6 SELECT POETRY

I'd be the first to see the sun
Up from the ocean spring ;

And ere it! touched the glittering spire,
His ray should gild my wing

** Above the hills I’d watch him still,

Far down the crimson west ;

And sing to him my evening song,
Ere yet I sought my rest.

And many a land I then should see,
As hill and plain I crossed ;

Nor fear through all the pathless sky
That I should e’er be lost.

“I'd fly where, round the olive bough
The vine its tendrils weaves ;
And shelter from the noonbeams seek
Among the myrtle leaves,
Now if I climb our highest hill,
How little can I see!
Oh had I but a pair of wings,
How happy should I be!”
REPLY.
“Wings cannot soar above the sky,
As thou in thought canst do;
Nor can the veiling clouds confine
Thy mental eye’s? keen view.
Not to the sun dost thou chant forth
Thy simple evening hymn ;
Thou praisest Him, before whose smile
The noonday sun grows dim.
1 Ere—before it—the sun’s ray mentioned in the next line.

9 Mental eve—the eye of the mind, which may, figura-
tively, be said to see what it thinks about.