A Reading Of Life, Other Poems Part 3

Within my breast they touch a string, They wake a sigh.

There is but sound of sedges dry; In me they sing.

UNION IN DISSEVERANCE

SUNSET worn to its last vermilion he; She that star overhead in slow descent: That white star with the front of angel she; He undone in his rays of glory spent

Halo, fair as the bow-shot at his rise, He casts round her, and knows his hour of rest Incomplete, were the light for which he dies, Less like joy of the dove that wings to nest.

l.u.s.trous momently, near on earth she sinks; Life's full throb over breathless and abased: Yet stand they, though impalpable the links, One, more one than the bridally embraced.

THE BURDEN OF STRENGTH

IF that thou hast the gift of strength, then know Thy part is to uplift the trodden low; Else in a giant's grasp until the end A hopeless wrestler shall thy soul contend.

THE MAIN REGRET

WRITTEN FOR THE CHARING CROSS ALb.u.m

I

SEEN, too clear and historic within us, our sins of omission Frown when the Autumn days strike us all ruthlessly bare.

They of our mortal diseases find never healing physician; Errors they of the soul, past the one hope to repair.

II

Suns.h.i.+ne might we have been unto seed under soil, or have scattered Seed to ascendant suns brighter than any that shone.

Even the limp-legged beggar a sick desperado has flattered Back to a half-sloughed life cheered by the mere human tone.

ALTERNATION

BETWEEN the fountain and the rill I pa.s.sed, and saw the mighty will To leap at sky; the careless run, As earth would lead her little son.

Beneath them throbs an urgent well, That here is play, and there is war.

I know not which had most to tell Of whence we spring and what we are.

HAWARDEN

WHEN comes the lighted day for men to read Life's meaning, with the work before their hands Till this good gift of breath from debt is freed, Earth will not hear her children's wailful bands Deplore the chieftain fall'n in sob and dirge; Nor they look where is darkness, but on high.

The sun that dropped down our horizon's verge, Illumes his labours through the travelled sky, Now seen in sum, most glorious; and 'tis known By what our warrior wrought we hold him fast.

A splendid image built of man has flown; His deeds inspired of G.o.d outstep a Past.

Ours the great privilege to have had one Among us who celestial tasks has done.

AT THE CLOSE

TO Thee, dear G.o.d of Mercy, both appeal, Who straightway sound the call to arms. Thou know'st; And that black spot in each embattled host, Spring of the blood-stream, later wilt reveal.

Now is it red artillery and white steel; Till on a day will ring the victor's boast, That 'tis Thy chosen towers uppermost, Where Thy rejected grovels under heel.

So in all times of man's descent insane To brute, did strength and craft combining strike, Even as a G.o.d of Armies, his fell blow.

But at the close he entered Thy domain, Dear G.o.d of Mercy, and if lion-like He tore the fall'n, the Eternal was his Foe.

FOREST HISTORY

I

BENEATH the vans of doom did men pa.s.s in.

Heroic who came out; for round them hung A wavering phantom's red volcano tongue, With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin:

II

Old Earth's original Dragon; there retired To his last fastness; overthrown by few.

Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew.

Then man to play devorant straight was fired.