 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
A SOUL LOST, AND FOUND
I
Lo! here anotherSoul has gone down.
Hope led each morrow;
Honor was all;
Faith had no fall;
Fortune no frown.
Brother by brother
Bowed to each sorrow.
None had lost heart;
Life was love, life was art.
II
We could but follow!Quenchless his fire;
The mightier the burden
The stronger his soul,
The higher the goal.
Now see the mire
Soil him and swallow!
Heaven! what guerdon
Worth such a cost!
Love, art, life—lost, all lost.
III
Down to the pallidFigure of death
264
Listens and waits,
Beseeching the Fates
For heart-beat and breath—
Sign clear and valid,
Life still confessing.
Dead! He is dead!
All is lost!—He has fled.
IV
Behold now, a moving,A flutter of life!
Forth from the starkness,
Horror, and slime,
See, he doth climb.
With himself is the strife;
Back to the loving
From mire and the darkness,
Back to the sun!
He has fought—he has won.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |