RENOUNCEMENT

I

MUST not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,

I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—

The thought of thee—and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;

I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—

With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

MILTON

H

E left the upland lawns and serene air

Wherefrom his soul her noble nurture drew, And reared his helm among the unquiet crew Battling beneath; the morning radiance rare Of his young brow amid the tumult there Grew grim with sulphurous dust and sanguine dew: Yet through all soilure they who marked him knew The signs of his life's dayspring, calm and fair. But when peace came, peace fouler far than war, And mirth more dissonant than battle's tone, He, with a scornful sigh of that clear soul, Back to his mountain clomb, now bleak and frore, And with the awful Night he dwelt alone, In darkness, listening to the thunder's roll.

IAMQUE VALE

IM in the moon wide-weltering Humber flowed;

D'Shone the rare on reaches

Shone the rare lights on Humber's reaches low;
And thou wert waking where one lone light glowed
Whose love made all my bliss, whose woe my woe.
Borne as on Fate's own stream, from thine abode
I with that tide must journey sad and slow;
In that tall ship on Humber's heaving road
Dream for the night and with the morning go.

Yet thro' this lifelong dimness desolate,
O love, thy star within me fades not so;
On that lone light I gaze, and wondering wait
Since life we lost, if death be ours or no;
Yea, toward thee moving on the flood of Fate,
Dream for the night, but with the morn will go.

A CHILD OF THE AGE

O

H for a voice that in a single song

Could quiver with the hopes and moan the fears

And speak the speechless secret of the years,
And rise, and sink, and at the last be strong!
Oh for a trumpet-call to stir the throng
Of doubtful fighting-men, whose eyes and ears
Watch till a banner in the East appears
And the skies ring that have been still so long!
age
of mine, if one could tune for thee
A marching music out of this thy woe!
If one could climb upon a hill and see
Thy gates of promise on the plain below,
And gaze a minute on the bliss to be
And knowing it be satisfied to know!

WOMAN whose familiar face I hold

as

In my most sacred thought as in a shrine, Who in my memories art become divine— Dost thou remember now those years of old When out of all thine own life thou didst mould This life and breathe thy heart in this of mine, Winning, for faith in that fair work of thine, To rest and be in heaven?—Alas, behold!Another woman coming after thee Hath had small pity,-with a wanton kiss Hath quite consumed my heart and ruined this The life that was thy work: O Mother, see; Thou hast lived all in vain, done all amiss; Come down from heaven again, and die with me!