Are we forgotten, when our spirits pass
The silent doors of all-absorbing death?
Yea, do we mingle with the flowers and grass,
And draw no more sweet loving human breath?
Lovers have trodden love's mystic path before us,
And other fair-souled lovers will succeed —
Will mark the same blue skies that once shone o'er us,
Or haply with the same deep sorrows bleed.

Oh, is there any resting place, a haven
For love's wings sent forth like the pilot raven
To pierce the shadows, pioneer the tomb?
Hath patient endless labour any worth,

Yes , weary it is. The days are full of sighing. —
Close to our hands the remedy is lying,
The cure for sorrow and care.
Stretch out thine hand. The poison-draught is ready.
See how below that bridge the dark waves eddy!
Are not sleep's lips of all lips the most fair? —

So pleads the inner voice with dangerous pleading.
And yet the soul is great which, rent and bleeding,
Lives on and on and on.
" Great souls are strong to live. " Great past our knowing
Is the brave soul who lives, when hope seems going

Two spirits, mixing, blending,
Went swiftly upward tending
To the skies:
Their golden course no power
Could stay — sweet hour on hour
They uprise.

In heaven's holy night
These spirits, glad and bright,
Became
One perfect spirit-being,
Far, far beyond death seeing,
Earth's pale dominions fleeing
Like a flame.

But back in the sad morn
To earthland they were borne
On slow faint wings —
Slowly, slowly weeping;
But still the chant that sleeping,
They heard, around them rings.

I.

" Far out where waves are breaking,
Where never song-bird sings,
My soul would fly, forsaking
All flowers and inland things
I am weary of the bowers
Where summer's heart is won;
I am weary of the flowers;
I am weary of the sun:
Where only star-rays sunder
The darkness, I would be;
At rest, while wild waves thunder
The anthems of the sea. "

II.

Oh, thou wast white! Beyond all earthly splendour
Of utmost love thine utter whiteness shone:
Moon-radiant, subtle, sweet, supremely tender,
Luring with gentle might my passion on.
No singing words can all thy beauty render;
It gleamed one perfect moment — then 'twas gone!
A lily waved on earth her flower-stalk slender
And seemed to smile up at me, soft and wan!

But thou hadst vanished, sweet, and never more
Shall I set foot on that far heavenly shore;
Or see thy whiteness glittering through my sleep.

O weird pale pitiless stars, so wan and cold,
Planets that knew no youth, yet are not old,
Ye watch with deathless eyes
Our death-filled years, our bitter days and hours:
Yet are ye heartless, — just mere golden flowers
Crowding the purple skies?

O strong strange stars that glitter through the night,
Are ye all speechless? Are your eyes so bright,
Yet do they never weep?
Are mortal agonies mere passing gleams
That flash across the darkness of your dreams
But never break your sleep?

Out of the far eternity ye came:

In thine own ways, O God of love!
We wait the visits of thy grace;
We trust in mercy from above,
We long to see thy smiling face.

Our thoughts are searching, Lord! for thee,
Mid the black shades of lonesome night;
Our earnest cries salute the skies,
Before the dawn restores the light.

Look how rebellious men deride
The tender patience of our God!
But they shall see thy lifted hand,
And feel the scourges of thy rod.

Hark! the Eternal rends the sky;
A mighty voice before him goes; —

Whence springs the sweetness of pure golden rhyme
That fills the soul with fragrant dreams for hours?
From rose and lily and furze and pink and thyme:
The poet's earliest teachers are the flowers.

Then, when he craves the thunder for his strain,
The strength of song at which the centuries flee,
His stern inspiring motive he must gain
From the wild waters, worshipping the sea.

Another step — and upward. Let the race
Of man pour through him its tempestuous might!
Let him find marvel in the lowliest face

'Tis sweet, though in affliction's path,
Thy ways to learn, O Lord!
Resign'd, through darkest days of wrath,
To wait thy sure award.

For thou wilt not thine own forsake,
Nor cast away thy saints;
The throne of judgment thou wilt take,
And banish their complaints.

Canst thou with vile oppressors dwell,
Who legalize their guilt?
The helpless sons of want they sell;
And, ah! what blood they've spilt!

Thou, Lord! wilt make thy dreadful wrath
On their own heads rebound;
Wilt pour thy vengeance on their path,

Youth's meadows all were bountiful with gold;
The sweet seas all were laughing in their glee,
Responsive on the beach the breakers rolled.
Assiduous sang the birds in every tree
Chanting the wedding, love, of you and me;
For through the realms of nature was it told,
Yea, signalized through earth eternally
And through the azure heavens wide and free,
And o'er the yellow furze-crowned breezy wold
Where hand in hand we wandered, love, of old,
Brushing the heather-sprays that reached the knee
Luxuriant. The clouds parted, fold on fold,