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Experiences of Life

Table of Contents

  1. The Skater by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
  2. The Things Divine by Jean Brooks Burt


Experience is the best teacher.

– Old Adage
  1. The Skater

    by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

    My glad feet shod with the glittering steel
    I was the god of the wingèd heel.

    The hills in the far white sky were lost;
    The world lay still in the wide white frost;

    And the woods hung hushed in their long white dream
    By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream.

    Here was a pathway, smooth like glass,
    Where I and the wandering wind might pass

    To the far-off palaces, drifted deep,
    Where Winter's retinue rests in sleep.

    I followed the lure, I fled like a bird,
    Till the startled hollows awoke and heard

    A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang,
    As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang;

    And the wandering wind was left behind
    As faster, faster I followed my mind;

    Till the blood sang high in my eager brain,
    And the joy of my flight was almost pain.

    Then I stayed the rush of my eager speed
    And silently went as a drifting seed, —

    Slowly furtively till my eyes
    Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise,

    And the hair of my neck began to creep
    At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep.

    Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near.
    In the deep of my heart I heard my fear.

    And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued,
    From the white, inviolate solitude.

  2. The Things Divine

    by Jean Brooks Burt

    These are the things I hold divine:
    A trusting child's hand laid in mine,
    Rich brown earth and wind-tossed trees,
    The taste of grapes and the drone of bees,
    A rhythmic gallop, long June days,
    A rose-hedged lane and lovers' lays,
    The welcome smile on neighbors' faces,

    Cool, wide hills and open places,
    Breeze-blown fields of silver rye,
    The wild, sweet note of the plover's cry,
    Fresh spring showers and scent of box,
    The soft, pale tint of the garden phlox,
    Lilacs blooming, a drowsy noon,
    A flight of geese and an autumn moon,
    Rolling meadows and storm-washed heights,
    A fountain murmur on summer nights,
    A dappled fawn in the forest hush,
    Simple words and the song of a thrush,
    Rose-red dawns and a mate to share
    With comrade soul my gypsy fare,
    A waiting fire when the twilight ends,
    A gallant heart and the voice of friends.

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