And thou, not mindless of so blest I CANNOT think that thou shouldst a morn, pass away, By no least deed its harmony shalt Whose life to mine is an eternal But shalt to that high chime thy | A piece of nature that can have no flaw, Through life's most darksome A new and certain sunrise every footsteps take, Therefore from thy pure faith thou But, if thou art to be another ray A mystery to those who creep and Not downcast with the thought of crawl Eternity. thee so high, Through Time, and part it from But rather raised to be a nobler man, And more divine in my humanity, And flinging up to heaven its sunlit spray, As knowing that the waiting eyes Tossing huge continents in scorn My life are lighted by a purer be- And crushing them, with din of ing, grinding thunder, And ask high, calm-browed deeds, That makes old emptinesses stare with it agreeing. ΧΙ THERE never yet was flower fair in vain, Let classic poets rhyme it as they will; The seasons toil that it may blow again, And summer's heart doth feel its every ill; Nor is a true soul ever born for naught; Wherever any such hath lived and died, There hath been something for true freedom wrought, Some bulwark levelled on the evil side: in wonder; The memory of a glory passed away Lingers in every heart, as, in the shell, Resounds the bygone freedom of the sea, And every hour new signs of promise tell, That the great soul shall once again be free, For high, and yet more high, the murmurs swell Of inward strife for truth and liberty. XIII BELOVED, in the noisy city here, The thought of thee can make all turmoil cease; Toil on, then, Greatness! thou art Around my spirit, folds thy spirit in the right, However narrow souls may call thee wrong; Be as thou wouldst be in thine own clear sight, And so thou shalt be in the world's erelong; For worldlings cannot, struggle as they may, From man's great soul one great thought hide away. XII SUB PONDERE CRESCIT clear Its still, soft arms, and circles it with peace; There is no room for any doubt or fear In souls so overfilled with love's increase, There is no memory of the bygone year But growth in heart's and spirit's perfect ease: How hath our love, half nebulous at first, Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun! How have our lives and wills (as haply erst THE hope of Truth grows stronger, They were, ere this forgetfulness I hear the soul of Man around me Through all their earthly distances waking, outburst, Like a great sea, its frozen fetters And melted, like two rays of light in one! breaking, As the broad ocean endlessly up- Woe, if such spirit thwart its errand high, heaveth, With the majestic beating of his And mock with lies the longing heart, soul of man! The mighty tides, whereof its right- Yet one age longer must true Cul ture lie, ful part Each sea-wide bay and little weed Soothing her bitter fetters as she receiveth, can, So, through his soul who earnestly Until new messages of love out Life from the universal Heart doth At the next beating of the infinite XVII THE SAME CONTINUED While she in glorious madness doth forecast That perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blown A POET cannot strive for despo- To each new Prophet, and yet al ways opes tism; His harp falls shattered; for it Fuller and fuller with each day still must be and hour, The instinct of great spirits to be Heartening the soul with odor of fresh hopes, free, And the sworn foes of cunning And longings high, and gushings barbarism: He who has deepest searched the wide abysm Of that life-giving Soul which men call fate, Knows that to put more faith in lies and hate Than truth and love is the true atheism: Upward the soul forever turns her eyes: of wide power, Yet never is or shall be fully blown Save in the forethought of the XIX THE SAME CONCLUDED The next hour always shames the FAR 'yond this narrow parapet of hour before; One beauty, at its highest, pro phesies That by whose side it shall seem mean and poor; No Godlike thing knows aught of less and less, But widens to the boundless Perfectness. XVIII THE SAME CONTINUED THEREFORE think not the Past is wise alone, the Best, Time, With eyes uplift, the poet's soul should look Into the Endless Promise, nor should brook One prying doubt to shake his faith sublime; To him the earth is ever in her prime And dewiness of morning; he can see Good lying hid, from all eter nity, Within the teeming womb of sin and crime; His soul should not be cramped by any bar, For Yesterday knows nothing of His nobleness should be so God And thou shalt love it only as the nest like high, That his least deed is perfect as a star, Whence glory-winged things to His common look majestic as the Heaven have flown: sky, To the great Soul only are all And all o'erflooded with a light Love, whose forgetfulness is beauty's death, MARY, since first I knew thee, to Whose mystic key these cells of this hour, Thou and I My love hath deepened, with my Into the infinite freedom openeth, And makes the body's dark and narrow grate wiser sense Of what in Woman is to rever mer's fulness, where The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's own palace-gate. XXII IN ABSENCE THESE rugged, wintry days I scarce could bear, Did I not know that, in the early spring, When wild March winds upon their errands sing, Thou wouldst return, bursting on this still air, Like those same winds, when, startled from their lair, They hunt up violets, and free swift brooks From icy cares, even as thy clear looks Bid my heart bloom, and sing, and break all care: When drops with welcome rain the April day, My flowers shall find their April in thine eyes, Save there the rain in dreamy clouds doth stay, As loath to fall out of those happy skies; Yet sure, my love, thou art most like to May, That comes with steady sun when April dies. XXIII WENDELL PHILLIPS No leaf, or bud, or blossom may HE stood upon the world's broad be seen: threshold; wide |