The pale day died in the rain tonight,
And its hurrying ghost, the wind, goes by:
The mountains loom in their silent night,
And darkly frown at the sea and sky.

The petrel wings close to his surging home,
And stabs with a shriek the shuddering night:
The mad wave beckons with hands of foam
Dipped in the blood of the sea-tower's light.

So, in my heart, is a storm tonight,
Storm and tumult that will not cease;
And my soul, in bitterness, longs for the light,
For the waking bird and the dawn of peace.

Along the cliff I walk in silence,
While over the blue of the waves below,
The white birds gleam in the sun like silver
And ships in the offing come and go,
And the tide is low.

Oh! it was here that in golden weather,
Under the cliff and close to the sea,
A pledge was given that made me master
Of all that ever was dear to me;
And the tide was low.

Only a little year fled after;
Wedded we came to our tryst once more,
And saw the deep, like a bird imprisoned
Beating its wings at its bars, the shore;
And the tide was low.

Now I walk alone by the filmy breakers-
A voice is hushed I can never forget;
On my saddened sea dead calm has fallen,
My ships are harbored, my sun is set;
And the tide is low.

What Do We Plant?

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship, which will cross the sea.
We plant the mast to carry the sails;
We plant the planks to withstand the gales -
The keel, the keelson, the beam, the knee;
We plant the ship when we plant the tree.

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the houses for you and me.
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,
We plant the studding, the lath, the doors,
The beams and siding, all parts that be;
We plant the house when we plant the tree.

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
A thousand things that we daily see;
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,
We plant the staff for our country's flag,
We plant the shade, from the hot sun free;
We plant all these when we plant the tree.

How mild and fair the day, dear love! and in these garden ways
The lingering dahlias to the sun their hopeless faces raise.
The buckwheat and the barley, once so bonny and so blithe,
Fall before the rhythmic labor of the cradler's gleaming scythe.

Behold the grapes and all the fruits that Autumn gives today,
As robed in red and gold, she rules, the Empress of Decay!
Out to the orchard come with me, among the apple trees;
No dragon guards the laden boughs of our Hesperides.

This golden pear, my darling, that I hold up to your mouth,
Is a hanging-nest of sweetness; but the birds are winging south.
The purses of the chestnuts, by the chilly-fingered Frost,
Were opened in his frolic, and their triple hoards are lost.

Last night you heard the tempest, love-the wind-entangled pines,
The spraying waves, the sobbing sky that lowered in gloomy lines;
The storm was like a hopeless soul, that stood beside the sea,
And wept in dismal rain and moaned for what could never be

The Fisher-Maidens

Normandy.
We two are fisher-maidens, and we dwell beside the sea
Where the surf is ever rolling, where the winds are blowing free;
And we loved a youth, the bravest that had ever drawn the seine,
And for comeliness and honor he was fit to wed a queen.

We loved him, and we hated one another for his love
That he never showed for either. Could he toss it like a glove?
But one day the sails were hoisted, and he left the loving shore,
And we saw him in the beauty and the pride of life no more.

For the tempest broke upon him as at night he ventured back:
All the sea was frothy madness, all the sky was wild and black;
But we combed the drifted sea-weed from the sable of his hair,
And the day that he was buried seemed too much for us to bear.

We two are fisher-maidens, and we hold each other dear;
We are wedded by a sorrow, we are very fond and near;
For the love we lost unites us-is a bond between us twain,
And in tears we clasp each other in the nights of wind and rain.

While The Days Go By

I shall not say, our life is all in vain,
For peace may cheer the desolated hearth;
But well I know that, on this weary earth,
Round each joy-island is a sea of pain-
And the days go by.

We watch our hopes, far flickering in the night,
Once radiant torches, lighted in our youth,
To guide, through years, to some broad morn of truth;
But these go out and leave us with no light-
And the days go by.

We see the clouds of summer go and come,
And thirsty verdure praying them to give:
We cry, 'O Nature, tell us why we live!'
She smiles with beauty, but her lips are numb-
And the days go by.

