Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure | Page 5

But nearest to that former life
Another power calleth thee,
Away
from care, away from strife,
Toward what thou wast--infinity.
And in thee, soul, the deepest chord
Thrills to a strain rung from
above;
That strain is bound within a word,
A sole, sweet word, and
it is--Love.
Love--yet it cannot set thee free
To sweep again those folds of light,

It torches but a part to thee
And dim, though fair. The rest is night.
As the fine structure of a man
Fits into life's great world, foremade,

So too it shadoweth the plan
Of ages hidden in the shade.
And thou hast lived before; hast known
The depth of every mystery,

Has dwelt in Nature, hid, alone
And winged the blue ætherial sea;
Hast looked upon the ends of space;
Hast visited each rolling star,--

Before Time measured forth his pace,
Scythe-armed, on a
terrestrial war.
HOMER.

(EARLY LINES.)
Time, with his constant touch, has half erased
The memory, but he
cannot dim the fame
Of one who best of all has paraphrased
The
tale of waters with a tale of flame,
Yet left us but his accents and his
name.
Upon that life, the sun of history
Shines not, but Legend, like a moon
in mist,
Sheds over it a weird uncertainty,
In which all figures wave
and actions twist,
So that a man may read them as he list.
We know not if he trod some Theban street,
And sought compassion
on his aged woe,
We know not if on Chian sand his feet
Left
footprints once; but only this we know,
How the high ways of fame
those footprints show.
Along the border of the restless sea,
The lonely thinker must have
loved to roam,
We feel his soul wrapt in its majesty,
And he can
speak in words that drip with foam,
As though himself a deep, and
depths his home.
Hark! under all and through and over all,
Runs on the cadence of the
changeful sea;
Now pleasantly the graceful surges fall,
And now
they mutter in an angry key
Ever, throughout their changes, grand
and free.
How sternly sang he of Achilles' might,
How sweetly of the sweet
Andromache,
How low his lyre when Ajax prays for light;
(Well
might he bend that lyre in sympathy
For also great, and also blind
was he.)
We almost see the nod of sternbrowed Jove,
And feel Olympus shake;
we almost hear
The melodies that Greek youths interwove
In pæan
to Apollo, and the clear,
Full voice of Nestor, sounding far and near.

A dignity of sadness filled his heart,
That sadness, born of
immortality,
Which they alone who live in art
Feel in its sweetness
and its mystery,
Half-filled already with infinity.
Yea, Zeus was wise when he decreed him blind,
And wiser still when
he decreed him poor;
For insight grew as outer sight declined,
And
want overrode the ills it could not cure,
Else rhapsody had lacked its
lay most pure.
OUR UNDERLYING EXISTENCE.
O Fool, that wisdom dost despise,
Thou knowest not, thou canst not
guess
Another part of thee is wise
And silent sees thy foolishness.
Yet, fool, how dare I pity thee
Because my heart reveres the sages;

The fool lies also deep in me;
We all are one beneath the ages.
TO ____.
"Creation--God's kind giving--
Continues: did not at one Adam end.

New realms start open to each generation,
Each man receives some
gift, some revelation:
I, in this late age living,
The gift, the
new-creation of a friend.
TO A DEBUTANTE.
Thou who smilest in thy freshness,
Bright as bud in morning dew;

Keep this thought in thy heart's bower
"Ever turn, like sunward
flower,
To the Good, the Fair, the True."
A PROBLEM.
Once, in the University of Life,
Remember_ and _Inquire, my old
Professors,
A question hard requested me to solve:
"How can man's
love be great and be eternal
If Right forewarns he may be called to
leave it:
Whether should Love rule Duty and be all,
Or Duty turn

his back on sweet Love crying?"
I paused--then spoke, not having what to answer:
"Ye know,
Professors, how to utter problems
And man perplex with his own
elements.
Yet I believe the ways ye teach are perfect
And able are
you what ye set to solve.--
Admiring you, however, aids me nothing,

I speak because I have not what to answer."
"Ponder," they said,
those quiet, sage Professors,
I had seen Love--O Vision, I was near thee
When Death refused that I
should speak with thee!
And I had seen her soft eyes' trustful
brightness
Wondrous look down into the soul of many
And lead it
out and make it of eternity.
Yes, truly, in her look men find true
being!--
What ruin if such being must be withered!
I had seen Duty--soldier of his God--
Of Virtue and of Order
sentinel--
Grand his firm countenance with obedience.
His troth to
Love would everlasting be
Or nothing. What then should
commanding orders
Bid him have done with her and all renounce?

How can he look on Love and know this shadow?
"I see no answer," answered I dejected,
"Except that either Love must
be abased,
Or he resign perfection in his calling."
"Nay," said they, but by strange, clear apparatus
(Whereof within that
College there is much)
Gave illustration--paraphrased as follows:

"Thou hast not reckoned