'Thither my footsteps are bent: it is where Saadi is lodged.'
INSCRIPTIONS
FOR A BELL AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY
I call as fly the irrevocable hours,
Futile as air or strong as fate to make
Your lives of sand or granite; awful powers,
Even as men choose, they either give or take.
FOR A MEMORIAL WINDOW TO SIR WALTER RALEIGH, SET UP IN ST. MARGARET'S,
WESTMINSTER, BY AMERICAN CONTRIBUTORS
The New World's sons, from England's breasts we drew
Such milk as bids remember whence we came;
Proud of her Past, wherefrom our Present grew,
This window we inscribe with Raleigh's name.
PROPOSED FOR A SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT IN BOSTON
To those who died for her on land and sea,
That she might have a country great and free,
Boston builds this: build ye her monument
In lives like theirs, at duty's summons spent.
A MISCONCEPTION
B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth,
'Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling,
In office placed to serve the Commonwealth,
Does himself all the good he can by stealing.
THE BOSS
Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature's hope,
Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.
SUN-WORSHIP
If I were the rose at your window,
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward,
_They'd_ know where the sunshine grew.
CHANGED PERSPECTIVE
Full oft the pathway to her door
I've measured by the selfsame track,
Yet doubt the distance more and more,
'Tis so much longer coming back!
WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER
We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain,
And I should hint sharp practice if I dared;
For was not she beforehand sure to gain
Who made the sunshine we together shared?
SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY
As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
'Neath every one a friend.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT
In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.
LAST POEMS
HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES
What know we of the world immense
Beyond the narrow ring of sense?
What should we know, who lounge about
The house we dwell in, nor find out,
Masked by a wall, the secret cell
Where the soul's priests in hiding dwell?
The winding stair that steals aloof
To chapel-mysteries 'neath the roof?
It lies about us
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