thing.

It pulsed with all the anguish of despair;
It ached with all a fond heart's awful power;
Yet I, who stood unhurt above it there,
Envied its lot that hour.

I, who have wasted all the sacred, deep
Emotions of my soul in spendthrift fashion,
Until no sorrow now can make me weep--
No joy stir me with passion.

I, who have scattered here and there the gold
Of my heart's store, until I spent the whole;
Yet unto each so little gave to hold,
That I enriched no soul.

I, who have sold the birthright of sweet tears,
And no more feel a thrill in pulse or brain,
Would gladly have exchanged my tasteless years
For one salt hour of pain.

Weep on, ye mourners. Glory in the cross
Of some great grief. Thank God you do not know
The greater grief that comes but with the loss
Of power to suffer woe.

RONDEAU

As you forgot I may forget,
When summer dews cease to be wet.
When whippoorwills disdain the night,
When sun and moon are no more bright,
And all the stars at midnight set.

When jay birds sing, and thrushes fret,
When snowfalls come in flakes of jet,
When hearts that shelter love are light,
I may forget.

When mortal life no cares beset,
When April brings no violet,
When wrong no longer wars with right,
When all hope's ships shall heave in sight,
And memory holds no least regret,
I may forget.

TRIFLES

Only a spar from a broken ship
Washed in by a careless wave;
But it brought back the smile of a vanished lip,
And his past peered out of the grave.

Only a leaf that an idle breeze
Tossed at her passing feet;
But she seemed to stand under the dear old trees,
And life again was sweet.

Only the bar of a tender strain
They sang in days gone by;
But the old love woke in her heart again,
The love they had sworn should die.

Only the breath of a faint perfume
That floated up from a rose;
But the bolts slid back from a marble tomb,
And I looked on a dear dead face.

Who vaunts the might of a human will,
When a perfume or a sound
Can wake a Past that we bade lie still,
And open a long closed wound?

COURAGE

Whether the way be dark or light
My soul shall sing as I journey on,
As sweetly sing in the deeps of night
As it sang in the burst of the golden dawn.

Nothing can crush me, or silence me long,
Though the heart be bowed, yet the soul will rise,
Higher and higher