University of Virginia Library

LIBER AMORIS.

I.

Upon the Delphic leaves
Of this prophetic book
Whoever will may look;
No eye but mine perceives
What gladdens there, or grieves,
Nor why the peace of years
Is wrecked with hopes and fears.
Many will read the words,
But none will understand
The meaning, though the birds
Fly up and down the land,
And, wooing, learn and teach
That universal speech.
You know it not, and I
Only so much thereof
As signifies I love—
But not the reason why.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

What does she think of me? I ask myself,
Who am not ignorant what I think of her.
She thinks I am too old, and she too young
(She Spring, I Autumn), or thinks not at all.
It may be, must be, for she sends no word
That words of mine have reached her. Be it so.
If of herself she does not love me—well.
She need not fear that I shall sue to her.
I am too old for that, and she too young;
But youth like hers (dear youth!) and age like mine—
Did not old Goethe love the young Bettina,
And did not young Bettina love old Goethe?

VI.

Why do I love you—if I do?
Tell me that, and I'll tell you.
It is not that you are more fair
Than other ladies whom I know;
For the summer of your hair,
Or the lights that come and go
In your radiant, startled eyes,
Apprehensive of surprise;
Nothing in your bright, young face,
Which is comely, I suppose;
No illusive charm, or grace;
What it is, Heaven only knows.
I might not love you if I knew,
For what I love might not be you!

VII.

VIII.

Thrice have I spoken, and from you no sign
That my poor words have reached you. They are poor,
Or you would not have shut your spirit's door,
But would have opened it to words of mine.
What is there in me, tell me, and my line,
Yours, also, who are poet, that no more
You greet us kindly as you did before?
Because that we are human, you divine?
Am I too old to love you? Or do you
Love some one younger better? Be it so:
Whatever happens I am still your friend.
You may have hurt me somewhat, let it go;
I shall live down my weakness, poets do,
And have, like stronger men, a peaceful end.

IX.

This man loves me. If you have ever said
These woman's words, it was to yourself alone;
But you have never said them, never known
The difference between my heart and head.
The songs that I have written you have read
As shallow fancies, which your way have flown;
You have not felt there the deep undertone
Where what still lives in me laments its dead.
But you will feel it when the busy hand
That pens this fervent page hath lost its skill;
And when the heart that urges it is still
And cold as yours, then you will understand
My pure and strong devotion, and will be
Constrained to say, too late: This man loved me.

X.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

THROUGH DARKNESS.

THE GRAVES.

THE DOOR.

(Jelaluddin.)

RICH AND POOR.

SUCCOR.

THE UNCREATED.

(Arabic.)

THE CHAPTER OF THE CROWN.

What are the words of Allah
In the Chapter of the Crown?
“In the night of Al Kadr
We sent the Koran down.
How shalt thou understand it,
That dost so little know
How excellent that night is,
And how its watches go?
That holy night is better
Than a thousand moons of years;
For then descend the angels,
And Gabriel appears
By the command of Allah,
Whose just decrees they bear
Concerning every creature
That Death shall smite, or spare.
Peace till the morning rises
In tent, and tower, and town;
For in the night of Al Kadr
We sent the Koran down.”

THE PILGRIMAGE.

Footsore, behind the caravan
That went to Mecca, Rabia crept,
Until at the Kaaba they began
Their prayers to offer; then she wept,
And beat her breast. “What dost thou seek,
O heart, weak follower of the weak?
Thou hast traversed land and sea,
And the burning desert trod,
To find in this far place the God
That long ago had come to thee.”

THE WORDS OF SADI.

Reflect upon the words that Sadi penned.
Reveal not every secret to a friend:
For how can you foretell what is to be?
He may, hereafter, be your enemy.
And with your enemy the wisest plan
Is not to do him all the harm you can;
For it may happen to you in the end
To make your present enemy a friend.
The hand that can withhold, the tongue discreet,
These fit the Sheik to fill the Sultan's seat.

THE BOWL.

(Attar.)

THE MOTHERLESS CHILD.

(Arabic.)

SPEECH AND SILENCE.

THE BLACK CAMEL.

ROSE AND VINE.

HE KNOWS.

THE END OF SONG.

(Jami.)

THE BOOKS OF THE SIBYLS.

THE ROSARY.

I hold not one, but many creeds;
I am the string, and they the beads.
What Buddha felt, and Plato thought,
And Jesus and Mohammed taught,
I know; not what it is to Thee,
Thou Maker of the Rosary!

THE NAME.

THE END.

THE MORALS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

THE POTTER.

THE DEATH OF MOSES.

Now Moses knew his hour of death was nigh;
For the Most High commanded Sammael
To fetch His servant's soul to Paradise—
Sammael, who, clothed in anger, grasped his sword
To slay him, and would have slain, but for the light
Wherewith his face shone, while his hand went on
Writing the Incommunicable Name.
“What ails thee, Moses? Why art thou so pale?
What evil hath befallen us?” Zipporah asked.
And Moses said: “My hour of death is come!”
“What! must a man who hath spoken with God die thus?
Thou, like a common man?” “I must, all must,
The angels Michael, Gabriel, Israfel,
God only is eternal, and dies not.
Where are my children?” “They are put to sleep.”
“Wake them; for I must say farewell to them.”
Beside the children's bed she wept and moaned;
“Wake, rise, and bid your father now farewell,
Orphans! for this is his last day on earth!”
They woke in terror. “Who will pity us
When we are fatherless?” “Who will pity them
When they are fatherless?” And Moses wept
Then God spake to him: “Dost thou fear to die?
Or dost thou leave this earth reluctantly?”
And Moses said: “I do not fear to die,
Nor do I leave this earth reluctantly.
But I lament these children of mine age,
Who have their grandsire and their uncle lost,
And who will lose their father, if I die.”
“In whom did she, thy mother, then confide,
When thou by her wast in the bulrush ark
Committed to the Nile?” “In Thee, O Lord!”
“Who hardened Pharaoh's heart, and gave thee power
Before him and his gods, and to thy hand
A staff to part the waters?” “Thou, O Lord!”
“And fearest to trust thy children unto Me,
Who am the Father of the Fatherless?
Go; take thy staff and over the sea once more
Extend it, and thou shalt behold a sign
To strengthen thy weak faith.” And he obeyed.
He took the rod of God, and, going down
To the desolate sea-beach, he stretched it there.
The sea divided, as when clouds are driven
Along the path of a whirlwind, and he saw
A black rock in it, whereunto he went;
And reaching soon the rock, a voice cried, “Smite!”
He smote; it clave asunder, and therein,
At its foundation was a little cleft,
And in that cleft, with a green leaf in its mouth,
A worm, which lifting up its voice, cried thrice,
“Praise be to God, who hath not forgotten me,
Worm that I am, in holy darkness here!
Praise be to Him, who cherishes even me!”
When the low voice was silent, heard of all
The angels in the pauses of their hymn,
For they ceased singing to behold that sign
Of God's exceeding love—He spake again:
“Thou seest that I consider and provide
Not for man only, but for a little worm,
In a rock whereof men know not, in the waves,
Far in the dark depths of the barren sea.
Shall I forget thy children who know Me?”
Then Moses, so instructed of the Lord,
Comforted his children and his sorrowing wife;
And, leaning on his staff, went forth alone,
To climb the mountain where he was to die;
And where, when he had closed his weary eyes,
And pressed his hand upon his pulseless heart,
God kissed His servant, and he was with Him.

