life

THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!

Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife

When Time, or soon or late, shall bring
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
Oblivion! may thy languid wing
Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep, or wish, the coming blow:
No maiden, with dishevelled hair,
To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to earth,
With no officious mourners near:
I would not mar one hour of mirth,
Nor startle friendship with a tear.

Yet Love, if Love in such an hour
Could nobly check its useless sighs,

Take from my hand, dear love, these opening flowers.
Afar from thee they grew, 'neath alien skies
Their stems sought light and life in humble wise,
Fed by the careless suns and vagrant showers.
But now their fate obeys the rule of ours.
They pass to airs made glorious by thine eyes.
Smit with swift joy, they breathe, in fragrant sighs,
Their souls out toward thee in their last glad hours,
Paying leal tribute to a brighter bloom.
Thus, and not other, is the giver's fate.

HE came to call me back from death
To the bright world above.
I hear him yet with trembling breath
Low calling, “O sweet love!
Come back! The earth is just as fair;
The flowers, the open skies are there;
Come back to life and love!”

Oh! all my heart went out to him,
And the sweet air above.
With happy tears my eyes were dim;
I called him, “O sweet love!
I come, for thou art all to me.
Go forth, and I will follow thee,
Right back to life and love!”

Love, the world's life! What a sad death
Thy absence is to lose our breath
At once and die, is but to live
Enlarged, without the scant reprieve
Of pulse and air: whose dull returns
And narrow circles the soul mourns.
But to be dead alive, and still
To wish, but never have our will:
To be possessed, and yet to miss;
To wed a true but absent bliss:
Are lingering tortures, and their smart
Dissects and racks and grinds the heart!
As soul and body in that state
Which unto us seems separate,

They sent you in to say farewell to me,
No, do not shake your head; I see your eyes
That shine with tears. Sappho, you saw the sun
Just now when you came hither, and again,
When you have left me, all the shimmering
Great meadows will laugh lightly, and the sun
Put round about you warm invisible arms
As might a lover, decking you with light.
I go toward darkness tho' I lie so still.
If I could see the sun, I should look up
And drink the light until my eyes were blind;

I wish I had a simple style
In writing verse,
As in his prose had Ernie Pyle,
So true and terse;
Springing so forthright from the heart
With guileless art.
II
I wish I could put back a dram
As Ernie could;
I wish that I could cuss and damn
As soldier should;
And fain with every verse would I
Ernie outvie.
III
Alas! I cannot claim his high
Humanity;
Nor emulate his pungent, dry
Profanity;

No matter how he toil and strive
The fate of every man alive
With luck will be to lie alone,
His empty name cut in a stone.
II
Grim time the fairest fame will flout,
But though his name be blotted out,
And he forgotten with his peers,
His stone may wear a year of years.
III
No matter how we sow and reap
The end of all is endless sleep;
From strife a merciful release,
From life the crowning prize of Peace.

I'm Smith of Stoke aged sixty odd
I've lived without a dame all my life
And wish to God
My dad had done the same.

The knightly legend of thy shield betrays
The moral of thy life; a forecast wise,
And that large honor that deceit defies,
Inspired thy fathers in the eider days,
Who decked thy scutcheon with that sturdy phrase,
To be rather than seem . As eve's red skies
Surpass the morning's rosy prophecies,
Thy life to that proud boast its answer pays.
Scorning thy faith and purpose to defend
The ever-mutable multitude at last
Will hail the power they did not comprehend,
Thy fame will broaden through the centuries;