'He did not die alone, nor should

His memory live so, 'mid these rude
World-praisers a worse solitude.

'Me, a voice calleth to that tomb

Where these are strewing branch and bloom, Saying, come nearer !-and I come.

'Glory to God!' resuméd he,

And his eyes smiled for victory

O'er their own tears which I could see

Fallen on the palm, down cheek and chin'That poet now has entered in

The place of rest which is not sin.

'And while he rests, his songs in troops Walk up and down our earthly slopes, Companioned by diviner Hopes.'

'But thou,' I murmured,-to engage The child's speech farther—‘hast an age Too tender for this orphanage.'

'Glory to God-to God!' he saith,
'KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH,
AND LIFE IS PERFECTED BY DEATH.'

THE POET'S VOW.

O be wiser thou,

Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

WORDSWORTH.

PART THE FIRST.

SHOWING WHEREFORE THE VOW WAS MADE.

I.

EVE is a twofold mystery;

The stillness Earth doth keep,The motion wherewith human hearts Do each to either leap,

As if all souls between the poles,

Felt 'Parting comes in sleep.'

II.

The rowers lift their oars to view
Each other in the sea;

The landsmen watch the rocking boats

In a pleasant company;
While up the hill go gladlier still

Dear friends by two and three.

III.

The peasant's wife hath looked without
Her cottage door and smiled,
For there the peasant drops his spade

To clasp his youngest child

Which hath no speech, but its hands can reach And stroke his forehead mild.

IV.

A poet sate that eventide

Within his hall alone,

As silent as its ancient lords

In the coffined place of stone,

When the bat hath shrunk from the praying monk, And the praying monk is gone.

V.

Nor wore the dead a stiller face
Beneath the cerement's roll.
His lips refusing out in words
Their mystic thoughts to dole,
His stedfast eye burnt inwardly,
As burning out his soul.

VI.

You would not think that brow could e'er

Ungentle moods express,

Yet seemed it, in this troubled world,
Too calm for gentleness;

When the very star, that shines from far,
Shines trembling ne'ertheless.

VII.

It lacked, all need, the softening light
Which other brows supply.

We should conjoin the scathed trunks
Of our humanity,

That each leafless spray entwining may
Look softer 'gainst the sky.

VIII.

None gazed within the poet's face,
The poet gazed in none.

He threw a lonely shadow straight

Before the moon and sun,

Affronting nature's heaven-dwelling creatures With wrong to nature done.

IX.

Because this poet daringly,

The nature at his heart,

And that quick tune along his veins
He could not change by art,
Had vowed his blood of brotherhood
To a stagnant place apart.

X.

He did not vow in fear, or wrath,
Or grief's fantastic whim,—

But, weights and shows of sensual things

Too closely crossing him,

On his soul's eyelid the

pressure

slid

And made its vision dim.

XI.

And darkening in the dark he strove
"Twixt earth and sea and sky
To lose in shadow, wave, and cloud,
His brother's haunting cry.

The winds were welcome as they swept.
God's five-day work he would accept,
But let the rest go by.

XII.

He cried 'O touching, patient Earth,

That weepest in thy glee, Whom God created very good,

And very mournful, we!

Thy voice of moan doth reach His throne, As Abel's rose from thee.

XIII.

'Poor crystal sky, with stars astray!
Mad winds, that howling go
From east to west! perplexed seas,
That stagger from their blow!
O motion wild! O wave defiled!
Our curse hath made you so.

XIV.

'We! and our curse! do I partake

The desiccating sin?

Have I the apple at my lips?

The money-lust within?

Do I human stand with the wounding hand,

To the blasting heart akin?

XV.

"Thou solemn pathos of all things,
For solemn joy designed!
Behold, submissive to your cause
An holy wrath I find,

And, for your sake, the bondage break,
That knits me to my kind.

VOL. I.-15