THE BRAHMAN'S LESSON.

One summer day a farmer and his son
Were working wearily in the harvest-field.
It was a lonesome place, and dangerous;
For now was come the season of the snakes,
Whereof the deadliest, a great, hooded Thing,
Did sting the young man so that suddenly
He died, for remedy in plant, or herb,
Medicinal root, or skill of leech, is none
Against the venom of that dreadful death,
That darkens the eyes at noonday as with night,
And chills the blood in the heart that beats no more.
This happened; and the father saw his son,
Struck out of life so early, lie there dead,
And saw the gathering of the hungry ants,
Nor sighed, nor ceased a moment from his work.
But now a Brahman chanced to pass that way,
And saw all this, but understood it not.
“Who is that man there dead?” “He was my son.”
“Thy son? Why dost thou not lament him, then?
Hast thou no love, nor sorrow for the dead?”
“And wherefore sorrow? From the first bright hour
When he is born, even to his last dark day,
Man's steps are deathward; everything he does
Sets ever that way; there is no escape.
For the well-doing there is recompense,
And for the wicked there is punishment.
Of what avail, when they are gone, are tears?
They can in nowise help us, or the dead.
But thou canst help me, Brahman, if thou wilt.
Go straightway to my house, and tell my wife
What hath befallen—that my son is dead;
And tell her to prepare my noonday meal.”
“What manner of man is this?” the Brahman thought,
Indignantly: “Insensate, ignorant, blind,
He has no human feeling, has no heart.”
So thinking, he drew near the farmer's house,
And called his wife: “Woman, thy son is dead.
Thy husband bade me tell thee this: and add
That he is ready for his noonday meal.”
The dead man's mother harkened to his words
As calmly as the sky to winds or waves.
“That son received a passing life from us,
From that old man, his father, and from me,
His mother, but I called him not my son.
He was a traveller halting at an inn,
Of which the master entertains the guests,
But not detains. He rested and passed on.
So is it, sir, with mothers, and with sons.
Why, then, should I lament what was to be?”
Still wondering, the troubled Brahman turned
To where the sister of the dead man was,
Bright in the lotus bloom of womanhood.
“Thy brother is dead. Hast thou no tears for him?”
She harkened gravely, as the forest doth
To the low murmur of the populous leaves.
“Sometimes,” she said, “a stalwart woodman goes,
And with his mighty axe hews down the trees,
And binds them fast together in a raft,
And in a seaward river launches them.
Anon the wild wind rises, and the waves,
Lashed in tumultuous warfare, dash the raft
Hither and thither, till it breaks asunder,
And the swift current, separating all,
Whirls all on ruinous shores, to meet no more,
Such, and no other, was my brother's fate.
Why, then, should I lament what was to be?”
Wondering still more, for still the awfulness
Of death, which they perceived not, was to him
As palpable as his shadow on the wall,
The Brahman addressed him to the dead man's wife:
“And thou, upon whose loving breast he lay,
Heart answering heart, with lips that breathed in sleep
Remembrance of endearments without end,
What wilt thou do without him day and night?”
She harkened tenderly, as the summer noon
To the continuous cooing of the doves;
“As when two birds, that fly from distant lands,
One from the East, the other from the South—
They meet, and look into each other's eyes,
And, circling round each other, bill to bill,
Seek the same nest, on temple roof, or tree,
And rest together till the dawn is come:
Such was my husband's happy life, and mine.
Was, but is not; for, as when morning breaks,
Awakened, the coupled birds forsake the nest,
And fly in opposite ways to seek their food;
They, if it be their destiny, meet no more.
Why, then, should I lament what was to be?”
Silenced by their submission, which was wise,
Whether the foolish heart think so or not,
The Brahman watched the women in the house,
As to and fro their slender figures moved
Athwart the sunlight streaming through the door,
While they prepared the farmer's noonday meal,
And, watching them, was comforted to learn
The simple secret of their cheerful faith,
That Death the natural sequence is of Life,
And no more dreadful in itself than Life.

MASTER ECKART'S SERMON.

(Strassburg, 1320.)

THE CUP.

THE WALK AT NIGHT.

THE ANT.

LOVERS' HEARTS.

(Servian.)

CLEON AND ÆGLE.

A dear young Greek girl long ago
Went dreaming to a portico,
And sent abroad her thoughts of love;
When lo, from somewhere came a dove,
And took the letter she had writ
(Scoff not graybeard, to show thy wit),
To her lover Cleon, who received,
And to his dying day believed
It was no dove with silken fetter
But Ægle's Heart that bore the Letter!

THE CAPTIVES OF CHARON.

(Romaic.)

A LAMENT.

(Japanese.)

THE PEARL.

(Japanese.)

NO JEWELS.

(Hajiz.)

No tire-woman here is needed
To clothe thy body, Dear!
The tip of a woman's finger,
And the small shell of her ear,
Require no precious jewels,
Nor no such thing
As a turquoise ring.
Her loveliness is clear,
All that it lacks is a smile—
Perhaps a tear!

CARISSIMA.

Or ever you came weeping,
Your lonely vigil keeping,
Where the dust of Love is sleeping,
Machree!
Like a wood-mouse softly creeping,
Where the pale moonshine is sweeping
The locks of the sea,
For you, dear, and me.
Your Patrick will love you,
Till the great Day above you
Has plunged into Night;
Till the sea is drained dry
By the sip of a fly,
Till the dead are alive, and the far is the nigh;
In the kingdom of light,
Let me die at your feet,
Nora, sweet!

