Page:Woman in the Nineteenth Century 1845.djvu/130

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WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

gence, it will be so given that all the issues of life

may be pure. Life will then be a temple.

⁠The temple round

Spread green the pleasant ground;

⁠The fair colonnade

Be of pure marble pillars made;

Strong to sustain the roof,

⁠Time and tempest proof,

Yet, amidst which, the lightest breeze

⁠Can play as it please;

⁠The audience hall

⁠Be free to all

⁠Who revere

The Power worshipped here,

⁠Sole guide of youth

⁠Unswerving Truth:

⁠In the inmost shrine

⁠Stands the image divine,

⁠Only seen

By those whose deeds have worthy been—

⁠Priestlike clean.

Those, who initiated are,

⁠Declare,

⁠As the hours

Usher in varying hopes and powers;

⁠It changes its face,

⁠It changes its age,

⁠Now a young beaming Grace,

⁠Now Nestorian Sage:

⁠But, to the pure in heart,

⁠This shape of primal art

⁠In age is fair,

⁠In youth seems wise,

⁠Beyond compare,

⁠Above surprise;

⁠What it teaches native seems

⁠Its new lore our ancient dreams;

⁠Incense rises from the ground,

⁠Music flows around;

Firm rest the feet below, clear gaze the eyes above,

When Truth to point the way through Life assumes the wand of Love;

But, if she cast aside the robe of green,

Winter's silver sheen,

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