The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1869-11-02

"And God
Into his nostrils brcathed the breath OF life
And man became living soul" ah void,
Unsatisfactory; still we stretch out hands
Importunate, and gaze with straning eyes
The secret, still the secret,-Oh for light!
Through the dim devious ways of Nature seek.
To shrink discouraged in the widening sweep
That circles outward from the span of life;
And chilled by the smile derisive on her lips
Turn to the truth revealed the written word
With high hope beating in the eager heart,
And find ,-"Into his nostrils breathed the breath
OF life, and man became living soul"
'Tis all its nothing; forever Nature sits
With calm forefnger on her mocking lip,
From her the secret shall yo never wrest,
Nor learn Gods secret from the Book of God.
So mused dimly, leaning Ger the bridge,
One feryent evening Of the ebbing juno;
Nursing yearning wonder, old as life,
Whose repetitious mockings are the count,
Of myriad brains, turned ashes Of the past
That stroye the "Mene, mene" on the wall
To read Alright; and throbbed unanswered in
The strenuous guest, Of that, which ever lies
Beyond the depth of this proud latter timo
of truth, and light, and boasted wisdom;
Through the ages wears its kindred web
In children's brains that peer with fathers eyes,
And comes again to each soul breathed upon,
With vexng iteration.
Down the right
The giant factory loomed against the sky,
And cast upon the dusk serried glare
From ranks of twinkling windows, whence the
clang
And ccaseless hum of iron servants came
That wrought their endless task with treless
hands.
Beneath my feet the ordly Otter rushed
From out the gloomy arches of the bridge.
Into the lesser shadow Of the sky;
As man from out the unknown, utter night
of void oblivion, glide into the mists
And twilight of ofexistence.
With broad sweep,
And multtudinous murmur of glad life;
Exultant in all fulness and grand strength
The river rolled along, and needed not
The white hand of the mist, that waved above
The cliffs edge sheer descent, and trcmbled with
The heavy thunder Of the cataract,
That rolled its boding echoes back upon
The singing slope of waters; as the cry
Of dread experience in the life Of ours
That waits and wayers over ruined hopes,
Then sounds it solemn warning to the rush
of listless, laughing footsteps, in vain.
Though the sweet summer day had softly closed
Her heavy oyelids, and had gone to sleep;
The star-gemmed curtains OF the clear June
night
Made light the shadows DER her golden head
Below the falls, | saw the seething rush
Ofmaddened waters from the ruin white,
And down the green sloped hollow ofthe stream
BY dainty glimmSring of the summer stars,
saw the dark broad bosom of tho river
Sing on with westering sweep, to shed itself
Into the gracious fulness Of the lake.
ut still the swirl and tumult Of the fall
Whirled the swift eddes in the hidden depths,
And there were stroaks of white foam on th,
dark.
The tinkling treble of the tapping waves,
The musical wash Of water 'gainst the piers
Beneath my feet, and lower down, the falls
Deep undertone and rich, rounding the full
Sweet cadence on the softly tremulous air,
Swelled grand harmony to tho listening ear
In crowned unisonance,
And so dreamed,
Like life, the ripping music and tho now
OF dear domestic bliss tho larger sound,
The rushing resonance Of active breath
BY field and food, and the rich clouds subllm,
Struck out from noble lives.
And still dreamed,-
Like mAn,-he feelp giant impulse thrill
! His eager soul, and deems II Joy to breathe;