The Tent on the Beach | Page 5

when
Lived and died this king
of men!
Wordless moans the ancient pine;
Lake and mountain give no sign;

Vain to trace this ring of stones;
Vain the search of crumbling bones

Deepest of all mysteries,
And the saddest, silence is.
Nameless, noteless, clay with clay
Mingles slowly day by day;
But
somewhere, for good or ill,
That dark soul is living still;

Somewhere yet that atom's force
Moves the light-poised universe.
Strange that on his burial-sod
Harebells bloom, and golden-rod,

While the soul's dark horoscope
Holds no starry sign of hope!
Is the
Unseen with sight at odds?
Nature's pity more than God's?
Thus I mused by Melvin's side,
While the summer eventide
Made
the woods and inland sea
And the mountains mystery;
And the hush
of earth and air
Seemed the pause before a prayer,--
Prayer for him, for all who rest,
Mother Earth, upon thy breast,--

Lapped on Christian turf, or hid
In rock-cave or pyramid
All who
sleep, as all who live,
Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!"
Desert-smothered caravan,

Knee-deep dust that once was man,

Battle-trenches ghastly piled,
Ocean-floors with white bones tiled,


Crowded tomb and mounded sod,
Dumbly crave that prayer to God.
Oh, the generations old
Over whom no church-bells tolled,

Christless, lifting up blind eyes
To the silence of the skies!
For the
innumerable dead
Is my soul disquieted.
Where be now these silent hosts?
Where the camping-ground of
ghosts?
Where the spectral conscripts led
To the white tents of the
dead?
What strange shore or chartless sea
Holds the awful mystery?
Then the warm sky stooped to make
Double sunset in the lake;

While above I saw with it,
Range on range, the mountains lit;
And
the calm and splendor stole
Like an answer to my soul.
Hear'st thou, O of little faith,
What to thee the mountain saith,
What
is whispered by the trees?
Cast on God thy care for these;
Trust
Him, if thy sight be dim
Doubt for them is doubt of Him.
"Blind must be their close-shut eyes
Where like night the sunshine
lies,
Fiery-linked the self-forged chain
Binding ever sin to pain,

Strong their prison-house of will,
But without He waiteth still.
"Not with hatred's undertow
Doth the Love Eternal flow;
Every
chain that spirits wear
Crumbles in the breath of prayer;
And the
penitent's desire
Opens every gate of fire.
"Still Thy love, O Christ arisen,
Yearns to reach these souls in prison!

Through all depths of sin and loss
Drops the plummet of Thy cross!

Never yet abyss was found
Deeper than that cross could sound!"
Therefore well may Nature keep
Equal faith with all who sleep,
Set
her watch of hills around
Christian grave and heathen mound,
And
to cairn and kirkyard send

Summer's flowery dividend.
Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream,
Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam


On the Indian's grassy tomb
Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom!

Deep below, as high above,
Sweeps the circle of God's love.

1865
. . . . .
He paused and questioned with his eye
The hearers' verdict on his
song.
A low voice asked: Is 't well to pry
Into the secrets which
belong
Only to God?--The life to be
Is still the unguessed mystery

Unsealed, unpierced the cloudy walls remain,
We beat with dream
and wish the soundless doors in vain.
"But faith beyond our sight may go."
He said: "The gracious
Fatherhood
Can only know above, below,
Eternal purposes of good.

From our free heritage of will,
The bitter springs of pain and ill

Flow only in all worlds. The perfect day
Of God is shadowless, and
love is love alway."
"I know," she said, "the letter kills;
That on our arid fields of strife

And heat of clashing texts distils
The clew of spirit and of life.
But,
searching still the written Word,
I fain would find, Thus saith the
Lord,
A voucher for the hope I also feel
That sin can give no wound
beyond love's power to heal."
"Pray," said the Man of Books, "give o'er
A theme too vast for time
and place.
Go on, Sir Poet, ride once more
Your hobby at his old
free pace.
But let him keep, with step discreet,
The solid earth
beneath his feet.
In the great mystery which around us lies,
The
wisest is a fool, the fool Heaven-helped is wise."
The Traveller said: "If songs have creeds,
Their choice of them let
singers make;
But Art no other sanction needs
Than beauty for its
own fair sake.
It grinds not in the mill of use,
Nor asks for leave,
nor begs excuse;
It makes the flexile laws it deigns to own,
And
gives its atmosphere its color and its tone.

"Confess, old friend, your austere school
Has left your fancy little
chance;
You square to reason's rigid rule
The flowing outlines of
romance.
With conscience keen from exercise,
And chronic fear of
compromise,
You check the free play of your rhymes, to clap
A
moral underneath, and spring it like a trap."
The sweet voice answered: "Better so
Than bolder flights that know
no check;
Better to use the bit, than throw
The reins all loose on
fancy's neck.
The liberal range of Art should be
The breadth of
Christian liberty,
Restrained alone by challenge and alarm
Where
its charmed footsteps tread the border land of harm.
"Beyond the poet's sweet dream lives
The eternal epic of the man.

He wisest is who only gives,
True to himself, the best he can;
Who,
drifting in the winds of praise,
The inward