Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/191

His body's need, dost turn thy hand and touch
The ethereal mind. Yea, when thou seem'st to die,
Thou only dropp'st thy grosser elements
To commune with the soul.
                                               Mysterious guest
I seem to fear thee. Would that I had known
Thy lineage better, and been less remiss
In the good grace of hospitality.
I much bemoan myself that thou shouldst be
So treated in my house. With reverent hand
And genuflection, I do take thee up
And straight bespeak for thee more fitting place
Mid thy compeers.
                               But who can say what form
Thou next may'st wear?
                                       Perchance the pictured page
Through which the lisping and delighted child
Hath its first talk with knowledge, or the chart
That saves the mariner mid rocks and shoals
Upon the wrecking sea.
                                        Or lov'st thou best
To be the tablet of the sage? or bear
The bard's rich music to another age?
Or with some message from the Book of Life,
Wake the dead slumber of benighted lands?