Each eve earth falleth down the dark,
As though its hope were o'er;
Yet lurks the sun when day is done
Behind to-morrow's door.

Grey grows the dawn while men-folk sleep,
Unseen spreads on the light,
Till the thrush sings to the coloured things,
And earth forgets the night.

No otherwise wends on our Hope:
E'en as a tale that's told
Are fair lives lost, and all the cost
Of wise and true and bold.

We've toiled and failed; we spake the word;
None hearkened; dumb we lie;
Our Hope is dead, the seed we spread
Fell o'er the earth to die.

Artsybashev is a Russian.
I am an American.
Let us wonder, my townspeople,
if Artsybashev tends his own fires
as I do, gets himself cursed
for the baby's failure to thrive,
loosens windows for the woman
who cleans his parlor—
or has he neat servants
and a quiet library, an
intellectual wife perhaps and
no children,—an apartment
somewhere in a back street or
lives alone or with his mother
or sister—

I wonder, my townspeople,
if Artsybashev looks upon
himself the more concernedly
or succeeds any better than I
in laying the world.

Thou neuter gender! whom a gown
Can make a woman, breeches none;
Created one thing, made another,
Not a sister, scarce a brother;
Jack of both sides, that may bear
Or a distaff or a spear;
If thy fortunes thither call,
Be the Grand Signior's general;
Or if thou fancy not that trade,
Turn the sultana's chamber-maid;
A medal, where grim Mars turned right,
Proves a smiling aphrodite;
How doth Nature quibble, either
He, or she, boy, girl, or neither;
Thou may serve great Jove instead
Of Hebe both and Ganymede:

Splendor-enthroned, divine Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, wily weaver of snares,
Crush me not, goddess, with agony mighty;
Hear these my prayers.

Haste now, if ever thy heart has grown tender
When I have called to thee, calling afar;
Come now, as erst, from the home of thy splendor,
Yoking thy car.

Fair are thy sparrows, with well plumèd pinions,
Fleetly all round the dark planet they flew,
Whirling thee swift through the azure dominions,
Out of the blue.

Sudden they brought thee, but thou, O Divinest,

To his gallant horse the warrior sprung,—
They called, but he would not stay;
And the hoof of his hurrying charger rung,
As to battle he rushed away.
She stood aloft on the warder's tower,
And she followed him over the plain,
And she watched through many a silent hour,
But she heard not his tramp again.

They came, when the morning was cold and pale,
With a warrior on his bier,
And his banner, rent like a tattered sail,
Showed he died not the death of fear.
They brought him in pride and sorrow back
To the home he had left so gay,

I came to the mountains for beauty
And I find here the toiling folk,
On sparse little farms in the valleys,
Wearing their days like a yoke.

White clouds fill the valleys at morning,
They are round as great billows at sea,
And roll themselves up to the hill-tops
Still round as great billows can be.

The mists fill the valleys at evening,
They are blue as the smoke in the fall,
And spread all the hills with a tenuous scarf
That touches the hills not at all.

These lone folk have looked on them daily,
Yet I see in their faces no light.

Dawn like a lily lies upon the land
Since I have known the whiteness of your hand.
Dusk is more soft and more mysterious where
Breathes on my eyes the perfume of your hair.
Waves at your coming break in livelier blue;
And solemn woods are glad because of you.
Brooks of your laughter learn their liquid notes.
Birds to your voice attune their pleading throats.
Fields to your feet grow smoother and more green;
And happy blossoms tell where you have been.

Hath this world, without me wrought,
Other substance than my thought?
Lives it by my sense alone,
Or by essence of its own?
Will its life, with mine begun,
Cease to be when that is done,
Or another consciousness
With the self-same forms impress?

Doth yon fire-ball, poised in air,
Hang by my permission there?
Are the clouds that wander by
But the offspring of mine eye,
Born with every glance I cast,
Perishing when that is past?
And those thousand, thousand eyes,
Scattered through the twinkling skies,
Do they draw their life from mine,

Oh, were you born beneath the moon,
The frail, wan witch of light?
Then never will you know the peace
That lulls the lids of night.

The world will deem you queer and mad,
Whose heart sways as the sea,
And you will tread the trail of dreams
And rove incessantly.

Oh, were you born beneath the moon,
Earth-bound, yet skyward bent?
Some day the world will understand,
And you will be content.

When this old cap was new,
'Tis since two hundred year;
No malice then we knew,
But all things plenty were:
All friendship now decays
(Believe me, this is true);
Which was not in those days,
When this old cap was new.

The nobles of our land
Were much delighted then,
To have at their command
A crew of lusty men,
Which by their coats were known,
Of tawny, red, or blue,
With crests on their sleeves shewn,
When this old cap was new.

Now pride hath banished all,
Unto our land's reproach,
When he whose means is small,