Poems

Front matter

S.

BY

ANNE WHITNEY.

Joy

Before the awful hand That makes and breaks, Sing and are jubilant to-day. Sing on, all up and down the shining land! My heart your meaning takes.

As evening's star on star, Through the blue portals of the air, What countless creatures throng! And beautiful they are— With morning in their eyes and in their hair; And on their lips an antique speech and song.

One shadow only waits Aloof, poised on ascending wing, And lifts no voice; but in her throat, I ween there is a sweeter note. Than all these glorious warblers bring. I hear her chant an inward strain; "Thou sett'st me above Time's annoy:

I found delight and it was pain; Thou gavest pain, and it is joy. Token of unaccomplished growth, Stern pledge of immortality; Through all the earth's perplexed domain, Just God! I would that there should be No living thing that should not suffer Pain." Thus in a ravishment Of inward sight, her song wells up, A passionate content.

Scatter the road, The beaten highway of the world, my heart, With rose and asphodel, And all thou draw'st from music's throbbing well; Behold how rich thou art! Thou drink'st of every spring of God; Broad heaven but lightly freights thine eye, And thy familiar pulse is rife With tumult of the river of life,

That makes the circuit of the youngest sky. What thrill that spirits feel, Transport of love, or ecstasy Of still, creative force, That life shall not at last to thee reveal?

O make no barren haste— Thou livest from day to day with God so near! And well may'st brook Into those phantom-eyes to look That freeze in these half-lights our atmosphere:— Seeing that thou art based On the immortal Joy—whose spreading bloom Hath root of substance so divine, That the perennial heavens which by it shine, And spring's sure birth, live only to express Its strength and everlastingness.

The ceyba and the taguet

A sad and singular history Is that of the beautiful Ceyba-tree, And what I recount of one alone, Is true of a thousand as of one.

Grand and alone the giant stood, The Ceyba-tree of royal mood. It stood so great that the careless Montero Of the sunny Partido de Sumidero, Cheering his mules with song and whistle, Winding about those mountains that bristle With cactus outré, and pine, and yucca, And soften as well with twining bejuca, And the delicate weft of the tamarind Afloat on the sunny tropic wind, Seeing afar in the freshening skies, This beacon of silent centuries, Touched his cap in the way of his nation, Making his morning salutation. The giant, I said, of royal heart,

Kept with his sky and his earth apart. Truly, it mattered not if beneath The laurel upwafted proud, full breath, And the spiked aloe's wondrous bloom Enriched the warm, deep under gloom,— Far and forgetful the whispering Jove Swayed in the mighty Joy above! The cedar dwarfed in his ancient face, The queenly Palms, from their azure dais, Looked upward unto the Ceyba—tree; Chestnut and mango dreamily Heaved their soft billows in mid air, The cypress companioned with them there, But over them, an under sky Of shifting emerald, airily The Ceyba's coronal tossed and swung.

Proud songs the lofty minstrel sung! Awful it was when the southern blast From the sea, drove inland gray and fast,

And heavy with its terrible rain From the chaos of the heavens and main, (After the weary, weary drouth, The gush of the burning-hearted south!) To hear the inspired monarch Tree Roar its giant hymn of Liberty: As if it saw red morn beneath The dim horizon's misty wreath, Coming the dank old gloom to fuse, And dripping with its crimson dews, And to the world sang o'er and o'er "Her fiery drops earth counts no more! The hearts you shut from hope and light, And Beauty and the Infinite, Into the air, into the day, Will burst their wild, indignant way!" Then in the calm, the light, the glory, Most tender was its rhymed story; When distant and faint the unweary sea Rolled landward its vast harmony,

And the Ceyba listened by stars and moon, And softly answered it rune for rune.

But alas for the stately Tree! indeed Alas for it! a little seed Bedded itself in the cloven bark, Nor did the generous Ceyba mark What life it gave, what strength went forth Into the thing of little worth!

