Class 
 
 Book. 
 
 Gop)TightN°__Lll± 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE GREAT GREY KING 
 
 and Other Poems Old and New 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL VALENTINE COLE 
 
 Author of "In Scipio's Gardens and Other 
 Poems," "The Life That Counts," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 

 Copyright, 1914 
 Sherman, French &> Company 
 
 NOV -6 1914 
 388261 
 
TO 
 
 HER DEAR MEMORY 
 
NOTE 
 
 Many of the poems in this 
 collection originally ap- 
 peared in periodicals, and 
 the author wishes to express 
 his thanks to the proprietors 
 of The Atlantic Monthly, 
 The Youth's Companion, 
 The Christian Endeavor 
 World, The Critic, Putnam's 
 Magazine, and The Indepen- 
 dent for permission to re- 
 publish here. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE GREAT GREY KING PAGE 
 
 The Great Grey King 1 
 
 The Sword 4 
 
 Cooperation 6 
 
 Lincoln 8 
 
 The Passing of Spain from the Western 
 
 Hemisphere 10 
 
 The Idle Word 13 
 
 The Deacon's Prayer 15 
 
 The Frigate "Constitution" . . . . 18 
 
 A Song of Battle 25 
 
 SUB DIVO 
 
 Sub Divo 31 
 
 Vacation 35 
 
 The Trees 37 
 
 To a Bluebell 39 
 
 The Far Blue Hills . 40 
 
 Endymion 41 
 
 Through the Telescope 42 
 
 "Go, Read in the Book of the Hills" . . 44 
 
 The Farther Shore 45 
 
 POEMS OF OCCASION 
 
 The Dead Teacher 49 
 
 Works and Days 51 
 
 An Eagle Spirit ........ 60 
 
 An Apostolic Man 67 
 
 A Lady's Portrait 69 
 
PAGE 
 
 A Poet's Centenary 71 
 
 The Man 80 
 
 Youth 82 
 
 Land o' Pines 83 
 
 JUDGMENT SEATS 
 
 Judgment Seats 89 
 
 Prophet and Priest 92 
 
 The Builder and His Tools 94 
 
 Hammer and Anvil 97 
 
 The King 99 
 
 Greatness 101 
 
 Glory 103 
 
 The Titanic 104 
 
 Conscience 106 
 
 The Prisoner 107 
 
 An Old Saw 108 
 
 The Difference . 109 
 
 THE IMMORTALS 
 
 The Immortals 113 
 
 On the Fly Leaf of a Friend's Book . .115 
 
 The Staff and the Tree 116 
 
 The Return 118 
 
 In Memoriam 119 
 
 The Tree and the Star 121 
 
 The Feast of the Dead 122 
 
 All Souls' Eve 124 
 
 Home 125 
 
SONNETS p AGE 
 
 Hesperides 129 
 
 Venice . 130 
 
 Fame 131 
 
 In the Refectory 132 
 
 Sphinx 133 
 
 The Last "Chapel" ....... 134 
 
 The Palace 135 
 
 The Old Question 136 
 
 Presentiments 137 
 
 The White North 138 
 
 The Lords of Life 139 
 
 I The Lords of Life 139 
 
 II Jupiter 139 
 
 III Saturn 140 
 
 IV Mars 141 
 
 V Venus 141 
 
 VI Mercury 142 
 
 VII "The Lords Have Passed" . . .143 
 
 The Sonnet 144 
 
AD MUSAM 
 
 O Muse, we are so many! Everywhere 
 
 The land seems full of us ; and thou couldst spare 
 
 The most, no doubt, completely; 
 Ay, were the tuneful tribe all swept away — 
 Such folk we are ! — the people, I dare say, 
 
 Would take it very sweetly. 
 
 But still we sing, or chirp, or utter some wild call, 
 And hover around thy golden mountain, — all, 
 
 From eagles down to swallows. 
 O Muse, thou must be weary ! Dared I ask 
 Thy benediction on so slight a task, 
 
 I'd ask about as follows: 
 
 Blow hitherward a little breath of song; 
 Don't blow too powerful, nor blow too long; 
 
 And, in the strain I borrow, 
 Set two or three sweet notes that on the air 
 Will not die wholly, but will unaware 
 
 Return again tomorrow. 
 
THE GREAT GREY KING 
 
THE GREAT GREY KING 
 
 1800-1900 
 
 The Great Grey King, the latest and best of 
 his line, spake thus, 
 Having reigned over all the earth in glory 
 a hundred years: 
 " My work is finished to-day ; and, lo, I must 
 pass away 
 To the Silent Fields, evermore as a king 
 among my peers." 
 
 They praised him, the Great Grey King, 
 through his realm to the far off lands : 
 " His work and his fame stand sure, what- 
 ever the years may bring ; " 
 And there came and bowed the knee his serv- 
 ants in their degree, 
 Saying, " Give us, before you go, your 
 blessing, O father, the king." 
 
 " The Spirit of Water am I, who toil for the 
 welfare of men ; 
 You taught me to toil when I rise from my 
 home in the rain and the snow — 
 To turn the great wheels, and to be the driver 
 of ships on the sea, 
 And the lifter of burdens: O king, a bless- 
 ing before you go." 
 
 [i] 
 
" And I am the Spirit of Fire ; I work, as you 
 bade me, for men; 
 Their manifold errands I take up and down 
 in the earth, to and fro; 
 A fleet-footed devil I seem, for I dash through 
 the world like a gleam, 
 And am here and am there all at once : a bless- 
 ing before you go." 
 
 " And I am the Spirit of Search ; I honestly 
 seek the truth ; 
 A troubler of men who fear, but the helper 
 of them that know; 
 I found how the life of the sod has climbed the 
 great ladder of God, 
 And all things are linked into one: your 
 blessing before you go." 
 
 " And I am the Spirit of Life ; the letter is 
 passing away; 
 I live and I make alive ; I raise what is fallen 
 and low; 
 For the sake of humanity's needs I break 
 through the forms and the creeds 
 With the truth that makes men free: the 
 blessing before you go." 
 
 So he lifted his withered hands o'er the heads 
 of them there, and said: 
 "Receive my blessing: behold, the Future 
 stands at the door: 
 
Go back to your work, and be true to the task 
 I bequeath you to do : 
 For the blessing of them that serve is ever 
 to serve the more." 
 
 And he turned to the people, and said : " Ye 
 see that my hand has brought 
 The ends of the earth together and set them 
 face to face. 
 Learn, therefore, O great, and O small, that as 
 God is the father of all, 
 Ye all are one brotherhood, — all, whatever 
 your land or race." 
 
 Then the Great Grey King, wrapped around in 
 his glory under the stars, 
 Became as a great grey mist, receding with 
 noiseless tread, 
 And solemnly passed away to wait for the Judg- 
 ment Day 
 In the Silent Fields with his peers ; and an- 
 other reigned in his stead. 
 
 [3] 
 
THE SWORD 
 
 A keen-edged sword in Somebody's hand; 
 
 And keen the edge of the pain it brings; 
 Long, long ago it thrust, and pricked, 
 
 And prodded about at the roots of things. 
 It searched and troubled the hollows dark, 
 
 It troubles the world and stirs up strife, 
 It troubles the beast of the field and man : 
 
 The name of this troublesome sword is — 
 Life. 
 
 The oyster lay like a lump content, 
 
 Content with himself and his mud and slime; 
 The sword thrust under him till at last 
 
 He said, " There is nothing to do but climb." 
 A million of years — for oysters are slow, 
 
 And only ask to be let alone — 
 He climbed ; he climbed clean out of his shell, 
 
 And, lo! was a fish with a good backbone. 
 
 The fish was happy; the fish loved ease, 
 
 And lazily paddled the summer sea, 
 With never a thought of his home in the mud, 
 
 And never a dream of what must be. 
 But pain ran through him, he knew not why ; 
 
 The sword was there in Somebody's hand; 
 It pricked him once from the slime to the sea, 
 
 It pricked him now from the sea to the land. 
 
 [4] 
 
He stood a beast with four great feet, 
 
 And a yard of tail to follow him round ; 
 Content he was with a beast's content 
 
 To eat and drink and lie on the ground. 
 But the sword was after him still, and still 
 
 The old pain racked as it racked before; 
 The ease he loved seemed never so far, 
 
 And all he could do was to climb some more. 
 
 For many and many a myriad years 
 
 The poor beast climbed; the way was blind; 
 He wore his yard of tail to a stump, 
 
 Then dropped the stump in the woods behind. 
 His paws grew hands, and he stood erect; 
 
 One morning, the sun just over the brink, 
 There flashed a spark through his beastly brain, 
 
 And he said, " I'm a man, for I can think ! " 
 
 And man loves ease ; the Lord knows that ; 
 
 For oyster and fish and beast combine 
 To smother his new-born soul of fire 
 
 And drag it back to the earth and the brine. 
 But pain and trouble take hold on man; 
 
 The terrible sword doth prick and prod; 
 He finds no peace, for there is no peace 
 
 For man till he reaches the utmost — God. 
 
 [5] 
 
COOPERATION 
 
 " Come," said the little Ether- Atoms, 
 
 " Let us cling together and march together ; 
 
 Millions and millions and millions are we; 
 
 Let us form and march like the waves of the 
 sea. 
 
 With shoulder to shoulder, hand linked in 
 hand, 
 
 Line behind line of us, here we stand! 
 
 Steady, there! Wait for the word of com- 
 mand. 
 
 Steady, my comrades ! Is everything right ? 
 
 Now, all as one of us, into the night ! " 
 
 So they clung together and marched together, 
 
 And the world was filled with light. 
 
 II 
 
 u 
 
 Come," cried the little Vibrations-in-Air, 
 Let us cling together and work together, 
 Starting not off on our separate tracks, 
 But all within touch, that whatever each lacks 
 The rest may supply, and that each, great or 
 
 small, 
 May something contribute — to soar, run, or 
 
 crawl — 
 Toward the one common end; there is work for 
 us all ; 
 
 [6] 
 
And mingling our efforts, the weak with the 
 
 strong, 
 Break we a path through the silence along ! " 
 So they clung together and helped one another, 
 And the world was filled with song. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Now," whispered the children of men on earth, 
 " Let us cling together, and work together, 
 And help one another, and turn our words 
 Into golden action, and sheathe our swords ! 
 Let us tunnel the mountain, span the plain, 
 Stretch hands to each other across the main, 
 And each man's wealth be for all men's gain; 
 Then unto his neighbor let every one 
 Say, * Be of good courage,' and let the word 
 
 run." 
 So they clung together, and lo, as in heaven, 
 His will upon earth was done ! 
 
 [7] 
 
LINCOLN 
 
 Whence came this man? As if on the wings 
 
 Of the winds of God that blew! 
 He moved, undaunted, mid captains and kings, 
 
 And, not having learned, he knew ! 
 Was he son of the soil, or child of the sky? 
 
 Or, pray, was he both? Ah me ! 
 How little they dreamed, as the storm rolled 
 nigh, 
 
 What he was, and was to be! 
 
 When trembled the lamps of hope, or quite 
 
 Blew out in that furious gale, 
 He drew his light from the Larger Light 
 
 Above him that did not fail : 
 Heaven-led, all trials and perils among, 
 
 As unto some splendid goal 
 He fared right onward, unflinching, — this 
 strong, 
 
 God-gifted, heroic soul! 
 
 We know him now — how noble his part, 
 
 And how clear was his vision then! 
 With the firmest hand and the kindliest heart 
 
 Of them all — this master of men ! 
 Of the pride of power or the lust of pelf, 
 
 Oh, never a taint we find: 
 He lost himself in the larger self 
 
 Of his country and all mankind. 
 
 [8] 
 
There are those called great, or good, by right, 
 
 But as long as the long roll is, 
 Not many the names, with the double light 
 
 Of greatness and goodness, like his. 
 Thrice happy the nation that holds him dear 
 
 Who never can wholly die, 
 Never cease to bestow of his counsel and cheer, 
 
 As the perilous years go by ! 
 
 For after the trumpets have ceased to blow, 
 
 And the banners are folded away, 
 And the stress and the splendor forgotten, we 
 know, 
 
 Of a truth, in that judgment day, 
 That whatso'er else, in the Stream that rolls, 
 
 May sink and be utterly gone, 
 The souls of the men who were true to their 
 souls 
 
 Forever go marching on ! 
 
 There are those whose like, it was somehow 
 planned, 
 We never again shall see; 
 But I would to God there were more in the 
 land 
 As true and as simple as he, — 
 As he who walked in our common ways, 
 With the seal of a king on his brow; 
 Who lived as a man among men his days, 
 And belongs to the ages now! 
 [9] 
 
THE PASSING OF SPAIN FROM THE 
 WESTERN HEMISPHERE 
 
 The Lord communed with His heart in heaven 
 
 And said : " It has been my way 
 To cancel at last the men or the states 
 
 That sin and disobey. 
 Four hundred years I have waited, — four, 
 
 And still they are starved and slain: 
 That my name on earth be reverenced more, 
 
 Shall I make an end of Spain ? " 
 
 For the prayers rolled up about His throne, 
 
 Like a cloud, from every side; 
 And vast the cloud of witnesses 
 
 The souls of those who had died. 
 Columbus himself was there ; said he : 
 
 " I found her the virgin lands 
 Of half the world ; she found for me 
 
 The chains upon my hands." 
 
 And the souls of her best citizens came, 
 
 Five hundred thousand strong, 
 To tell of the Inquisition fires 
 
 And all that giant wrong. 
 And the souls of the sons of the Netherlands 
 came 
 
 And said 'twas thus and thus : 
 " Remember Philip and Alva's shame — 
 
 Lord, how they butchered us ! " 
 [10] 
 
And the souls of the slain, from far away 
 
 In Mexico and Peru, 
 Cried to the Power that seeks and saves, 
 
 " Good Lord, the charge is true ! " 
 And the souls of them that suffered and fell 
 
 In the islands of the main, 
 Thousands on thousands, came to swell 
 
 The awful guilt of Spain. 
 
 Then said the Lord in His great sad heart: 
 
 " It shall no more endure ; 
 If I rise in my might and make an end, 
 
 My justice stands secure." 
 And He motioned the seraphs that do His word, 
 
 To fly to the earth and do ; 
 And the flaming seraphs that bear the sword, 
 
 In silence bowed, and flew. 
 
 They said as they flew : " The earth is His 
 
 To save, not the devil's to mar ; 
 Some things are better than money is, 
 
 And some things worse than war." 
 The messengers, while on they swept, 
 
 Cried : " Fear not ; it is well ; 
 For this kind goeth not out except 
 
 By sword and shot and shell." 
 
