Poems . mble as they seek to climb. Build to-day, then, strong and sure,With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS. A handful of red sand, from the hot clime Of Arab deserts brought,Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, The minister of Thought. How many weary centuries has it beenAbout those deserts blown! 150 BY THE FIRESIDE. How many strange vicissitudes has seen,How many histories known!
Poems . mble as they seek to climb. Build to-day, then, strong and sure,With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place. Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. SAND OF THE DESERT IN AN HOUR-GLASS. A handful of red sand, from the hot clime Of Arab deserts brought,Within this glass becomes the spy of Time, The minister of Thought. How many weary centuries has it beenAbout those deserts blown! 150 BY THE FIRESIDE. How many strange vicissitudes has seen,How many histories known! Perhaps the camels of the Ishmaelite Trampled and passed it oer,When into Egypt from the patriarchs sight His favourite son they bore. Perhaps the feet of Moses, burnt and bare,Crushed it beneath their tread ; Or Pharaohs flashing wheels into the airScattered it as they sped ; Or Mary, with the Christ of Nazareth Held close in her caress,Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith Illumed the wilderness;. SAND OF THE DESERT, 137 Or anchorites beneath Engaddis palms Pacing the Red Sea beach,And singing slow their old Armenian psalms In half-articulate speech ; Or caravans, that from Bassoras gate With westward steps depart;Or Meccas pilgrims, confident of Fate, And resolute in heart! ?4 These have passed over it, or may have passed Now in this crystal towerImprisoned by some curious hand at last, It counts the passing hour. And as I gaze, these narrow walls expand;— Before my dreamy eyeStretches the desert with its shifting sand, Its unimpeded sky. And borne aloft by the sustaining blast, This little golden threadJDilates into a column high and vast, A form of fear and dread. And onward, and across the setting sun, Across the boundless plain,The column and its broader shadow run, Till thought pursues in vain. 158 BY THE FIRESIDE. The vision vanishes! These walls again Shut out the lurid sun,Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain ; The half-hours sand is run ! BIRDS OF PASSAGE. B
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