ELSIE.
Onward and onward the highway runs to the distant city,
impatiently bearing
Tidings of human joy and disaster, of love and of hate,
of doing and daring!
PRINCE HENRY.
This life of ours is a wild aeolian harp of many
a joyous strain,
But under them all there runs a loud perpetual wail,
as of souls in pain.
ELSIE.
Faith alone can interpret life, and the heart
that aches and bleeds with the stigma
Of pain, alone bears the likeness of Christ,
and can comprehend its dark enigma.
PRINCE HENRY.
Man is selfish, and seeketh pleasure with little care
of what may betide,
Else why am I travelling here beside thee,
a demon that rides by an angel's side?
ELSIE.
All the hedges are white with dust, and the great dog
under the creaking wain
Hangs his head in the lazy heat, while onward
the horses toil and strain.
PRINCE HENRY.
Now they stop at the wayside inn, and the wagoner laughs
with the landlord's daughter,
While out of the dripping trough the horses
distend their leathern sides with water.
ELSIE.
All through life there are wayside inns,
where man may refresh his soul with love;
Even the lowest may quench his thirst
at rivulets fed by springs from above.
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