 At last the darkening shadow drew 
 
 Across the morning sun: 
 A shiver, as if presaging doom, 
 
 Throughout the world did run. 
 
 [ii] 
 
And when the cloud, so big with dread, 
 
 Broke over Manila's bay, 
 The far-off nations, whispering, said: 
 
 " Hush ! Spain is passing away." 
 
 Down through the Windward Passage, round 
 
 The sweep of the southern seas, 
 The cloud belched forth of its righteousness 
 
 To heal sin's long disease. 
 For hither and thither they swiftly went 
 
 Who ne'er bear sword in vain, 
 And to heaven and earth their mission meant 
 
 The passing away of Spain. 
 
 When they sheathed the sword, and the guns 
 grew cold, 
 
 And the desolate Isle was free ; 
 When the ships that carried the fragments off 
 
 Put sullenly forth to sea, — 
 The eyes of every people and land 
 
 Watched — silent and awed at the plain 
 Irresistible pressure of God's right hand — 
 
 The passing away of Spain. 
 
 [12] 
 
THE IDLE WORD 
 
 We did not spare to speak him ill 
 But yesterday, as one might do 
 If it were only I or you ; 
 
 And now the breath of blame is still. 
 
 O strife of creeds, and party cry, 
 And every voice dividing men, 
 God sends a silence through you when 
 
 His great dark angel passes by ! 
 
 Were we quite sure of all we said? 
 
 We would not say or think it now; 
 
 In penitence our heads we bow; 
 We know him — after he is dead. 
 
 Well may the tears of sorrow fall; 
 Perhaps he had a larger part 
 Than you or I, in his great heart, 
 
 With One of old who died for all. 
 
 And where the guilt? Ah, who shall say 
 How near to some well meaning one 
 The tangled thread of cause may run? 
 
 For tongue and pen have power to slay. 
 
 Who knows that idle words and vain, 
 Flung off like arrows in the dark, 
 May never somewhere strike the spark 
 
 That fires to crime an idle brain? 
 [13] 
 
But it is done, and all is o'er ; 
 
 We shall not see his face again; 
 
 We know he loved his fellow men, 
 And loved his God : what would we more ? 
 
 The clouds will clear; where shines afar 
 That galaxy of good and great 
 As pilot-beacons for the State, 
 
 Look up and find another star. 
 
 [14] 
 
THE DEACON'S PRAYER 
 
 The hymn had slowly died away; 
 
 Then came the pause, and, while delayed 
 The brethren to exhort or pray, 
 
 The oldest deacon rose and prayed: 
 " O Lord, thine erring ones we are ; 
 
 Perhaps we do not understand; 
 And yet we feel that, near and far, 
 
 There's need of danger in the land. 
 
 " Some things are safe that should not be ; 
 
 Mob-murder, bribery, the desire 
 Of them, O Lord, who fear not Thee, 
 
 To take away our food and fire. 
 Because of safety overmuch, 
 
 The wolves of commerce prowl and seize; 
 Thy truth is dangerous unto such ; 
 
 Thy right, thy justice, send us these. 
 
 " And, Lord — we hesitate in this, 
 
 So oft we err in speech and plan — 
 We ask — forgive us if amiss — 
 
 We ask Thee for some dangerous man. 
 Was not thy servant, Lincoln, one — 
 
 Him whom they hated so and slew? 
 Recall thy servant, Washington ; 
 
 Thine enemies found him dangerous, too. 
 
 [15] 
 
" And we remember One, dear Lord, 
 
 Who walked the ways of Galilee; 
 He brought and left on earth a sword — 
 
 None lives so dangerous as he ! 
 And, oh, we dare not pray this night 
 
 For peace with sin, lest everywhere 
 That sword of justice, truth, and right 
 
 Lay on our path its awful glare ! 
 
 " Beat back the hosts of lawless might ; 
 
 Quench this accursed thirst for gold ; 
 And with the love of heaven smite 
 
 The hearts that now seem hard and cold. 
 Vouchsafe to us the power again 
 
 To turn ' I ought ' into ' I can,' 
 ' I can ' into ' I will, 5 and then 
 
 Grant us, O Lord, some dangerous man. 
 
 " Not one who merely sits and thinks, 
 
 Looks Buddha-wise, with folded hands ; 
 Who balances, and blinks, and shrinks, 
 
 And questions — while we wait commands ! 
 Who dreams, perchance, that right and wrong 
 
 Will make their quarrel up some day, 
 And discord be the same as song — 
 
 Lord, not so safe a one, we pray ! 
 
 " Nor one who never makes mistakes 
 
 Because he makes not anything; 
 But one who fares ahead and breaks 
 
 The path for truth's great following; 
 [16] 
 
Who takes the way that brave men go 
 
 Forever up stern duty's hill ; 
 Who answers ' Yes,' or thunders ' No,' 
 
 According to thy holy will. 
 
 " We want a man whom we can trust 
 
 To lead us where thy purpose leads ; 
 Who dares not lie, but dares be just — 
 
 Give us the dangerous man of deeds ! " 
 So prayed the deacon, letting fall 
 
 Each sentence from his heart ; and when 
 He took his seat the brethren all, 
 
 As by one impulse, cried, " Amen ! " 
 
 [17] 
 
THE FRIGATE " CONSTITUTION " 
 
 This is the vessel that sailed away 
 
 A hundred years ago ; 
 
 And this is the vessel, as all men know, 
 
 That, ship for ship and man for man, 
 
 Since the hour her great career began, 
 
 Found never an equal in her day. 
 
 The sea and the untamed powers of air 
 
 Might smite against her and smite her bare, 
 
 And the terrible war-voice round her roar — 
 
 God knows how they roared, how they smote 
 
 and tore 
 This child of 'ninety-seven ! 
 If she fled, it was only to win the fight; 
 If she stayed, God pity her foeman's plight! 
 Whatever the task the brave deemed right, 
 She flinched not once, but held her face 
 Full-front to the danger, and kept her place, 
 And ever she kept the stars she bore 
 Close to the stars of heaven. 
 
 Amid the silence of men oppressed 
 She burst as a voice from out the West, 
 And, by the awful speech she hurled, 
 Shook the wide deep, and shook the land, 
 And shook the thrones of the kings of the world, 
 Because she spoke of the might of right, 
 And spoke to them all of the growing light, 
 [18] 
 
In a way they could hear and understand! 
 
 She dared with the daring of those who die 
 
 In noble endeavor, and that is why, 
 
 Through smoke and flame and battle-roar 
 
 And all that iron death could do, 
 
 She ploughed her steadfast way so true, 
 
 And never dropped the stars she bore, 
 
 But always in place, near the stars of the sky, 
 
 The banner of her country blew ! 
 
 II 
 
 " Constitution " — ominous name ! 
 Written so large on time's hoar walls, 
 And written in letters of blood and flame, 
 And written to stand, whate'er befalls, 
 For God hath written it. And to-day 
 The old is weighed ; it must pass away. 
 Weighed and wanting. Break it afar, 
 Break it to Kaiser and Sultan and Czar, 
 That God hath purposed to make men free. 
 The long, long-during wrongs that are 
 Must yield to the rights that are to be, 
 Till the world, and the world in its wideness 
 
 then, 
 Is owned and governed by common men. 
 
 Oh, speed the time when the old must fall, 
 When the new shall rise and the old be done, 
 When the million no more need serve the one 
 Except as the one is servant of all ! 
 [19] 
 
Honor the vessel for her deeds and fame, 
 Honor the deeds that touch cold hearts to flame, 
 Honor the fame that lives and ever will, 
 Honor the vessel that through good or ill 
 Wrought only honor for her borrowed name. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But who is this that comes forlorn * 
 
 Of sail and mast, battered and worn, 
 
 And borne by a power not hers along, 
 
 As age that is feeble by youth that is strong. 
 
 An empty, ruinous, cumbersome shell, — 
 
 Is this the vessel that wrought so well? 
 
 If, as the wise do ever hold. 
 
 If it be life, true life, to give 
 
 Even life's own self for noble ends. 
 
 And, when the powers are spent, to live 
 
 In that for which one gives and spends, 
 
 Then better is the life grown old 
 
 In such a service, though it creeps 
 
 A silent shadow from place to place, 
 
 Better, oh, better a thousand-fold 
 
 Than that which hoards, and eats, and sleeps, 
 
 Saves its dear self for self, and keeps 
 
 The telltale freshness of its face. 
 
 ■ The " Constitution n was towed back to Boston on 
 the centenary of her launching. 
 
 [20] 
 
And this spent life of hers is found, 
 Regathered as a living power, 
 Wherever freedom holds the ground, 
 Or manhood rules the hour; 
 Found in the laws that round us stand 
 At every hearthstone in the land ; 
 Found in the lifted arm that bars 
 The invader from our sacred shore; 
 Ay, like that vanished ship of yore, 
 Found in the imperishable stars ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Oak and cedar and pine 
 
 And iron and copper — were these the whole ? 
 
 Will dumb, dead things like these combine 
 
 Ever, to make a ship of the line, 
 
 Without the patriot sailor-soul? 
 
 'T is the human touch alone that brings 
 
 The life, and puts the tongue in things ; 
 
 And this old vessel, although the wreck 
 
 And shadow of the power she was, 
 
 Is full of eloquent voice because 
 
 Of the men who trod her deck. 
 
 The glory that is round her shed, 
 
 All glory born of battles won — 
 
 'T is not of ship, or sail, or gun ; 
 
 'T is of the man, when all is done, 
 
 It is the man's, when all is said. 
 
 [21] 
 
And it was men, O Ship of State, 
 
 That fashioned thee and made thee great, 
 
 And brought thee on thy perilous way, 
 
 Through storms against thy bulwarks hurled, 
 
 And left thee what thou art to-day, 
 
 The envy of the nations of the world ! 
 
 But, my country, great and fair, 
 
 Mark well the clouds that fill the air ; 
 
 Shun the dark fate of them that dare 
 
 And care no more, that, with averted head, 
 
 Seek ease, and leave all glory with the dead ! 
 
 Beware, beware, beware ! 
 
 Beware the lust of office and of gold ; 
 
 Breed men, strong men, like those strong men 
 
 of old — 
 Men whom base-born ambition can not lure, 
 Who sway not with the rabble's fickle mood, 
 But, steadfast in themselves, in motive pure, 
 Love more than self their country's common 
 
 good; 
 Men of that high, heroic altitude 
 Of purpose which is seen and known afar, 
 Large-minded, simple, patriotic men, 
 Who follow conscience ever like a star, 
 And lift a nation to its place again ! 
 
 O ye, who lived a life so true 
 In days forever and ever gone, 
 But somewhere even now live on, 
 [22] 
 
Come back, for we have need of you ; 
 Come from your far-off land to-day, 
 O noble great ones, come away, 
 And meet and mingle with us here, 
 Unseen, though held forever dear, 
 And fill us with the heavenly fire 
 Of aspiration and desire 
 To do and dare and some day be 
 Found worthy of your company. 
 
 VI 
 
 Oh., well for the land where voices break 
 From mouldering wood and crumbling stone 
 To urge the present hour to make 
 The glory of the past its own ! 
 But ill for the land, oh, ill, ill, ill, 
 If cold indifference gains the crown, 
 Turns, and forgets the old renown, 
 Letting those holy voices drown 
 At last, and grow forever still ! 
 
 Here, as the days go streaming by 
 
 And lengthen to unnumbered years, 
 
 In quiet may the good ship lie, 
 
 With her name and her fame and her great 
 
 compeers 
 And the glory that can not die; 
 Here bear forevermore her part 
 With mighty memories in the heart, 
 Here, in the home she sailed from, dwell, 
 [23] 
 
And still, in her silent language, tell 
 Of the right that will not always wait, 
 Of justice that smites, but does not hate, 
 Of love and the sacrifice it brings, 
 And of all the old heroic things 
 That make men noble and nations great. 
 
 [24] 
 
A SONG OF BATTLE 
 
 How goes it, my brother, with you? Does the 
 
 battle go well or go ill? 
 I know what you need — we all need it, a little 
 
 more fight in us still ! 
 
 When once we have grappled with life and 
 
 measured the things we meet, 
 And marked how the castles of youth collapse 
 
 in the dust at our feet; 
 
 How first ideals decay, and our dream bereft 
 
 of its wings 
 Plods wearily on through a mass of exceedingly 
 
 practical things ; 
 
 How sham slips over its face the mask of the 
 
 good and the true, 
 And fools the people who like it (as most of 
 
 the people do) ; 
 
 How merit is slow to rise, and honor gets 
 
 worsted by guile, 
 Till doubt creeps into the mind, and asks, " Is 
 
 it worth the while?" 
 
 [25] 
 
Oh, then let some one among us step forward, 
 
 though tongues be rife, 
 And sing, as best he is able, the song of the 
 
 battle of life, — 
 
 No notes that tremble or falter, nor any that 
 
 savor of wrong, 
 But such as a soldier would heed, when the bugle 
 
 blows clear and strong. 
 
 II 
 
 Speak out the brave word, then, and say that 
 
 life, on the worthiest plan, 
 Is a fight, and a good fight too, needing always 
 
 the best in a man. 
 
 Temptations assail us, and lions forever are 
 
 blocking the way; 
 And circumstance is a hydra: we slay him, and 
 
 still we must slay. 
 
 We are born not to have, but to seek, to fight, 
 to endure, to advance; 
 
 We are neither as beast nor as God: the road- 
 way between is our chance. 
 
 We are men; thank God it is true; we would 
 
 not be other than men, 
 Even though, in a world beyond this, we renew 
 
 the old battle again. 
 [26] 
 
" Fight on," stands the resolute word from the 
 heroes of life who are gone; 
 
 The men who have conquered the fight are al- 
 ways the ones who fought on. 
 
 And would you have life glide along like a river 
 
 all smooth to the sea? 
 Shall we in our pride look for things denied to 
 
 the noblest? Not we. 
 
 We ask not to sit at our ease in some quiet and 
 
 blissful abode, 
 To play on a golden harp, and to bask in the 
 
 sun like a toad. 
 
 We ask, if there's aught to be done, in helping 
 
 the large design 
 Of the good Lord God, for a part and a place 
 
 in the firing line. 
 
 Ill 
 
 And blessed is he that can do, and blessed is 
 
 he that will dare 
 And take, like the man he should be, his burden 
 
 of work and of care. 
 
 Thrice blessed is he that endures and lives in 
 
 the light of the word 
 Of the Master of men, who has sent us not peace 
 
 upon earth, but a sword. 
 [27] 
 
No part for the shirk and the coward, no place 
 
 for the dolt and the fool 
 On earth, or in heaven above ; 't is the worthy 
 
 at last that bear rule. 
 
