05.05.2009, 18:45
UNSECTARIAN EDUCATION.
Ye who the plumes of wisdom would put on,
Why shun ye then with other daws to perch
Under the ancestral angles of the Church,
In the spring time ? though in summer ye be gone,
And make your haunt by some earth-cumbered stone,
In the deep woods ; which ye with curious search
Discover: even there, the oak, and birch,
Though different, keep assimilating tone.
And oh fair moon of youth, canst thou not make
Of hard disputed questions vague the lines ?
As sea, and shore, beneath thy lustrous wake:
Wise men have loved wide limit *, that assigns
A silent hallowed path, for faith to take,
Where things too great expression ill defines.
Ye who the plumes of wisdom would put on,
Why shun ye then with other daws to perch
Under the ancestral angles of the Church,
In the spring time ? though in summer ye be gone,
And make your haunt by some earth-cumbered stone,
In the deep woods ; which ye with curious search
Discover: even there, the oak, and birch,
Though different, keep assimilating tone.
And oh fair moon of youth, canst thou not make
Of hard disputed questions vague the lines ?
As sea, and shore, beneath thy lustrous wake:
Wise men have loved wide limit *, that assigns
A silent hallowed path, for faith to take,
Where things too great expression ill defines.