ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS 68
0, May the Dream be True
npHERE is an awful quiet in the air,
1 And the sad earth, with moist imploring eye,
Looks wide and wakeful at the pondering sky,
Like Patience slow subsiding to Despair.
But see, the blue smoke, as a voiceless prayer,
Sole witness of a secret sacrifice,
Unfolds its tardy wreaths, and multiplies
Its soft chameleon breathings in the rare
Capacious ether—so it fades away,
And nought is seen beneath the pendent blue,
The undistinguishable waste of day.
So have I dreamed ! (oh, may the dream be true 1)
That praying souls are purged from mortal hue,
And grow as pure as He to whom they pray.
Hartley Coleridge
Come Gently On
No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone,
Corpse-gazings, tears, black raiment, graveyard grimness;
Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness,
Yours still, you mine ; remember all the best
Of our past moments, and forget the rest;
And so, to where I wait, come gently on.
William Allingham
Time Heals All Woes but His
TN time the ox becomes accustomed to the plough that tills the field,
I and yields his neck to be pressed by the curving yoke In time the
spirited horse obeys the flowing reins, and, with quiet mouth, receives
the hard bit. In time the anger of the Punic lions is assuaged.
Length oftime, too, causes that the grape swells out on the spread-
ing clusters, and that the berries can hardly contain the juice they hold
within. Time, too, pushes forth the seed into the whitening ears of
corn ; and makes the apple not to be of sour flavour. Tis time that
blunts the edge of the plough that renews the land; tis time that
wears the hard flint and the adamant. This, too, by degrees mitigates
raging anger; this lessens sadness and elevates the sorrowing heart.
Length of time, as it glides on with silent foot, is able to lessen every-
thing but my cares. Ovid in eŽile
Let There Be No Lament
LET no one honour me with tears, nor bury me with lamentation.
Why ? Because I fly from lip to lip, living in the mouths of men.
Ovid