The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim, And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight dim; And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest,-- Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest? The path, ah! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide? The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side, Forever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death. Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the fruit of an ancient name, Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame; They are gods, these kings of the foretime, they are spirits who guard our race: Ever I watch and worship; they sit with a marble face. And the myriad idols round me, and the legion of muttering priests, The revels and rites unholy, the dark unspeakable feasts! What have they rung from the Silence? Hath even a whisper come Of the secret, Whence and Whither? Alas! for the gods are dumb. Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the uttermost sea? "The Secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?" It is naught but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens began, How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once was man. I had thought, "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell, They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the unknown main--" Sadly they turn from the venture, and say that the quest is vain. Is life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake? Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break? Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone? Is there naught in the heaven above, whence the hail and the levin are hurled, But the wind that is swept around us by the rush of the rolling world? The wind that shall scatter my ashes, and bear me to silence and sleep With the dirge, and the sounds of lamenting, and voices of women who weep. SIR ALFRED COMYNS LYALL. * * * * * BRAHMA. If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forgot to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same; The vanished gods to me appear; And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; When me they fly, I am the wings; I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. The strong gods pine for my abode, And pine in vain the sacred Seven; But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. RALPH WALDO EMERSON.