TO VERNON L. KELLOGG

’Tis well, that man is slow to cry “Alas!”— That Nature’s heart seems eager to atone For music often ending in a moan By silence tender with the peace it has; But ever, as on morning ways I pass, I see the fields with hints of terror sown— A tuft of fur, or small and bleaching bone, Or heap of little feathers in the grass. How fares it with the lesser wards of life?— Always they seem so restless, so alert. Is fear to them an unrelenting care— The spirit of that dumb and ravenous strife No Power will justify and none avert? And in the deep—’tis well we see not there!