of pity, glossing o'er
With altered accent, dubious sweep of hand,
Their virile, just contempt for one who failed.
But they can never cast my earnings up,
Who know so well my losses. Even you
Who in the mild light of the spirit walk
And hold yourselves acquainted with the truth,
Be not too swift to judge and cast me out!
You shall find other, nobler ways than mine
To work your soul's redemption,--glorious noons
Of battle 'neath the heaven-suspended sign,
And nightly refuge 'neath God's aegis-rim;
Increase of wisdom, and acquaintance held
With the heart's austerities; still governance,
And ripening of the blood in the weekday sun
To make the full-orbed consecrated fruit
At life's end for the Sabbath supper meet.
I shall not sit beside you at that feast,
For ere a seedling of my golden tree
Pushed off its petals to get room to grow,
I stripped the boughs to make an April gaud
And wreathe a spendthrift garland for my hair.
But mine is not the failure God deplores;
For I of old am beauty's votarist,
Long recreant, often foiled and led astray,
But resolute at last to seek her there
Where most she does abide, and crave with tears
That she assoil me of my blemishment.
Low looms her singing face to point the way,
Pendulous, blanched with longing, shedding flame
Of silver on the brown grope of the flood.
The stars are for me; the horizon wakes
Its pilgrim chanting; and the little sand
Grows musical of hope beneath my feet.
The waves that leap to meet my swimming breast
Gossip sweet secrets of the light-drenched way,
And when the deep throbs of the rising surge
Pulse upward with me, and a rain of wings
Blurs round the moon's pale place, she stoops to reach
Still welcome of bright hands across the wave,
And sings low, low, globed all in ghostly fire,
Lost verses from my youth's gold canticle.

THE BRUTE

Through his might men work their wills.
They have boweled out the hills
For food to keep him toiling in the cages they have wrought;
And they fling him, hour by hour,
Limbs of men to give him power;
Brains of men to give him cunning; and for dainties to devour
Children's souls, the little worth; hearts of women, cheaply bought:
He takes them and he breaks them, but he gives them scanty thought.

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