The weary world upon my sheltering breast, And wipe away its tears, and soothe its strife;

I would fulfil my promises, and make
My children bless me as they sank to rest
Where now they curse-
-if I were you,
O Life."

III

My face seems awesome, tell me, Life,

why then

Do they pursue me, mad for my caress,
Believing in my silence lies redress
For your loud falsehoods?" (so Death
spoke again).

"Oh, it is well for you I am not fair — Well that I hide behind a voiceless tomb The mighty secrets of that other place:

Weaving-who knows? what wondrous woof of song,

What other Hamlet, from the shifting throng.

A pale, plain-favored face, the smile whereof

Is beautiful; the eyes gray, changeful, bright,

Low-lidded now, and luminous as love; Anon soul-searching, ominous as night, Seer-like, inscrutable, revealing deeps Wherein a mighty spirit wakes or sleeps.

Here, where my outstretched hand might touch his arm,

I gaze upon that mild and lofty mien, With that deep awe and unexpressive charm

I feel in wide sea-solitudes serene;
Or on some immemorial mountain's crest
Eternity unveiled and manifest.

For he hath wrought with nature and made known

The marvel and the majesty of life; Translating from the pages of his own The mighty heart of man, the stress and

Give up the lands we won in loyal war; Give up the gain and glory, rule, renown, The orient commerce of the open door,

The conquest, and the wide imperial crown?

Yea, were these all, 't were well to let them go;

For idle gold is but an empty gain: An empire, reared on ashes of its foe, Falls, as have fallen the island-walls of Spain.

Treasure is dust. build On better things. Our gain is in the loss:

They need it not who

In love and tears, self victories fulfilled,
In manhood bending to the bitter cross.

In burdens that make wise the bearer, wounds

Taken in hate that sanctify the heart, In sympathies and sorrows, and in sounds That up from all the open waters start;

In brotherhood that binds the broken ties
And clasps the whole world closer into
peace;
In East and West enwoven loverwise,

Mated for happy arts and home's increase.

O DAPPLED throat of white! Shy, hidden bird!

Perched in green dimness of the dewy wood,

And murmuring, in that lonely, lover mood,

Thy heart-ache, softly heard, Sweetened by distance, over land and lake.

Why, like a kinsman, do I feel thy voice
Awaken voices in me free and sweet?
Was there some far ancestral birdhood
fleet

That rose and would rejoice:
A broken cycle rounded in a song ?

The lake, like steady wine in a deep cup, Lay crystal in the curving mountain deeps;

And now the air brought that long lyric up That sobs, then falls and weeps, And hushes silence into listening hope.

Is it that we were sprung of one old kin, Children of brooding earth, that lets us tell,

Thou from thy rhythmic throat, I deep within,

These syllables of her spell, This hymned wisdom of her pondering years?