Soon under the leaves might you espy, Gliding and creeping silently Forward from its buried root, A wavering, young and snakelike shoot, That little by little, day after day, Twists and winds its quiet way, 'Mid shrinking leaves and buds that pine,— And so, with many a hideous twine Round tender twig, and bough, and branch, Till one by one they bare and blanch,

While downward it drops an hundred feet, And as many arms coil up and meet And clasp the giant, neck and limb, And strain him in their embrace with grim And deadly love; and here and there Under the sick'ning foliage, peer Keen heads like serpents' heads, intent, And new, strange hues flop insolent From bough to bough, till one might see How ill it fared with the noble tree! How, breathless and with eager strain, Out of its falling mantle, in vain It lifted its hundred wasted hands To the sun and the winds, and the journeying bands Of sky-immortals; 'las! the dead moon shone On the peering serpents' heads alone, Or flecked it with many a ghastly fleck— The sun glared in on the spectral wreck Unmindful, and fierce, and wonderingly: And then the life-blood drearily

Curdled within its veins and stopt; While over it the Yaguey dropt Its mocking wreaths of gaudy hue, Flaunting triumphant in the blue, Sweet breath of heaven, and all was done; And so of a thousand as of one.

A last dream

The healthy vigor went, and in its place There was a motley whirl of fantasies, A dreadful dance of wicked things, that struck Strange gleams and painful lightnings through my lids Which still I saw upon the midnight snow, Mingling with pure auroras from the bergs, And meteors' silver flashes. And one—one Loaded these limbs with dull, invisible chains, So subtilly imposed, so stern-and still, It seemed to lull the will into accord, And hoodwink all my soul with trust. But no! T rose, I strove with triple giant strength, And heaved, as earthquakes mountains from their shoulders, The settling weights away, and heard them slide Into that night of sound, that northward far, Where the white sea-gull flies, for leagues on leagues, Wraps in its shadowy arms the gleaming coast. Loathing and shuddering, at length I drew The clinging fury from my heart—and lo!

Not overhead, I think, nor from the east, Where the sun has its solemn, annual birth, Nor glazing the waste whiteness, nor unsheathing The glaciers' keen swords,—but fine and still, And as it seemed, dilating from a seed Of light within,—light peaceful, broad and soft, Grew round me where I stood. And God, who watched The battle from his trembling depths of Night, In sign and seal of this my victory, Sends his calm angel here, who folds an arm About and leads me safe, I ask not where, For heart and life are pillowed on his love.

Will any say, I yielded,—drawing near Those lists of high renown, where the gaunt Three And I fought the dumb battle out, and left No trace in the blown, desert fields?—Nay, far Beyond the last low wall of crimson light, That struggles to hedge off with baby gleam, The insurging Dark,—where sits the sceptred cold

Impassible and still, and the awed sea Groans only and upheaves in marble waves, When the black sleet-wind whispers, Mutiny! There is a shaft, as all the world may know, A monument of ice uptowering dim Into the heavens' crowned mystery—whereon Are graven with touches of the light, a name, And following that, a chronicle of deeds. And when the brief, high history makes end, The page of ice goes on—"And one day, Earth, Gray mother, bound with frost and torn with fire, Shall surely be redeemed by hero dust. Each sluggish, atom of her sphere, shall bloom Nobly in human shape, and take the print, And do the mandate of a godlike will, Until her apotheosis be won. Dear then to her and to the silent Powers, And borne on their strong wings above defeat, And fear of mockery, all they who build In stern emprise a shrine for the Unseen;

Making life poor to show how rich it is. Round them heaven's flaming currents stoop and play, And lap the stifling vapors of the world, Till the space freshens into festal depths; And Soul, before a royal mendicant, Pensioned of flesh along her dusky way, Goes forth with bounty to exultant crowds, With pulse of music ordering the winds, And trumpets blowing the eternal morn. And so to guard from loss and blight of Time The memory of such faith, and of a will That thrilled our adamant from coast to coast, This pale resplendent pillar of the frost. Scores the dark, grasping air. But he who held Within his eyes, the sacred fire that pierced Our ancient mysteries, and laid them bare Behind their five-fold barriers, afar Wins smiles from other heavens, and breathes the meed Of mighty toils—the insatiate sweet of rest."

Be it then—rest. All round the scented coast Flashes the living sea; and on my brow I feel the silken touches of strange winds; While overhead such light, and sumptuous blue, And rustle of great plumes! Still thought toils on In memory:—and over me those words That kindle the wild gleam around, throb out: And still I hear an under voice which says, That what we do is better than ourselves, Being held unto the service of His will By the strong hand that fashioned us. Even so. But by that stair I climb to God at last, Trampling on ease and low usurping wants; And through innumerable spheres upreaching, And Nights and Days till I am lost in Him.

Five sonnets relating to beauty

<>II.

Largess from seven-fold heavens, I pray, descend On all who toil for Beauty! Never feet Grow weary that have done her bidding sweet About the careless world! For she is friend And darling of the universe;—and day by day, She comes and goes, but never dies, So precious is she in the eternal eyes. O dost thou scorn her, seeing what fine way She doth avenge? For heaven, because of her, Shall one day find thee fitter. How old hours Of star-rapt night about thy heart had curled— And thou hadst felt the morning's golden stir, And the appealing loveliness of flowers, Yea, all the saving beauty of the world!

<>III

O fair mistrust of earth's more solid shows! And mute appeal from its inhuman ways, Its iron judgments and its misspent praise, To the appreciation sweet that glows In heaven's old smiling eye! O slowly grows Our human thought; and freedom long delays, Love in the shade fulfilling weary days, Ere her great child is born! No wasting throes Foretell thy being to the universe! It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wings Below our life, blessing, and care and curse, Even at the very root and core of things: And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight, And warbled hint of something back of sight.

<>IV.

No slight caprice rules thee,—Who sounds one note In God's high order finds thee at his side. Thou art twin-born with joy, and dost abide With conscience old, and blood-deep art inwrought With love's sweet mystery. No wanton thought Shall wrong the world that holds thee, or the wide Deep Ordering, whereof thou art the bride. For neither hate, nor custom's stress, nor aught Of evil can thee harm, divinest thing; And through these folds of sense, thou openest Blue rifts to Freedom and unfathomed rest. Flower of a hidden life, sweet mystic spring, What joy must tune thy flow, and calm divine! What soundness at the-heart from east to west!

<>V.

And for that thou art Beauty, and thy name Transcends all praise of thee, and doth but leave Thyself for thy true rendering, I grieve O'er idle words. O never dost thou blame, But seekest to inspire me all the same, With thine immortal freshness! Through the night The moon comes large and slow, winging with light The joyous sea; while sunset's last red flame, Baring the heavens for glories to succeed, Goes softly out, with endless farewell gleams, Ebbing along the yellow marge of day; Glides slow, with backward gaze; sadly indeed, And slow, as from the heart which new love claims An older memory doth steal away.

Tasso

Ye winds, that have leave to wander Deep into remotest heavens, Waft me to those glad spheres.

Far from the terrible noises, And stillness yet more terrific, Wild with its dread interruptions.

Might I, for an hour behind me, Leave the long-eating anguish and fear— Yes, O God! the madness—

And feel the cool touch of midnight, And the dew's most fresh benediction, And the freedom of life—of life!

Away 'mid the purple bloom Of the hills, the south wind is strengthened With the sweet, wild vigor of pine.

The rock meets the fern's soft caress, And that flower that meek salutation Sends starward, looks timid to earth.

Ah! the lark in the cloud-rack bathes, And drinks at the air's still fountains, And is he not thirstless and pure?

O for life that is life!—

Joy in being; hopes o'er-filling The blessed to-day with to-morrow, Faith, the queenly, that rules all hap;

Love, the ever-compassionate, The dear love of man and of woman, That affection whose sweets hide no sting!

O bitter! that ever the heart, Still asking impossible treasure, Should cast from it aught that is loving!

Dear heart of my mother, mother Long resting from earth and anguish, Pity—pity, pity thy child!

O what have they taken from me? Thought, and will, and affection, And left for my brain but a throb,

For my heart but endless thirsting, And the blank, burnt desert of being Spread awful, and blinding, and mute.

Yet sometimes in the great Presence Of moments fallen from heaven, Whose law, though not known, I obey,

Once more is thought disentangled, And there come the beautiful children Of the eternal spring unto me.

O welcome then anguish and pain, And welcome bitter oppression! Am I mad then?—so let me remain.

The prospect

And here when the heavens are azure, And no dunce that you know is near To hint at a weather-breeder, In the magical atmosphere;

When swallows on cleaving pinions, Disdaining the earth and you, Follow the hunt far up In the calm, embosoming blue;

Or when in the west mount Prospect Indues its purple; and ah! When my planet looks down on the mill-stream My porphyro-genita;

I look with a half enchantment Over regions that wait renown, The triple crest of Waltham, And vales of Watertown;

Over orchard, and woodland, and meadow, Where the Beaver its raving stills, O'er fair little ups and downs To the mighty, girdling hills,

What silence of expectation— What dreaming on the to-come, When up through these valleys and hillsides Yon hive shall swarm and hum!