 For men of conviction and courage there never 
 was sorrier need; 
 
 The Church has its cant ; and the State its cor- 
 ruption, dishonor, and greed. 
 
 The world runs after the shadow, the world 
 
 cleaves unto the dust, 
 Forgetting the thing that is life; and it fails, 
 
 as ever it must. 
 
 Then stand to your work, my brother, and do 
 
 it; you know that you can; 
 Stand firm to your duty, and show us the faith 
 
 and the strength of a man. 
 
 To think right and feel right is good, but to do 
 
 right is conqueror still; 
 Through all of God's worlds the great law is 
 
 to follow " I ought " with " I will." 
 
 'T is better to wear than to rust, 't is better to 
 
 spend than to hoard, 
 O you with the weapon of God — life's splendid 
 
 and terrible sword ! 
 
 [28] 
 
SUB DIVO 
 
SUB DIVO 
 
 Do ye hear them, hear them ever 
 
 Marching through the glimmering fields ? 
 Regiments, battalions, armies — 
 
 See the flash upon their shields! 
 Bright worlds, white worlds, myriad myri- 
 ads, 
 
 Crowding onward, marching by, 
 With the banners of their vanguard 
 
 Flaring in the northern sky. 
 Perfect order and precision, 
 
 None too late and none too soon, 
 With no false note in the music, 
 
 Not a footstep out of tune ; 
 World with world, and all together, 
 
 Stepping solemnly and slow 
 In the silent midnight; marching, 
 
 Down the long, long road they go. 
 Wherefore marching? By whose summons 
 
 Comes this vast, awful array? 
 Bow your heads, earth's kings and war- 
 riors : 
 
 It is God upon the way! 
 
 [31] 
 
II 
 
 And the mountains, they are marching, 
 
 Underneath their ponderous load, 
 Stepping to the selfsame music 
 
 Down the selfsame endless road ; 
 All the peaks on far horizons, 
 
 With the crimson plumes of dawn 
 Waving o'er their solemn faces, 
 
 Steadily go marching on. 
 When the silent spirit listens, 
 
 And the voice no longer speaks, 
 You shall hear the tramping mountains, 
 
 Hear the footfall of the peaks. 
 Seem they always in their places 
 
 Just to stand, and not to fare? 
 Look to-morrow — some to-morrow — 
 
 Look, and they will not be there ! 
 Mountains, prairies, rivers, oceans, 
 
 Through the night and through the day, 
 Swell the column moving onward: 
 
 Lo, 'tis God upon the way. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Life is marching; far out yonder, 
 
 To the border of the sky, 
 And beyond it, in the shadow, 
 
 Where the voiceless ages lie, 
 There are faces, human faces — 
 
 Who can count them ? — everywhere 
 [32] 
 
Faces, millions upon millions, 
 
 Thick as snowflakes in the air; 
 One vast cloud of silent faces, 
 
 Covering the mighty plain; 
 Marching forward, slowly forward — 
 
 And they do not march in vain ! 
 Wrongs, oppressions, dungeons, gallows — 
 
 These are things they leave behind; 
 Cries of pain and guilt and falsehood 
 
 Die away upon the wind. 
 From the midnight, through the twilight, 
 
 Toward the larger light of day, 
 Mighty hosts are marching, marching: 
 
 This is God upon the way. 
 
 IV 
 
 What the goal and why the method? 
 
 Let him answer it who can : 
 When your armies march to conquest, 
 
 Does the leader tell his plan? 
 What is surer of deliverance 
 
 From the realm of moth and rust 
 Than the golden dreams we cherish 
 
 And the heart's unfaltering trust? 
 Somewhere there are bugles blowing — 
 
 Blowing welcome — far ahead ; 
 There are signals flying somewhere 
 
 By the path your feet must tread; 
 And a golden whisper passes, 
 
 With its watchword for the whole, 
 [33] 
 
Through the wide eternal spaces, 
 
 And that watchword is — " The soul ! " 
 
 Know, then, that the endless column 
 None can either turn or stay, 
 
 For with all his hosts forever 
 God Himself is on the way. 
 
 [84] 
 
VACATION 
 
 The spirit of Life has wrought upon the world 
 The old-time miracle; none knoweth how: 
 Green fields, the banners of the wood unfurled, 
 The flash of wings across the smiling moors, 
 The piled-up cumuli where heaven soars 
 All beautiful ever : — it is summer now, 
 And I am free in God's great out-of-doors ! 
 
 In the warm grasses as one lies alone, 
 
 And hears the message which the low wind 
 
 brings — 
 Unsyllabled, indeed, but not unknown — 
 His very being seems to ebb and spend, 
 And somehow in the great world- rhythm 
 
 blend, — 
 Those deep pulsations from the heart of things 
 That throb, and throb, and throb, and make no 
 
 end. 
 
 All things are mine ; to all things I belong ; 
 I mingle in them — heeding bounds nor bars — 
 Float in the cloud, melt in the river's song; 
 In the clear wave from rock to rock I leap, 
 Widen away, and slowly onward creep; 
 I stretch forth glimmering hands beneath the 
 
 stars, 
 And lose my little murmur in the deep. 
 
 [35] 
 
Yea, more than that ; whatever I behold — 
 Dark forest, mountain, the o'erarching wheel 
 Of heaven's solemn turning, all the old 
 Immeasurable air and boundless sea — 
 Yields of its life, builds life and strength in me 
 For tasks to come, while I but see and feel, 
 And merely am, and it is joy to be. 
 
 For that small spark within us is not blind 
 To its beginning; struck from one vast Soul 
 Which, in the frame-work of the world, doth 
 
 bind 
 All parts together ; small, but still agreeing 
 With That which moulded us without our see- 
 ing: 
 Since God is all, and all in all — the Whole, 
 In whom we live, and move, and have our be- 
 ing. 
 
 [36] 
 
THE TREES 
 
 Gensque virum truncis et duro robore nata. 
 
 — ^Eneid viii, 315. 
 
 There's something in a noble tree 
 
 What shall I say? a soul? 
 For 't is not form, or aught we see 
 
 In leaf, or branch, or bole. 
 Some presence, though not understood, 
 
 Dwells there alway, and seems 
 To be acquainted with our mood, 
 
 And mingles in our dreams. 
 
 I would not say that trees at all 
 
 Were of our blood and race, 
 Yet, lingering where their shadows fall, 
 
 I sometimes think I trace 
 A kinship, whose far-reaching root 
 
 Grew when the world began, 
 And made them best of all things mute 
 
 To be the friends of man. 
 
 Held down by whatsoever might 
 
 Unto an earthly sod, 
 They stretch forth arms for air and light, 
 
 As we do after God; 
 And when in all their boughs the breeze 
 
 Moans loud, or softly sings, 
 As our own hearts in us, the trees 
 
 Are almost human things. 
 [37] 
 
What wonder in the days that burned 
 
 With old poetic dream, 
 Dead Phaethon's fair sisters turned 
 
 To poplars by the stream ! 
 In many a light cotillion stept 
 
 The trees when fluters blew; 
 And many a tear, 't is said, they wept 
 
 For human sorrow too. 
 
 Mute, said I ? They are seldom thus ; 
 
 They whisper each to each, 
 And each and all of them to us, 
 
 In varied forms of speech. 
 " Be serious," the solemn pine 
 
 Is saying overhead; 
 " Be beautiful," the elm-tree fine 
 
 Has always finely said; 
 
 " Be quick to feel," the aspen still 
 
 Repeats the whole day long; 
 While, from the green slope of the hill, 
 
 The oak-tree adds, " Be strong." 
 When with my burden, as I hear 
 
 Their distant voices call, 
 I rise, and listen, and draw near, 
 
 " Be patient," say they all. 
 
 [38] 
 
TO A BLUEBELL 
 
 Is that a drop of the ethereal blue 
 
 Thou holdest, swaying on thy slender stalk? 
 Or hast thou from the ocean wave thy hue, 
 
 Frail tenant of the rock ? 
 
 Perchance to beings of a finer sense 
 
 This beautiful color would be sound as well, 
 Worthy to peal through all the rainbow tents 
 
 Of flowerdom from thy bell. 
 
 And yet, fair flower, so few the eyes to see 
 Or tongues to praise thee in this solitude, 
 
 Lackest thou nothing? Pray, bestow on me 
 Thy own contented mood. 
 
 The Hand that set thee on this rocky shelf 
 Guides all the worlds upon their lordly ways ; 
 
 He stamped on thee some image of Himself, 
 And that is more than praise. 
 
 Ay, 't is enough, O little flower, to draw 
 One's joy from God alone: humbly to dwell 
 
 In any place fulfilling heaven's law, — 
 I know that that is well. 
 
 [39] 
 
THE FAR BLUE HILLS 
 
 I lift my eyes and ye are ever there, 
 Wrapped in the folds of the imperial air, 
 And crowned with gold of morn or evening rare, 
 far blue hills. 
 
 Around you break the lights of heaven all, 
 There rolls away the Titan's splendid ball, 
 And there the circling suns of midnight fall, 
 far blue hills. 
 
 Wild bursts the hurricane o'er lake and land, 
 Loud roars the cloud and smites with blazing 
 
 brand ; 
 They pass, and silence comes, and there ye 
 
 stand, 
 
 O far blue hills. 
 
 Your spirit fills the wide horizon round, 
 And lays on all things here its peace profound, 
 Till I forget that I am of the ground, 
 O far blue hills, — 
 
 Forget the earth to which I loved to cling, 
 And soar away as on an eagle's wing, 
 To be with you a calm and steadfast thing, 
 O far blue hills. 
 
 [40] 
 
ENDYMION 
 
 How slowly falls yon sickle from on high 
 Through evening's silent sky, 
 Flashing a splendor from its curved blade 
 On the low-lying shade ! 
 
 Now in and out the narrow cloud that bars 
 Its pathway from the stars 
 It slips, and with a golden glory shines, 
 Nearing the mountain lines. 
 
 Nay, 'tis no sickle which some unseen hand 
 
 Lets fall upon the land; 
 
 It is the jewel of a lady's crown, 
 
 As she steps lightly down. 
 
 Night after night, down the aerial stair 
 She stealeth unaware, 
 
 Leaving the empire which she rules above, 
 And all her state, for love. 
 
 Behold, her feet have touched the rocky steeps 
 Where the young shepherd sleeps, 
 And larger burns her jewel as she moves 
 In search of him she loves. 
 
 And now it fades, and glimmers, and is gone. 
 Happy Endymion ! 
 
 While here the world in sudden shadow lies, 
 She bends above his eyes. 
 [41] 
 
THROUGH THE TELESCOPE 
 
 A gulf in the sky beyond the outermost faint- 
 est mark 
 
 Of star-dust, a fearful gulf illumined by never 
 a spark, 
 
 Where thousands of systems like ours might 
 roll around in the dark — 
 
 The very dark of dark, in spite of the light that 
 runs 
 
 Streaming along its marge from the splendor of 
 dying suns, 
 
 And in spite of the light that spreads like the 
 threads of wind-blown hair 
 
 For leagues, that out-million the millions, across 
 the abysm there, 
 
 And in spite of the myriad worlds that, borne 
 upon gleaming tides, 
 
 Have tumbled, ruining, down the terrible slope 
 of its sides. 
 
 So dark, and the dark of dark, so deep, and the 
 deep of deep, 
 
 Where never a sound doth stir, and never a life- 
 throb creep. 
 
 The Pit of the Universe is it? the wild and bot- 
 tomless grave 
 
 For the things that God in his mercy has vainly 
 endeavored to save? 
 
 [42] 
 
Where all the things that are useless, and all 
 
 that love decay, 
 And all things evil, are thrown forever and ever 
 
 away ? 
 Or is it the vast Outside, so void of the things 
 
 that are, 
 That, bearing aloft not even the candle of one 
 
 pale star, 
 Our God himself has ventured never as yet so 
 
 far? 
 
 [43] 
 
"GO, READ IN THE BOOK OF THE 
 HILLS " 
 
 Go, read in the Book of the Hills the tale of a 
 dateless past, 
 
 And read in the Book of the Stars the story of 
 all that is vast. 
 
 Behind, before, around, they bear an unending 
 sway, 
 
 These Angels of Time and Space — oh, terri- 
 ble Angels they ! 
 
 If thus we stand appalled in the presence of 
 
 Time and Space, 
 And marvel at what they do, and tremble to 
 
 look in their face, 
 What must it seem to behold, however dim and 
 
 far, 
 The face of the King Himself — His face whose 
 
 servants they are ! 
 
 [44] 
 
THE FARTHER SHORE 
 
 We gazed far out upon the lonely main 
 How often! dreaming of the land that lay 
 
 Beyond it — England, Brittany, or Spain — 
 Whither the ships passed silently away. 
 
 But, oh, the change ! My vigil I must keep 
 Without her now along a different strand, 
 
 That rims a vaster, more mysterious, deep, 
 Beyond which lies — no man can say what 
 land! 
 
 Weeks, months, even year on year, may roll 
 Away and leave me, where I sit alone, 
 
 To watch, and wonder in my longing soul 
 Whither the white sail of her life is gone, 
 
 But when at last they call me to embark, 
 
 And I put forth, and feel the cold wind stir, 
 
 Be thou, O Christ, my pilot through the dark, 
 And guide my vessel o'er this sea to her! 
 
 [45] 
 
POEMS OF OCCASION 
 
THE DEAD TEACHER 
 
 Professor Packard, of Bowdoin College, fell dead while 
 walking on the beach at Squirrel Island, only three days 
 after he had presided at the Commencement exercises. 
 These lines were read at the funeral service. 
 
 Ah ! but yesterday we saw him there in the fa- 
 miliar place 
 
 Where he welcomed all as children with his old- 
 time courtly grace; 
 
 And we knew not it was heaven that was shining 
 on his face. 
 
 Light was nearer than we thought it, for to-day 
 
 we come and find 
 He has passed beyond the shadows which had 
 
 made our eyes so blind; 
 And his more than four score summers are a 
 
 golden trail behind. 
 
 Walking by the narrow margin that divides the 
 
 sea and land 
 Of the Here and the Hereafter, he beheld, upon 
 
 the strand, 
 Words of One, who, as aforetime, stooped and 
 
 wrote upon the sand. 
 
 Two there were that walked together ; they 
 communed, as friend with friend, 
 
 On the mysteries, it may be, only angels com- 
 prehend ; 
 
 [49] 
 
One, the Christ, wrote with his finger; one, the 
 Christian, read— " The End." 
 
 Silent do his books await him on their shelves 
 
 in long array, 
 But his book of life is ended and is silent now 
 
 as they, 
 And will henceforth stand among them to be 
 
 seen and read alway ! 
 
