Poems (Robert Underwood Johnson)/Amiel
AMIEL(THE "JOURNAL INTIME")
A few there are who to the troubled soul
Can lay the ear with that physician-art
Which by a whispered accent in the heart
Follows the lurking treason that hath stole
Into the citadel;—a few whose scroll
Of warning bears our safety,—is a chart
Of our unsounded seas, and doth impart
Courage to hold the spirit to its goal.
Can lay the ear with that physician-art
Which by a whispered accent in the heart
Follows the lurking treason that hath stole
Into the citadel;—a few whose scroll
Of warning bears our safety,—is a chart
Of our unsounded seas, and doth impart
Courage to hold the spirit to its goal.
Of such is Amiel, lonely as a saint,—
Or as an eagle dwelling on peaks, in shade
Of clouds, which now he cleaves for one wide look
At the green earth, now for a circle faint
Nearer the sun. Once more has Truth betrayed
Secrets to Sorrow not in the sibyl's book.
Or as an eagle dwelling on peaks, in shade
Of clouds, which now he cleaves for one wide look
At the green earth, now for a circle faint
Nearer the sun. Once more has Truth betrayed
Secrets to Sorrow not in the sibyl's book.