Yet what are we? We breathe, we love, we cease:
Too soon our little orbits change and fall:
We are Fate's children, very tired; and all
Are homeless strangers, craving rest and peace-
And the days go by.

I only ask to drink experience deep;
And, in the sad, sweet goblet of my years,
To find love poured with all its smiles and tears,
And quaffing this, I too shall sweetly sleep-
While the days go by.

Trailing Arbutus

In spring when branches of woodbine
Hung leafless over the rocks,
And fleecy snow in the hollows
Lay in unshepherded flocks,

By the road where dead leaves rustled,
Or damply matted the ground,
While over me lifted the robin
His honey'd passion of sound,

I came upon trailing arbùtus
Blooming in modesty sweet,
And gathered store of its riches
Offered and spread at my feet.

It grew under leaves, as if seeking
No hint of itself to disclose,
And out of its pink-white petals
A delicate perfume rose.

As faint as the fond remembrance
Of joy that was only dreamed,
And like a divine suggestion
The scent of the flower seemed.

I sought for love on the highway,
For love unselfish and pure,
And found it in good deeds blooming,
Tho' often in haunts obscure.

Often in leaves by the wayside,
But touched with a heavenly glow,
And with self-sacrifice fragrant
The flowers of great love grow.

O lovely and lowly arbutus!
As year unto year succeeds,
Be thou the laurel and emblem
Of noble, unselfish deeds!

On A Great Warrior

When all the sky was wild and dark,
When every heart was wrung with fear,
He rose serene, and took his place,
The great occasion's mighty peer.
He smote armed opposition down,
He bade the storm and darkness cease,
And o'er the long-distracted land
Shone out the smiling sun of peace.

The famous captains of the past
March in review before the mind;
Some fought for glory, some for gold,
But most to yoke and rule mankind.
Not so the captain, great of soul,
At peace within the granite grave;
He fought to keep the Union whole,
And break the shackles of the slaves.

A silent man, in friendship true,
He made point-blank his certain aim,
And, born a stranger to defeat,
To steadfast purpose linked his name.
He followed duty with the mien
Of but a soldier in the ranks,
This God-sent man that saved the State,
And conquered its victorious thanks.

How well he wore white honor's flower,
The gratitude and praise of men,
As General, as President,
And then as simple citizen!
He was a hero to the end!
The dark rebellion raised by death
Against the powers of life and light,
He battled hard, with failing breath.

O hero of Fort Donelson,
And wooded Shiloh's frightful strife!
Sleep on! for honor loves the tomb
More than the garish ways of life.
Sleep on! sleep on! Thy wondrous days
Fill freedom's most illustrious page.
Long-mem'ried Fame shall sound thy praise
In every clime, in every age.

To A Blue Hepatica

A flake of light-blue sky,
Perched on the top of a slender stem,
Like a bird with his azure wings outspread,
Here, at my feet, as I wandered by,
I found thee, wilding gem!
And the dead leaves rustled to my tread
In the weird and agèd wood.

I understood
As it were thy glance.
It was like a dance
Of glad surprise
In those sweet, blue eyes,
Which thou and heaven above
Dost 'mind me of.

I thought of winter gone,
When the brief sun shone,
Nor abated aught th' intolerant cold,
Which would yield no place,
On the white earth's face,
To thy beauty, O flower! But the mold,
Rich and black, under fallen leaves
Held thee safe as garnered sheaves.
Strange, that a tender flower like thee,
Against the rude and eager stress
Of Winter's frosty selfishness,
In forefront of revolt should'st be!

And yet, rathe flower divine,
On whom I almost trod,
I take thee for a sign.
With peace thou art endued,
Petaled beatitude
And little child of God!

I, too, rebel against the old-
Against the drear, insensate cold
Of selfish customs manifold;
And I say that every kindly deed
Is a flower like thee in the wilderness,
And makes for peace, and will sow the seed
Of other deeds to help and bless.
When these are common-when strikes that hour,
Of Time the dower-
The world shall see life truly free-
The endless Summer that is to be,
The ripened fruit, the light, the power
Of democracy!

