VIRTUE

Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan! 
  And the deep wonder of her starry eyes
  Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise,
And all earth’s sorrow out of memory gone. 
Yet sings her clear voice unrelenting on
  Of loveliest impossibilities;
  Though echo only answer her with sighs
Of effort wasted and delights foregone.

Spent, baffled, ’wildered, hated and despised,
  Her straggling warriors hasten to defeat;
By wounds distracted, and by night surprised,
  Fall where death’s darkness and oblivion meet: 
Yet, yet:  O breast how cold!  O hope how far! 
Grant my son’s ashes lie where these men’s are!

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MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD

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REVERIE

Bring not bright candles, for his eyes
  In twilight have sweet company;
Bring not bright candles, else they fly—­
  His phantoms fly—­
Gazing aggrieved on thee!

Bring not bright candles, startle not
  The phantoms of a vacant room,
Flocking above a child that dreams—­
  Deep, deep in dreams,—­
Hid, in the gathering gloom!

Bring not bright candles to those eyes
  That between earth and stars descry,
Lovelier for the shadows there,
  Children of air,
Palaces in the sky!

THE MASSACRE

The shadow of a poplar tree
  Lay in that lake of sun,
As I with my little sword went in—­
  Against a thousand, one.

Haughty and infinitely armed,
  Insolent in their wrath,
Plumed high with purple plumes they held
  The narrow meadow path.

The air was sultry; all was still;
  The sun like flashing glass;
And snip-snap my light-whispering steel
  In arcs of light did pass.

Lightly and dull fell each proud head,
  Spiked keen without avail,
Till swam my uncontented blade
  With ichor green and pale.

And silence fell:  the rushing sun
  Stood still in paths of heat,
Gazing in waves of horror on
  The dead about my feet.

Never a whir of wing, no bee
  Stirred o’er the shameful slain;
Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in,
  Stooped, and came out again.

The very air trembled in fear;
  Eclipsing shadow seemed
Rising in crimson waves of gloom—­
  On one who dreamed.

ECHO

“Who called?” I said, and the words
  Through the whispering glades,
Hither, thither, baffled the birds—­
  “Who called?  Who called?”

The leafy boughs on high
  Hissed in the sun;
The dark air carried my cry
  Faintingly on: 

Eyes in the green, in the shade,
  In the motionless brake,
Voices that said what I said,
  For mockery’s sake: