others there be,
And to them humbly bend the knee;
To Mumbo Jumbo and to Joss,
To Bud and Allah - but the Boss

LIKE to the clear in highest sphere
   Where all imperial glory shines,
Of selfsame colour is her hair
   Whether unfolded or in twines:
   Heigh ho, fair Rosaline!
Her eyes are sapphires set in snow,
   Resembling heaven by every wink;
The gods do fear whenas they glow,
   And I do tremble when I think
   Heigh ho, would she were mine!

Her cheeks are like the blushing cloud
   That beautifies Aurora's face,
Or like the silver crimson shroud
   That Phoebus' smiling looks doth grace.

Tracks of rain and light linger in
the spongy greens of a nature whose
flickering mountain--bulging nearer,
ebbing back into the sun
hollowing itself away to hold a lake,--
or brown stream rising and falling at the roadside, turning about,
churning itself white, drawing
green in over it,--plunging glassy funnels
fall--

And--the other world--
the windshield a blunt barrier:
Talk to me. Sh! they would hear us.
--the backs of their heads facing us--
The stream continues its motion of