Spirits of peace are in the air,
And gleams of Springtime everywhere!

The Sunken City

I walked beside a quiet sea,
At starlight, while the west was gray
And clear, though faint and far away;
Through the stilled water, forth me,
Voices of bells came dreamily;
No breeze more manifest than they.

Some say a thousand years ago
There throve a city on an isle
Beyond the headland, mile on mile,
Which, in a night of fear and woe,
Sank in the glassy depth below—
Sank tower and dwelling, beam and tile.

And now, when twinkling skies are clear,
Withing the sunken city there,
The sad ghosts ring their past despair
Out on the mermen’s atmosphere—
Ring loudly all, that life may hear
Dead sadness stir the ample air.

To me this city is not strange;
I feel familiar with each gate,
Each tower and street unfortunate,
And, wheresoe’er I dwell or range,
Its mem’ry-picture does not change,
Limned by its stern destroyer, Fate.

Its labarums, on roof and mast,
Swam in the light with silken arms,
No wrathful wars, nor dread alarms,
The streeted splendor overcast;
But, on a throne of gems amassed,
Sat Pleasure with Circean charma.

Yet came the hour of loss and fear.
The city sank, tower, wall, and mart,
Its brittle site was rent apart,
And all went down that once was dear;
But oft, in loneliness, I hear
Its sunken bells ring in my heart.

I beat no note of vain regret.
My hope-wrought city of To-be.
Youth seen, upon the future’s sea,
Has vanished, and its sun is set;
But broader and diviner yet,
The city of Reality.

For, though its ways be paved with stone,
And hard and rough to toiling feet,
And though, in the accustomed street,
No blazoned garniture is known,
By Fate, God’s hand, His will is shown,
And love makes humble service sweet.

In Memory Of General Grant

WHITE wings of commerce sailing far,
Hot steam that drives the weltering wheel,
Tamed lightning speeding on the wire,
Iron postman on the way of steel,—
These, circling all the world, have told
The loss that makes us desolate;
For we give back to dust this day
The God-sent man who saved the state.

When black the sky and dire with war,
When every heart was wrung with fear,
He rose serene, and took his place,
The great occasion’s mighty peer.
He smote armed opposition down,
He bade the storm and darkness cease,
And o’er the long-distracted land
Shone out the smiling sun of peace.

The famous captains of the past
March in review before the mind:
Some fought for glory, some for gold,
But most to yoke and rule mankind.
Not so the captain dead to-day,
For whom our half-mast banners wave:
He fought to keep the Union whole,
And break the shackles of the slave.

A silent man, in friendship true,
He made point-blank his certain aim,
And, born a stranger to defeat,
To steadfast purpose linked his name:
For while the angry flood of war
Surged down between its gloomy banks
He followed duty, with the mien
Of but a soldier in the ranks.

How well he wore white honor’s flower,
The gratitude and praise of men,
As General, as President,
And then as simple citizen!
He was a hero to the end:
The dark rebellion raised by Death
Against the Powers of Life and Light,
He battled hard, with failing breath.

O hero of Fort Donelson,
And wooded Shiloh’s frightful strife!
Sleep on! for honor loves the tomb
More than the garish ways of life.
Sleep on! sleep on! Thy wondrous life
Is freedom’s most illustrious page;
And fame shall loudly sound thy praise
In every clime, to every age.

All bold, great actions that are seen too near,
Look rash and foolish to unthinking eyes;
But at a distance they at once appear
In their true grandeur: so let us be wise,
And not too soon our neighbor's deed malign,
Lest what seems crude should prove to be divine.

In Athens, when all learning center'd there,
Men reared a column of surpassing height
In honor of Minerva, wise and fair;
And on the top, which dwindled to the sight,
A statue of the goddess was to stand,
That wisdom might be known to all the land.

And he who, with the beauty in his heart,
Seeking in faultless work immortal youth,
Would mold this statue with the finest art,
Making the wintry marble glow with truth,
Should gain the prize: two sculptors sought the fame-
The prize they craved was an enduring name.

Alcamenes soon carved his little best;
But Phidias, beneath a dazzling thought
That like a bright sun in a cloudless west
Lighted his wide, great soul, with pure love wrought
A statue, and its changeless face of stone
With calm, far-sighted wisdom towered and shone.

Then to be judged the labors were unveiled;
But, at the marble thought, that by degrees
Of hardship Phidias cut, the people railed.
'The lines are coarse, the form too large,' said these;
'And he who sends this rough result of haste
Sends scorn, and offers insult to our taste.'

Alcamenes' praised work was lifted high
Upon the column, ready for the prize;
But it appeared too small against the sky,
And lacked proportion to uplooking eyes;
So it was quickly lowered and put aside,
And the scorned thought was mounted to be tried.

Surprise swept o'er the faces of the crowd,
And changed them as a sudden breeze may change
A field of fickle grass, and long and loud
The mingled shouts to see a sight so strange.
The statue stood completed in its place,
Each coarse line melted to a line of grace.

The Roman Sentinal

Death or dishonor, which is best to taste?
A Roman sentinel in Pompeii,
When God’s hot anger laid that city waste,
Answered the question, and resolved to die.
His duty was, upon his post to bide
Till the relief came, let what might betide.

He stood forgotten by the fleeing guard,
Choosing that part which is the bitterest still,
His face with its fixed purpose cold and hard,
Cut in the resolute granite of his will.
“Better,” he said “to die, than live in shame;
Death wreathes fresh flowers round a brave man’s name.”

Life is the wave’s deep whisper on the shore,
Of a great sea beyond. The sentry saw
That day the light in broad sails hoisted o’er
The drifting boat of dawn; nor dreamed the flaw,
The puff called death, would blow him with them by
Out to the boundless sea beyond the sky.

The sentry watched the mountain’s fire-gashed cheeks,
And saw come up the sand’s entombing shower.
The storm darts out its red tongue when it speaks,
And fierce Vesuvius, in that wild hour,
Put forth its tongue of flame, and spoke the word
Of hatred to the city from the Lord.

The gloom of seventeen centuries skulked away,
And standing in a marble niche was found
A skeleton in armor all decay;
The soulless skull was by a helmet crowned,
Cleaving thereon with mingled rust and sand,
And a long spear was in the crumbling hand.

In Pompeii are beasts of stone with wings,
Paved streets with marble temples on each side,
Baths, houses, paintings, monuments of kings;
But the arched gate whereat the sentry died,
The rusted spear, and helmet with no crest,
Are better far to see than all the rest.

O heart, whatever lot to thee God gives,
Be strong, and swerve not from a blameless way;
Dishonor hurts the soul that ever lives,
Death hurts the body that is kin with clay.
Though Duty’s face is stern, her path is best:
They sweetly sleep who die upon her breast.

Moons on moons ago,
In the sleep, or night, of the moon,
When evil spirits have power,
The monster, Ontiora,
Came down in the dreadful gloom.
The monster came stalking abroad,
On his way to the sea for a bath,
For a bath in the salt, gray sea.

In Ontiora's breast
Was the eyrie of the winds,
Eagles of measureless wing,
Whose screeching, furious swoop
Startled the sleeping dens.
His hair was darkness unbound,
Thick, and not mooned nor starred.
His head was plumed with rays
Plucked from the sunken sun.

To him the forests of oak,
Of maple, hemlock, and pine,
Were as grass that a bear treads down.
He trod them down as he came,
As he came from his white-peak'd tent,
At whose door, ere he started abroad,
He drew a flintless arrow
Across the sky's strip'd bow,
And shot at the evening star.

He came like a frowning cloud,
That fills and blackens the west.
He was wroth at the bright-plumed sun,
And his pale-faced wife, the moon,
With their twinkling children, the stars;
But he hated the red-men all,
The Iroquois, fearless and proud,
The Mohegans, stately and brave,
And trod them down in despite,
As a storm treads down the maize.
He trod the red-men down,
Or drove them out of the land
As winter drives the birds.

When near the King of Rivers,
The river of many moods,
To Ontiora thundered
Manitou out of a cloud.
Between the fountains crystal
And the waters that reach to the sky,
Manitou, Spirit of Good,
To the man-shaped monster spoke:
'You shall not go to the sea,
But be into mountains changed,
And wail in the blast, and weep
For the red-men you have slain.
You shall lie on your giant back
While the river rises and falls,
And the tide of years on years
Flows in from a boundless sea.'

Then Ontiora replied:
'I yield to the heavy doom;
Yet what am I but a type
Of a people who are to come?
Who as with a bow will shoot
And bring the stars to their feet,
And drive the red-man forth
To the Land of the Setting Sun.'

So Ontiora wild,
By eternal silence touched,
Fell backward in a swoon,
And was changed into lofty hills,
The Mountains of the Sky.

This is the pleasant sense
Of Ontiora's name,
'The Mountains of the Sky.'
His bones are rocks and crags,
His flesh is rising ground,
His blood is the sap of trees.

On his back with one knee raised,
He lies with his face to the sky,
A monstrous human shape
In the Catskills high and grand.
And from the valley below,
Where the slow tide ebbs and flows,
You can mark his knee and breast,
His forehead beetling and vast,
His nose and retreating chin.
But his eyes, they say, are lakes,
Whose tears flow down in streams
That seam and wrinkle his cheeks,
For the fate he endures, and for shame
Of the evil he did, as he stalked
In the vanquished and hopeless moon,
Moons on moons ago.

Invocation To The Sun

O Sun, toward which the earth's uneven face
Turns ever round, strong Emperor of Day,
To thee I bring my tribute of large praise;
And yet not I; but that which in me is,
The life in life, conscience, suggester, muse.

Not as to Quetzalcoatl came of old
Fane-climbing worshipers with trump and drum,
And human victims bared for sacrifice
On dizzy Aztec altars; nor, indeed,
As to Apollo of the golden hair
And fiery chariot, who darted war
Against the lords and following of Night,
Come I, O Sun, to thee.

Nor like the Gheber throngs
Who on the eastern shore of ocean bow,
Kissing the trail of thy departing robes,
Do I, to thy down-going, offer prayer.

I, worshipper no less, but not of thee,
Rising at cool-breathed, night-releasing dawn,
Thank the unseen All-Giver for thy day,
And see in thee a ray-strung instrument
Swept by His hand for harmonies of life.

Not I alone salute thy springing beam;
The mountains do thee homage first of all,
And hinder, with their bold and rocky brows,
Thy swift, protracted ray.

Thou callest up
The blooming new from out the withered old,
And givest consciousness to soulless things.
Thou sendest forth the lightning-arrowed cloud;
And the coy breeze, a wordless whisperer,
Doth interchange the breath of man and tree.
Thou dost invite the robin from the south;
Thou whitenest the harvest for our need;
Thou fillest out the youthful cheeks of fruit
With sappy wholesomeness, and dost, at last,
Print one broad sunset on autumnal woods-
In rubricated letters making known
A sad and sylvan moral of decay.

To tread where populations that are dust
Eked out their changeful lives, and left behind
Little beyond a ruin and a name,
Men trust the brief forebearance of the sea;
But thou, above, silent, immutable,
Art long familiar with the scenes they seek,
And hast beheld all times and nations fade.

Tho' like the leaves the generations die,
And tho' the ages in the past recede,
Spun by this pendulous swift wheel of earth
In its fixed orbit by thy influence,
Thou makest man endure; he ceases not;
But stands with steadfast feet upon all time;
Nor shall he cease while yet tomorrow holds
Its one remove away.

Our yesterdays
Are like a lonely and a ruined land
Wherein a breeze of recollection sighs-
A fading land to which is no return.

Uncertainly we bode the life to come,
Yet deem we stand upon the topmost height
Material; but this, that thinks and dreams-
This many-tided vaster sea within-
Baffles itself, and knows not what it is,
Save that its being is enlinked with thine.

And thou, O Sun, dost look on many worlds-
On eight-mooned Saturn with his shining rings,
On Jupiter, On Venus, pearl of dusk-
Thou dost behold thy worlds, and lay on them
Thy ray's restoring finger: they receive
Their sight, and go rejoicing on their way,
Changing, we think, thy light and heat to life.
But we, bound down, shut in on one small star,
Shall not know fully of those other spheres
Until the soul, up-drawn by rays Divine,
Out of this seed-like body blooms on high.

By Hudson's Tide

What pleasant dreams, what memories, rise,
When filled with care, or pricked in pride,
I wander down in solitude
And reach the beach by Hudson's tide!
The thick-boughed hemlocks mock my sigh;
The azure heaven is filled with smiles;
The water, lisping at my feet,
From weary thought my heart beguiles,
By Hudson's tide.

I watch a slow-wing'd water-fowl
Pursue her finny quest, and bear
The gasping silver of her prey
Far up th' untrodden heights of air.
In quiet depths I note the course
Of dreamy clouds against the sky,
And see a flock of wild-ducks float,
Like water-lilies nearer by,
On Hudson's tide.

The mullein lifts, along the bank,
Its velvet spires of yellow bloom;
And there a darting humming-bird
Gleams in the cedars' verdant gloom.
By basins of the brook that flings
Its dewy diamonds far below
Into the ripples' pigmy hands,
Sweet maiden-hair and cresses grow,
By Hudson's tide.

I wander on the pebbled beach,
And think of boyhood's careless hours
When, in my boat, I used to float
Along the bank and gather flowers;
Or catch the wind, and swiftly dash
Across the white-caps in their play,
And feel their wet resistance break
Against the prow in pearly spray,
On Hudson's tide.

And once, in those lost days, I lay
Becalmed with limp and drowsy sail,
And drifted where Esopus Isle
Mid-stream reclines along the vale;
He slowly rose, and stood erect,
His giant body all of stone,
And cast his eyes, as from the skies,
On me that drifted there alone
On Hudson's tide.

Only his feet were lost to view,
And cleft the current ebbing down;
His lofty headdress, plumed with trees,
Touched the blue zenith with its crown.
The river's self was but his bow
That lay neglected on the ground;
Like down, or fur, the soft leaves were,
That, as a blanket, wrapped him round,
On Hudson's tide.

I had not been surprised if he
Had mounted on some thunder-cloud
And rushed at Ontiora's knee,
With sudden war-whoop sharp and loud.
But he was mild, and blandly smiled,
And spoke with accents sweet and low.
His words with kindness glanced and fell,
And seemed like music or the flow
Of Hudson's tide.

'Enjoy the river and thy days,'
He said, 'nor heed what others say.
What matters either blame or praise,
If one in peace pursue his way?
The river heeds not; heed not thou:
Cut deep the channel of thy life.
Thou hast a fair exemplar there:
With what serene indifference rife
Is Hudson's tide!

How level lies its changeful floor,
Broad-sweeping to the distant sea!
What Titan grandeur marks the shore!
What beauty covers rock and tree!
What ample bays and branching streams,
What curves abrupt for glad surprise!
And how supreme the Artist is
Who paints it all for loving eyes
By Hudson's tide!'

I woke; and since, long years have passed;
By Hudson's tide my days go by:
Its varied beauty fills my heart.
Of fairer scenes what need have I?
And when my boat of life and thought
Shall quit the harbor of my breast,
And seek the silent, unknown sea,
I trust this dust in peace shall rest
By Hudson's tide.

