 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
3. PART III
A WEEK'S CALENDAR
I—NEW YEAR
Each New Year is a leaf of our love's rose;It falls, but quick another rose-leaf grows.
So is the flower from year to year the same,
But richer, for the dead leaves feed its flame.
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II—A NEW SOUL
To see the rose of morning slow unfoldEach wondrous petal to that heart of gold;
To see from out the dark, unknowing night
A new soul dawn with such undreamed-of light,
And slowly all its loveliness and splendor
Pour forth as stately music pours, magnificently tender!
III—“KEEP PURE THY SOUL”
Keep pure thy soul!Then shalt thou take the whole
Of delight;
Then, without a pang,
Thine shall be all of beauty whereof the poet sang—
The perfume, and the pageant, the melody, the mirth
Of the golden day, and the starry night;
Of heaven, and of earth.
O, keep pure thy soul!
IV—“THY MIND IS LIKE A CRYSTAL BROOK”
Thy mind is like a crystal brook
Wherein clean creatures live at ease,
In sun-bright waves or shady nook.
Birds sing above it,
The warm-breathed cattle love it,
It doth sweet childhood please.
Wherein clean creatures live at ease,
In sun-bright waves or shady nook.
Birds sing above it,
The warm-breathed cattle love it,
It doth sweet childhood please.
Accurst be he by whom it were undone,
Or thing or thought whose presence
The birds and beasts would loathly shun,
Would make its crystal waters foully run,
And drive sweet childhood from its pleasance.
Or thing or thought whose presence
The birds and beasts would loathly shun,
Would make its crystal waters foully run,
And drive sweet childhood from its pleasance.
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V—“ONE DEED MAY MAR A LIFE”
One deed may mar a life,And one can make it;
Hold firm thy will for strife,
Lest a quick blow break it!
Even now from far on viewless wing
Hither speeds the nameless thing
Shall put thy spirit to the test.
Haply or e'er yon sinking sun
Shall drop behind the purple West
All will be lost—or won!
VI—THE UNKNOWN
How strange to look upon the life beyondOur human cognizance with so deep awe
And haunting dread; a sense as of remorse,
A looking-for of judgment, a great weight
Of things unknown to happen! We who live
Blindly from hour to hour in very midst
Of mysteries; of shapeless, changing glooms;
Of nameless terrors; issues vast and black;
Of airy whims, slight fantasies, and flights
That lead to unimaginable woe:
The unweighed word cloying the life of love;
One clod of earth outblotting all the stars;
Some secret, dark inheritance of will,
And the scared soul plunges to conscious doom!
Thou who hast wisdom, fear not Death, but Life!
VII—IRREVOCABLE
Would the gods might giveAnother field for human strife;
Man must live one life
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—Ah, friend, in thy deep grave,
What now can change, what now can save?
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |