We will pipe and we will sing--
With the music and the spring,
Set their hearts a wondering.
They are tired of what is old:
We will give it voices new;
For the half hath not been told
Of the Beautiful and True.
Drowsy eyelids shut and sleeping!
Heavy eyes oppressed with weeping!
Flashes through the lashes leaping!
Ye that have a pleasant voice,
Hither come without delay;
Ye will never have a choice
Like to that ye have to-day:
Round the wide world we will go,
Singing through the frost and snow,
Till the daisies are in blow.
Ye that cannot pipe or sing,
Ye must also come with speed;
Ye must come and with you bring
Weighty words and weightier deed:
Helping hands and loving eyes,
These will make them truly wise--
Then will be our Paradise.
As Robert read, the sweetness of the rhythm seized upon him, and,
almost unconsciously, he read the last stanza aloud. Looking up
from the paper with a sigh of wonder and delight--there was the pale
face of Ericson gazing at him from the bed! He had risen on one
arm, looking like a dead man called to life against his will, who
found the world he had left already stranger to him than the one
into which he had but peeped.
'Yes,' he murmured; 'I could say that once. It's all gone now. Our
world is but our moods.'
He fell back on his pillow. After a little, he murmured again:
'I might fool myself with faith again.
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