AT DRACHENFELS.

All simple folk, like dogs and children dear,
Are experts in the language of the eyes;
The spirit that behind the letter lies
To their sharp sense is clear,
And the words that are unspoken they can hear.
Then why not I and you?
We love, or think we do,
While the river rushes by,
And the summer sky is blue.
Then fill our cups with wine,
I, yours, and you, mine.
For long before all these,
Whatever be their shapes,
Before the wine the grapes,
And before the grapes the vine,
Where it sparkles in the showers, and dances in the breeze,
Was your love and mine!
Such, dear, as I surmise,
Is the verdict of your eyes,
As we stroll this summer noon, by the many-castled Rhine.

AT MERRY MOUNT.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER.

Importune me no more,
Close-fisted wife of mine,
Go in and shut the door,
I go elsewhere to dine;
For where the tapers shine
A score of good fellows be,
With whom till the night is late
I purpose to have some wine
(Scant in this house of thine),
And pledge old wives like thee,
Who hope to keep young husbands straight
By holding the purse-strings tight.
But, pauca verba, good-night!
—Have with you, boys! Birds of a feather
Roost all night together;
And whether
We gather in hall or heather,
We bouse all night together!

GOOD-NIGHT.

I said to Fate, Let be,
Since I have done with thee,
Or heap upon my head
The ashes of the dead,
And huddle out of sight
The thing that once was me.
For when his head is white,
And he is poor and old,
'Tis time his grave was made;
Fetch mattock, then, and spade,
And let the bell be tolled.
And so, Sweet Fool, Good-night!

WHENCE AND WHITHER?

This is what he said in brief,
Sekasa, the Kaffir chief,
To the Frenchman, Arbrousset,
As beneath the palms they lay.
“I shepherded that time my flock
Twelve long years: then on a rock
I sat me down, thereon to mark
What would happen in the dark.
Questions many I asked, but none
Answered—could not answer one:
None who made the Stars, nor who
Taught them their dances in the blue.
Do the Waters, swift and bright,
As they flow from morn to night
Never weary of their race?
Whence and whither, to what place?
Where do they find rest,
In what arms, and on what Breast?
Whence and whither go the Clouds,
In wedding garments, and in shrouds?
Such imperishable crowds!
Whither away,
By night and day,
Like shadows over a magic glass,
Do they pass, and pass, and pass?
Weeping out themselves in rain,
They are falling now again.
What sends them,
And ends them,
And who when all is done, befriends them?
We have many a sharp diviner
(Though you French savants are finer),
But they do not fetch the rain,
They have no means of making it,
Nor any chance of breaking it,
Nor do I see them, though I watch well,
Go for it, either to Heaven or Hell;
But somehow they seem to have the spell.
I cannot see the Wind,
Above, before, behind.
I know not whence it is,
Whether from bale, or bliss:
I feel what makes it come and go,
And rage, and worry, and roar,
For I live, you know, on the shore
Where the blasts of the desert blow.
But I shall never know
How the luscious corn doth grow.
Yesterday, yes, it was yesterday,
There was not a blade of grass in my field,
That is thick to-day as a warrior's shield;
For look to-day,
And look far away,
It is fresh and green,
And the sky over all is serene.
Who gave it this power to bring forth?
Who and what, save Earth,
Who folds us all in her broad arms' girth,
Our young, old Mother, the Earth?”

THE ARCHETYPAL MAN.

On what historic page,
In what forgotten age,
Out of the world of night,
Rose this great Son of Light?
Did he run as the wild deer ran,
Down the slopes of Industan,
Rushing as tempests rush
Over the hills of the Hindu Kush,
Sheer into the Sacred River,
Whence none may deliver,
On, still on,
Till the last was gone,
Sunk in the Holy River?
Dropt from the peaks of Industan,
When the longest year is a span?
Not from the East,
Where life is a feast,
Nor adrift from the North,
Where Ice puts forth
From the gulf of the Boreal Sea—
What time, or Place
Produced the Race,
Forerunners of you and ME?
Dead, æons and æons ago,
Where wild winds blow,
Sifting and drifting Snow!
The caverns of France,
Where damoiselles dance,
On kitchen-middens remote,
On sunken piles,
In small Swiss isles,
Where shallops to-day still float:
Where we discover their barbèd hooks,
Which, unto scholars, are curious books,
Graven and carven of old,
With images manifold,
Writ with the primitive Pen
Of the Father of Ancient Men!
Shot headlong into the waves,
He rises in mountain caves,
Dark except for the light
Of the stalactite,
Still as the death lurking there
(Which nothing may spare),
In the sea-lion's maw,
And the bear's blunt paw,
Where the billows tumble in brine,
And many a vine
Trails hither and thither along,
Strange as the curlew's song!
There, where elk and deer,
Are scratched on the Elephant's tusk,
Where lingers the odor of musk
Like Summer all through the year!
What gods do they love or fear?
The same whereunto we bow,
Idols that baffle us now;
Not wiser now than then,
Than Thou wert, O Father of Men!

FOUR GAZELES OF HAFIZ.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

THE LADY OF THE EAST.

ROMANCES FROM GUSTAVO BECQUER.

OUT-OF-DOORS.

UNCERTAIN SOUNDS.

The wind in the leaves,
The rain on the eaves,
Or the low, continuous roar
Of the rolling waves on the distant shore:
Who shall declare
What sounds they be?
Whether lost in the air,
Or found on the sea,
And whether they laugh, or sigh?
Not I.
I only know
That they come, and go,
And people the hollow sky.

MUSIC.

Never till now did I hear
In this close atmosphere
Of wind and whirling sand,
Or, hearing, understand,
The spells that in Music be;
Nor by what secret laws
The soul of man she draws,
As the orb of the Moon the Sea.
Round after round
Of the ladder of sound
I follow her, higher, higher;
Like an arrow of light
Shot over the Night
By the Morning's bow of fire,
I cleave my way
To the spring of Day;
Where the airs are drifted along,
Heavy with odors of song.

A SAILOR SONG.

Bourbon and Braganza,
They say, are royal strains;
The blood of fifty sailors
Is running in my veins;
With a yo-heave-ho,
And a rumbelow!
Flowing, flowing,
Coming, going,
Not a waft in vain
To my little pinnace along the
Spanish main,
From dawn till day is done
To a sailor's son.
The name that I bear
Means, they all declare,
Pennon, standard-bearer,
Stalwart armor-wearer,
Descendant of stout fellows,
Whom the Winter sun still mellows,
With a yo-heave-ho,
And a rombelow
To sailor sire and son.

