 | Benoni |  |
278
WHICH?
I.
Refrain thy voice from weeping, and keep thine eyes from tears—There are fair crystals bedded deep within the central years:
Descend, and bind the little star of Hope upon thy brow,
And clench with manly gripe the tools that lie beside thee now;
Dig down into the solid gloom, till somewhere at the core
Thou smite the carbon to a blaze, and of its jewell'd store
Shell out the yearning light that throbs within each secret gem,
And string the shining bosses up into a diadem.
279
II.
O yield thine eyes to weeping, and steep thy heart in tears—It is not far, the voice that makes a tingling in thine ears
Of doubt and dread, of want and woe, of sickness and of death:
Smother thy foolish songs, and nurse the fragrance of thy breath
To lift and buoy such mournful things as load the autumn airs—
The scatter'd wealth of sighs, the weight of unavailing prayers:
Yea, hearken what the rushes wail along the sobbing mere—
‘Thou art a stranger on the earth, as all thy fathers were!’
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