Chapter III

Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,--
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast House, common to serfs and Thanes,--
I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,
For beauty born of beauty--_that_ remains.

MICROCOSM

The memory of what we’ve lost
Is with us more than what we’ve won;
Perhaps because we count the cost
By what we could, yet have not done.

’Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawn
Invisible threads we can not break,
And puppet-like these move us on
The stage of life, and break or make.

Less than the dust from which we’re wrought,
We come and go, and still are hurled
From change to change, from naught to naught,
Heirs of oblivion and the world.

FORTUNE

Within the hollowed hand of God
Blood-red they lie, the dice of Fate,
That have no time nor period,
And know no early and no late.

Postpone you can not, nor advance
Success or failure that’s to be;
All fortune, being born of chance,
Is bastard child to destiny.

Bow down your head, or hold it high,
Consent, defy--no smallest part
Of this you change, although the die
Was fashioned from your living heart.

DEATH

Through some strange sense of sight or touch
I find what all have found before,--
The presence I have feared so much,
The unknown’s immaterial door.

I seek not and it comes to me:
I do not know the thing I find:
The fillet of fatality
Drops from my brows that made me blind.

Point forward now or backward, Light!
The way I take I may not choose:
Out of the night into the night,
And in the night no certain clews.

But on the future, dim and vast,
And dark with dust and sacrifice,
Death’s towering ruin from the past
Makes black the land that round me lies.

THE SOUL

An heritage of hopes and fears
And dreams and memory,
And vices of ten thousand years
God gives to thee.

A house of clay, the home of Fate,
Haunted of Love and Sin,
Where Death stands knocking at the gate
To let him in.

CONSCIENCE

Within the soul are throned two powers,
Named Love and Hate. Begot of these,
And veiled between, a presence towers,
The shadowy Keeper of the Keys.

With wild command or calm persuasion
_This_ one may argue, _that_ compel:
Vain are concealment and evasion--
For each he opens Heaven and Hell.

YOUTH

I

Morn’s mystic rose is reddening on the hills;
Dawn’s irised nautilus makes glad the sea;
There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fills
Far heaven and earth with hope’s wild ecstasy.--
With lilied field and grove,
Haunts of the turtle-dove,
Here is the land of Love.

II

The chariot of the noon makes blind the blue
As towards the goal his burning axle glares;
There is a fiery trumpet thrilling through
Wide heaven and earth with deeds of one who dares.--
With peaks of splendid name,
Wrapped round with astral flame,
Here is the land of Fame.

III

The purple priesthood of the evening waits
With golden pomp within the templed skies;
There is a harp of worship at the gates
Of heaven and earth that bids the soul arise.--
With columned cliffs and long
Vales, music breathes among,
Here is the land of Song.

IV

Moon-crowned the epic of the night unrolls
Its starry utterance o’er height and deep;
There is a voice of beauty at the souls
Of heaven and earth that lulls the heart asleep.--
With storied woods and streams,
Where marble glows and gleams,
Here is the land of Dreams.

LIFE’S SEASONS

I

When all the world was May-day,
And all the skies were blue,
Young innocence made play-day
Among the buds and dew;
Then all of life was May-day
And clouds were none or few.

II

When all the world was Summer,
And morn shone overhead,
Love was the sweet new-comer
Who led youth forth to wed;
Then all of life was Summer,
And clouds were gold and red.

III

When earth was all October,
And days were gray with mist,
On woodways, sad and sober,
Grave memory kept her tryst;
Then life was all October,
And clouds were twilight-kissed.