IMPLORA PACEM.

CHRISTE, ELEYSON.

THE CAPTAIN'S SONG.

In my sluggish gait,
As it drags along of late,
Is the roll of the Captain on the deck;
Or the lurch of the sailor in the hold,
Courageous from of old,
In the storm and in the wreck;
In the rising, setting suns,
The thunder of the guns—
With a heave-and-a-ho
And a loud rumbelow;
In every sort of breeze,
On southern, northern seas,
Like a dancing leg,
At Old Wapping Stairs,
Where Meg, and Poll, and Peg
Are dancing unawares,
Like you, Bess, and me,
Near the margent of the sea;
At Oxford, or Cambridge, where ferrymen abound,
And merry men are found,
But sober, or tipsy,
Not the Scholar Gypsy,
Who forsook his learned books
For forests, streams, and nooks,
And was robbed, or was hanged, or was drowned,
Two hundred years ago—
With his heave and his ho,
And his mournful rombelow,
With not a soul to know,
Or to toll his passing knell,
His Ding-Dong-Bell.

TO JULIA.

Sister of ours, child of the flowers,
With the dews of thy Maytime still wet,
Fair Julia, our dear Juliet,
Graced of the days and the hours,
Watched over by all the high Powers,
My best one, my own,
Queen on my throne,
The song I am singing is thine,
O, sister and daughter of mine.
Let thy soft eyes incline
To where in the darkness I pine,
Singing right out of my heart,
And not through the cold lips of art.
I kiss thee, my sweet,
Thy hands and thy feet,
Ah—all that is Thee!
Bestow of thy large love a little on me.

IN THE MEADOWS.

IN THE SNOW.

Not as in this winter's snow,
Where, while lost therein, I see
No one out of doors but me;
No one in the buried street,
Nor in the cold blast of the sleet;
But five-and-twenty years ago,
When beneath a hostile star,
The whole land was wrapt in war
(Naught to hope, but much to fear),
When these long embankments here
Were projected, not in white
But in great earth-works of red clay,
Low in the morning, high at night,
I tramp through the meadows, sad and slow,
Where the distant bugles seem to blow
Back to that burning August day!

HOW AND WHY.

If one could understand
The things that are close at hand,
The How and the Why,
He never need die.
The flowers which bloom,
With their hidden perfume,
Where the spider weaves in its fairy loom;
The rivulet which sings
Of the far-off springs;
The leaf on the tree,
Dancing in glee
To an inward melody;
Trees, spiders, flowers declare
Secrets of earth and air,
And all make reply:
“O man, you need not die.”
But there cometh—from where?
This voice of despair.
“The order of Nature
Doth this way tend;
Whatever was begun
Will surely have an end.”

MORS ET VITA.

THOUGHT.

Across the tense chords
Thought runs before words,
Brighter than dew,
And keener than swords.
Whence it cometh,
And whither it goes,
All may conjecture,
But no man knows.
It ebbs and flows
In the dance of the leaves,
The set of summer eaves,
The scent of the violets, the odor of the rose.

THE SINGER.

The only good method
Of head or of heart,
Is the one which produces
The perfectest art.
The voice of the lark,
As it rings on high,
Was begot in the dark
And flung like a spark
Out into the sky,
With the clouds below,
Like mountains of snow
And day near by.
So the lark sings,
With light on his wings,
And so, when I can, do I.

A FANTASY.

Or worsted, or bettered,
In the combat of wit,
By lettered, or unlettered,
I cheerfully submit;
For, bumpkin or cit,
You must not think me cruel,
If winning this duel,
I parry with my poniard your misdirected wit.
For the weapon that I wear
Is le sabre de mon père,
Who fell at Quatre-Bras,
And was mangled by the paw
Of the gory British lion,
In sight of Waterloo, a happy field to die on,
In the rainy afternoon
Of that awful day in June,
To the foolish old tune—
I can hear it still afar—
Of Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre,
With its sonorous refrain,
That was never heard in vain,
Of “Mironton, Mironton, Mirontaine.”

VOX CLAMANTIS.

CHILDREN'S SONGS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

FATHER AND CHILD.

OUR FATHERS.

Here where our fathers worshipped in the Past,
And where their children worship now, we come,
With reverent spirit, as befits the place,
The house they builded for their heavenly needs,
On this green hill, two hundred years ago.
Averse from ceremonious forms and rites,
They left their dear, ancestral homes, the graves
Wherein the ashes of their dead reposed.
They crossed a thousand stormy leagues of sea,
Bearing the best of England in their breasts,
And planted the New World in the wilderness.
Masterful men, but narrow, quick to do
The work that seemed appointed to their hands;
Content with little pleasures, or with none;
Not troubled with unprofitable thoughts;
Of one thing sure—that God would judge them all.
Their sturdy virtues were the corner-stone
Whereon were set the pillars of the State.
Their lives were hard. They tilled the stubborn soil,
Beset with peril from their savage foes,
Or ploughed the windy furrows of the deep,
Under the Pole Star or the Southern Cross,
Adventurous, resolute, their creed summed up
In the right to worship God in their own way,
And not as priests ordain. They had it here.
Here, where their marriage-vows were interchanged,
Their children were baptized, and where at last,
When the long pilgrimage of life was done,
The mourners bore their bodies. Graves were dug
On the green hillside, where their fathers slept,
And they were buried there with many tears,
With homely headstones, carved with cherubs' wings,
And under these the years of birth and death,
And pious texts of Scripture, which declared
That, dying in the Lord, the dead were blessed;
For there remains a rest for them, a house
Not built with hands, eternal in the heavens.
Such hope, such certainty, our fathers had;
Such hope, such certainty, such rest be ours.

THOUGHTS FOR THANKSGIVING.

DECORATION DAY.

HAIR OF WASHINGTON.

TO MARY BRADLEY.

I shall behold, I hope I shall behold
Before the rainfall of to-morrow night,
A woman loved of old, who is not old,
To whom before I was my heart was plight.
My name with hers in Fate's great book enrolled,
Shines, as it ought to, in supernal light,
Twins, slumbering, smiling, on the arm of might,
The mystery of our being still untold.
I know this woman—no one half so well—
Your love as well as mine, diviner Powers!
Whose currents, shifting always, seldom vary;
For she was born beneath a gracious spell,
Somewhere and somehow in the countless hours
Before I Richard was, or she was Mary!