The sun-bronzed Arabs, living at the base
Of Karnak's mighty ruin, see in it
The work of no man's hand. They cannot think
Its lofty beauty and majestic form,
So awe-begetting, even in decay,
Are the unaided deed of their own kind.
But, as most men are wont, when sharply faced
By problems that they do not understand,
The squalid Arabs, quite too ignorant
To seek in natural causes for a key,
Exalt their case to the miraculous
And supernatural, and so believe
That monstrous genii, in antiquity,
To please the holder of some magic ring,
Built Karnak in a night!

All governments,
Books, customs, buildings, railways, ships, and all
The stark realities that men have made,
Are but imagination's utterances.
The invisible speaks in the visible,
And over all, the high, far-reaching thoughts
Of great imaginations domineer.
First of the Magi, Zoroaster yet
Colors the Western theosophic mind,
Besides the minds of Asian myriads.
Nor have his genii lost hold on men;
But are an explanation, in the East,
Of architectural victories, which appear
Beyond the power of human hands to win.

But we, of higher credence, think not so.
Of larger literature and ampler range,
We know the same full-browed intelligence,
The same Masonic wisdom, that upreared
High-girdled Babylon and purple Tyre
And built the Temple of King Solomon,
Built also the sepulchral Pyramids,
Build Philæ, hundred-gated Thebes, and all
Those works stupendous, whose calm grandeur yet
Shows the departed glory of the Nile.

It scarce seems longer past than yesterday
That men undid the brazen clamps which held
Upon its pedestal the Obelisk-
That ray-like shaft, which Thutmes raised at On
To grace the Temple of the Setting Sun-
And found Masonic emblems there bestowed.
Such useful emblems have been found withal
In prehistoric ruins Mexican.
If other clue were needed to connect
Our modern Craft with builders of the past,
We have the evidence of what we know,-
That nothing can be operative long
And not be speculative too; for Use
Is more than manual. Intelligence
Must see the ideal in the real, and clothe
Upon the impalpable and naked truth
The palpable resemblance; it must needs
Behold in all that is material,
External, the express embodiment,
Or signature, of far more lasting things,
Which are internal, spiritual.

Swedenborg,
Upon the other worlds of heaven and hell,
His ideality imposed, and strove
To picture them, the universe and God,
Using the splendid words of holy writ
As signs and tokens of the mysteries
That, in imagination, he beheld.
But not so far the wise Freemason dares.
In square and compasses, in setting-maul,
And in the other stated working-tools
Used by the Craft, he sees an ideal use.
To him they are the emblems of such things
As have been found alike in every soul
And make the world fraternal.

Symbolism
Is the rich blood and life of Masonry.
A symbol is the solid link between
The real and the ideal. It must be
That man himself, the crown of earthly things,
Made in his Maker's image, is the true,
The only symbol of the Power Divine.
It follows that sublime Freemasonry
And heaven-born, strong-pinioned Poetry
Are one at heart; for, whatsoever be
Sincere, commensurate, symbolical,
Is native of the Muse-her work. To think
In symbols is imagination's house.
So the fast hold which Masonry has kept
Upon the minds of men for centuries-
For long millenniums-is, in truth, the same
As that of Poetry. For Poetry
Drank from the fountain of immortal youth,
Then rose in beauty, like the Morning Star,
And lit the holy, intellectual fire,
Guide of our faith and practice, that is laid
Upon Masonic altars.

When expressed
In buildings she is seen, as in the tree
The hamadryad, we but change her name,
And Architecture nominate the Muse.
But the broad tenets, on whose soil is based
Our Ancient Order, are a fertile land,
And all the arts and sciences alike
Find in it healthful sustenance, and, nursed
In genial sunshine and condensate dew,
Burst into bloom and yield abundant fruits.

Science And The Soul

I sought, in sleep, to find the mountain-lands
Where Science, in her hall of wonder, dwells.
When I had come to where the building stands,
I found refreshing streams, delightful dells,
Invigorating air, and saw, on high,
Turret and dome against the boundless sky.

