“To Wonder And Be Still.”

Oft in the starry middle night I vex my heart in vain, To set its mystic music right, And find the hidden strain.

To-night the summer moon is strong, The little clouds drift past,-- The wonder is too deep for song-- The silence speaks at last.

“Thou canst not match those harmonies On moon-enamoured lute, Serenely silent arch the skies, And the great stars are mute;

“Thou canst not tune to thine unrest Their solemn calm above; In silence thou shalt worship best, And reverently love.

“Beyond this night in which thou art, There is a voice of spheres, Which the eternal in thine heart Remembers and reveres.

“But how they sing in unison Earth’s ear hath never heard, So only in thine heart rings on The song that has no word.”

AN ANSWER.

Take again thy shallow hearted reason Groping dimly through the night in which thou art! Very harmless fall the arrows of thy treason On the worship and the wonder in my heart.

I have drunk the everlasting fountains Flowing downward from the infinite to me, Seen the wonder of the moonrise in the mountains And the glory of the sunset on the sea.

THE POET.

HE will come again as oft of old among you, With his burden to fulfil;-- Did ye hearken ever to the songs they sung you Till the song was still?

HE will bear again the scorn, the idle wonder, And heart-hunger and love’s need; You will drown the sound of music in your thunder, And he will not heed.

Singing unperplexed above the mocking laughter Till his day be overpast; Till the music dies, and silence follows after And ye turn at last,--

Then when all the echoes breathe it and ye know it, Ye will seek him to revere; Cry aloud, and call him, master, lover, poet! And he will not hear.

VICTORY.

This then--to live and have no joy thereof, To thirst and hunger and be very tired, To walk unloved, or know if one should love It were a bitter thing that he desired, To have no home in all the earth, to be Mocked and derided and outcast of men, To squander love and labour, and to see No fruit of it, and yet to love, and then Bearing all slander silently alway, Serenely when the last reproach is hurled To look Death in the face alone, and say “Be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”