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THE OFFERING.
147
I had a lonely garden,
Fruit and flowers on every bough,
But the frost came too severely—
'Tis decayed and blighted now.
That lute is like my spirits—
They have lost their buoyant tone;
Crushed and shattered, they've forgotten
The glad notes once their own.
And my mind is like that garden—
It has spent its early store;
And wearied and exhausted,
It has no strength for more.
I will look on them as warnings,
Sent less in wrath than love,
To call the being homeward—
To its other home above.
As the Lesbian in false worship
Hung her harp upon the shrine,
When the world lost its attraction,
So will I offer mine:—
But in another spirit,
With a higher hope and aim,
And in a holier temple,
And to a holier name.