For yonder, beyond our paling Of elm, and ash, and oak, Hangs soft on the purple distance A visible, brooding smoke;

There, masked in brick, Trimountain Rears somewhat snobbish and chill, But returns in its way the salute Of oak-crowned Meetinus hill

But here, while I may, I am laughing. To think how pleasant a thing, To fly to this skiey quiet, And freshen a ruffled wing.

My poverty and its vexations Vanish and leave me free:— From Cushing's, inclusive, eastward To the feet of the journeying sea;

From the hither wall of Barnard To Knobscot's blue recess— Through lands of Locke to the south 'With acres more or less,

In the yield of all farms and woodlands, We, Robin and I, go shares; And our landlords are sunbeams and waters, And grudge us no repairs.

Ah world, if you yet must have me, Sing me a better strain, Or hold me a moment, I pray, Lightly, and loose me again.

The bridge of the dragon

Restore to many a heart its lost ideal, And help me for some moments to forget, Borne on the cooling stillness of the dream,— How the loud multitude without blaspheme!

Might it have been at such an hour as this, An autumn eventide, that Margaret said: "God binds his ancient world to perfectness, Veined is every wind-flower with faint red, Five petals must the wild-brier have, no less; And in the cavern's black and silent shade; The hoar rocks flower, like lilies in bright air, The secret'st thoughts of God are all so fair!

Through arching boughs, o'er which the clematis Tosses its misty curls, and woodbines run, A wandering flame, and grapes swing, not the less For ivy near, glooms goldenly the sun, Ag through an old church-window;—if I miss The pictured saints, the sounds immortal, won

From fields of silence, yet be this the glory Leading me to those quaint days, and to my story!

Summer was flaunting wide, when sudden blight Paled all; the leaf, the grain; the autumn fruit Set in the stalk; as on a perfect night The nightingale, mid-song, struck sudden mute. Margaret, in sad disquiet at the sight, Wept for her people, wept for the poor brute Chained to the stall: alas! and none could tell What malady it was which thus befell.

Wild, they implored the saints—the Christ, all pale, All powerful, drooping from the awful rood;— But ah, what dismal, broken-hearted wail Was there—what bitter freezing in the blood, When tidings came, that prone across their vale, Long leagues away in the primeval wood, With breath secreting pestilential dew, His hideous bulk of ill, the Dragon threw!

They sought in vain to reason of their ill. Frantic were some, and cried bewildered: "We are but playthings of Almighty will."— "Take we our flocks and cattle," others said, "And last year's hoardings of the press and mill; Alas! what fruitful valley lies ahead, Or whither shall we go, that pestilence And aching famine may not follow hence?"

They called to mind the ancient prophecy That in the fiery Dragon's rule abhorred, The first year, blight would take the grain, and dry The honey juices, which their orchards stored; But if another Spring, his ghastly sigh Came curdling up the wind, shedding abroad Its sick, hoar vapors, far more dreadful blight On man and beast, and on the earth would light.

Ere then, dead seers had said, worse loss will be, Than loss of corn and wine:—of noble dower

In knightly skill and gentle courtesy, Of states' parental care:—a bitter hour Of helpless tears and low-lipped mockery; When thought is low, and all abroad a power Of subtle evil rife, and few aware, And vernal-hearted men fail everywhere.

At morn they celebrate the solemn mass. In the thin light, wan look the choristers, And wan the priest—a piteous sight, alas! But heart-like, tenderly, the music stirs And throbs; and keen, strong-winged, doth overpass The large-eyed multitude upon the floors, 'Mid the all-powerful relics, bending low, And 'neath St. Catherine's heaven-illumined brow.

On Margaret's lids that saintly radiance stole, As in the pauses of the holy chaunt, Like a continued harmony, her soul Went on in thought;—as if some ministrant

And heavenly joy were given for earthly dole, O'er lids and brow it spread—like streams that haunt The northern stars, waving in dreamy play, And warmed her kneeling shadow all away.