TO WILLIAM JAMES LINTON.

My dear friend, Linton, if your purpose hold,
And adverse fates at last propitious be,
You must be plunging through the starless sea
Between your world and ours, which is more old;
Weltering, I fear, where stormy waves are rolled,
And Arctic icebergs Spring has now set free,
Out of the darkness slowly drift a-lee,
Freighted, like life, with death's eternal cold.
But why should this foreboding heart of mine
Create disasters for you? Why deplore
What the long leagues of tempest-battered shore
May never swallow in their yeasty brine?
What said Sir Humphrey, tiller-ropes in hand?
“Heaven is as near by water as by land.”

AT A DINNER OF ARTISTS.

Sitting beside you in these halls to-night,
Begirt with kindly faces known so long,
My heart is heavy though my words are light,
So strangely sad and sweet are art and song.
Twin sisters, they, at once both bright and dark,
Clinging to coming hours and days gone by,
When hope was jubilant as a morning lark,
And memory silent as the evening sky.
Where are the dear companions, yours and mine,
Whom for one little hour these walls restore,
Courteous and gracious, of a noble line,
And happy times that will return no more?
Farewell and hail! We come and we depart:
I, with my song (ah me!), you, with your art.

AT WASHINGTON.

What constitutes a State? Not arms, nor arts,
Stout sinews, nor the will that makes them strong;
It is upbuilded in heroic hearts,
Self-circling from a more than spheral song.
Before it, like light clouds, the years disperse,
Parting to-day above this stately dome,
Within whose pillared halls the hours rehearse
More tragic issues than dispeopled Rome.
Behold yon marble shaft that cleaves the skies,
Far-seen beyond the circuit of the hills;
And gathered here a host with reverent eyes,
Whose depths, unsunned, the light of freedom fills,
And he whom these have chosen—if not great,
Great through their choice, who were, and are, the State.

MORITURUM SALUTAMUS.

It is most fitting he should pass away,
As he is passing now without a word,
This man of many battles, whom Dismay
Dismayed not, whose stout heart was seldom stirred.
Master of his emotions—not too keen,
Of simple, primitive tastes, his wants were few;
Believer only in things known and seen,
Stubborn and blunt, begotten to subdue.
Not his the blood in Sidney's veins which ran,
Nor his who fell at Roncesvalles of old;
But there is something in this silent man,
Something heroic in his rugged mould.
Of this our Soldier dying Time will be
A kinder, sterner, juster judge than we.

ON NEARING THE SECOND CATARACT.

When I was young—ah, distant when—
And just began to hold my pen,
My head obeyed my tardy hand,
Submissive to its least command;
But now that I have older grown,
And more of other authors known,
I understand how Milton wrote
With younger fingers than his own
The Fall of Man—the tragic note
That struggled through Samson's rugged lines,
Blind, like himself, among the Philistines.

THE CROSSING OF THE WAYS.

Did I see it, or does it seem,
In some world of classic dream?
Who knows this is more wise than I,
It was so distant, is so nigh.
Where ruined tombs and temples stand,
In a many-peopled land,
Where are coming, going ways,
Where many haste, but no one stays,
Toward which a man with eager gaze
Urges forward, fair and fleet,
With gold sandals on his feet:
I dream of him by night and day,
At once so serious and gay,
Leaves of November, buds of May,
Wreathed with myrtle, crowned with bay;
Two natures in him, gentle, bold,
Affections young, but judgment old,
Over him their light and shadow plays,
As he nears the crossing of the ways.
But who are These, that fast, or slow,
Seem now to come, and now to go?
One stealing silently along,
The other marching with bursts of song;
One clad in a waving, yellow robe,
Such as Summer all over the globe
Wears at the earliest flush of June,
When the hearts of all things are in tune.
But the other, that ominous other,
Twinned of the same great Mother,
Why differs he so from his brother?
Visions and apparitions fly,
Here before them, and there behind,
Those to loosen, and these to bind,
As the hours delay, and the days go by.
Each bravely holds aloft his torch,
That lights the tombs, and a temple-porch.
But now that they reach the altar,
And stand by the sacred fires,
The bride and the groom both falter,
For the flame of one torch expires.
What more? In my dream remains
The end of my friend—not my pains.
He is gone; he will not return;
Nothing left us here but—an Urn.

AT CONCORD.

AT ROSLYN.

THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON.

