Читать книгу The Ring of Amethyst - Alice Wellington Rollins - Страница 6

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I think, indeed, ’twas only this that made

Her seem peculiar: namely, she had no

Peculiarity. The world to-day

Is disappointed if we are not odd,

And hold decided views on some one point,

Or else unsettled views on all. But she

Was living simply what she wished to live:

A lovely life of rounded womanhood;

With no sharp, salient points for eye or ear

To seize and pass quick judgment on. Not quite

Content was she to let the golden days

Slip from her fingers like the well-worn beads

Of some long rosary, told o’er and o’er

Each night with dull, mechanical routine;

But yet she had no central purpose; no

Absorbing aim to which all else must yield;

And so the very sweetness of her life,

Its exquisite simplicity and calm,

Musical in its silence, smote the ear

More sharply than the discords of the rest.

So do we grow accustomed far at sea

To jar and clang of harsh machinery,

And sleep profoundly in our narrow berths

Amid the turmoil; but if suddenly

The noisy whirr is silent, and the deep

Low murmur of the moonlit sea is all

That stirs the air, we waken with a start,

And ask in terror what has happened! Then

Sink back again upon the pillows; strange,

That silence should have wakened us!

Alas!

The world has grown so feverishly hot

With restless aims and poor ambitious dreams,

That lives which have the cool and temperate flow

Of healthful purpose in their veins, will seem

Peculiar!