He did not sit, but stood and listened there,

And to him listening the time seemed not long, While that sweet bird above him filled the air With its melodious song.

He heard not, saw not, felt not aught beside,

Through the wide worlds of pleasure and of pain, Save the full flowing and the ample tide

Of that celestial strain.

As though a bird of Paradise should light
A moment on a twig of this bleak earth,
And singing songs of Paradise invite
All hearts to holy mirth,

And then take wing to Paradise again,

Leaving all listening spirits raised above

The toil of earth, the trouble, and the pain,
And melted all in love:

Such hidden might, such power was in the sound;
But when it ceased sweet music to unlock,
The spell that held him sense and spirit-bound
Dissolved with a slight shock.

All things around were as they were before

The trees, and the blue sky, and sunshine bright, Painting the pale and leafstrewn forest-floor

With patches of faint light.

But as when music doth no longer thrill,

Light shudderings yet along the chords will run, Or the heart vibrates tremulously still,

After its prayer be done,

So his heart fluttered all the way he went,

Listening each moment for the vesper bell; For a long hour he deemed he must have spent In that untrodden dell.

And once it seemed that something new or strange Had past upon the flowers, the trees, the ground; Some slight but unintelligible change

On everything around:

Such change, where all things undisturbed remain,
As only to the eye of him appears,

Who absent long, at length returns again—
The silent work of years.

And ever grew upon him more and more
Fresh marvel-for, unrecognized of all,
He stood a stranger at the convent door:
New faces filled the hall.

Yet was it long ere he received the whole

Of that strange wonder-how, while he had stood

Lost in deep gladness of his inmost soul,

Far hidden in that wood,

Three generations had gone down unseen
Under the thin partition that is spread-
The thin partition of thin earth-between
The living and the dead.

Nor did he many days to earth belong,

For like a pent-up stream, released again, The years arrested by the strength of song Came down on him amain;

Sudden as a dissolving thaw in spring;

Gentle as when upon the first warm day, Which sunny April in its train may bring, The snow melts all away.

They placed him in his former cell, and there

Watched him departing; what few words he said Were of calm peace and gladness, with one care Mingled-one only dread—

Lest an eternity should not suffice

To take the measure and the breadth and height Of what there is reserved in Paradise

Its ever-new delight.

THOMAS GORDON HAKE

Born 1809

THE SNAKE-CHARMER

The forest rears on lifted arms

A world of leaves, whence verdurous light
Shakes through the shady depths and warms
Proud tree and stealthy parasite,

There where those cruel coils enclasp
The trunks they strangle in their grasp.

An old man creeps from out the woods,
Breaking the vine's entangling spell;
He thrids the jungle's solitudes,

O'er bamboos rotting where they fell;
Slow down the tiger's path he wends
Where at the pool the jungle ends.

No moss-greened alley tells the trace

Of his lone step, no sound is stirred,
Even when his tawny hands displace
The boughs, that backward sweep unheard.

His way as noiseless as the trail

Of the swift snake and pilgrim snail.

The old snake-charmer,-once he played
Soft music for the serpent's ear,
But now his cunning hand is stayed;

He knows the hour of death is near.
And all that live in brake and bough,
All know the brand is on his brow.

Yet where his soul is he must go :
He crawls along from tree to tree.
The old snake-charmer, doth he know
If snake or beast of prey he be?
Bewildered at the pool he lies
And sees as through a serpent's eyes.

Weeds wove with white-flowered lily crops
Drink of the pool, and serpents hie
To the thin brink as noonday drops,
And in the froth-daubed rushes lie.
There rests he now with fastened breath
'Neath a kind sun to bask in death.

The pool is bright with glossy dyes
And cast-up bubbles of decay:

A green death-leaven overlies

Its mottled scum, where shadows play