To those who died for her on land and sea,
That she might have a country great and free,
Boston builds this:  build ye her monument
In lives like theirs, at duty’s summons spent.

A MISCONCEPTION

B, taught by Pope to do his good by stealth,
’Twixt participle and noun no difference feeling,
In office placed to serve the Commonwealth,
Does himself all the good he can by stealing.

THE BOSS

Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature’s hope,
Who sure intended him to stretch a rope.

SUN-WORSHIP

If I were the rose at your window,
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward,
They’d know where the sunshine grew.

CHANGED PERSPECTIVE

Full oft the pathway to her door
I’ve measured by the selfsame track,
Yet doubt the distance more and more,
’Tis so much longer coming back!

WITH A PAIR OF GLOVES LOST IN A WAGER

We wagered, she for sunshine, I for rain,
And I should hint sharp practice if I dared;
For was not she beforehand sure to gain
Who made the sunshine we together shared?

SIXTY-EIGHTH BIRTHDAY

As life runs on, the road grows strange
With faces new, and near the end
The milestones into headstones change,
’Neath every one a friend.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT

In vain we call old notions fudge,
  And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
  And stealing will continue stealing.

LAST POEMS

HOW I CONSULTED THE ORACLE OF THE GOLDFISHES

What know we of the world immense
Beyond the narrow ring of sense? 
What should we know, who lounge about
The house we dwell in, nor find out,
Masked by a wall, the secret cell
Where the soul’s priests in hiding dwell? 
The winding stair that steals aloof
To chapel-mysteries ’neath the roof?

It lies about us, yet as far
From sense sequestered as a star 10
New launched its wake of fire to trace
In secrecies of unprobed space,
Whose beacon’s lightning-pinioned spears
Might earthward haste a thousand years
Nor reach it.  So remote seems this
World undiscovered, yet it is
A neighbor near and dumb as death,
So near, we seem to feel the breath
Of its hushed habitants as they
Pass us unchallenged, night and day. 20