Chapter III

One of us long ago was carried
To his grave on the hill above the tree;
One is a farmer there, and married;
One has wandered over the sea.

And, if you ask me, I hardly know
Whether I'd be the dead or the clown,--
The clod above or the clay below,--
Or this listless dust by fortune blown

To alien lands. For, however it is,
So little we keep with us in life:
At best we win only victories,
Not peace, not peace, O friend, in this strife.

But if I could turn from the long defeat
Of the little successes once more, and be
A boy, with the whole wide world at my feet,
Under the shade of the mulberry-tree,--

From the shame of the squandered chances, the sleep
Of the will that cannot itself awaken,
From the promise the future can never keep,
From the fitful purposes vague and shaken,--

Then, while the grasshopper sang out shrill
In the grass beneath the blanching thistle,
And the afternoon air, with a tender thrill,
Harked to the quail's complaining whistle,--

Ah me! should I paint the morrows again
In quite the colors so faint to-day,
And with the imperial mulberry's stain
Re-purple life's doublet of hodden-gray?

Know again the losses of disillusion?
For the sake of the hope, have the old deceit?--
In spite of the question's bitter infusion,
Don't you find these mulberries over-sweet?

All our atoms are changed, they say;
And the taste is so different since then;
We live, but a world has passed away
With the years that perished to make us men.

BEFORE THE GATE.

They gave the whole long day to idle laughter,
To fitful song and jest,
To moods of soberness as idle, after,
And silences, as idle too as the rest.

But when at last upon their way returning,
Taciturn, late, and loath,
Through the broad meadow in the sunset burning,
They reached the gate, one fine spell hindered them both.

Her heart was troubled with a subtile anguish
Such as but women know
That wait, and lest love speak or speak not languish,
And what they would, would rather they would not so;

Till he said,--man-like nothing comprehending
Of all the wondrous guile
That women won win themselves with, and bending
Eyes of relentless asking on her the while,--

"Ah, if beyond this gate the path united
Our steps as far as death,
And I might open it!--" His voice, affrighted
At its own daring, faltered under his breath.

Then she--whom both his faith and fear enchanted
Far beyond words to tell,
Feeling her woman's finest wit had wanted
The art he had that knew to blunder so well--

Shyly drew near, a little step, and mocking,
"Shall we not be too late
For tea?" she said. "I'm quite worn out with walking:
Yes, thanks, your arm. And will you--open the gate?"

CLEMENT.