THE CYPRESS TREE OF CEYLON. [IBN BATUTA, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the fourteenth century, speaks of a Cypress tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall only at certain intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them, was restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The traveller saw several venerable JOGEES, or saints, sitting silent and motionless under the tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a leaf.] THEY sat in silent watchfulness The sacred cypress tree about, Grey Age and Sickness waiting there Through weary night and lingering day Grim as the idols at their side And motionless as they. Unheeded in the boughs above The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet; O'er them the tropic night-storm swept, What was the world without to them? They waited for that falling leaf, Oh!-if these poor and blinded ones Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree, Not to restore our failing forms, And build the spirit's broken shrine, But, on the fainting SOUL to shed A light and life divine: Shall we grow weary in our watch, Or, shall the stir of outward things Allure and claim the Christian's eye, When on the heathen watcher's ear Their powerless murmurs die? Alas! a deeper test of faith Than prison cell or martyr's stake, The self-abasing watchfulness Of silent prayer may make. We gird us bravely to rebuke Our erring brother in the wrong : And in the ear of Pride and Power Our warning voice is strong. Easier to smite with Peter's sword, Than "watch one hour" in humbling prayer: Life's "great things," like the Syrian lord Our hearts can do and dare. But oh! we shrink from Jordan's side, From waters which alone can save: And murmur for Abana's banks Oh, Thou, who in the garden's shade Bend o'er us now, as over them, And set our sleep-bound spirits free, Nor leave us slumbering in the watch Our souls should keep with Thee! A DREAM OF SUMMER. BLAND as the morning breath of June And, through its haze, the winter noon The fox his hill-side cell forsakes, "Bear up, oh mother Nature!" cry Bird, breeze, and streamlet free; "Our winter voices prophesy Of summer days to thee!" So, in those winters of the soul, Reviving Hope and Faith, they show And how beneath the winter's snow The Night is mother of the Day, And ever upon old Decay The greenest mosses cling. Behind the cloud the star-light lurks, 4th 1st month, 1847. MAIDEN! with the fair brown tresses Floating on thy thoughtful forehead Youthful years and maiden beauty, Ever in the New rejoicing, Kindly beckoning back the Old, And the passing shades of sadness Every wing of bird above it, Every light cloud floating on, In the self-same sun. "Get the writings of John Woolman by heart."-Essays of Elia. |