Stainless soldier on the walls, Knowing this,—and knows no more,— Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore, Justice after as before,— And he who battles on her side, God, though he were ten times slain, Crowns him victor glorified, Victor over death and pain; Forever: but his erring foe, Self-assured that he prevails, Looks from his victim lying low, And sees aloft the red right arm Redress the eternal scales. He, the poor foe, whom angels foil, Blind with pride, and fooled by hate, Writhes within the dragon coil, Reserved to a speechless fate.

V.

Blooms the laurel which belongs To the valiant chief who fights; I see the wreath, I hear the songs Lauding the Eternal Rights, Victors over daily wrongs: Awful victors, they misguide Whom they will destroy, And their coming triumph hide In our downfall, or our joy: They reach no term, they never sleep, In equal strength through space abide; Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep, The strong they slay, the swift outstride: Fate’s grass grows rank in valley clods, And rankly on the castled steep,— Speak it firmly, these are gods, All are ghosts beside.

LOVE AND THOUGHT.

Two well-assorted travellers use The highway, Eros and the Muse. From the twins is nothing hidden, To the pair is naught forbidden; Hand in hand the comrades go Every nook of nature through: Each for other they were born, Each can other best adorn; They know one only mortal grief Past all balsam or relief, When, by false companions crossed, The pilgrims have each other lost.

LOVER’S PETITION.

Good Heart, that ownest all! I ask a modest boon and small: Not of lands and towns the gift,— Too large a load for me to lift,— But for one proper creature, Which geographic eye, Sweeping the map of Western earth, Or the Atlantic coast, from Maine To Powhatan’s domain, Could not descry. Is’t much to ask in all thy huge creation, So trivial a part,— A solitary heart?

Yet count me not of spirit mean, Or mine a mean demand, For ’t is the concentration And worth of all the land, The sister of the sea, The daughter of the strand, Composed of air and light, And of the swart earth-might. So little to thy poet’s prayer Thy large bounty well can spare. And yet I think, if she were gone, The world were better left alone.

UNA.

Roving, roving, as it seems, Una lights my clouded dreams; Still for journeys she is dressed; 

 Prev. P 22/44 next