It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one’s own.
The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks A scarlet rain; the yellow violet Sat in the chariot of its leaves, the phlox Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet, And all the streams with vernal-scented reed Were fringed, and streaky bellow of miskodeed.
The lamp you lighted in the olden time Will show you my heart’s-blood beating through the rhyme: A poet’s journal, writ in fire and tears… Then slow deliverance, with the gaps of years.
The nearest approach I have ever seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.
Wrapped in his sad-colored cloak, the Day, like a Puritan, standeth Stern in the joyless fields, rebuking the lingering color,– Dying hectic of leaves and the chilly blue of the asters,– Hearing, perchance, the croak of a crow on the desolate tree-top.
The healing of the world is in its nameless saints. Each separate star seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars break up the night and make it beautiful.
