Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if they said
A tale of fairy ships
With a swan-wing for a sail;
Oh, ye kissed their loving lips
For the merry, merry tale
So carelessly ye thought upon the Dead!
Soon ye read in solemn stories
Of the men of long ago,
Of the pale bewildering glories
Shining farther than we know ;
Of the heroes with the laurel,
Of the poets with the bay,
Of the two worlds' earnest quarrel
For that beauteous Helena ;
How Achilles at the portal
Of the tent heard footsteps nigh,
And his strong heart, half-immortal,
Met the keitai with a cry;
How Ulysses left the sunlight
For the pale eidola race
Blank and passive through the dun light,
Staring blindly in his face;
How that true wife said to Pœtus,
With calm smile and wounded heart,
"Sweet, it hurts not!" How Admetus
Saw his blessed one depart;
How King Arthur proved his mission,
And Sir Roland wound his horn,
And at Sangreal's moony vision
Swords did bristle round like corn.
Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed, the while ye
That this Death, then, must be found
A Valhalla for the crowned,
The heroic who prevail :
None, be sure can enter in
Far below a paladin
Of a noble, noble tale—
So awfully ye thought upon the Dead!
Ay, but soon ye woke up shrieking,
As a child that wakes at night
From a dream of sisters speaking
In a garden's summer-light-
That wakes, starting up and bounding,
In a lonely, lonely bed,
With a wall of darkness round him,
Stifling black about his head !
And the full sense of your mortal
Rushed upon you deep and loud,
And
ye heard the thunder hurtle
From the silence of the cloud.
Funeral-torches at your gateway
Threw a dreadful light within.
All things changed: you rose up straightway,
And saluted Death and Sin.
Since, your outward man has rallied,
And your eye and voice grown bold;
Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid,
With her saddest secret told.
Happy places have grown holy :
If ye went where once ye went,
Only tears would fall down slowly,
As at solemn sacrament.
Merry books, once read for pastime,
If ye dared to read again,
Only memories of the last time
Would swim darkly up the brain. Household names, which used to flutter Through your laughter unawares,— God's Divinest ye could utter
With less trembling in your prayers.
Ye have dropt adown your head, and it seems as if ye tread
On your own hearts in the path
Ye are called to in His wrath,
And your prayers go up in wail
"Dost Thou see, then, all our loss, O Thou agonized on cross?
Art thou reading all its tale?"
So mournfully ye think upon the Dead!
Pray, pray, thou who also weepest,
And the drops will slacken so.
Weep, weep, and the watch thou keepest,
With a quicker count will go.
the shadow on the dial
For the nature most undone,
Marks the passing of the trial,
Proves the presence of the sun.
Look, look up, in starry passion,
To the throne above the spheres:
Learn the spirit's gravitation
Still must differ from the tear's.
Hope with all the strength thou usest
In embracing thy despair.
Love the earthly love thou losest
Shall return to thee more fair.
Work make clear the forest-tangles
Of the wildest stranger-land.
Trust the blessed deathly angels
Whisper, "Sabbath hours at hand!"
By the heart's wound when most gory,
By the longest agony,
Smile!-Behold in sudden glory
The TRANSFIGURED smiles on thee!
And ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if He said,
"My Beloved, is it so?
Have ye tasted of my woe?
Of my Heaven ye shall not fail!"
He stands brightly where the shade is,
With the keys of Death and Hades,
And there, ends the mournful tale-
So hopefully ye think upon the Dead!
THE poet hath the child's sight in his breast What oftenest he has viewed,
He views with the first glory. Fair and good
Pall never on him, at the fairest, best,
But stand before him holy and undressed
In week-day false conventions, such as would
Drag other men down from the altitude
Of primal types, too early dispossessed.
Why, God would tire of all His heavens, as soon
As thou, O godlike, childlike poet, didst
Of daily and nightly sights of sun and moon !
And therefore hath He set thee in the midst
Where men may hear thy wonder's ceaseless tune,
And praise His world for ever, as thou bidst.
'NEATH my moon what doest thou,
With a somewhat paler brow
Than she giveth to the ocean?
He, without a pulse or motion,
Muttering low before her stands,
Lifting his invoking hands
Like a seer before a sprite,
To catch her oracles of light:
But thy soul out-trembles now
Many pulses on thy brow.
Where be all thy laughters clear,
Others laughed alone to hear?
Where thy quaint jests, said for fame?
Where thy dances, mixed with game?
Where thy festive companies,
Moonëd o'er with ladies' eyes
All more bright for thee, I trow?
'Neath my moon what doest thou?
THE MERRY MAN.
I AM digging my warm heart
Till I find its coldest part; ·
I am digging wide and low,
Further than a spade will go,
Till that, when the pit is deep
And large enough, I there may heap
All my present pain and past
Joy, dead things that look aghast
By the daylight now 't is done.
Throw them in, by one and one!
I must laugh, at rising sun.
Memories of fancy's golden
Treasures which my hands have holden,
Till the chillness made them ache;
Of childhood's hopes that used to wake
If birds were in a singing strain,
And for less cause, sleep again;
Of the moss-seat in the wood
Where I trysted solitude;
Of the hill-top where the wind
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