A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers;

And near it stood an ancient holy man That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not

For this unknown dead woman at my feet. But I, because his sacred office held

My reverence, listened; and 't was thus he spake:

"When next thou comest thou shalt find her still

In all the rare perfection that she was.
Thou shalt have gentle greeting of thy love!
Her eyelids will have turned to violets,
Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath
To roses. What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower, or wingëd
air.

If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh,
Think thee what destiny awaits the soul!
What glorious vesture it shall wear at
last!"

While yet he spoke, seashore and grave and priest

Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire

Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear. Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart, A sense of swift unutterable loss,

And through the darkness reached my hand

Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;

Others, beholding how thy turrets climb 'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days;

But most beware of those who come to praise.

O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all;

Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,

Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given: Then, if at last the airy structure fall, Dissolve, and vanish take thyself no

shame.

-

They fail, and they alone, who have not

striven.

REMINISCENCE

THOUGH I am native to this frozen zone That half the twelvemonth torpid lies, or dead;

Though the cold azure arching overhead
And the Atlantic's never-ending moan
Are mine by heritage, I must have known
Life otherwhere in epochs long since fled;
For in my veins some Orient blood is red,
And through my thought are lotus blossoms
blown.

I do remember . . . it was just at dusk,
Near a walled garden at the river's turn
(A thousand summers seem but yesterday!),
À Nubian girl, more sweet than Khoorja
musk,

Came to the water-tank to fill her urn, And, with the urn, she bore my heart away!

QUITS

IF my best wines mislike thy taste, And my best service win thy frown, Then tarry not, I bid thee haste; There's many another Inn in town.

AN ODE

ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIAL ON BOSTON COMMON, MAY THIRTYFIRST, 1897

I

Nor with slow, funereal sound

Come we to this sacred ground;

Not with wailing fife and solemn muffled drum,

Bringing a cypress wreath

To lay, with bended knee,
On the cold brows of Death -
Not so, dear God, we come,
But with the trumpets' blare

And shot-torn battle-banners flung to air,
As for a victory!

Hark to the measured tread of martial feet,
The music and the murmurs of the street!
No bugle breathes this day
Disaster and retreat! -
Hark, how the iron lips
Of the great battle-ships

Salute the City from her azure Bay!

II

Time was time was, ah, unforgotten years!

We paid our hero tribute of our tears.

But now let go

All sounds and signs and formulas of woe:
'Tis Life, not Death, we celebrate;
To Life, not Death, we dedicate
This storied bronze, whereon is wrought
The lithe immortal figure of our thought,
To show forever to men's eyes,

Our children's children's children's eyes,
How once he stood

In that heroic mood,

He and his dusky braves

So fain of glorious graves!
One instant stood, and then

Drave through that cloud of purple steel and flame,

Which wrapt him, held him, gave him not

again,

But in its trampled ashes left to Fame An everlasting name !

III

That was indeed to live-
At one bold swoop to wrest
From darkling death the best
That death to life can give.
He fell as Roland fell
That day at Roncevaux,

With foot upon the ramparts of the foe!
A pæan, not a knell,
For heroes dying so!
No need for sorrow here,
No room for sigh or tear,

Save such rich tears as happy eyelids know.
See where he rides, our Knight!
Within his eyes the light

Of battle, and youth's gold about his brow;
Our Paladin, our Soldier of the Cross,
Not weighing gain with loss
World-loser, that won all
Obeying duty's call!
Not his, at peril's frown,
A pulse of quicker beat;
Not his to hesitate

And parley hold with Fate,
But proudly to fling down
His gauntlet at her feet.

O soul of loyal valor and white truth,
Here, by this iron gate,

Thy serried ranks about thee as of yore,
Stand thou for evermore

In thy undying youth!

The tender heart, the eagle eye!
Oh, unto him belong

The homages of Song;

Our praises and the praise

Of coming days

To him belong