Out of her busy palace then she stepped,
And kindly greeted me, as there I stood
Doubting my right, and whether I had slept.
'Welcome,' she said, 'and whatsoe'er of good
You find in me, you have full leave to take
For warp and woof of verses that you make.'

That these, her words, for more than me were meant,
I felt, and thanked her as seemed fitting then;
While, in her looks, I saw that she was sent
To lighten work and knit together men;
And that with patience such as hers could be,
The coral mason builds the isles at sea.

Servant of Use, upon that mountain wise
Was the plain title she was proud to own,
And, clearer than her penetrating eyes,
The light of Progress on her forehead shone.
Her smile the lips' sharp coldness half betrayed,
As if a wreath upon a sword were laid.

But now, about her palace everywhere,
She led my steps, and often by her side
A lion and a nimble greyhound were.
The swifter to a leash of wire she tied,
And made a messenger of good and ill;
The stronger with white breath performed her will.

She traced the lapse of awful seas of time
On fossil limestone and on glinting ore;
Described wild wonders of the Arctic clime,
And of all lands her willing slaves explore;
Opening large laboratories to my view,
She showed me much that she had skill to do.

Then, down a marble stairway, to her bower
Was led the gracious way. 'And here,' said she,
'I meditate beyond the midnight hour;
Invent for peace and war, for land and sea;
Read the round sky's star-lettered page, or grope
In the abysses of the microscope.'

But, while she spoke, there stood another near-
The fairest one that ever I beheld;
I fancied her the creature of some sphere
Whence all of mist and shadow are dispelled.
Her voice was low and gentle, and her grace
Vied with the beauty of her thoughtful face.

A clear, unwaning light around her shone-
A ray of splendor from a loving Source-
A light like sunshine, that, when it is gone,
Leaves darkness, but sheds glory on its course;
Yet, in my dream, her footstep made me start,
It was so like the beating of my heart.

I turned to Science, for small doubt had I
That she best knew her whom I deemed so fair,
And asked, 'Who is she, that so heedfully
Waits on you here, and is like sunny air?
In her all beauty dwells, while from her shine
Truth, hope, and love, with effluence divine.'

Then Science answered me, severe and cold:
'She is Time's brittle toy: the praise of men
Has dazed her wit, and made her vain and bold.
With subtle flattery of tongue and pen,
They title her the Soul; I count it blame,
And call her Life, but seek a better name.

'Alone, in her gray-celled abode, she dwells,
Of fateful circumstance the fettered thrall,
The psychic sum of forces of her cells,
Molecular and manifold in all;
But æons passed ere Nature could express
This carbon-rooted flower of consciousness.

'Life, from the common mother, everywhere
Springs into being under sun and dew;
And it may be that she who is so fair
From deep-sea ooze to this perfection grew,
Evolving slowly on, from type to type,
Until, at last, the earth for man was ripe.

'But like a low-born child, whose fancy's page
Illuminated glows, she fondly dreams
That hers is other, nobler parentage;
That, from a Source Supreme, her being streams;
But, when I ask for proof, she can not give
One word, to me, of knowledge positive.

'Wherefore, regretfully I turn away,
In no wise profited, to let her muse
On her delusion, now grown old and gray.
It is a vain mirage that she pursues-
Some image of herself, against the sky,
To which she yearns on golden wings to fly.'

What time I left that palace high and wide,
She followed me, whom I had thought so fair,
To guide me down the devious mountain-side,
Speaking with that of sorrow in her air
That made me grieve, and soon a tear I shed
To think that here she is so limited.

'Oh, I am life and more, I am the Soul,'
She said, 'and, in the human heart and brain,
Sit throned and prisoned while the brief years roll,
Lifted with hope that I shall live again;
That when I cross the flood, with me shall be
The swift-winged carrier-dove of memory.

'I shall have triumph over time and space,
For I am infinite and more than they.
In vain has Science searched my dwelling-place;
For, delve in nature's secrets as she may
For deeper knowledge, she can never know
Of what I am, nor whither I shall go.'