Though at times he hears in his dreams The Ranz des Vaches of old, And the rush of mountain streams From glaciers clear and cold; And the mother at home says, "Hark! For his voice I listen and yearn; It is growing late and dark, And my boy does not return!" For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away. Ye open the eastern windows, That look towards the sun, Where thoughts are singing swallows In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, And the first fall of the snow. Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. What the leaves are to the forest, Ere their sweet and tender juices Have been hardened into wood, That to the world are children; Through them it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate Come to me, O ye children! What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. P For what are all our contrivings, And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses, And the gladness of your looks f Ye are better than all the ballads For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead. SANDALPHON. HAVE you read in the Talmud of old, In the Legends the Rabbins have told Of the limitless realms of the air,Have you read it,-the marvellous story Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory, Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer? How, erect, at the outermost gates With his feet on the ladder of light, That, crowded with angels unnumbered, By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered Alone in the desert at night? |