March 4, 1911.

“THE LIGHT THAT NEVER WAS ON SEA OR LAND”

O gone are now those eager great glad days of days, but I remember
  Yet even yet the light that turned the saddest of sad hours to mirth;
I remember how elate I swung upon the thrusting bowsprits,
  And how the sun in setting burned and made the earth all unlike earth.

O gone are now those mighty ships I haunted days and days together,
  And gone the mighty men that sang as crawled the tall craft out to sea;
And fallen ev’n the forest tips and changed the eyes that watched their
    burning,
  But still I hear that shout and clang, and still the old spell stirs in
    me.

And as to some poor ship close locked in water dense and dark and vile
  The wind comes garrulous from afar and sets the idle masts a-quiver;
And ev’n to her so foully docked, swift as the sun’s first beam at dawn
  The sea-bird comes and like a star wheels by and down along the river;—­

So to me the full wind blows from far strange waters echoingly,
  And faint forgotten longings break the fast-sealed pools within my
    breast;
So to me when sunset glows the scream comes of the white sea-bird,
  And all those ancient raptures wake and wakes again the old unrest.

I see again the masts that crowd and part lie trees in living wind,
  I hear again the shouts and cries and lip-lap of the waveless pool;
I see again the smalling cloud of sail that into distance fades,
  I am again the boy whose eyes with tears of grief and hope are full.

AT EVENING’S HUSH

Now pipe no more, glad Shepherd,
  Your joys from this fair hill
  Through golden eves and still: 
There sounds from yon dense quarry
A burden harsh and sorry.

No piping now, poor Shepherd. 
  Men strive with violent hand,
  And anger stirs the bland
Blithe heaven that ne’er yet trembled,
Save with great spirits assembled.

No more, no more, sad Shepherd,
  Let thy bright fingers stray
  Idly in the old way;
No more their nimble glancing
Set gleeful spirits a-dancing.

Put by thy pipe, O Shepherd! 
  There needs no note of thine
  For men deaf, undivine.... 
And lest brute hands should take it,
O sorrowful Shepherd, break it!

HAPPY DEATH

Bugle and battle-cry are still,
    The long strife’s over;
Low o’er the corpse-encumbered hill
    The sad stars hover.

It is in vain, O stars! you look
    On these forsaken: 
Awhile with blows on blows they shook,
    Or struck unshaken.

Needs now no pity of God or man ... 
    Tears for the living! 
They have ’scaped the confines of life’s plan
    That holds us grieving.

The unperturbed soft moon, the stars,
    The breeze that lingers,
Wake not to ineffectual wars
    Their hearts and fingers.