 What thou wert, O silent teacher, what thou 
 
 wert and still thou art, 
 Men inherit and will cherish; we possess the 
 
 better part, 
 We, thy pupils, in the fibers of the living brain 
 
 and heart. 
 
 Thou art happy ! Thou, discerning from the 
 
 summit of thy years, 
 Long hast seen the promise over rolling mist 
 
 of doubts and fears, — 
 Seen the vision of the future, and thou dost not 
 
 need our tears. 
 
 Sleep ! the peace of God upon thee — sleep ! and 
 let the heavenly signs 
 
 Hold their way in solemn silence till the world's 
 great morning shines, 
 
 Where thou restest from thy labors in the hear- 
 ing of the pines ! 
 
 [50] 
 
WORKS AND DAYS 
 
 Read at Bowdoin College at the public exercises com- 
 memorative of the one hundredth anniversary of the 
 opening of that institution. 
 
 Dare I this task? Ah! mightier hands than 
 
 mine 
 Have wrought the song here by a right divme, 
 Then passed, and left the memory of their grace 
 And of their art forever in this place! 
 Again I see him as he stands; I hear 
 The voice that has been silent many a year; 
 I give him reverence whom all men know 
 As Bowdoin 9 s sweetest singer* Ay, although 
 I dare the task, 'tis but as one might dare 
 Who lifts an instrument with tender est care 
 And, knowing well the difference, tries to play 
 A little, when the master is away. 
 Better and better does he understand 
 That what he needs, the miracle to command, 
 Is more than instrument: he needs the hand. 
 
 O venerable walls and hallowed plain, 
 And immemorial pines, whose soft refrain 
 Of inarticulate voices overhead 
 Sings round the white encampment of the dead ; 
 O faces, that forever to and fro 
 Flash through the present from the long ago; 
 * Longfellow, who read here his " Morituri Salutamiis" 
 [51] 
 
Splendors of sunset flooding grove and hall, 
 And thou, blue firmament, o'erarching all, — 
 What do ye say to us ? What say ye not ! 
 Visions and voices, haunting every spot, 
 Come thronging round me till I almost seem 
 To walk to-day as in a realm of dream, 
 And scarce may tell, while year flows into year, 
 Which is the substance, which the shadow, here ! 
 The scenes and aspirations of our youth, 
 The teachers and the comrades, — these in truth 
 Abide, and mould us, and become a part 
 Of all we ever are in mind or heart ! 
 
 II 
 
 A hundred years ! What marvels have they 
 
 wrought 
 For truth and freedom and man's happier lot! 
 As if the doors, long bolted, in some vast 
 And inexhaustible treasure-house at last 
 Flew suddenly open, and upon us rolled 
 The great beginnings of the Age of Gold! 
 And hast thou not, through these momentous 
 
 years, 
 Given of thy sons as leaders, pioneers, 
 True workmen, who have wrested from the strife 
 Something of true and good for human life? 
 Have they not grappled manfully with the 
 
 world ? 
 Where duty called was not their flag unfurled? 
 
 [52] 
 
When flashed the swords a million patriots drew 
 On roaring fields, were not thy sons there too? 
 And tell me, is it only chance or fate 
 That makes them mighty counselors in the 
 
 state ? 
 Search the wide land, and unto whom belong 
 But thee its princes in romance and song, — 
 Hawthorne and Longfellow ! Rememberest now 
 Like the Greek mother in the fable thou 
 Thy Castor and Pollux, who ride here no more 
 Their milk-white steeds, but on the farther 
 
 shore, 
 And still shine back, thy great Twin Stars, to 
 
 keep 
 The faithful vigil o'er life's lonely deep. 
 The time would fail me should I try to name 
 The whole long list of honor or of fame; 
 Nor can I wonder if, with such a cloud 
 Of witnesses, thyself art waxing proud! 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was indeed a memorable hour 
 That lifted on the plain this beacon tower 
 For truth to shine from; have not eyes afar 
 Beheld and wondered at the golden star 
 Hung in the orient of our mighty land? 
 Large-minded and far-visioned men, they 
 
 planned 
 Not for a day, who these foundations broad 
 
 [53] 
 
Established in the love and fear of God: 
 They built for immortality; they drew 
 Upon the future which by faith they knew, 
 Believing, when they could not see or hear, 
 The sure fulfillment of the far-off year. 
 
 Nor on this high occasion be forgot 
 
 Those other builders from whose word and 
 
 thought 
 And life itself streamed the mysterious power 
 That moulds the man and shapes the coming 
 
 hour. 
 Of simple ways, of grave and gracious looks, 
 Such teachers, they were better than the books 
 They made and taught from ; they were life and 
 
 fire 
 To make alive, and kindle, and inspire. 
 
 IV 
 
 But all the past is past, its glories dead, 
 Its victories forgotten — Ah ! what have I said? 
 There is no past that is not present still ; 
 No present but the future will fulfill; 
 Some Power amid these changes ever stays, 
 And binds together all our works and days ; 
 And sunset passes into sunrise; we 
 Face the large light of years that are to be. 
 Lo, the untraveled future, with its dreams 
 And possibilities, how vast it seems ! 
 [54] 
 
How far its chartless distances recede, 
 Filled with the signs we have no power to read ; 
 With shadowy forms, which life nor death yet 
 
 claims, 
 And visionary faces without names ! 
 What giants there will magic Science find, 
 In caverns of the earth or air, and bind 
 To service for the welfare of mankind? 
 And waits there yonder, with new treasures 
 
 fraught, 
 Some undiscovered continent of thought? 
 Another Tennyson? And Shakespeare's peer, 
 Or greater one, in some far golden year? 
 The triumphs rolling from our English speech 
 Will be — who knows ! — to what we now can 
 
 reach 
 As billows are to ripples on the beach. 
 And what and where will be the thrones of 
 
 power? 
 The Great Republic — will it in that hour 
 Of larger things and nobler still seem great? 
 And will it fill God's measure for the state? 
 Will all the great and little peoples dwell 
 In peace together? Let the future tell! 
 I know not what it holds of good or ill; 
 I only know the unthwarted Purpose still 
 Will rule, and overrule, and shape, and blend 
 All things as always toward one happy end. 
 I know there will be doubtings, burning words, 
 
 [55] 
 
The right at war with wrong, the clash of 
 
 swords ; 
 Songs will be sung, prayers said, and more and 
 
 more 
 Come sacrifice and victory, — before 
 The world, that hears now only the first chimes 
 Of dawn, can reach the noonday of the times. 
 I know there will be need of self-control, 
 Strong will, clear mind, brave heart, heroic soul, 
 As long as truth survives and seasons roll. 
 And thou shalt hear, again and yet again, 
 The great voice crying hither, " Give me men ! " 
 
 Strong Mother, give them; 'tis thy pledge to 
 
 make 
 The boy into the man; teach him to take 
 The motto of the old Bohemian king, 
 " I serve," and follow it as a living thing ; 
 Tell him the laws of life and his own soul, 
 What duty is, and which way lies the goal. 
 Work deep into his being's inmost springs 
 The spirit and power of elemental things, — 
 The truth that nature's every process fills, 
 The strength and iron firmness of the hills, 
 The gentleness and sunshine of the plain, 
 The river's longing, as it seeks the main, 
 The courage of the tide against the bars, 
 The purity and patience of the stars, 
 [56] 
 
The quick obedience which all things pay 
 The Hand that guides Arcturus on his way. 
 Kindle thy children at the altar-fire 
 Of noble purposes, till they desire 
 Above all else what in itself has worth; 
 Then send them to the ends of all the earth ! 
 
 VI 
 
 O you, who dream of victories and to-day, 
 With morning in your faces, march away, 
 Behold, the letters blazoned across your sky 
 Make one word only, — opportunity. 
 But 'tis enough ; 'tis all that brave men ask ; 
 The man himself, he must fulfill the task; 
 Nor fate, nor chance, nor any star commands 
 Success and failure — nought but your own 
 
 hands. 
 To fail, and fail again, and none the less 
 Keep faith and heart, that also is success ; 
 To gather gold or fame and be not true 
 To truth and self, oh, that is failure too ! 
 
 Go, therefore, not as seekers after ease, 
 Or place, or glory, or of things like these, 
 But rather as men who think, and work, who 
 
 bear 
 Burdens, and in the world's great labors share ; 
 Yea, like great-hearted gentlemen of God, 
 Able to tread where noblest feet have trod, 
 [57] 
 
And, shoulders square, eyes forward, to ad- 
 vance, 
 Winning the mastery of circumstance, 
 Till the glad earth, though dull of vision, see 
 The men whom God intended you to be ! 
 
 The world is all before you; all the ways 
 And words and blessings of unrisen days ; 
 Faint, through the unfolding shadow, breaks 
 
 the glow 
 Of friendly figures ye will some day know; 
 And many a hand that beckons, many a voice 
 That calls to bid you welcome and rejoice. 
 
 And there are voices from behind that cry 
 
 After you, half regret, half prophecy, 
 
 Saying, " Oh, take to your strong hands the 
 
 sign 
 Which ours have carried in life's battle line ; 
 Yours be the valorous deeds we meant to do; 
 The hope we missed fulfill itself in you ; 
 The word that faltered on our tongue, ring 
 
 clear 
 And trumpet-toned from yours to lift and cheer ; 
 The truth we caught but dimly, break in light 
 Full-orbed at last upon your happier sight ; 
 The richer meaning of man's brotherhood 
 We almost grasped, by you be understood." 
 
 [58] 
 
VII 
 
 And still they cry, so human, so divine, 
 These voices ; cry to all that eager line 
 Whose feet will cross these thresholds, and 
 
 whose eyes, 
 While the new century rounds into the skies, 
 Will greet the dawn of many a glad surprise. 
 
 Also to thee, dear Mother, do they cry; 
 And all thy sons cry with them; gloriously 
 Making one voice, that, mingling with the sound 
 Of pine and river, foldeth thee around, 
 And crieth : " Keep life's high ideal alway 
 Burnished and bright; send thou thy golden 
 
 ray 
 Far down the aisles and avenues of time 
 To where all lights end in one light sublime, 
 As stars do Jn the fulness of the day!" 
 
 [59] 
 
AN EAGLE SPIRIT 
 
 Read at Andover Theological Seminary at the public 
 exercises commemorating the bicentenary of the birth of 
 Jonathan Edwards. 
 
 God's truth hath many voices ; sun and star, 
 And mountain, and the deep that rolls afar, 
 Speak the great language ; and, of mightier 
 
 worth, 
 The lips and lives of Godlike men on earth. 
 
 II 
 
 For truth wrought out in human life wields 
 power 
 
 Which no truth else does — since man's natal 
 hour. 
 
 What were the world without the long, strong 
 chain 
 
 Of faithful witnesses, whose heart and brain 
 
 Have throbbed with truth God gave them ? with- 
 out these 
 
 Who, as with hands that link together, stand 
 
 Reaching across the years to that dear Hand 
 
 Which touched blind eyes to sight, wrote on 
 the sand, 
 
 And lifted Peter from the drowning seas? 
 
 Who, better than through book, or hymn, or 
 creed, 
 
 [60] 
 
Draw down their living line the fire we need 
 Of life from Him who is the Life indeed! 
 
 Ill 
 
 A good man's work is of his time and place 
 Where Duty lifts the fulness of her face ; 
 Translate it elsewhere and you do him wrong: 
 His life, his spirit — what of great and fair 
 And true was in him — oh, that doth belong 
 To all the ages and dwells everywhere ! 
 
 IV 
 
 And there he stands, this nobly-moulded man ; 
 You cannot miss him if you turn and scan 
 The land's horizon ; howsoe'er men talk, 
 He still is of us ; no mere name ; a rock 
 The floods may beat upon nor wash away; 
 Foregatherer of the times, his loftier height 
 Flushed w 7 ith the gleams of sweetness and of 
 
 light 
 That wait their fulness till some later day ; 
 An eagle spirit soaring in the sky 
 And mingling with the things that cannot die. 
 
 How full of fire he was and how sincere, 
 Soldier of faith and conscience without fear ! 
 And humble as the little springtime flower 
 Opening its heart out to the Heavenly Power; 
 Poet, and dreamer of the things to be ; 
 [61] 
 
A man of Godly vision ; — such was he, 
 This Dante of New England, who descried 
 The dread Inferno of man's sin and pride ; 
 The Purgatorio where his eyes might trace 
 The workings out and upward of God's grace; 
 And yet who clomb with happier step the slope 
 Of man's aspiring and undying hope 
 Toward Paradiso, there to find his goal 
 At last — the Blessed Vision of the Soul ! 
 
 All this he was, whatever be the name 
 
 He goes by on the roll of earthly fame. 
 
 We judge him as we would ourselves alway 
 
 Be judged; as Christ will judge the world one 
 
 day ; 
 Not by things done, however great they be, 
 But by those longings which immortally 
 Outrun achievement since the world began ; 
 Yea, by the spirit in him; that's the man. 
 
 VI 
 
 What though the vain world scoffed and paths 
 
 grew dim, 
 He knew one Master, and he followed Him. 
 He wielded truth to meet the age's stress 
 Of circumstance, nor made it truth the less. 
 Truth is a sword that flashes, now this way, 
 Now that, the single purpose to obey. 
 [62] 
 
Nay, truth is large ; no man hath seen the whole ; 
 Larger than words ; it brooks not the control 
 Of argument and of distinctions nice; 
 No age or creed can hold it, no device 
 Of speech or language; ay, no syllogism: 
 Truth is the sun, and reasoning is the prism 
 You lift before it ; whence the light is thrown 
 In various colors ; each man takes his own. 
 If this man takes the red, as you the blue, 
 Is yours the whole? and is his truth not true? 
 Spirit is truth, howe'er the colors fall; 
 The fact comes back to spirit after all. 
 
 VII 
 
 Secure, invincible, the man who dare 
 Obey his vision — mark what courage there ! — 
 Dare take the sword of his belief in hand, 
 Whole-hearted face the world with it, and stand, 
 And mind not sacrifice, and count fame dross, 
 For truth's dear sake, and life and all things 
 
 loss, 
 And never dream of failure, never doubt 
 What issue when the stars of God come out! 
 
 VIII 
 
 And would that we had power like him to rise 
 Clear of the thraldom of all compromise, 
 Like him whose feet on this foundation stood,- 
 That God is sovereign and that God is good. 
 [63] 
 
Is such a creed outworn? And tell me, pray, 
 Have we no use for it? Alas the day, 
 Amid the things that savor of the sod, 
 If men forget the sovereign rights of God — 
 The true life's master-word is still, Obey. 
 
 IX 
 
 The man who takes " an inward sweet delight 
 In God," shines like a candle in the night ; 
 The world's black shadow of care and doubt 
 
 and sin 
 Is beaten backward by that power w T ithin ; 
 He walks in freedom ; neither time nor place 
 Can fetter such a spirit ; in his face 
 A light, not of this earth, forever clings ; 
 For, when he will, strong spiritual w T ings 
 Bear him aloft till silent grows all strife, 
 Silent the tumult and the toil of life ; 
 The homes of men, far off, like grains of sand 
 Lie strewn along the wrinkles of the land, 
 All silent ; not a sound or breath may rise 
 To mar the eternal harmony of those skies 
 Through which he goes, still higher, toward the 
 
 line 
 Where sun and moon have no more need to 
 
 shine ; 
 And there, where sordid feet have never trod, 
 He walks in joy the tablelands of God. 
 
 [64] 
 
X 
 
 How much he hath to teach us even yet, 
 Lest life should kill us with its toil and fret ! 
 Things of the earth men seek to have and hold ; 
 They build and waste again their mounds of 
 
 gold. 
 O me ! the din of life, the bell that peals, 
 The traffic, and the roaring of the wheels ! 
 Work grows, and glows, and satisfies us not; 
 Weary we are of what our hands have wrought, 
 Weary of action with no time for thought. 
 The much we do — how little it must count 
 Without some pattern shown us in the mount ! 
 
 XI 
 
 Who seeks and loves the company of great 
 Ideals, and moves among them, soon or late 
 Will learn their ways and language, unaware 
 Take on their likeness, ay, and some day share 
 Their immortality, as this man now 
 Before whose life we reverently bow. 
 
 XII 
 
 So shines the lamp of Edwards ; still it sends 
 One golden beam down the long track of years, 
 This resolute truth which neither yields nor 
 
 spends, — 
 That life, true life, is not of what appears, 
 Not of the things the world piles wide and high ; 
 'Tis of the spirit and will never die. 
 
 [65] 
 
XIII 
 
 His life was noble ; wherefore let the day- 
 White with his memory shine beside the way — 
 Adding its comfort to our human need — 
 Like some fair tablet whereon men may read: 
 " Lo, here and there, great witnesses appear, — 
 The meek, the wise, the fearless, the sincere; 
 They live their lives and witness to the word ; 
 No time so evil but their voice is heard ; 
 Nor sword nor flame can stop them ; though 
 
 they die 
 They grow not silent ; they must cry their cry ; 
 Time's many a wave breaks, dying, on the shore ; 
 They cry forever and forevermore ; 
 For, in and through such men as these men are, 
 God lives and works, and it were easier far 
 To dry the seas and roll the mountains flat 
 Than banish God ; we build our hopes on that." 
 
 [66] 
 
AN APOSTOLIC MAN 
 
 Professor Egbert Coffin Smyth, of Andover Theolog- 
 ical Seminary, died suddenly while his friends and 
 former pupils were preparing to surprise him with an 
 " address " in recognition of his long service and sacri- 
 fice for truth and the life of the spirit. 
 
 O brothers, is the moment past? 
 
 We loved him, and were making bold 
 To tell the love we had not told, 
 
 And tell it to his face at last. 
 
 But while we talked and planned so well, 
 Nor marked the swiftly waning day, 
 That cloud of splendor closed the way — 
 
 Lo, sunset and the evening bell ! 
 
 And he is gone ! The trees are here, 
 The walks, the halls ; but tears bedim 
 Our eyes, because we find not him 
 
 Whom we have known this many a year. 
 
 Gone, though the skies are bending fair, 
 A gracious presence from this place: 
 We nevermore shall see that face 
 
 About the whole world anywhere. 
 
 They did not know, — his fellowmen, — 
 Not always know, at home, abroad, 
 How very close he walked with God: 
 
 They know him better now than then. 
 [67] 
 
He built his life upon the plan 
 
 God gave him, open to our eyes — 
 This grandly-simple, heavenly-wise, 
 
 Truth-loving, apostolic man. 
 
 Oh, where is found the better part 
 
 Of truth and wisdom evermore? 
 
 Bear off your theologic lore ; 
 Give me his great and kindly heart ! 
 
 We bow the head ; our hearts still swim 
 With sorrow, since we came so late, 
 Nor saw him standing at the Gate 
 
 With the great cloud enfolding him. 
 
 We meant to praise ; but he has won 
 A better praise than ours : instead 
 Of those poor words we would have said, 
 
 He has the Master's word, " Well done ! " 
 
 O Friend, if, on that Further Side, 
 Thou hast not yet receded quite 
 So far from us, in that great light 
 
 Where God and godlike men abide, 
 
 But that our feeble cry might swell 
 To reach thee where thou art to-day, 
 Thou, looking back, wouldst smile and say, 
 
 " Love one another, and farewell." 
 
 [68] 
 
A LADY'S PORTRAIT 
 
 Read at Wheaton Seminary, now Wheaton College, 
 Norton, Massachusetts, at the unveiling of a portrait of 
 Mrs. E. B. Wheaton, painted in her ninety-fifth year by 
 Mr. John W. Alexander. 
 
 At last, with all its silent grace, 
 Amid the blossoms of the May 
 There breaks upon our eyes to-day 
 
 This vision of a lady's face. 
 
 You know her? Ay, you need not tell: 
 A thousand daughters in the land 
 Have known the welcome of that hand, 
 
 And felt its pressure of farewell. 
 
 What benedictions in her gaze, 
 
 What memories hover around her chair, 
 As, sitting in the sunset there, 
 
 She wears the crown of well spent days ! 
 
 O little birds that come to bless 
 
 Our woodlands, round her doorway sing ; 
 Beneath her windows, flowers of spring, 
 
 Lift up to her your loveliness. 
 
 For she, in many a heart of need, 
 Hath put a song in place of tears, 
 And scattered down these golden years 
 
 The flower of many a kindly deed. 
 [69] 
 
Lo, like a seed upon the ground, 
 
 There fell a thought once from her heart ; 
 If you would know how large the part 
 
 That thought has stood for, look around ! 
 
 For one who loved her planted it; 
 
 One cherished it for what might be ; 
 
 She watched the seed become the Tree 
 Beneath whose grateful shade we sit. 
 
 A thousand daughters did I say? 
 Ah! as I see the lengthening line 
 Far down the future's pathway shine> 
 
 And pass, and still not pass away, 
 
 I cannot count them ! Come and go 
 They will forever; grove and hall 
 And each familiar scene they all 
 
 Will cherish; and the Tree will grow. 
 
 But when, in some remoter hour, 
 
 Strangers behold how great the task 
 Accomplished, and are moved to ask 
 
 Whence came the impulse and the power, 
 
 Then silently, within this place 
 
 Of such beginnings, there will rise, 
 For answer to their wondering eyes, 
 
 The vision of this lady's face. 
 
 [70] 
 
A POET'S CENTENARY 
 
 Read at Bowdoin College on Longfellow Day, June 
 26, 1907, at the public exercises commemorative of the 
 one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the poet, who 
 graduated at Bowdoin in the class of 1825, and fifty 
 years later read there his " M oritur i Salutamus" 
 
 We were a busy people; axes rang 
 
 And anvils ; when amid the day's turmoil 
 
 A melody crept ; a master came, and sang, 
 And charmed the workers, sweetening all the 
 toil 
 
 As Orpheus did, who once, with flute to lip, 
 
 Helped mightily at the launching of the ship. 
 
 And in and out among us many a day 
 
 He went, this singer, with his happy strain; 
 Greeted the little children at their play, 
 
 Was present at the hanging of the crane ; 
 Blessed maidenhood and manhood ; blessed the 
 
 birds ; — 
 His life beat like the sunshine through his 
 words. 
 
 At last he said upon occasion high, 
 
 The light of seventy summers in his face, 
 
 " Caesar, we who are about to die 
 
 Salute you," and he said it from this place, 
 
 With aged comrades round him who should all 
 
 So .on restore life's armor to the wall. 
 [71] 
 
Those men have passed into the Silent Land, 
 Their earthly battles ended; many a change 
 
 Has crept on us beneath time's moulding hand, 
 And on these scenes with faces new and 
 strange ; 
 
 But not on him : the magic of his art 
 
 Still penetrates the citadel of the heart! 
 
 And where he once has entered to delight, 
 And cheer, and strengthen, linger he must 
 and will ; 
 
 Oft mingling with the voices of the night 
 
 Some fragment of his song to haunt us still, 
 
 Or lure to far-off realms, and unawares 
 
 Scatter in flight an Arab host of cares. 
 
 A hundred years — how old he would have been ! 
 
 And yet how young ; for, as we turn his page, 
 We mark the throbbings of a life within 
 
 Old as the world and new to every age. 
 Beauty and love and sorrow — from such 
 
 themes 
 Uprose the golden fabric of his dreams. 
 
 II 
 
 " God sent his singers upon earth," he said ; 
 What were the earth without them? what 
 were life 
 We call so glorious but games and bread, 
 Sordid existence or ignoble strife, 
 [72] 
 
Were there no voices crying to the soul, 
 Nor any vision of life's path and goal? 
 
 The truth we need and wait for may at times 
 Break suddenly on us like a cannon's roar, 
 
 But oftener comes in faintest elfin chimes 
 
 Blown o'er the border line from some dim 
 shore ; 
 
 Or 3^et, as blind and heedless as we are, 
 
 It comes in perfect stillness like a star. 
 
 Ay, even invisible as the air that rolls, 
 
 Stand great unproven truths which, as we 
 must, 
 We build our lives upon, and stake our souls, 
 Outweighing knowledge with our hope and 
 trust, — 
 Truths which keen Science, labor as she may, 
 Can never explain — and never explain away ! 
 
 Science may guide o'er many a hill and plain, 
 Revealing how the pathways meet and part ; 
 
 But for life's pathless and uncharted main, 
 Whereon our surest pilot is the heart, 
 
 We need their vision unto whom belong 
 
 The mastery and the mystery of song! 
 
 " Listen ! behold ! believe ! " are tones that fill 
 The poets' signs and symbols manifold, — 
 
 Those fables of the ever-singing Hill, 
 
 Isles of the Blest, cities with streets of gold, 
 [78] 
 
Enchanted castles, youth-restoring streams, 
 And all the El Dorados of our dreams ! 
 
 For song, indeed, is truth full-winged with 
 power ; 
 A faithful voice that calls us from afar; 
 An impulse from some land where every hour 
 God's truth reigns sovereign ; some hope- 
 bringing star; 
 Some sword that stirs the spirit, as were stirred 
 The Prophets and Apostles of the Word ! 
 
 The poets go before us ; they discern, 
 
 Across these spaces of life's gloom and glow, 
 
 The great ideals that ever live and burn ; 
 
 They break all pathways without fear, and, 
 lo! 
 
 They travel onward, keeping still in sight 
 
 Some pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. 
 
 The blessed poets save us — not the kings, 
 
 And not the warriors ; no great human wrongs 
 Have they e'er stood for; no great rightful 
 things 
 But they have loved and cherished; by their 
 songs 
 We march and prosper; by their torches' rays 
 The world moves forward into nobler ways. 
 
 And in their hands for gracious use they bear 
 The crowning gift of immortality ; 
 [74] 
 
The songless cities perish; in thin air 
 
 Empires dissolve ; old customs cease to be ; 
 But aught that is, though flung by others by, 
 The poets touch it and it can not die ! 
 
 Still Homer's heroes live and talk and fight; 
 
 The old men chirp of Helen ; beacons flare 
 From Ilium on to Argos in the night ; 
 
 Penelope does not of her lord despair, 
 But ravels still the day's work with her hands, 
 And still Nausfcaa by the pillar stands. 
 
 How marvelous time's world-structure named of 
 Song, 
 With masonry of dream-stuff, and with halls 
 Of golden music ! yet secure and strong ; 
 
 Whereon decay's dark shadow never falls; 
 A miracle of the masters from all lands 
 And from all times — this house not made with 
 hands ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ah ! silently there sweeps before my eyes 
 A vision of three poets dear to all 
 
 Who feel the touch of beauty, and who prize 
 The nobler voices that around us fall; 
 
 Each from a different land, but all the three 
 
 Facing the morning of a world to be. 
 
 [75] 
 
Lo, Roman Virgil ! at whose wizard name 
 
 Things lost their power to change and pass 
 away; 
 
 Troy burns and does not vanish in the flame ; 
 A great queen greets the exiles ; still to-day 
 
 Men hear, as by the Tiber's side they stroll, 
 
 The funeral hymn of young Marcellus roll. 
 
 Lo, also, England's Virgil! Arthur reigns 
 
 Forever in the halls of Camelot ; 
 Fair women sacrifice for noble gains, 
 
 Who never will grow old or be forgot ; 
 And those three Queens that helped are helping 
 
 still 
 The men who help to banish human ill. 
 
 And, pray, why lingers Hiawatha so? 
 
 Why must Priscilla and John Alden stand 
 Telling the old, old tale, and never go? 
 
 Wherefore this many a year throughout the 
 land 
 Keeps sad Evangeline her unwearied quest? 
 The answer is — our Virgil of the West ! 
 
 Three Laureates of three great peoples ! 
 Each, 
 In golden phrase and music-laden words, 
 Moulded to sweetest use his country's speech ; 
 Loved simple things, touched ever the com- 
 mon chords, 
 
 [76] 
 
Winning the people's heart, and lived to hear 
 The praises of the world sound in his ear. 
 
 The realm of books each ever loved to roam, 
 Finding new glories for the song he wove ; 
 
 Sang childhood, the affections of the home, 
 And the dear constancy of woman's love; 
 
 Found tears in human things, and evermore 
 
 Stretched yearning hands out toward the far- 
 ther shore. 
 
 They sang that men should faint not, but en- 
 dure, 
 Follow the gleam, and wear the fadeless 
 flower 
 
 Of hope forever ; that the goal is sure 
 
 For those who strive and trust the Heavenly 
 Power. 
 
 They lived pure lives and gentle, nor through 
 all 
 
 Uttered a word they ever need recall. 
 
 So like in their unlikeness, that I dare 
 
 (As else I dare not) name them side by side ; 
 
 Swayed by one mood and spirit ; as they fare, 
 The spaces close between them, else so wide ; 
 
 While their immortal echoes strike across 
 
 All tumults hitherward, nor suffer loss. 
 
 [77] 
 
IV 
 
 Bowdoin, dear Mother, to thy listening ear 
 His step falls on these pathways as of yore; 
 
 Again the " boy's will is the wind's will " here, 
 And his the " long, long thoughts " of youth 
 once more ; 
 
 For thine he was when first the vision came 
 
 To him of the alluring face of fame. 
 