To her it seemed, that from celestial height, The good- St, Catherine leaned, and said, Dear child, The Virgin pure, mother of godlike might, Teaches the loving heart and undefiled, All it shall do; have faith in that far light! Surely it was no dream, surely she smiled, And bending over her still further, lo! She kissed her warm eyelids, and kissed her brow.

The noble music softly pined away:— And, hiding in her bosom's blameless pride, The glittering rosary, upon her way Went Margaret forth: the heavens no good denied,

No omen sweet; transparent shone the day, And rich with flowings of the summer tide:— "But earth is sick," she mused, "she takes no heed;" And through her brain thoughts ran with crimson speed.

From day to day more grievous waxed their bale,— Weeks passed and months, nor any comfort brought; Like one who treads a death-room, cold and pale, With velvet pace the light stole in and out; There was no winged joy—no insect wail— No hum of little life always about; Till summer wasted by, and from the north The fierce gales blew, and drove the monster forth.

Brief joy! brief hope! sad breathing space for those Who but take breath to meet the coming toil! "When May returns," they cried, "with the early rose, Jesus us save, and God our sins assoil! All hope is gone from us, all dear repose, For guilty have we been, we may not foil

Just doom." So winter passed, and roaring March, And April came, quick glimmering through God's arch.

Ah, what a joy!—along fresh winking rills, Crept the young green: the swallows, many a one, Turned their far-travelled wings, and daffodils Were merry in the heart-reviving sun. The wind-flower pale and violet o'er the hills Found footing here and there, and every dun, Stark limb and twig emitted its soft flame; And this was May, and with the rose she came.

Did then the o'erburthened winds of May-time rave? Or little daisies babble as they reeled? Or came the word on some elysian wave, That, to a maiden it had been revealed How, praise to Christ, she might her people save? Alone would she go forth through wood and field, And passing o'er the dragon's fallen pride, Meet them in joy upon the further side.

And they believed. Ah, blessed to believe! In gentleness, in love outwearying fate, In Mary, mother, ever to believe! O love, be conquered never by old hate! No noble heart of its sweet faith bereave! The world is watching at your palace-gate With various eyes, and all the Past crowds here, And all the Future waits with anxious fear.

When the first taint in May's delicious breath, Warned them to part, with hopeful steps apace, They journeyed forth. Stranger, and kin, and kith, Slow age, and childhood with its supple grace, And thoughtful prime, and infancy therewith, Depart to skirt the mountain's shadowy base, And resting off the monster's further side, Watch from afar what fortune should betide.

Then Silence reigned, that ancient Eremite! And Margaret from her dwelling, as a star,

Awakes upon some softly-bosomed night, Came forth: no evil taint her path might mar; The May winds breathed about her their delight; The heavens spread, broad and calm, they looked not far; With all their depth, their old, mysterious birth, They seemed to be the feeling of the earth.

Along the valley, green, and warm, and soft, A fresh-leaved myrtle-branch in hand, she went; Mildly the sober people of the croft Gazed after her; the little skylark lent A soul to the embracing blue, and soon aloft The antique wood leaned over her, attent, And dropped its pictured glooms upon her fair, White-gleaming vesture and her shining hair.

What thoughts her angel steps accompanied! Grave legends, fragrant of the olden time;

Tales of heroic worth, and faith or deed Smooth tuned unto some sweet, immortal rhyme:— But, dearest to her heart, were thoughts which fed Its anxious hope—of patient-love, sublime In noiseless triumph over force and hate, And brutal wrath, and lusts intemperate.

She was with noble Daniel, given o'er Unto like shaggy doom; and, unaware Her busy heart conceived him evermore, As beautiful, with heavenly look, and air By deathless youth upborne. Still memory bore Unto her side, true saints enshrined there,— Heroes of life-long patience and pure will, Who kept her heart to its calm centre still.

Through the green darkness thus she journeyed on. The sun went down, the brightness fled away From the warm west, as when one dies, anon From brow to heart the white eclipse makes way,

And for the time a sadder grace is won, So ebbed the crimson current of the day To its great, vanished heart; and over all Looked forth the stars—far, still, ethereal.

She rested her in many a haunted woof Of song, and dews, and light, and shadows shifting, As the blithe company of leaves aloof Danced in the fragrant night-winds calm uplifting. Sometimes through azure chasms, in the thick roof High overhead, the kindling moon went drifting In masses of white light on banks of gloom, Or shimmering Albeles rich with sudden bloom.

