We are spirits clad in veils.

Fashion and riches will mask much annoyance.

Beautiful and rare Aurora, In the heavens thou art their Flora

He that would earn the Poet's sacred name, Must write for future as for present ages.

We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen.

Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.

O Light divine! we need no fuller test That all is ordered well; We know enough to trust that all is best Where Love and Wisdom dwell.

No night so wild but brings the constant sun With love and power untold; No time so dark but through its woof there run Some blessed threads of gold.

December drops no weak, relenting tear, By our fond summer sympathies ensnared; Nor from the perfect circle of the year Can even winter's crystal gems be spared.

I become more and more inclined to sink the minister in the man, and abandon my present calling in toto as a profession... to create a living religion in landscape painting.

If there comes a little thaw, Still the air is chill and raw, Here and there a patch of snow, Dirtier than the ground below, Dribbles down a marshy flood; Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing, This is Spring.

But now I rejoice when, in my winter studio, I can spread out my summer studies and recall through them the beautiful season and places which gave them being. Here the painter feels how small things may suggest the greater - the drop of water, image the firmament.

I wonder now if you ever remember... Whether your June is all turned to December... Gone are those winters of chats and of dances... Gone the aroma of life's young romances... Ah! well enough, as you dance on in joyance... Fashion and riches will mask much annoyance.

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