 He caught the pathos from thy murmuring 
 pines, 
 The melody from thy river, sweetness and 
 light * 
 From the fair sky above thee where the signs, 
 Thick with white worlds, roll solemnly by 
 night; 
 Thy son, and master in the art divine, 
 All this he wrought into his lustrous line. 
 
 But chiefly — for he knew what springs had fed 
 His youthful spirit in its purpose high — 
 
 Did he remember — on the day he said 
 That he was old and was about to die — 
 
 With gracious words of tenderness and truth, 
 
 The faces of the teachers of his youth. 
 
 Thrice happy are such teachers, with the dower 
 Of knowledge and of counsel in their hand ! 
 
 They sit forever at the springs of power, 
 And. from these quiet places of the land, 
 [78] 
 
No trumpet blowing and no flag unfurled, 
 They shape the forces that will shape the world. 
 
 Ah! as once more we walk these shades among, 
 What visions from the bygone years arise ! 
 
 The faces, oh, the faces, how they throng, 
 And pass, and come again, with friendly eyes, 
 
 And fill, for each of us, with life more vast 
 
 That other present which we call the past! 
 
 And he is of them ! Lo, the hearts that brim 
 
 With hope and courage, and do not grow old, 
 Have somewhere, somehow, learned to love like 
 him 
 The nobler things that are not bought and 
 sold, 
 Remembering the light that through life's bars 
 Breaks from beyond the sunset and the stars ! 
 
 [79] 
 
THE MAN 
 Addressed to my Alma Mater 
 
 You sent the man : he builded well, 
 
 And steadfastly, and long, 
 Until a grateful people saw 
 
 Its lordliest Tower of Song. 
 
 You sent the man: in silence rose, 
 
 Defying time and chance, 
 A thing of splendor in the land, — 
 
 Its Palace of Romance. 
 
 You sent the man : in quiet ways 
 He wrought, nor sought renown ; 
 
 But in the end the Sultan's throne 
 Of shame came tumbling down. 
 
 You sent the man : he helped to shape 
 
 The nation's fate, because 
 He blazed a path which they must take 
 
 Henceforth who give it laws. 
 
 You sent the man : seeking afar 
 The world-sought, age-long goal, 
 
 He pushed through perilous ways, and 
 grasped 
 The secret of the Pole. 
 
 [80] 
 
However far the purpose run, 
 Or splendid be the plan, 
 
 The glory of achievement means 
 The story of a man. 
 
 [81] 
 
YOUTH 
 
 Thou, in that golden time whose other name 
 Is opportunity, dost thou not know, 
 Has no one ever told thee, of thy claim? 
 Thou art the heir, for heaven hath made thee so ; 
 All things are thine; look up, and thou shalt 
 
 see: 
 Sun, moon, and stars are bowing down to thee, 
 Making obeisance, as in Joseph's dream; 
 For thee it is that waters roll, stars shine, 
 Voices arise by lonely hill and stream, 
 Friendly monitions, whisperings divine; 
 For thee do Ariels sing ; and where the walls 
 'Twixt the two worlds are thinnest, in the air 
 Come momentary gleams — the sheen that falls 
 As from no earthly garments ever: there, 
 With heaven's power and blessing to bestow, 
 The holy Presences pass to and fro. 
 
 All possibilities are in thy hand, 
 All powers thine to summon and command, 
 And all for this : that thou, made brave of heart, 
 Daring to seem not other than thou art, 
 Mightst follow thine ideal, not the show 
 Of what hath in it aught of base or low, 
 But thine own best ideal, till thou be 
 Thyself the man the world needs most to see ! 
 
 [82] 
 
LAND O' PINES 
 
 Old Home Week in Maine 
 
 Not least of stars thy star 
 
 Of statehood shines, 
 Where, in the north and far 
 
 Beyond thy lines, 
 Thy loyal children are, 
 
 O Land o' Pines ! 
 
 II 
 
 Lord o'er a thousand hills 
 
 Katahdin looms ; 
 Thy silent forests hold 
 
 Primeval glooms ; 
 And vales and plains unfold 
 
 Their vasty rooms. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But these are not the things 
 
 Thou prizest most, — 
 These, nor thy streams, and lakes, 
 
 And leagues of coast : 
 What thy own sons are, makes 
 
 Thy proudest boast. 
 
 [83] 
 
IV 
 
 The torrent and the rock 
 Mix in their blood, — 
 
 The force that drives, and so 
 Achieves the good; 
 
 The heart that bears the blow 
 As brave men should. 
 
 For many have shaped the deed 
 
 In church and state; 
 And many have helped to mould 
 
 The nation's fate ; 
 And some, in days now old, 
 
 In song were great. 
 
 VI 
 
 We greet thy landscapes fair 
 
 Now and again ; 
 Thy wealth of field and mart 
 
 We greet ; and then 
 We greet thee — as thou art — 
 
 Mother of men. 
 
 [84] 
 
VII 
 
 Far in the north thy star 
 Shines steady and clear; 
 
 And lo, not there alone 
 It shines, nor here: 
 
 Where'er thy sons are known 
 That star is dear. 
 
 [85] 
 
JUDGMENT SEATS 
 
JUDGMENT SEATS 
 
 O little flower, 
 
 tiny golden sun, 
 Shining amid the grass 
 Where we wayfarers pass 
 So near thee, little one! 
 
 1 look and stand in awe 
 For what but now I saw: 
 Thou saidst — I almost heard 
 Thy quiet word — 
 
 Thou saidst to one, " Draw nigh " 
 But to the next, " Go by " ; 
 And, lo, each straightway did 
 As he was bid ! 
 
 II 
 
 O happy star, 
 
 little silver world, 
 That comest up the blue, 
 Singing, when day is through 
 And winds are furled, 
 
 1 tremble as I see 
 
 Thy large eye look on me! 
 Thou saidst, with gentle voice 
 Down calling through the shade, 
 To one thou saidst, "Rejoice: 
 Sing with me, Pure-in-Heart " ; 
 
 [89] 
 
But unto one, " Depart " ; 
 And they obeyed. 
 
 Ill 
 
 O love-lit face, 
 O beautiful sweet face, 
 Limned on the canvas there, 
 How scarcely do I dare 
 Behold thy truth and grace! 
 For thou art saying, too, 
 What each must do — 
 Come near or go afar, 
 Whoe'er we are. 
 Some, therefore, look and stay, 
 Some look and turn away, 
 And all obey. 
 
 IV 
 
 What golden key, 
 What clue divinely spun, 
 Waits to reveal this power, 
 In face and star and flower, 
 That speaks and it is done? 
 Lo ! all things good and true 
 That meet my eyes ; 
 All deeds that others do 
 In love and sacrifice, — 
 Seem, by some high command, 
 Robed in strange light, and stand 
 [90] 
 
Dividing men on sight 
 To left and right : 
 Where'er I turn my feet, 
 I find no neutral place, 
 No voiceless thing, but face 
 Some judgment seat! 
 
 [91] 
 
PROPHET AND PRIEST 
 
 Two selves I am: unlike these seem to be 
 
 As west and east: 
 One is the prophet in me, as in thee, 
 
 And one the priest. 
 
 The prophet lets the future mould his plan; 
 
 The priest the past : 
 The prophet marches in the column's van ; 
 
 The priest comes last. 
 
 The prophet takes the spirit for a guide; 
 
 The priest his book : 
 One learns the truth that brushes by his side; 
 
 One does not look. 
 
 The prophet lifts his heart up when he prays ; 
 
 The priest his hands : 
 The prophet, acting, thinks ; the priest obeys, 
 
 Nor understands. 
 
 The prophet, preaching, keeps the goal in view ; 
 
 The priest his creed : 
 The prophet stirs ; the priest, when words are 
 through, 
 
 Forgets the deed. 
 
 [92] 
 
Something the prophet suffers — scorn of lip, 
 
 Or stroke of rod — 
 But gains the vision, wins the fellowship 
 
 And life of God. 
 
 [93] 
 
THE BUILDER AND HIS TOOLS 
 
 Nations arise and fall: 
 
 One law decides it all, — 
 
 To serve the Builder's purpose if they can. 
 
 He takes them up for tools, 
 
 Or lays them down, as rules 
 
 The moment's need in furtherance of His plan. 
 
 With varied aims and strife 
 
 And thousand-summered life, 
 
 Each one at last achieves some separate goal, 
 
 Which, when achieved, afar 
 
 Looks simple as a star 
 
 And fitted to its place within the whole. 
 
 II 
 
 The Builder raised His hand, 
 And there was Greece, as planned, 
 Launching her ships to peer through all the 
 
 seas: 
 Heroic deeds along 
 With Homer's noble song; 
 Temples, and oracles, and Socrates. 
 
 For what, you ask, designed? 
 To wake the slumbering mind 
 And set a hunger in the soul, forsooth: 
 [94] 
 
To all men's hopes and fears, 
 Across the waste of years, 
 
 Greece voiced the timeless question, " What is 
 truth? " 
 
 III 
 
 Again the Builder's sign, 
 
 And David's royal line 
 
 Bare down the wrathful age its tiny spark, 
 
 Close-shielding it, as one, 
 
 Where the wild breezes run, 
 
 Might shield an only candle in the dark: 
 
 Till, grown to full desire 
 
 As heaven's great altar-fire, 
 
 The spark shone through the world in gentle 
 
 ruth: 
 This people for all time 
 The answer gave sublime, 
 In giving Him who said, " I am the truth." 
 
 IV 
 
 Hebrew and Greek were done ; 
 
 Builder and work went on: 
 
 Rome, lifted on her hills, began to trace 
 
 The wrong of lawless might, 
 
 The lawful might of right, 
 
 In laws she laid on all the human race. 
 
 [95] 
 
Unconscious instrument, 
 
 Toward such a mission bent, 
 
 Rome called the world to order by her word, 
 
 That then and evermore, 
 
 All lands and waters o'er, 
 
 The question and the answer might be heard. 
 
 [96] 
 
HAMMER AND ANVIL 
 
 " Hammer away, ye hostile hands ; 
 Your hammers break, God's anvil stands." 
 
 Look forth and tell me what they do 
 
 On Life's broad field. Oh, still they fight, 
 The False forever with the True, 
 
 The Wrong forever with the Right. 
 And still God's faithful ones, as men 
 
 Who hold a fortress strong and high, 
 Cry out in confidence again, 
 
 And find a comfort in the cry: 
 " Hammer away, ye hostile hands, 
 Your hammers break, God's anvil stands." 
 
 Older than pyramid or sphinx, 
 
 Old as the stars themselves, the word 
 Whereby, when other courage sinks, 
 
 The courage born of heaven is stirred. 
 For, when God made the world and knew 
 
 That good and evil could not blend, 
 He planned, however men might do, 
 
 What should be would be in the end. 
 And, though as thick as ocean sands 
 They rain their blows, the anvil stands. 
 
 Oh, many a time has this vain world 
 Essayed to thwart the mighty plan ; 
 
 Its fleets and armies have been hurled 
 Against the common rights of man. 
 
 [97] 
 
But wrecked Armadas, Waterloos, 
 
 Empires abandoned to decay, 
 Proclaim the truth they did not choose — 
 
 What broken hammers strew the way ! 
 Though all the world together bands 
 To smite it, still the anvil stands. 
 
 Thou knowest that thy cause is just? 
 
 Then rest in that ; thy cause is sure. 
 Thy word is true? Oh, then it must, 
 
 In spite of slanderous tongues endure. 
 As toward the crag the billow rides, 
 
 Then falls back, shattered, to its place: 
 As fans the breeze the mountain sides, 
 
 Nor fans the mountain from its base, — 
 So, in all times and in all lands, 
 Men's hammers break, God's anvil stands. 
 
 [98] 
 
THE KING 
 
 O sham, who sittest boldly on the throne, 
 There's someone passing at the palace gate, 
 Who smiles, and whispers his dread word of 
 
 fate, — 
 The real king to thee and thine unknown. 
 And he is passing through the world of men, 
 Pays tribute to the Caesar bearing rule, 
 Walks in the market place, sees many a fool, 
 " Not yet " keeps saying, and is strong again ; 
 Distinguishes what seems so from what is, 
 My manly man with that clear soul of his; 
 And through them all, illumined from, afar 
 He starlike moves, himself led by a star 
 Which no earthborn ambition can unsphere; 
 Believes what should be will be ; never dreams 
 The end is failure ; knows — whatever seems — 
 He knows what light shines yonder ; can endure 
 All else should perish — his ideal is sure. 
 And that means triumph; shows that he can 
 
 hear, 
 And see, and feel, with finer sense than most, — 
 Hear music from the far-off crystal coast 
 As of some victory — faint, but never lost ; 
 And so by right, which none may steal or bor- 
 row, 
 Sustain to-day with strength drawn from to- 
 morrow. 
 
 [99] 
 
And shall we know him as we see him pass? 
 Some may ; the multitude will not, alas ! 
 Such gentleness and such simplicity ; 
 No fuss, no noise, no label; but 't is he. 
 I think there may be thorn wounds on his brow ; 
 Perhaps there will be nail prints in his hands; 
 The world bestows these things, nor under- 
 stands ; 
 Some hold them signs of failure even now. 
 And yet 't is he ; his triumph most assured 
 Who stands for truth and right and has en- 
 dured ; 
 Been tempted and endured ; made sacrifice 
 For noble ends, nor stooped to compromise, 
 Nor turned, but gone straightforward as did 
 
 seem 
 The living creatures in the prophet's dream, 
 Straightforward always, and endured; I say 
 The way thus walked in is life's Sacred Way, 
 And it is he; for, when the light shall grow, 
 And all the bugles of the morning blow, 
 Oh, then the disillusioned world will bring 
 Its tardy homage and all cry, " The King ! " 
 
 [100] 
 
GREATNESS 
 
 What makes a man great? Is it houses and 
 land? 
 Is it argosies dropping their wealth at his 
 
 feet? 
 Is it multitudes shouting his name in the 
 street ? 
 Is it power of brain ? Is it skill of hand ? 
 Is it writing a book? Is it guiding the State? 
 Nay, nay, none of these can make a man great. 
 
 II 
 
 The crystal burns cold with its beautiful fire, 
 And is what it is ; it can never be more ; 
 The acorn, with something wrapped warm at 
 the core, 
 In quietness says, " To the oak I aspire." 
 That something in seed and in tree is the same ; 
 What makes a man great is his greatness of 
 aim. 
 
