HOUSE OF PRIDE_

_I lived with Pride; the house was hung
With tapestries of rich design.
Of many houses, this among
Them all was richest, and 'twas mine.
But in the chambers burned no fire,
Tho' all the furniture was gold,
I sickened of fulfilled desire,
The House of Pride was very cold._

_I lived with Knowledge; very high
Her house rose on a mountain's side.
I watched the stars roll through the sky,
I read the scroll of Time flung wide.
But in that house, austere and bare,
No children played, no laughter clear
Was heard, no voice of mirth was there,
The House was high but very drear._

_I lived with Love; all she possest
Was but a tent beside a stream.
She warmed my cold hands in her breast,
She wove around my sleep a dream.
And One there was with face divine
Who softly came, when day was spent,
And turned our water into wine,
And made our life a sacrament._

IX

THE REVELATIONS OF GRIEF

Nevertheless there are occasions in life when these things become
evident to even the least observant of us. When we stand beside the
newly dead the most intolerable reflection of countless mourners is
that their tears fall on quiet lips to which they gave scant caresses,
in the days of health: their passionate words of love are uttered to
unhearing ears, which in life waited eagerly for such assurances as
these, and waited vainly. All the purity and beauty of the vanished
human soul is revealed to us now, when it is no longer in our power to
gladden or delight it with our kindness or our praise. All the willing
service rendered to us by those folded hands and resting feet, which we
so thanklessly accepted, is seen as a thing dear and precious to us
now, when the opportunity of thanks is past forever. What would we
give now if but for one brief hour we might recall our dead just to say
the tender things we might have said and did not say, through all those
days and years when they were with us,--presences familiar and
accustomed, moving round us with so soft a tread that we scarce
regarded them, nor laid on them detaining hands, nor lifted our
preoccupied and careless eyes to theirs!

For most of us, alas, it is not Grief and Love alone who conduct us to
the chambers of the dead; the sad and silent Angel of Reproach also
stands beside the bed, and the shadow of his wings falls upon the
features fixed in their immutable appeal, their path