Speed me, God ! serve me, man ! I am God over men ! When I speak in my cloud, none shall answer again ;

'Neath the stripe and the bond,

Lie and mourn at my feet !”
O Life, O Beyond,

Thou art strange, thou art sweet !

a

Then we grow into thought, and with inward ascensions

Touch the bounds of our Being.
We lie in the dark here, swathed doubly around
With our sensual relations and social conventions,
Yet are 'ware of a sight, yet are ’ware of a sound

Beyond Hearing and Seeing, -
Are aware that a Hades rolls deep on all sides

With its infinite tides
About and above us,—until the strong arch
Of our life creaks and bends as if ready for falling,
And through the dim rolling we hear the sweet calling
Of spirits that speak in a soft under-tongue

The sense of the mystical march : And we cry to them softly, “Come nearer, come nearer, And lift up the lap of this dark, and speak clearer,

And teach us the song that ye sung !” And we smile in our thought as they answer or no, For to dream of a sweetness is sweet as to know.

Wonders breathe in our face

And we ask not their name ;

Love takes all the blame

Of the world's prison-place.
And we sing back the songs as we guess them, aloud,
And we send up the lark of our music that cuts

Untired through the cloud
To beat with its wings at the lattice Heaven shuts ;
Yet the els look down and the mortals look up

As the little wings beat,

And the poet is blessed with their pity or hope.
'Twixt the heavens and the earth can a poet despond ?

O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet !

a

Then we wring from our souls their applicative strength,
And bend to the cord the strong bow of our ken,
And, bringing our lives to the level of others,
Hold the cup we have filled, to their uses at length.
“Help me, God ! love me, man! I am man among men,

And my life is a pledge

Of the ease of another's !"
From the fire and the water we drive out the steam
With a rush and a roar and the speed of a dream :
And the car without horses, the car without wings,

Roars onward and flies

On its grey iron edge 'Neath the heat of a Thought sitting still in our eyes : And our hand knots in air, with the bridge that it Alings, Two peaks far disruptured by ocean and skies, And, lifting a fold of the smooth-flowing Thames, Draws under the world with its turmoils and pothers, While the swans float on softly, untouched in their calms, By humanity's hum at the root of the springs. And with reachings of Thought we reach down to the deeps

Of the souls of our brothers, We teach them full words with our slow-moving lips, “God,” “ Liberty,” “Truth,”—which they hearken and

think
And work into harmony, link upon link.
Till the silver meets round the earth gelid and dense,
Shedding sparks of electric responding intense

On the dark of eclipse,
Then we hear through the silence and glory afar,

As from shores of a star
In aphelion, the new generations that cry
Disenthralled by our voice to harmonious reply,

»

66

God,” “ Liberty," “ Truth !”
We are glorious forsooth,

And our name has a seat,
Though the shroud should be donned.

O Life, O Beyond,

Thou art strange, thou art sweet !
Help me, God! help me, man! I am low, I am weak,
Death loosens my sinews and creeps in my veins,
My body is cleft by these wedges of pains

From my spirit's serene,
And I feel the externe and insensate creep in

On my organized clay ;
I sob not, nor shriek,

Yet I faint fast away :
I am strong in the spirit,-deep-thoughted, clear-eyed, -
I could walk, step for step, with an angel beside,

On the heaven-heights of truth.

Oh, the soul keeps its youth !
But the body faints sore, it is tired in the race,
It sinks from the chariot ere reaching the goal,

It is weak, it is cold,

The rein drops from its hold,
It sinks back, with the death in its face.

On, chariot ! on, soul !
Ye are all the more fleet,-
Be alone at the goal

Of the strange and the sweet !
Love us, God ! love us, man ! we believe, we achieve :

Let us love, let us live,
For the acts correspond ;

We are glorious, and DIE :
And again on the knee of a mild Mystery

That smiles with a change,

Here we lie.

O DEATH, O BEYOND,
Thou art sweet, thou art strange !

a

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,

And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,

The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,

The young flowers are blowing toward the west :
But the young, young children, O my brothers,

They are weeping bitterly !
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,

In the country of the free.
Do you question the young children in the sorrow

Why their tears are falling so?
The old man may weep for his to-morrow

Which is lost in Long Ago;
The old tree is leafless in the forest,

The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,

The old hope is hardest to be lost :
But the young, young children, O my brothers

Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,

In our happy Fatherland ?
They look up with their pale and sunken faces,

And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses

Down the cheeks of infancy ;
“Your old earth,” they say, “is very dreary,

“Our young feet," they say, “are very weak; Few

paces have we taken, yet are wearyOur grave-rest is very far to seek :

Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,

For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,

And the graves are for the old.”

a

True,” say the children, “it may happen

That we die before our time :"
Little Alice died last year, her grave is shapen

Like a snowball, in the rime.
We looked into the pit prepared to take her :

Was no room for any work in the close clay !
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,

Crying, “Get up, little Alice ! it is day."
If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,

With your ear down, little Alice never cries :
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,

For the smile has time for growing in her eyes : And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in

The shroud by the kirk-chime. " It is good when it happens," say the children,

“ That we die before our time."

Alas, alas, the children ! they are seeking

Death in life, as best to have :
They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,

With a cerement from the grave.
Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,

Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do ;
Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,

Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through ! But they answer, “ Are your cowslips of the meadows

Like our weeds anear the mine?
Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,

From your pleasures fair and fine !

“For oh," say the children, “we are weary,

And we cannot run or lean;