Forgotten
Oh, my heart, when life is done,
How happy will the hour be!
All its restless errands run:
Noontide past, and set of sun,
And the long, long night begun;
How happy will the hour be!
Sunlight, like a butterfly,
Drop down and kiss the roses;
Starlight, softly come and lie
Where dreamful slumber closes;
But Death, sweet Death, be nigh, be neigh,
Where love in peace reposes!
Oblivion
Beyond the flight of hours,
Beneath the rooted flowers,
Where winter rain, nor showers
Of April, fall;
Where days that say “Alas”
Forget to come, to pass;
And joy or grief that was,
Is ended all.
There never sunlight gleams;
There sleep begets not dreams;
Therein is voice of streams,
Nor voice of trees.
From shadows into sun,
From light to shadow won,
No shinning river run
To shining seas.
No birds of morning throat
Their joy from skies remote;
From the still leaves no note
On either hand;
No love-lorn nightingale,
That sings while stars wax pale,
And moonlight, as a veil,
Is on the land.
Many the dwellers are
Within that valley far,
Lit by nor sun nor star,
Where no dawn is;
Where sleep broods as a dove;
And love forgot of love,
The dead delights thereof
Can never miss.
Wherein is spoken word,
Nor any laughter heard;
The eyelids are not stirred
By touch of tears;
Wherein the poet’s brain
The rapture and the pain
Of song knows not again,
Through all the years.
Pale leaves of poppies shad
About the brows and head,
From whence the laurel, dead,
Is dropped to dust.
Strength laid in armor down
To mold, and on the gown
The mold, and on the crown
The mold and rust.
So evermore they lie:
The ages pass them by,
Them doth the Earth deny,
And Time forget;
Void in the years, the ways,
As a star loosed from space,
Upon whose vacant place
The sun is set.
Singer Of The Sea, The
In Memory of Celia Thaxter.
There is a shadow on the sea!
And a murmur, and a moan,
In its muffed monotone,
Like a solemn threnody;
And the sea-gulls, on their white
Pinions, moving to and fro,
Are like phantoms, in their flight;
As they sweep from off the gray,
Misty headlands, far away,
And about the Beacon Light,
Wheel in circles, low and slow,
Wheel and circle, peer and cry,
As though seeling, restlessly,
Something vanished from their sight.
As though listening for the clear
Tones they never more may hear, -
Music missing from the day,
Music, missing from the night, -
Through the years, that wax and wane,
That may never sound again.
She, who ever loved the sea,
Loved and voiced its minstrelsy, -
Sang its white-caps, tossing free,
Sang the ceasless breaker-shocks,
Dashing, crashing, on the rocks,
Sang itsmoon-drawn tides, its speech,
Silver-soft, upon the beach,
Walks the margin’s golden floor, -
Floats upon its breast no more,
Nay! how know we this to be?
That the forms we may not see,
Passed from mortal touch and ken,
Never come to earth again?
When the brittle house of clay
From the spirit breaks away,
Does the mind forego its will?
Is the voice’s music still?
Do the hands forget their skill?
From the harp-great homer’s heart, -
Do not mighty numbers come?
Lost, divinest Raphael’s art,
And the lips of Shakespeare dumb?
All the years of joy and pain
That are lived, but lived in vain;
Memory’s graven page a blot,
Unrecorded and forgot!
Oh, believe, believe it not!
Man is God’s incarnate thought:
Life, with all the gifts He gave,
All the wondrous powers He wrought,
Finds not ending at the grave.
Part, himself, of Deity,
Man, the spirit, can not die.
“In my Father’s house are
Many mansions.” Did Christ say
Whether near, or whether far?
It may be beside us still
Bide these forms invisible;
Or, if passed to realms away,
Beyond sight’s remotest star,
Does that bind the soul to stay, -
Never, never, to retrace
The golden passage-ways of space? -
As a parted child might yearn
For the mothers arms, and turn,
Fain to look on Earth’s dear face.
‘Twixt the heart that loves and her
Space could place no barrier:
Thought, that swifter is than light,
Leaps a universe in flight.
So I love to think, indeed,
That this singing spirit, free
From her lesser, lower height-
Soaring to the Infinite, -
Turns with loving eyes, and a smile,
Still Sees the tower’s beacon-light,
Shining safely through the night;
Sees the white surf as it rolls
Round her treasured Isle of Shoals, -
Looking from that vaster sea,
Which we name Eternity.
Gold Seekers, The *
Long weary leagues across the treacherous plain,
Long weary leagues across the treacherous sea,
Comrades with danger, clasping hands with pain,
Pathmakers, builders of the State to be.
Boys with their school texts still upon their lips,
And stalwart men in sinewy, bearded prime,
And feeble age-on, on where sunshine drips
Its golden splendors in a golden clime.
Gold! Gold! The glittering lure that beckoned them!
Not gold, as now, of fruit on hills and plains,
Fair, fragrant, luscious, upon bough and stem-
But Gold! The metal-blood of the earth’s grim veins.
Some, overmastered, laid them down and slept
The sleep unwakening in a prairie-grave;
And some restless tryst forever kept
With Death, beneath the unrecording wave.
And some like Israel of old, the Land
Of Promise reached, beheld and found it fair
Beyond the promise, and with greedy hand
Gathered great riches with its greater care-
And died, and passed forgotten to the grave;
And some, with nobler souls to think and feel
Gave back its treasures to the land which gave,
Building the pillars of the Commonweal.
But one there came, indeed, for Gold alone!
A gold which knew not tarnish nor alloy;
With luster bright as God’s own starry zone,
Unspoiled of time-that death might not destroy.
A gold he came to seek not, but to give;
The Gold of Knowledge. From the shattered spoils
Of all earth’s cares, ah, what alone may live
Of man’s achievements? Man’s unending toils?
Knowledge and Truth alone. All else is dust.
Treasure to ransom worlds but ruthless dross,
Swept by winds, fretted of mould and rust;
Thrones, empires, races-death, oblivion, loss.
And Knowledge is but Truth! A lighted way
Leading to heights supreme from lowest sod;
From morning twilight to immortal day-
From God’s creation to Creation’s God....
Long did he labor; knew the plenteous lack
Of that, the baser metal of man’s aim-
But wearied not, nor faltered, nor turned back,
And lo! at last fruition’s glory came.
He saw the humble School-Walls widen, grow,
And stand, proud halls upon the Berkley hills;
The tree-crowned slopes, the fields in emerald glow,
The throng that studious quietude that fills;
The Golden Gate by wave and sun caressed,
In outward look across the Bay’s blue floor,
And from those walls into the mighty west
Fair Science beckon from her open door.
His Gold had blossomed! Ah, what more for him
Could earth in folded days hold still concealed?
Happy, he passed beyond our Planet’s rim,
To where, in God, all Knowledge is revealed.
*In memory of Doctor Henry Durant, First president of the University of California.