 Ill 
 
 What is greatness of aim? Your purpose to 
 trim 
 For bringing the world to obey your behest? 
 Oh, no, it is seeking God's perfect and best, 
 
 [101] 
 
Making something the same both in you and in 
 
 Him. 
 Love what He loves, and, child of the sod, 
 Already you share in the greatness of God. 
 
 [102] 
 
GLORY 
 
 Glory of Greece that arose, transfiguring 
 
 mountain and shore 
 And fields and cities of men, then faded and 
 
 was no more ; 
 Glory of Rome, earth-wide, that seemed immor- 
 tal, and cast 
 All glory else in the shade, but changed, in the 
 
 end, and passed; 
 Glory of sceptres and thrones, glory of sword 
 
 and of song; 
 Glory of gold that beguiles the heart of the 
 
 heedless throng: 
 Oh, what are these glories beside the glory of 
 
 one lone Man, 
 Who dreamed not of glory, but wrought, in trial 
 
 and sorrow, his plan 
 For helping the needs of the world, for healing 
 
 the wounds that smart, 
 For lifting the vision of God to the burdened 
 
 and breaking heart ! 
 Whose glory it was to serve, no matter what 
 
 men might say ; — 
 The glory that grows with the years and never 
 
 can pass away ! 
 
 [103] 
 
THE TITANIC 
 
 Tell me, do ye never hear it when the wind is 
 from the sea? 
 Not the thunder-roll of billows, nor the moan- 
 ing of the bars, 
 Nor the throb of f ar-off engines ; it must some- 
 thing rarer be — 
 Music, music that is silent like the music of 
 the stars. 
 
 For they played, those brave musicians, in their 
 places as before, 
 Though they felt the chilling Shadow closing 
 slowly round them all; 
 Played to keep the hearts up of the men whose 
 need was sore; 
 Played as soldiers march with banners when 
 they march to fight and fall. 
 
 Did not think it any marvel, or that nothing 
 mattered now ; 
 Never dreamed the world would praise them, 
 if indeed it ever knew — 
 One may of the crown be worthy though it pass 
 untouched his brow — 
 And the music was immortal just because 
 their hearts were true. 
 
 [104] 
 
Passed into the Silence, playing; and the music 
 is not done : 
 God and valor are not ended when the battle 
 flags are furled : 
 Finer than what any master from his instru- 
 ment e'er won 
 Was that loyal note of courage which goes 
 singing through the world ! 
 
 [105] 
 
CONSCIENCE 
 
 The man of power rejoicing cries, " I can; " 
 " I may," the man of pleasure ; but we trust, 
 
 And all the world trusts with us, still the man 
 Hearing a different voice, who says, " I 
 must." 
 
 O Conscience, Conscience, how we need thee 
 
 now! 
 
 Wind, fire, and earthquake pass ; the time 
 
 abounds 
 
 In these great voices; but, oh, where art thou? 
 
 Is thy voice lost amid life's grosser sounds? 
 
 Or art thou fled across the golden bars 
 Of evening with thy purer light to shine 
 
 Somewhere far off, beyond the quiet stars, 
 
 Far off, and leave us without guide or sign? 
 
 Not so ; earth's towers and battlements decay ; 
 
 Thrones tremble and fall; old sceptres lose 
 control : 
 But, as God lives, thou livest; thou w T ilt stay, 
 
 O Conscience, God's vicegerent in the soul ! 
 
 We are thy bondmen, and thy ways are good ; 
 Thou art what makes us greater than the 
 dust 
 We came from ; and still, howsoe'er we would, 
 Thy law is ever on us and we must. 
 [1061 
 
THE PRISONER 
 
 A lump, they said, from some primeval state: 
 Dark, rough, and seeming very little worth: 
 
 I laid it by an ember in my grate, 
 
 And, lo, an " imprisoned splendor " issued 
 forth! 
 
 you who preach, and you who teach, think 
 not 
 
 That robe or book will ever win the mark: 
 If you indeed would stir another's thought, 
 
 Lay mind to mind : communicate the spark. 
 
 Plato was kindled, when he felt the flame 
 Of Socrates on his own spirit fall ; 
 
 From John the fisherman the prophet came, 
 Set free by Him whose touch may kindle all. 
 
 [107] 
 
AN OLD SAW 
 
 The man who knows and knows he knows, 
 
 To him your homage bring; 
 He wields the power that waits and wins, 
 
 And he is rightful king. 
 
 Let him who does not know, and knows 
 
 He does not know, be classed 
 As heir of all things everywhere, 
 
 For he will know at last. 
 
 But whosoever does not know, 
 And, here in life's great school, 
 
 Knows not he does not know, is doomed 
 To live and die a fool. 
 
 [108] 
 
THE DIFFERENCE 
 
 Let two go forth into the Garden of Life, 
 And one returns with roses : he likes flowers ; 
 And one with darnel, henbane, thistles: why, 
 When flowers are plenty? Just his taste for 
 
 weeds. 
 Where'er men go, in heaven, or earth, or hell, 
 They find themselves, and that is all they find. 
 
 [109] 
 
THE IMMORTALS 
 
THE IMMORTALS 
 
 Think! the gods have been among us, seen us, 
 
 marked our speech and tone, 
 Touched the smallness of our natures with the 
 
 largeness of their own, 
 Deigned to walk the path beside us, in our homes 
 
 to eat and drink, 
 They, the deathless, ever-blessed — O my com- 
 rades, do you think? 
 
 And we watched them, never dreaming they 
 were more than common men, — 
 
 Though we heard their gracious language, 
 though again and yet again 
 
 We beheld the generous fashion which they used 
 in going through 
 
 Every task and every duty given unto men to 
 do, — 
 
 Till the great occasion called them, showed their 
 stature to us, drew 
 
 Off the vail that hid their faces, as they van- 
 ished and we knew. 
 
 Hush ! they may be walking round us in the 
 
 twilight — who shall say? — 
 Others of the gods, and seeking if we give them 
 
 yea or nay, 
 We, the deaf ones, we, the blind ones, needing 
 
 better ears and eyes 
 [113] 
 
To discern the great immortals through what- 
 ever strange disguise, 
 
 That, amid the blaze of noonday or the even- 
 ing's purple glow, 
 
 We may heed them, know them, love them, ere 
 these also rise and go. 
 
 [114] 
 
ON THE FLY LEAF OF A FRIEND'S 
 BOOK 
 
 This book is his? the beautiful dreams between 
 These covers his, the friend's I used to know? 
 
 Yet many a morn together have we seen 
 The clouds refold their airy tents and go, 
 
 And many a silent evening, from the glen, 
 The mountain blazing with their golden camp. 
 
 Fool that I was not to have known him then ! 
 I never guessed he owned Aladdin's lamp ! 
 
 He seemed like other men whom one may meet, 
 But, like the honey-bees, with skill untold, 
 
 He gathered treasures even at my feet, 
 
 And in the dark was building roofs of gold! 
 
 [115] 
 
THE STAFF AND THE TREE 
 
 Sent with the gift of a walking-stick to a friend who 
 was going away. 
 
 This grew a sapling on the mountain side, 
 With aspirations to become a tree ; 
 
 I cut it down, and in that moment's pride 
 I slew the glorious thing it was to be. 
 
 It might have risen to an imperial height 
 
 And gladdened with its beauty all the hill — 
 With bowers of green and spaces sweet with 
 light, 
 Where birds might build, and dwell, and sing 
 at will. 
 
 'T is now a staff. Yet, when the years grow 
 brief, 
 And you would share with it your weight of 
 cares, — 
 When life is putting on the yellow leaf, — 
 A miracle will happen unawares: 
 
 For you will hear the birds that never sang 
 Within its unborn branches ; you will see 
 
 The leaves that never rustled lightly hang 
 Their banners forth — your staff will tower 
 a tree! 
 
 [116] 
 
And it will be the sun and wind and dew 
 Of other days by which that tree is made ; 
 
 Then, it may chance, a friendly ghost or two 
 Will come and sit beside you in its shade! 
 
 [117] 
 
THE RETURN 
 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar 
 When I put out to sea. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 The shadow far and wide; 
 
 All sound hath died, 
 
 And Something felt but seen not from the shore, 
 
 Nor moved by any sail nor any oar, 
 
 Went outward with the tide. 
 
 No moaning of the bar; 
 
 But far, oh, far 
 
 The silent ship has gone upon its way 
 
 Into the space that lies beyond our day, 
 
 Beyond our evening star. 
 
 Thence came it at our need ; 
 It bore a seed 
 
 From out the bosom of the Shadowy Sea, 
 Which grew, and filled the whole world glori- 
 ously 
 With flower of light indeed ! 
 
 No sadness of farewell, 
 No voice, no bell, 
 
 The heart too full for aught but silence, when 
 A great soul turns to seek and find again 
 Its home where great souls dwell. 
 [118] 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 T. C. P. 
 
 Skies were not yet red with sunset, far off still 
 
 the evening bell, 
 Only sights and sounds of midday eye and ear 
 
 could seem to tell, 
 And we knew not that our greeting was the 
 
 greeting of farewell; 
 
 Did not know, in our rejoicing, that the hour 
 
 had waxed so late, 
 That the tides were sobbing seaward which can 
 
 neither turn nor wait, 
 And already in our presence stood the Opener 
 
 of the Gate. 
 
 Thin the vail that hides the future we have 
 
 never seen nor can, 
 And that future somehow mingles strangely in 
 
 the life of man, 
 While we see in part, and only see in part, the 
 
 Father's plan. 
 
 Every life hath its completeness — Are there 
 
 not twelve hours still 
 In the day ? — and whosoever makes his own 
 
 the Master's will, 
 Living, dying, staying, going, doth the circle 
 
 all fulfill. 
 
 [119] 
 
Friend of ours, we did not tell thee all we might 
 
 have told that day ; 
 Many another thing we cherished in our heart 
 
 of hearts to say, 
 Had we known it was expedient thou so soon 
 
 shouldst go away. 
 
 We were looking for achievement, and the vic- 
 tory had been won; 
 
 For the golden years of service — with the 
 sands so nearly run; 
 
 Yea, we thought it the beginning, when God 
 said thy work was done. 
 
 We shall not forget thee — never, while the way 
 
 before us towers; 
 Something from thy life in passing touched the 
 
 inner springs in ours ; 
 Thou henceforth art in alliance there with God's 
 
 uplifting powers. 
 
 Thou art here; lo, thou art yonder, where the 
 heavenly seasons roll, 
 
 Where in light and life immortal ends the path- 
 way of the soul, — 
 
 One hand beckoning, and the other resting on 
 the shining goal. 
 
 [120] 
 
THE TREE AND THE STAR 
 
 Said the tree upon earth to the star in the sky : 
 " She sleeps, and is here at my feet ; 
 
 She walked in my shadow in days gone by, 
 And her deeds and her life were sweet." 
 
 Said the star in the sky to the tree upon earth : 
 " She dwells in my home far above 
 
 Thy dark little world of the home of her birth ; 
 She was born for the light and for love." 
 
 O tree, and O star, she was all that you say, 
 And her soul like a star did shine ; 
 
 Yet little you know of God's great way: 
 She is here in this heart of mine. 
 
 [121] 
 
THE FEAST OF THE DEAD 
 
 Far away in the Land of Morning, 
 
 Where the Five Great Rivers flow, 
 And the peaks of the great world-moun- 
 tains 
 
 Fling forward the sunrise glow, 
 I've read that the mighty Hydaspes 
 
 Runs, singing, o'er pebbles of gold: 
 But not of the marvelous river 
 
 My marvelous tale is told. 
 
 There are times when the dark-skinned peo- 
 ple — 
 
 In many a home, it is said, 
 Where some one has died — lay a banquet ; 
 
 The guests are their silent dead. 
 Comes father, or mother, or brother, 
 
 Or sister, or child, or wife ; 
 They all come back with the twilight 
 
 To the oldtime happy life. 
 
 Forgotten the long separation, 
 
 Unheeded the cold night-rain; 
 The rice is made ready; together 
 
 They sit in one circle again: 
 Till suddenly falls a silence; 
 
 The ember has died on the stone ; 
 Vague shadows glide through the doorway ; 
 
 The living once more are alone. 
 [122] 
 
Oh, 't is not a meaningless story, 
 
 Though wonderful; it is part 
 Of the wild and infinite yearning, 
 
 The unutterable cry in the heart, 
 For the light of a face that has vanished, 
 
 For a solace that never may be; 
 And it shows how that far-away people 
 
 Are kindred to you and to me. 
 
 The calm and solemn Himalayas 
 
 Rise heavenward, crowned with snow ; 
 Over all the land forever 
 
 The Five Great Rivers go ; 
 And forever in homes of the people, 
 
 Whatever their race or name, 
 They keep their love and their sorrow 
 
 Like us: it is just the same. 
 
 [123] 
 
ALL SOULS' EVE 
 
 The river drags across the plain 
 
 Its winding line of black ; 
 But far above I see again 
 
 The ever shining track. 
 
 silent dead, O happy souls, 
 I dare not call you back ! 
 
 Before my eyes a vision drew 
 Like sunlight out of space ; 
 
 1 fancied in the shadow grew 
 One dear familiar face, — 
 
 I felt a breath, I heard a voice 
 Of infinite sweet grace. 
 
 Beat not so loud, O heart of mine, 
 
 Be calm, O wandering will, 
 The wind is past, the talking pine 
 
 Hath whispered and is still. 
 All here is as the marbles are 
 
 That glimmer on the hill. 
 
 But, lo, the singing tides above 
 
 Grow full and do not slack ; 
 There mind has light, and heart has love, 
 
 With never stint or lack. 
 Life bears me thither, silent dead; 
 
 I will not call you back ! 
 
 [124] 
 
HOME 
 
 Let the scholar turn from study and the sailor 
 cease to roam, 
 Let the workman lay his tools down, when 
 the Silent Voices call: 
 
 They are calling, O my dearest, they are say- 
 ing now, " Come home," 
 And thy voice among the voices is the sweet- 
 est one of all. 
 
 Home, home, home, home, home would I be ; 
 
 Home is where the heart is, and my heart is all 
 with thee. 
 
 II 
 
 Lo, everywhere is beauty ! There are things to 
 do and dare; 
 There are friends to love and cherish, and I 
 hold them very dear: 
 
 But, in spite of all that binds me to a world 
 that seems so fair, 
 I have thought it, I have said it in thy lis- 
 tening spirit-ear: 
 
 Home, home, home, home, home would I be; 
 
 Home is where the heart is, and my heart is all 
 with thee. 
 
 [125] 
 
Ill 
 
 In the hurry of the work-time, when the traffic 
 rolls and roars ; 
 In the quiet of the sleep-time, with the star- 
 light on my brow, 
 
 Where the breezes move forever up and down 
 God's out-of-doors, 
 I have listened, I have waited — but I hear 
 the Voices now! 
 