And if the clouds swelled gloomily, and sent Their fever-tongues into the cool, dark air, That shrined her brightness in its moving tent, They harmed her not:—as nature everywhere Had dreamed a human dream, whereso she went, All things breathed peace. So wondrous night did wear

Into white dawn, the dawn to early day, And in her path the mighty serpent lay.

All morning-fresh, like a new-fallen thought From God's deep life, stood she. She felt the jar, The air with freaks of flame, with hiss, and spot Staining the amber dawn, and blood-red bar, All elfinly alive: but she saw not, Nor ever on him looked; she saw afar Her breathless people through the hiss and flame, Their babes uplifted towards her as she came.

A moment to her heart crept the chill frost. One shrinking foot she set on that huge ill, A sunbeam on a dead trunk, century-mossed; One step—another and another still!— Grasping, as he would lick her hand, all lost, His head upturned;—she passed, and prone he fell As the glad day came in—death's dull, blue veil Settling o'er all his limbs and rainbow mail.

Evening

Where the broad light lies wavelessly, Where the toiling sun has lain, A tree and its shadow, wondrous still, Ruling the grassy plain!

The river to the distant sea, Murmuring, murmuring goes; Type of a life that broods and sings On unto its quiet close.

Keen firefly in the barberry shade, That warm'st it with such busy light, Bear with me—rest is deeper life, The centering of faith and might.

Thanks—that along the shifting sands, As moves our sleepless tent, Moments of higher calm are given, And of more true content!

Content; the world falls off, and leaves A measure nobler grained, By which I try the seeming lost, As well as seeming gained.

Beauty that fillest, why makest sad? Thou hast no want, no haste; Is it that thou o'erflowest my soul, And I lament the waste?

Dear heart, whose pulses with my own Keep their mysterious move, That fillest every transient pause, With music of thy love;

Art not thou patient too to-night, Divining what true strength, What life is ours, what joy to come, And far-off calm at length?

Bertha

Below her as if with endless hope, Up the beach's marbled slope, The waters clomb unweariedly.

Many a long-bleached sail in sight, Hovered awhile, then flitted away Beyond the opening of the bay. Fair Bertha entered her cottage late: "He does not come," she said, and smiled, "But the shore is dark and the sea is wild, And, dearest Father, we still must wait."

She hastened to her inner room, And silently mused there alone: "Three springs have come—three winters gone, And still we wait from hour to hour; But earth waits long for her harvest time, And the aloe, in the northern clime, Waits an hundred years for its flower.

Under the apple boughs as I sit In May-time, when the robin's song Thrills the odorous winds along, The innermost heaven seems to ope— I think, though the old joys pass from sight, Still something is left for heart's delight— For life is endless and so is hope.

If the aloe wait an hundred years; And God's times are so long, indeed, For simple things, as flower and weed, That gather only the light and gloom,— For what great treasures of joy and dole, Of life, and death perchance, must the soul Ere it flower in heavenly peace find room!

I see that all things wait in trust, As feeling afar God's distant ends— And unto every creature, he sends

That measure of good that fills its scope: The marmot enters the stiffening mould, And the worm its dark, sepulchral fold, To hide there with its beautiful hope."

Yet Bertha waited on the cliff, To catch the gleam of a coming sail, And the distant whisper of the gale Winging the unforgotten home:— And hope at her yearning heart would knock, When a sunbeam on a far-off rock Married a wreath of wandering foam.

Was it well? you ask—(nay, was it ill?) Who sat last year by the old man's hearth,— The sun had passed below the earth, And the first star locked his western gate— When Bertha entered her darkening home, And smiling, said: "He does not come, But, dearest Father, we still can wait!"

Susanna

The wife of Ernest, in yonder hut, Will tell you how many years have put Their green on the oak, and dropped the nut, Since this tall grove of walnut-trees Shook their young tresses in the breeze.

The mountain-spring sings down this way, Through night and twilight into day;— She told me how many inches, the play Of the frolicsome waters, had spread, Since first she knew it, the narrow bed.

I said to her, "Mother, 'tis well In such fixed peace as yours to dwell; No sad mutation you chronicle; Nothing is s.table within my range, But the stern, old principle of change."

She was stooping over her herbs in the grass— Snake-root, and flag, and sassafras, Winter-green and—you know—a mass