Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Theodore Watts-Dunton 1832–1914

Natura Benigna

WattsDun

WHAT power is this? what witchery wins my fee

To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow

All silent as the emerald gulfs below,

Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight beat?

What thrill of earth and heaven—most wild, most sweet—

What answering pulse that all the senses know

Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow

Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet?

Mother, ’t is I once more: I know thee well,

Yet comes that throb, an ever-new surprise!

O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell

Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies!

Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tell

The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes.