All things in earth and air The sacred mistletoe! Hæder, the blind old God, Whose feet are shod with silence, Pierced through that gentle breast With his sharp spear, by fraud Made of the mistletoe, The accursed mistletoe! They laid him in his ship, A ring upon his finger, And whispered in his ear. They launched the burning ship! Over the misty sea, Till like the sun it seemed, So perish the old Gods! Over its meadows green Walk the young bards and sing. Build it again, O ye bards, Fairer than before! Ye fathers of the new race, O PRECIOUS evenings! all too swiftly sped! Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages, And giving tongues unto the silent dead! How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read, Of the great poet who foreruns the ages, Anticipating all that shall be said! O happy Reader! having for thy text The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught The rarest essence of all human thought! O happy Poet! by no critic vext! How must thy listening spirit now rejoice To be interpreted by such a voice! THE SINGERS. GOD sent his Singers upon earth The first, a youth, with soul of fire, Through groves he wandered, and by streams, The second, with a bearded face, A gray, old man, the third and last, And those who heard the Singers three But the great Master said, "I see To charm, to strengthen, and to teach. "These are the three great chords of might, And he whose ear is tuned aright SUSPIRIA. TAKE them, O Death! and bear away Take them, O Grave! and let them lie Take them, O great Eternity! That bends the branches of thy tree, HYMN FOR MY BROTHER'S ORDINATION. CHRIST to the young man said: "Yet one thing more; If thou wouldst perfect be, Sell all thou hast and give it to the poor, And come and follow me!" Within this temple Christ again, unseen, And his invisible hands to-day have been And evermore beside him on his way |