English

(At Booker Washington's grave)
Deep in Alabama earth
His buried body lies —
But higher than the singing pines
And taller than the skies
And out of Alabama earth
To all the world there goes
The truth a simple heart has held
And the strength a strong hand knows,
While over Alabama earth
These words are gently spoken:
Serve — and hate will die unborn.
Love — and chains are broken.

Deep in a vale where rocks on every side
Shut out the winds, and scarcely let the sun
Between them dart his rays down one by one,
Where all was still and cool in summer-tide,
And softly, with her whispering waves that sighed,
A little river, that had scarce begun
Her silver course, made bold to fleet and run
Down leafy falls to woodlands dense and wide,
There stood a tiny plain, just large enow
To give small mountain-folk right room to dance,
With oaks and limes and maples ringed around;

Deep in a vale, a stranger now to arms,
Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg,
He, who once warred on Saratoga's plains,
Sits musing o'er his scars, and wooden leg.

Remembering still the toil of former days,
To other hands he sees his earnings paid;--
They share the due reward--he feeds on praise,
Lost in the abyss of want, misfortune's shade.

Far, far from domes where splendid tapers glare,
'Tis his from dear bought peace no wealth to win,
Removed alike from courtly cringing 'squires,

Deep in a distant bay, and deeply hidden,
There is an island far away from me
Which lulls the tumbling waves to dreamy quiet;
And there steep cliffs against the water's riot
Stand up, and to their shelter ships are bidden,
Where those curved arms shut in a tranquil sea.

The deep blue of the earth
tempted me, and I came.
It was an Arab house
dedicated by wind to eloquent silence.
I wished goodnight to the grasses of the garden,
then went away.

A woman awaits me.
She has fixed a spear at the threshold of the tent,
completed her beauty rituals, lain down
on the sands, and slept.
As I move toward her in the dream,
the star of the guest will see me
and follow my steps.

" Sir, oh Sir,
you who stealthily came to me in the dream,
spread out in my body —

Deck thyself, maiden,
With the hood of thy mother;
Put on the ribands
Which thy mother once wore:
On thy head the band of duty,
On thy forehead the band of care.
Sit in the seat of thy mother,
And walk in thy mother's footsteps.
And weep not, weep not, maiden:
If thou weepest in thy bridal attire,
Thou wilt weep all thy life.

The decent docent doesn't doze:
He teaches standing on his toes.
His student dassn't doze — and does,
And that's what teaching is and was.

December stillness, teach me through your trees
That loom along the west, one with the land,
The veiled evangel of your mysteries.
While nightfall, sad and spacious, on the down
Deepens, and dusk imbues me, where I stand,
With grave diminishings of green and brown,
Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words;
And let me learn your secret from the sky,
Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birds
In lone remote migration beating by.
December stillness, crossed by twilight roads,

December, my dear, on the road to Nijmegen,
between the stones and the bitter skies was your face.

At first only the gatherings of graves
along the lank canals, each with a frosted
billy-tin for motto; the bones of tanks
beside the stoven bridges; old men in the mist
knifing chips from a boulevard of stumps;
or women riding into the wind on the rims of their cycles,
like tattered sailboats tossing over the cobbles.

These at first, and the fangs of homes, but more

Deceav'd and undeceav'd to be
At once I seek with equal care,
Wretched in the discovery,
Happy if cozen'd still I were:
Yet certain ill of ill hath lesse
Then the mistrust of happinesse.

But if when I have reach'd my Aime,
(That which I seek less worthy prove,)
Yet still my Love remains the same,
The subject not deserving Love;
I can no longer be excus'd,
Now more in fault as less abus'd.

Then let me flatter my Desires,
And doubt what I might know too sure,
He that to cheat himself conspires,