Once on a time, when he was growing old,
Albeit there was no sign of age in him,
Except his snowy beard, King Solomon
Sat deeply meditating on his throne,
His magic throne, which bore him where he would,
Winged like a planet. On a mountain-peak,
Which overlooked the long Iranian plain,
And many-citied kingdoms of the Ind,
It stood, like morn re-risen in the east,
Seen by the people over whom it shone,
And seen of every creature of the earth,
Which gathered from all quarters of the earth,
Commanded thither by the powerful word
Of their imperious master, Solomon,
Whom the four angels of the land and sea
Had given dominion over them and theirs,
That they should honor him and do his will,
And who, moreover, understood their speech,
And could converse with them, so wise was he.
Surrounded there by these that summer day
He sat, and over him the birds of heaven
Hung motionless, a living canopy
That shut out the fierce sunlight; also came
And ministered to him the winds of heaven,
They, or the angels who ruled over them,
Diverse in kind, but strangely beautiful,
As when with their innumerable wings
He first beheld them in Jerusalem.
The populous kingdoms of the earth and air,
Below, above, about him, troubled him,
Troubled him because he understood their speech,
Their habits, passions, everything they were,
What life was to them, and how short it was,
And, whether long or short, how certain death.
The solemn thought of their mortality,
And, it may be, his own, which all that day
Was present with him, an unwelcome guest,
The more unwelcome as he grew more old,
Darkened the loving heart of Solomon,
Darkened his soul, till, lifting up his eyes,
He saw a mist which slowly shaped itself,
Or seemed to shape, into an odorous cloud,
Which rose before him, and from out the cloud
There reached a hand that held a crystal cup,
Filled with strange water, clearer than the cup;
And sweeter than all music spake a voice,
Saying: “The Maker of the Universe—
His Name and Power be honored, glorified,
Hath sent me with this cup, wherein thou seest
The waters of youth and everlasting life.
Choose freely whether thou wilt or wilt not drink,
This draught of youth and everlasting life.
Think, wilt thou be immortal through all time,
Or live and die like other men? I wait.”
Deep silence brooded over all the Place
When the Voice ceased, and Solomon communed
Within himself upon the thing he heard.
Firm as a pillar stood the odorous cloud,
And the white hand reached out the diamond cup,
“Surely,” he thought, “the gold of life is good
To spend in the great market of the world;
Fruitful the soil of life, wherein to plant
The stately palms of power, the flowers of love;
But joyless is the dark repose of death.”
Thus he, within the silence of his thoughts
Debating life and death. “Before I drink
I will take other counsel than mine own;
For though men call me wise, I know myself
Foolish at times—I think more foolish now
That age hath come on me.” He summoned then
All spirits which were subject to his charge,
The angels of the winds and of the seas,
The birds of heaven, the creatures of the earth,
The souls of wise men dead before he lived,
And speaking to them in their several tongues,
Demanded they should tell him, if they knew,
Whether, indeed, it would be wise in him
To drain the cup of everlasting life,
Or let it go, and die like other men.
Then, like the voices of a thousand streams
Which are one voice, the countless multitude
Straightway entreated him to drain the cup,
Seeing that the welfare of the world was laid
Upon his wisdom, as upon the hills,
That hold up the high heavens. And, furthermore,
The happiness of all things was sustained
By the perfected circle of his life,
Set like a jewel in a golden ring,
The precious jewel in his signet-ring,
Which was the Incommunicable Name.
He hearkened to their voices, hearkening more
To the unspoken longing in his heart,
Of which they were the answer; then, resolved,
Stretched forth his hand and took the shining cup,
Whereat the hand that gave it into his,
Tempting, withdrew into the pillared cloud.
Wondrous the lights within the water were,
Which water was no longer, but a wine
The like whereof no mortal ever saw,
Not pressed from earthly clusters such as grew
In his walled garden of Jerusalem—
Vintage of heaven, its rare aroma stole,
Like the remembered music of a dream,
Through all his senses, yearning with delight.
And, lo! from out its living depths a flame
Flashed suddenly up, and flushed his royal face,
Prophetic promise of returning Youth.
He would have drank, but something stayed his hand,
Some dark foreboding that he had not done
All that a wise man should to know the truth.
Perhaps he had misheard the unknown voice
That spake from out the cloud—the words were strange;
Perhaps his wily servants flattered him,
Puffed up with self-importance. He would see.
“O ye,” he cried, “who minister to me,
Spirits, and men, and creatures of the earth,
Tell me if there be any absent now,
Many, or one, for I commanded all
To meet me here at noon.” And they replied,
Bowing before the might of Solomon,
“Master, the only one who is not here
Is that most loving of all living things,
Whom all things love, the wild dove Boutimar.”
The Lord of Learning sent a golden bird,
A marvellous gift from Sheba's beauteous Queen,
To find and fetch the wild dove Boutimar
From where her nest was builded on the roof
Of the great Temple of Jerusalem.
The glory of the reign of Solomon.
“O dove,” he said, while she was still afar,
“Wild dove that dwellest in the clefts of rocks,
Or in the hiding-places of the wood,
Singing all day, ‘The fashion of this world
Passes away like stubble in the fire,
But God remains eternal in the heavens.’
Hither, my dove, and let me see thy face,
Hither, and let me hear thy voice once more.”
Then when the wild dove Boutimar was come,
Smoothing her feathers with a tender hand,
He bade her tell him whether it were best
That he, her lord and master, Solomon,
Should drink the waters of immortal youth.
Whereunto Boutimar, the Bird of Love,
Whose wisdom was proportioned to her love:
“How should a simple creature of the sky,
Tenant of lonely places far from men,
In rocky clefts, or woods, or temple roofs,
Answer the Master of Intelligence?
Yet if it must be that I counsel thee,
Instruct me whether this bright Cup of Life
Be for thee only, or for all mankind.”
And he: “It hath been sent to me alone.
There is not in the cup another drop,
Nay, not so much as the least bead of dew
Left at high noontide in the lily's leaves.”
“Prophet of God!” the wild dove answered then,
“O, how couldst thou desire to live alone,
Then, when thy trusty friends and counsellors,
Thy wives, thy children, all who love thee, all
Whom thou dost love, are numbered with the dead?
For these must surely drink the cup of death,
Though thou to-day shouldst drink the cup of life.
Who could endure eternal youth, O King,
When the world's face was wrinkled with old age,
And Death's black fingers, reaching everywhere,
Had closed the pale eye of the latest star?
When all thou lovest shall have passed away
Like smoke of incense in that holy House
Which thou hast builded in Jerusalem;
When, poor, dead dust, the heart that beat to thine
Shall have been scattered by the winds of heaven;
When eyes which were the loadstars of thy fate
Have left not even the memory of their light;
When voices which were music in thine ears
Are mute forever; when thy life shall be
The sole oasis in the waste of death,
Eternal recognition of the dead,
Wilt thou then care to live, O Solomon?
Or, rather, wilt thou die like the wild dove
Who perishes when its truant mate comes not?”
For answer Solomon restored the cup
To the white hand, that disappeared again
Deep in the dense concealment of the cloud,
Which in a moment vanished out of sight.
Wisdom returned to him, and with it tears,
The happy tears that heal the sorrowing heart,
Submissive to the ordinance of Heaven,
Content to live and die like other men.

THE LEGEND OF FREY BERNARDO.

THE BRAHMAN'S SON.

The Brahman's son was dead, the Brahman's heart
Stricken as if a thunder-bolt had fallen
Out of a clear sky, emptied of all light,
And suddenly black with midnight. Nevermore
Would life be what it had been, for the hand
That, reaching from the darkness, plucked the flower,
Plucked up by the roots the stem that bore the flower,
And dashed it down to die the self-same death.
It seemed so, for the aged Brahman thrice
Fainted upon the bosom of his son,
And each time longer coming back to life,
Sank deeper deathward. When he lay as dead
They took the body from his lifeless arms,
And having washed it in the sacred stream,
And wound it in the perfumed linen sheet,
Laid it upon a bier bestrown with flowers,
And bore it softly to the burial place.
When, lying there, the unhappy father woke
He knew that all was over, for the tears,
That had refused to flow, began to fall,
As after a long drought the summer rain.
Moreover he saw the elders of his caste,
Gray-beards who had no children, rating him
Because he sorrowed for his dear, dead child.
Stunned by their harsh reproofs, that smote his ear,
With words of commination, he was mute.
Driven hither by his sorrow for his son,
And thither by his duty to the gods,
To whom all sorrow, save what they inflict
By priestly hands for gifts withheld from them,
Is sin, the Brahman sought to overcome
The dark remembrance of his dreadful loss
By brooding over the Beneficence
Which fills the world with light, the night with stars,
By wisdom which the wisest of his caste
Proclaimed the only happiness of man,
But sought in vain, for all day long he saw
The face, the form, the presence of his child.
Turn where he would it was: indoors and out;
It went before him and it followed him,
Was at his scanty meals and at his prayers;
Rose when he rose at morning from his sleep,
And in the troubled watches of the night
Was with him in his dreams—a beauteous shape.
Haunted by memories he could not escape,
And grief that would not heal, the Brahman sighed:
“I am not—cannot be—like other men,
For having their dead, as I have, they forget,
While I remember; and not being wise—
No more than I am—they contrive to find
(They say so) wisdom, which I cannot find.
I will seek Yama, therefore, King of Death,
And pray him to give back my dear dead son.”
The Brahman straightway rose, and clothed himself
In the long vestments of his priestly caste,
And having performed the ceremonial rite,
And offered up the sacrificial flowers,
Went forth alone to seek the King of Death.
He questioned all he met where he might find
That lord of vanished kingdoms. Where is Death?
Some stared at him wide-eyed, but answered not,
Thinking him mad; some answered, mocking him;
And other some advised him to return,
Lest, sooner than he would, he should find Death.
Scarred soldiers riding by in mail cried out
That Death was in the rush of battle-storms,
Beneath the bursting of the arrow-clouds,
Amidst the lightning of the crossing swords,
Before the ranks of fighting elephants.
And swarthy sailors, swaggering in their cups,
Boisterous as stormy sea-winds, shouted, “Death
Is in the long waves roaring on the reefs,
And in the water-spouts of the mid-sea.”
And dancing girls, whose feet, like those of Spring,
Twinkled to music, and whose floating arms
Circled about their brows like flights of doves,
Sang, in the pauses of their amorous hymn,
“Not in the cold, dark caverns of the sea
Seek Death, nor in the dreadful battle-field,
But rather in our arms and on our lips,
Strained to our hearts in kisses: so to die—
No life is half so sweet as such a death.”
The rippling laughter of the merry girls
Was like the chime of bells on temple eaves
When winds of summer lip their silver tongues.
He wandered by the banks of many streams,
And in the shade of many city walls,
Until he came to the great wilderness
Below the holy Mountains of the East.
Dangerous the way was, for in forest paths
Were hooded serpents, pendent from the boughs,
With flickering, forked tongues; and, couchant near,
Leopards, the anger of whose cruel eyes
Flamed ominously through the jungle grass;
And, still more deadly, the enormous boa,
Whose tortuous passage through the furrowed weeds
Was like a boat's wake on the heaving sea.
Fearless he passed them: what had he to fear
From deaths like these who sought the King of Death?
At length he reached the harmless hermitage
Where dwelt the oldest Brahmans—holy men,
Reverend in their white hairs and drifts of beard.
The shadows of the ancient rocks and trees
Lengthened and shortened with the slow-paced hours,
And circled with the circling of the sun;
All, save the shadow of the sacred trees
Wherein they sat and mused, which circled not,
Steadfast as earth was in the shifting light.
They sat in silence, staring at the sun,
Not blinded by it, and the birds of heaven,
Seeing they stirred not, nestled in their beards.
Awed by the stern composure of their looks,
The Brahman stopped, like one who in a dream
Fears to go on, yet feels he must go on.
Then, bowing lowly to these holy men,
He said: “O Brahmans! Fathers of the caste,
As Brahma is the Father of the Gods,
Supreme in wisdom as the Gods are, hear,
And, hearing, help a most unhappy man
Who, worn with fruitless wanderings to and fro
In search of Yama, rajah of the dead,
Beseeches ye to tell him where he is:
Direct him, Fathers, to the King of Death.”
He spake, and waiting for their answer, heard
The humming of innumerable bees,
The inarticulate whisper of the leaves,
The rivers chanting their eternal song,
And in the distant woods the roar of beasts.
But now the Brahmans heard, or seemed to hear,
Like those whom voices overtake in sleep,
And, who, persuaded by the voices, wake,
Not knowing where they are, or who they are,
Pausing until their souls come back to them.
“What man art thou? And wherefore seekest thou
Yama, who comes unsought to every man?”
Few words sufficed to tell them what he was:
A Brahman (as they saw), but one to whom
The wisdom of his caste had not been given,
Though he had sought it long, with all his mind—
Sought it with fasts and prayers for threescore years.
Seeing (he said) that he was growing old,
And was not growing wise—a simple man
Who never could be wiser than he was—
He took a wife, as was his duty then,
To bear him holy children; she bare one,
A son, who was the comfort of his age.
Him did he dedicate to holiness,
Instilling at all hours in his young life
The love of wisdom, teaching all he knew,
Till, no more teaching, he was taught himself,
Fathered in knowledge by his wiser child.
“But he was taken from me in his bloom,
Taken with the dawn of manhood on his lip,
Taken without warning, leaving me alone!
Wherefore, I pray ye, Fathers, holy men,
Who, knowing all things, know where Yama dwells,
Tell me where I may find the King of Death,
That I may pray him to give back my son.”
They answered him together, with one voice,
As when the sounds of many swollen streams
Become one sound: “There is no giving back;
Death takes his own, and keeps it; takes all things.
The stars die in their courses, like the dew,
That shines, and is not; the containing heavens
Wither like leaves in autumn; all the worlds,
And all the creatures that inhabit them,
Vanish like smoke of incense—which they are,
From the beginning offered up to Death.
Thou canst not visit Yama's dread abode,
For no man goes that way with mortal feet.
But if thy faith be sure, thy courage high,
Thou mayst do one thing. Many a league from here,
