SHE fronts the traveller as he goes,
A power to threaten and beguile ;
And fear and love awake before
Her lion strength, her woman smile.
She bids him seek her mystery,
And solve her riddle strange and dim;
With art and wisdom matched against
The doom that waits to conquer him.
But vain the contest and the toil,
The weary heart, the wasted breath;
The mystic meaning still is veiled,
And all endeavor ends in death.
For, should her master-spirit rise
And lay her secret bare and free,
She from her eminence must fall,
And cease from strife, and cease to be.
O life ! whose subtle charm allures,
O life ! whose will inviolate
Forever challenges the soul
To solve the mystery of fate ;
And strive where it shall not attain,
And grasp at shadows that elude ;
Till, faltering, it quits the chase,
And leaves the tempter unsubdued.
M. E. N. Hatheway.