And as for us—­to our disgrace,
  Your stricture’s truth must be conceded: 
Would any but a stupid race
  Have made the fuss about you we did?

RELUCTANT SUMMER

Reluctant Summer! once, a maid Full easy of access, In many a bee-frequented shade Thou didst thy lover bless.  Divinely unreproved I played, Then, with each liberal tress—­ And art thou grown at last afraid Of some too close caress?

Or deem’st that if thou shouldst abide
  My passion might decay? 
Thou leav’st me pining and denied,
  Coyly thou say’st me nay. 
Ev’n as I woo thee to my side,
  Thou, importuned to stay,
Like Orpheus’ half-recovered bride
  Ebb’st from my arms away.

THE GREAT MISGIVING

“Not ours,” say some, “the thought of death to dread;
  Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell: 
Life is a feast, and we have banqueted—­
  Shall not the worms as well?

“The after-silence, when the feast is o’er,
  And void the places where the minstrels stood,
Differs in nought from what hath been before,
  And is nor ill nor good.”

Ah, but the Apparition—­the dumb sign—­
  The beckoning finger bidding me forego
The fellowship, the converse, and the wine,
  The songs, the festal glow!

And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit,
  And while the purple joy is passed about,
Whether ’tis ampler day divinelier lit
  Or homeless night without;

And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see
  New prospects, or fall sheer—­a blinded thing!
There is, O grave, thy hourly victory,
  And there, O death, thy sting.

“THE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EXCELLENT”

As we wax older on this earth,
  Till many a toy that charmed us seems
Emptied of beauty, stripped of worth,
  And mean as dust and dead as dreams,—­
For gauds that perished, shows that passed,
  Some recompense the Fates have sent: 
Thrice lovelier shine the things that last,
  The things that are more excellent.

Tired of the Senate’s barren brawl,
  An hour with silence we prefer,
Where statelier rise the woods than all
  Yon towers of talk at Westminster. 
Let this man prate and that man plot,
  On fame or place or title bent: 
The votes of veering crowds are not
  The things that are more excellent.

Shall we perturb and vex our soul
  For “wrongs” which no true freedom mar,
Which no man’s upright walk control,
  And from no guiltless deed debar? 
What odds though tonguesters heal, or leave
  Unhealed, the grievance they invent? 
To things, not phantoms, let us cleave—­
  The things that are more excellent.

Nought nobler is, than to be free: 
  The stars of heaven are free because
In amplitude of liberty
  Their joy is to obey the laws. 
From servitude to freedom’s name
  Free thou thy mind in bondage pent;
Depose the fetich, and proclaim
  The things that are more excellent.