Hundreds of leagues toward the setting sun,
There is a valley; in the midst of it
There stands a city, wherein dwells no man,
But the Gods only, when their pleasure is
To clothe themselves in shape, and live on earth.
There, when the eighth day of the month is come,
Comes Yama, from the dark realms of the dead,
To share the bright life of his brother Gods:
Go there, and there find Yama. Now depart:
We have heard and answered thy complaining words,
And earned the right to meditate again.”
Thus they, and silence followed, as when day
Dies in the purple west the birds fly home,
Forgetful of the songs they sang at dawn;
The leaves are hushed, the winds are laid, and night
Shuts suddenly, darkly in the starless sky.
Through sunlight, moonlight, starlight, like a cloud,
Driven by the strong wings of a steady wind
Whose speed is in his steps, the Brahman went
Hundreds of leagues toward the setting sun:
At last he reached the end of the world, and saw
The valley whereof the Fathers had foretold,
Immeasurable, and in the midst of it
The great and glorious City of the Gods.
A City builded in the summer clouds
By masonry of winds, fantastic, strange;
Tier over tier, in mountain terraces,
Sheer from the hollows of that happy vale,
It rose resplendent; leagues of palaces,
The sudden opening of whose doors disclosed
The light of thrones within; what temples seemed,
Interminable columns, crowned with domes;
Towers, wall-surrounded, high, mysterious;
Arches, wherethrough one saw the rise and fall
Of dazzling fountains in perpetual bloom;
Towers, temples, palaces, and over all
The great gate of the Palace of the Gods.
Beside the fiery pillars of this gate,
With folded wings, two watchful Spirits stood,
Guarding the entrance lest some evil thing
Should unperceived steal in; who, when they saw
The Brahman coming where his prayers had come
So long before him—for the prayers of men
Are ladders mounting from the earth to heaven—
They knew his life had been acceptable
To the high gods; and though he was the first
Who, without dying, ever came that way,
They stayed him not, such fearlessness of death
Was in his eyes, such certainty of life.
As when at set of sun on summer eves
The heavens are opened, and a single cloud,
Rising above the threshold of the west,
Pauses a moment, then is lost in light,
So paused the Brahman, till the golden gate
Unfolding slowly with melodious song—
If song it was, and not the spiritual touch
Of unseen hands on unknown instruments
That welcomed him—admitted him beyond,
There, where the Gods were in divine repose.
Not as where sculptured in colossal forms,
With fourfold faces, and with sceptred hands,
They sit crossed-legged, among their worshippers,
In tall pagodas, or in temple-caves
Quarried in mountains, ancient as themselves,
But Presences wherein the Power they were
Was felt, not seen: a sense of awfulness
Fell on the Brahman's soul, and closed his lips,
That would have uttered supplicating cries
To have his son restored, but dared not there.
From out the silence of that sacred Place—
But whether nigh at hand or far away,
From the great roof of brightness overhead
Or from the cavernous darkness in whose depths
The firm foundation of that world was set
From the beginning, who may say?—there came,
Or seemed to come, a low mysterious Voice:
“Thy prayers are answered. All the Gods can do
For man is done when they have heard his prayers
And answered them; the consequence of prayer,
Or good, or evil, must be borne by man:
The Gods are powerless to undo their work.
Thy son is in the Garden of the East.
Go to him; I permit it.” And he went,
Following he knew not how that heavenly Voice,
Sweeter than music on the sea at night,
But sadder than the moaning of the sea
When, pitying, it gives back the dead—too late!
Lovelier than all the gardens of the earth
It was—a region of eternal bloom:
Of flowers that, budding or full blown, were fresh
With lucent dews, whose bright leaves faded not,
Of fruits that, ripening on the laden boughs,
Dropped not, but hung all golden in the sun,
If sun it was whose mellow light was there—
An everlasting day! Like one in dreams,
Who bears about with him in unknown worlds
Remembrance of the only world he knows,
The unhappy Brahman wandered up and down,
Through groves of summer boscage blithe with birds,
And meadow hollows murmurous with bees;
Past sheets of still, clear water, islanded
With lily-pods—a Lotus Paradise,
And shafts of fountains flashing as they rose
In rainbow mists; past all, and saw them—
Saw nothing but his poor forsaken home
Beside the Ganges, and the mound of earth
That covered his dead boy, until, at last
The film passed from him, and he saw the boy,
More beauteous than on earth, though beauteous there,
Divinely fair—the same, but not the same.
Trembling, with outstretched hands, and a great cry,
He ran to him, and clasped him in his arms.
“Oh, my sweet boy! Oh, my beloved first-born
Hast thou forgot me, thy father? me,
Whose loving heart was broken at thy death?”
“I know thee not,” the soul of the dead child
Replied, escaping from his arms like mist.
“My son! my son! hast thou indeed forgot
Thy father, who loved thee more than his own life?
Who taught thy baby lips the words of prayer—
Deliverance from the power of Evil Ones,
And thanks for the protection of the Gods?
Hast thou forgot thy mother, who, like me,
Weeps, but alone, seeing that I am gone
From her on this long journey after thee?
O look at me! O come to me again!
And look at me, and thou wilt know me!” Still
The child came not, but said: “I know thee not:
Thou art a stranger to me. All I know
Is—that thou art a mortal, and not wise,
For wert thou wise, as we are, thou wouldst know
That ‘father,’ ‘mother,’ here are foolish names,
Belonging to conditions that are past.
Depart, unhappy one! I know thee not.
Thou art no more to me than to the moon
The wind that drives the clouds across her face,
The torch gone out at noonday. Get thee hence;
It profits not to bring thy sorrow here.”
The child, the garden—all things disappeared;
All save the Brahman, and the tears he shed:
Not long; for lifting up his eyes, he saw
Buddha before him, seated on his throne,
Godlike and human, merciful and wise,
With eyes that read the secrets of all hearts.
Pitying the father who had lost his child,
He stooped and laid his hand upon his heart,
And healing his long heart-ache, gave him peace.
“Brahman! thou hast been punished grievously
For understanding neither life nor death;
For knowing not the spirits of the dead
Receive new bodies after they are dead,
So that their late-left tenements of clay
Are no more to them than a wayside inn
To which as guests they never go again.
The ties of kindred—father, mother, child—
That seem to bind the world with bands of steel,
Are frailer when death comes than spiders' threads;
For death comes like a torrent from the hills,
Which swollen with ruin sweeps away all love,
And all love clings to with its dying hold.
Thy first, last duty, Brahman, is to live,
True to thyself and others; swerving not
From what the voice within pronounces good.
Who lives well, dies well.” So the Brahman found,
For he returned to earth, and wept no more;
But taking up the burden of his life,
He lived it out, and earned a quiet grave;
The thought of which, as he drew near to it,
Was a prophetic promise of his rest,
And of his bright Companion gone before,
Of whom his last words were—He knows me now!

THE LION'S CUB.