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Welcome Earth,

My natural heritage! and this soft turf,
These rocks which no insidious ocean saps,
But the wide air flows over, and the sun
Illumines. Take me, Mother, to thy breast,
Gather me close in tender, sustinent arms,
Lay bare thy bosom's sweetness and its strength
That I may drink vigour and joy and love.
Oh infinite composure of the hills!

Thou large simplicity of this fair world,
Candour and calmness, with no mockery,

No soft frustration, flattering sigh or smile
Which masks a tyrannous purpose; and ye Powers

Of these sky-circled heights, and Presences
Awful and strict, I find you favourable,

Who seek not to exclude me or to slay,
Rather accept my being, take me up
Into your silence and your peace.

Therefore

By him whom ye reject not, gracious Ones,
Pure vows are made that haply he will be

Not all unworthy of the world; he casts

Forth from him, never to resume again,

Veiled nameless things, frauds of the unfilled heart, Fantastic pleasures, delicate sadnesses,

The lurid, and the curious, and the occult,

Coward sleights and shifts, the manners of the slave,

And long unnatural uses of dim life.

Hence with you! Robes of angels touch these

heights

Blown by pure winds and I lay hold upon them.

Here is a perfect bell of purple heath,
Made for the sky to gaze at reverently,
As faultless as itself, and holding light,
Glad air and silence in its slender dome ;
Small, but a needful moment in the sum
Of God's full joy-the abyss of ecstasy

O'er which we hang as the bright bow of foam
Above the never-filled receptacle

Hangs seven-hued where the endless cataract leaps.

O now I guess why you have summoned me,

Headlands and heights, to your companionship ;

Confess that I this day am needful to you!

The heavens were loaded with great light, the winds

Brought you calm summer from a hundred

fields,

All night the stars had pricked you to desire,
The imminent joy at its full season flowered,
There was a consummation, the broad wave
Toppled and fell. And had ye voice for this?
Sufficient song to unburden the urged breast?
A pastoral pipe to play? a lyre to touch?
The brightening glory of the heath and gorse
Could not appease your passion, nor the cry
Of this wild bird that flits from bush to bush.
Me therefore you required, a voice for song,
A pastoral pipe to play, a lyre to touch.
I recognize your bliss to find me here;
The sky at morning when the sun upleaps
Demands her atom of intense melody,

Her point of quivering passion and delight,
And will not let the lark's heart be at ease.

Take me, the brain with various, subtile fold,

The breast that knows swift joy, the vocal lips; I yield you here the cunning instrument

Between your knees; now let the plectrum fall!

“LA RÉVÉLATION PAR LE DÉSERT.”

66

Toujours le désert se montre à l'horizon, quand vous prononcez le nom de Jéhovah." EDGAR QUINET.

Beyond the places haunted by the feet

Of thoughts and swift desires, and where the eyes
Of wing'd imaginings are wild, and dreams
Glide by on noiseless plumes, beyond the dim
Veiled sisterhood of ever-circling mists,

Who dip their urns in those enchanted meres
Where all thought fails, and every ardour dies,
And through the vapour dead looms a low moon,
Beyond the fountains of the dawn, beyond
The white home of the morning star, lies spread

A desert lifeless, bright, illimitable,

The world's confine, o'er which no sighing goes
From weary winds of Time.

I sat me down

B

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