_T. W. P. 1819-1892_

FRIEND who hast gone, and dost enrich to-day New England brightly building far away, And crown her liberal walk With company more choice, and sweeter talk,

Look not on Fame, but Peace; and in a bower Receive at last her fulness and her power: Nor wholly, pure of heart! Forget thy few, who would be where thou art.

Summum Bonum

WAITING on Him who knows us and our need, Most need have we to dare not, nor desire, But as He giveth, softly to suspire Against His gift, with no inglorious greed, For this is joy, tho’ still our joys recede; And, as in octaves of a noble lyre, To move our minds with His, and clearer, higher, Sound forth our fate; for this is strength indeed.

Thanks to His love let earth and man dispense In smoke of worship when the heart is stillest, A praying more than prayer: “Great good have I, Till it be greater good to lay it by; Nor can I lose peace, power, permanence, For these smile on me from the thing Thou willest!”

Saint Florent-le-Vieil

THE spacious open vale, the vale of doom, Is full of autumn sunset; blue and strong The semicirque of water sweeps among Her lofty acres, each a martyr’s tomb; And slowly, slowly, melt into the gloom Two little idling clouds, that look for long Like roseleaf bodies of two babes in song Correggio left to flush a convent room.

Dear hill deflowered in the frantic war! In my day, rather, have I seen thee blest With pastoral roofs to break the darker crest Of apple-woods by many-islèd Loire, And fires that still suffuse the lower west, Blanching the beauty of thine evening star.

Hylas

JAR in arm, they bade him rove Thro’ the alder’s long alcove, Where the hid spring musically Gushes to the ample valley. (There ’s a bird on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: “Keep--young!” but who knows how?)

Down the woodland corridor, Odors deepened more and more; Blossomed dogwood, in the briers, Struck her faint delicious fires; Miles of April passed between Crevices of closing green, And the moth, the violet-lover, By the wellside saw him hover.

Ah, the slippery sylvan dark! Never after shall he mark Noisy ploughmen drinking, drinking, On his drownèd cheek down-sinking; Quit of serving is that wild, Absent, and bewitchèd child, Unto action, age, and danger, Thrice a thousand years a stranger.

Fathoms low, the naiads sing In a birthday welcoming; Water-white their breasts, and o’er him, Water-gray, their eyes adore him. (There ’s a bird on the under bough Fluting evermore and now: “Keep--young!” but who knows how?)

Nocturne

THE sun that hurt his lovers from on high Is fallen; she more merciful is nigh, The blessèd one whose beauty’s even glow Gave never wound to any shepherd’s eye. Above our pausing boat in shallows drifted, Alone her plaintive form ascends the sky.

O sing! the water-golds are deepening now, A hush is come upon the beechen bough; She shines the while on thee, as saint to saint Sweet interchanged adorings may allow: Sing, dearest, with that lily throat uplifted; They are so like, the holy Moon and thou!

The Kings

A MAN said unto his angel: “My spirits are fallen thro’, And I cannot carry this battle, O brother! what shall I do?

“The terrible Kings are on me, With spears that are deadly bright, Against me so from the cradle Do fate and my fathers fight.”

Then said to the man his angel: “Thou wavering, foolish soul, Back to the ranks! What matter To win or to lose the whole,

“As judged by the little judges Who hearken not well, nor see? Not thus, by the outer issue, The Wise shall interpret thee.

“Thy will is the very, the only, The solemn event of things; The weakest of hearts defying Is stronger than all these Kings.

“Tho’ out of the past they gather, Mind’s Doubt and Bodily Pain, And pallid Thirst of the Spirit That is kin to the other twain,

“And Grief, in a cloud of banners, And ringletted Vain Desires, And Vice, with the spoils upon him Of thee and thy beaten sires,

“While Kings of eternal evil Yet darken the hills about, Thy part is with broken sabre To rise on the last redoubt;

“To fear not sensible failure, Nor covet the game at all, But fighting, fighting, fighting, Die, driven against the wall!”