Sprinkled along the waste of years Full many a soft green isle appears: Pause where we may upon the desert road, Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.

The voice that breathed o'er Eden, / That earliest wedding day.

God hath sworn to lift on high Who sinks himself by true humility.

In silence, . . . Steals on soft-handed Charity, Tempering her gifts, that seem so free, By time and place, Till not a woe the bleak world see, But finds her grace.

But when eve's silent footfall steals Along the eastern sky, And one by one to earth reveals Those purer fires on high.

As fire kindled by fire, so is the poet's mind kindled by contact with a brother poet.