XIV.
"Till the stream of years encrust her
With a numbing mail of stone,
Till her laugh lose half its lustre,
And her truth forswear its tone,
And she see God's might and mercy darkly through a glass alone!
XV.
"While our childhood fair and sacred.
Sapless doctrines doth rehearse,
And the milk of falsehoods acrid,
Burns our babe-lips like a curse,
Cling we must to godless prophets, as the suckling to the nurse.
XVI.
"As the seed time, so the reaping,
Shame on us who overreach,
While our eyes yet smart with weeping,
Hearts so all our own to teach,
Better they and we lay sleeping where the darkness hath no speech!"
[Footnote 1: Those unacquainted with the forms of the old decorated
Venetian glass will hardly understand the phrase in the text. Those
who know them will feel the accuracy of the picture.]
[Footnote 2: "_Non toccare che brucia_," Tuscan proverb.]
It is impossible for any but those who know--not Florence, but--rural
Tuscany well, to appreciate the really wonderful accuracy and
picturesque perfection of the above scene from a Tuscan afternoon. But
I think many others will feel the lines to be good. In the concluding
stanzas, in which the writer draws her moral, there are weak lines.
But in the first eleven, which paint her picture, there is not one.
Every touch tells, and tells with admirable truth and vividness of
presentation.
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