 Home, home, home, home, home would I be ; 
 
 Home is where the heart is, and my heart is all 
 with thee. 
 
 [126] 
 
SONNETS 
 
HESPERIDES 
 
 Sink, lovely day, and fold thy wings of gold 
 Around the islands of the western seas, 
 The far-off, beautiful Hesperides ; 
 
 For there the waves, by temperate winds con- 
 trolled, 
 
 Sing to the shores forever. Sink, and fold 
 Thy wings above their golden-fruited trees, 
 And quiet gardens, and the sinless ease 
 
 Of them that grow no longer weak or old. 
 
 They that dwell there have borne life's little 
 pain; 
 They were as we are, but shall weep no more. 
 
 Fly, lovely day, and drop below the main, 
 
 Where waits for me a welcome at the door; 
 
 I follow when the Boatman comes again; 
 
 Soon shall I hear his keel grate on the shore. 
 
 [129] 
 
VENICE 
 
 Only a cloud, — far off it seemed to me 
 No habitable city, — when, behold, 
 Came gradual distinctions in the fold 
 
 Of tremulous vapor shadowing things to be ; 
 
 Forms whether of wave or air rose silently 
 O'er quiet lanes of water, caught the gold 
 Of the Italian sunset; and thus rolled 
 
 The veil from off the Bride of the Blue Sea. 
 
 Alas, the irrecoverable dream! 
 
 Cathedral, palace, all things all too soon 
 
 Melted like faces in a troubled stream, 
 And, looking backward over the lagoon, 
 
 I saw the phantom city faintly gleam 
 
 As mist blown seaward underneath the moon. 
 
 [130] 
 
FAME 
 
 In Pisa's baptistry the uttered word, 
 
 Sent upward winged with music from the 
 ground, 
 
 Works in the dome a miracle of sound 
 Most delicate, and all the air is stirred 
 With its vibrations ; till, like some sweet bird, 
 
 Invisible, that circles round and round, 
 
 Singing o'erhead, then seeks the heaven's pro- 
 found, 
 It flees away and is no longer heard. 
 Thus, too, it is with word, or deed, or song, 
 
 Caught up and echoed through time's ampler 
 hall; 
 It charms a while the listeners in the throng, 
 
 But, with the days men never can recall, 
 It faints, and fades, and vanishes erelong 
 
 In the vast Silence that receiveth all. 
 
 [131] 
 
IN THE REFECTORY 
 
 Mark you the painting? To this ancient hall, 
 
 Where we, the brothers of Saint Dominic, 
 tread 
 
 With reverent step, and break our daily 
 bread, 
 I came a novice, and can yet recall 
 How Christ and his Apostles on the wall, 
 
 Who break bread also, only seemed, instead, 
 
 As shadowy presences, although they shed 
 Perpetual benediction on us all. 
 But now, beholding how we come and go, 
 
 And are forgotten, while, year after year, 
 The ever-blessed Master and that row 
 
 Of silent faces, with no change to fear, 
 Remain as first I saw them, well I know 
 
 'T is we, not they, who are the shadows here. 
 
 [132] 
 
SPHINX 
 
 Her wings are folded in the plain that lies 
 
 Like a vast shield upturned to every star. 
 
 She sits as silent as God's mountains are, 
 Forever watching with calm solemn eyes 
 The white worlds in the shadow, as they rise 
 
 And pass in slow procession, and afar 
 
 Dip o'er the verge of the horizon's bar 
 Into the depths of unfamiliar skies. 
 So, ever by this lonely watcher's gaze 
 
 The race of men are filing with the rest, 
 Stars, systems, all: Whence, whither, lie their 
 ways ? 
 
 Unto what other morning in the west? 
 She asks with mute cold lips, but ne'er betrays 
 
 Her riddle, and no man has ever guessed. 
 
 [133] 
 
THE LAST " CHAPEL " 
 
 " My son, forget not " * — reading thus begun 
 
 The teacher of us all, and then the prayer 
 
 He lifted in the hushed and hallowed air 
 For blessing on the work that had been done. 
 Also he seemed to say : " Thy feet must run 
 
 Hence to the goal through dangers every- 
 where ; 
 
 Honor, and wisdom, and the tempter's snare, 
 And life's great end, forget thou not, my son." 
 Ah! as we saw the western splendor fall 
 
 Earthward that night, and fill the open door, 
 With Christ anew transfigured on the wall, 
 
 We sorrowed in our hearts, revolving o'er 
 So many memories ; but, most of all, 
 
 That we should see each other's face no more. 
 
 * Prov. iii. 
 
 [134] 
 
THE PALACE 
 
 She loved the palace that by slow degrees 
 
 Arose, as from the common dust around, 
 
 Arch over arch, and dome o'er dome of 
 sound, — 
 A miracle of the master of the keys ; 
 She loved Abt Vogler's palace more than these 
 
 We stare at; for, when he had ceased, she 
 found 
 
 It did not crumble back into the ground, 
 But lived as stars do, and the hills, and seas. 
 Ah ! little she dreamed what palace, day by day, 
 
 The Master of Life was building through the 
 years 
 From her fair deeds — never to< pass away : 
 
 Silence has fallen, but her life appears 
 Triumphant now o'er time and time's decay ,-r— 
 
 A golden glory shining through my tears ! 
 
 [135] 
 
THE OLD QUESTION 
 
 Ah ! whither gone, my friend of many years ? 
 
 I ask it of the silence, with the thought 
 
 Of what thou wert and what thy hands have 
 wrought, 
 And only silence answers in my ears : 
 Whither the life that beautiful appears, 
 
 And true, with kindly ministrations 
 fraught — 
 
 Thy life that, passing when we dreamed it 
 not, 
 Has left us to our memories and our tears? 
 If fairer now the light that round thee streams, 
 
 Forget us not: thy steps we cannot trace; 
 And yet we wait, as if to catch some gleams 
 
 Of what lies yonder in that holy place, 
 So thin the impenetrable curtain seems 
 
 That separates the worlds and hides thy face. 
 
 [136] 
 
PRESENTIMENTS 
 
 Our lives are double: they were not designed 
 For holding narrowly to their estate 
 Of things material; they penetrate 
 
 The region of illimitable mind 
 
 And spirit, roaming free, and unconfined, 
 In thought or dream ; and somehow even Fate 
 Half tells her secret at the boundary gate 
 
 Through broken flashes or foreshadowings 
 blind. 
 
 Life hath its vision, although knowledge fails : 
 We stand like those who, from a lofty place, 
 
 Discern at times the gleam of sunlit sails, 
 Or think they do, far off, on ocean's face, 
 
 When o'er the mist the fitful wind prevails, 
 And blows it backward for a little space. 
 
 [137] 
 
THE WHITE NORTH 
 
 So the long quest is ended, and once more 
 The indefatigable will of man 
 Hath triumphed! Neither flood, nor frost, 
 nor span 
 Of trackless waste, nor silence, nor the roar 
 Of storm availed to turn him from his stead- 
 fast plan. 
 Has man, then, dared the utmost that he can, 
 With no worlds left to conquer and explore? 
 Nay, thou must still fare onward, O my soul, 
 Through perilous seas, perchance, or deserts 
 broad, 
 Fare farther than to any earthly pole, 
 
 Hearing the voice that cries o'er ways un- 
 trod: 
 " Endure, endure: thine is the nobler goal, 
 To stand undaunted face to face with God/' 1 
 
 [138] 
 
THE LORDS OF LIFE 
 
 I 
 
 THE LORDS OF LIFE 
 
 Again the Night with her majestic grace 
 
 Comes sweeping through the chambers of the 
 sky, 
 
 And now begin the dark-winged Hours to fly 
 Far up in heaven. Look yonder: where you 
 
 trace 
 That silver world float softly into place, — 
 
 Down-looking on us like a conscious eye, — 
 
 The Lords of Life, that offer or deny 
 The things we long for most, rise out of space. 
 Hush ! influence is raining from the signs 
 
 To mould the lives of all who dwell below ; 
 The forces working in the air's deep mines 
 
 Are now resistless ; if they will it so, 
 A grain may balance Alps and Appenines, 
 
 A spider's thread take the great globe in tow. 
 
 II 
 JUPITER 
 
 How calmly, and with what a shield of light, 
 The powerful sovereign of the earth and air 
 Is winding up the blue Olympian stair 
 
 Into the realm of the imperial night! 
 
 No longer hurling from his dizzy height 
 
 The twisted bolt that sets the world aglare, 
 [139] 
 
Nor fiercely driving the dark clouds that bear 
 The thunder-stone to startle and affright, — 
 But shining as a star adown whose ray 
 
 Glides what is salutary, what is worth 
 More than aught else upon the natal day 
 
 Of beings destined to a mortal birth: 
 For Jove is kind, and with benignant sway 
 
 Rules, loving all the dwellers of the earth. 
 
 Ill 
 SATURN 
 
 Beware ! His eye is not less stern and cold 
 
 Than that of her who cuts the fatal thread; 
 
 Arrows of mischief in his beams are shed, 
 Disease and death that seek the guarded fold; 
 And treason flourishes, and hate grows bold. 
 
 His light was in the spaces overhead 
 
 When Caesar fell at Pompey's statue dead, 
 And Father Tiber trembled as he rolled. 
 Pity the child that opens now its eyes 
 
 For the first time and meets that baleful 
 stare ; 
 Pity the ship that out of harbor flies, 
 
 If Saturn reigns, although the winds be fair ; 
 Good fortune withers at the root and dies 
 
 While that large planet travels through the 
 air. 
 
 [140] 
 
IV 
 MARS 
 
 And who is this that comes with awful pace, 
 
 Red-handed like a slayer, and appears 
 
 To glare the fiercer for my sudden fears? 
 Gradivus, worshiped in the land of Thrace! 
 The Strider, armed with battle-ax and mace, 
 
 Before whose step the cornfields sprout with 
 spears, 
 
 And clouds for rain drop blood and women's 
 tears, 
 Till earth wears stains that heaven may scarce 
 
 efface. 
 'Tis he that battled with a mighty hand 
 
 And led the hosts, when in their courses so 
 The stars fought Sisera ; he bears the brand 
 
 That levels noble cities, and his blow 
 Doth make a shudder run from land to land. 
 
 Thank God, his hour is passing ; let him go ! 
 
 V 
 VENUS 
 
 Another light now climbs the purple steep 
 Of heaven where thou holdest on thy way, 
 Immortal star ! Soon following will the day 
 Thrust up a shining arm and beckon sleep 
 From eyelids that remember not to weep 
 Beneath the influence of thy sweet ray : 
 Lo, they that need thee do not vainly pray 
 [141] 
 
Thy orbed splendor hanging in the deep, — 
 
 Star of Love ! named with the name she bore, 
 Who like a star rose flashing from the foam 
 
 That sings at morning round Cythera's shore; 
 
 Who gave her exiles hope and led them home : 
 
 Shine on, and cheer the hearts that else were 
 
 sore, 
 
 While o'er life's toiling wave they seek their 
 
 Rome. 
 
 VI 
 MERCURY 
 
 1 see him cross the empty fields afar, 
 Along a pathway growing slowly dim; 
 His shining circle runs so near the rim 
 
 Of that vast wheel which bears Apollo's car, 
 Behold, the greater splendor mounts to mar 
 
 The lesser ; in my glass there seems to swim 
 
 A merest globule answering to him; 
 Now lost — a wavering and uncertain star ! 
 Mercurius ! who sets the final seal 
 
 To weary eyes ; who goes and comes again, 
 Bearing the messages of woe and weal : 
 
 Now wrathful like a lion in his den, 
 Now melting to the pitiful appeal 
 
 That mutely rises from the homes of men. 
 
 [142] 
 
VII 
 " THE LORDS HAVE PASSED " 
 
 The Lords have passed; within their silent 
 bound 
 No man may say how runs the loom of fate, 
 Nor what the threads are that will soon or 
 late 
 In human life be strangely interwound. 
 Those mighty planets, that move round and 
 round 
 Forever and behold our low estate, 
 Have wrought their will, while we, as men who 
 wait 
 And listen, catch no< faintest sign or sound. 
 Roll on, stars, and give us what you may, — 
 
 Exile and want, or home and wedded wife ; 
 Take what you will: our will is to obey; 
 
 All that you have were scarcely worth our 
 strife ; 
 For we are children of a summer's day: 
 
 Why should we quarrel with the Lords of 
 Life? 
 
 [149] 
 
THE SONNET 
 
 Art gave it us as Nature doth a shell: 
 
 It holds the murmurings of the infinite deep 
 Of mind and thought; through its small 
 arches creep 
 
 The voices born about the sacred well; 
 
 Here love and life their secret visions tell ; 
 And souls of old forgotten things that sweep 
 In music low along the shores of sleep, 
 
 Do haunt its chambers with some potent spell. 
 
 Whate'er the seas have whispered to the lands 
 A shell repeats ; this sings the heart's own 
 lay. 
 
 But when I raised it dripping from the sands 
 To bear it to my cabinet, woe the day ! 
 
 The tiny treasure brake within my hands, 
 And all the music fled from it away. 
 
 [144*] 
 
UENVOI 
 
 The blue above immeasurably deep. 
 
 And blue around for many a shimmering mile, 
 Where sky and sea unbosom all they keep, 
 
 In open secret, to the lonely Isle, — 
 Yea, as of old, when Christ's Apostle came, 
 And saw, and heard — there all things are the 
 same. 
 
 O Isle of Visions, shall there be again 
 The open vision ever? Are the days 
 
 So evil that among all living men 
 
 None may interpret now the light that strays 
 
 Still earthward through the thin and wavering 
 screen, — 
 
 None say, in rapt assurance, " I have seen " ? 
 
 The cloud-built City — built of all things rare — 
 The many voices breaking on the shore, 
 
 The trumpets that run, blowing, down the air, — 
 These baffle our dull senses; evermore 
 
 We look and listen, and remain unstirred, 
 
 Waiting for some one who has seen and heard. 
 
 Perhaps he sleeps; perhaps the dream is on 
 
 Of things that were, and are, and still shall be, — 
 
 Stars, swords, white horses, pierced hands; anon 
 The River and Tree of Life, and no more sea. 
 
 He will proclaim it, ere the age go quite, — 
 
 Our Poet, when the Angel whispers, " Write." 
 
For he will find in common sights and sounds — 
 More keen than we to listen and to look — 
 
 Beauty and truth from the eternal bounds, 
 
 And he shall write them in his own new book, 
 
 And be the prophet-poet of our choice, 
 
 O Island of the Vision and the Voice! 
 
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 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 
 
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