And may she stand
For poets still; poets that now the Land
Needs as it never needed; such an one
As he, large Nature's Son
Lanier, who with firm hand
Held up her magic wand
Directing deep in music such as none
Has ever heard
Such music as a bird
Gives of its soul, when dying,
And unconscious if it's heard.

VII

So let her rise, mother of greatness still,
Above all temporal ill;
Invested with all old nobility,
Teaching the South decision, self control
And strength of mind and soul;
Achieving ends that shall embrace the whole
Through deeds of heart and mind;
And thereby bind
Its effort to an end
And reach its goal.

VIII

So shall she win
A wrestler with sin,
Supremely to a place above the years,
And help men rise
To what is wise
And true beyond their mortal finite scan--
The purblind gaze of man;
Aiding with introspective eyes
His soul to see a higher plan
Of life beyond this life; above the gyves
Of circumstance that bind him in his place
Of doubt and keep away his face
From what alone survives;
And what assures
Immortal life to that within, that gives
Of its own self,
And through its giving, lives,
And evermore endures.

_A POET'S EPITAPH_

Life was unkind to him;
All things went wrong:
Fortune assigned to him
Merely a song.

Ever a mystery
Here to his heart;
In his life's history
Love played no part.

Carve on the granite,
There at the end,
Where all may scan it,
_Death was his friend_.

_Giving him all he missed
Here upon Earth--
Love and the call he missed
All that was worth._

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cup of Comus, by Madison J. Cawein

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