TEARS

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not

More grief than ye can weep for.

That is wellThat is light grieving! lighter, none befell

Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.

Tears! what are tears? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing; at her marriage-bell
The bride weeps, and before the oracle

Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot

Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,

Ye who weep only! If, as some have done,

Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place

And touch but tombs,-look up! those tears will run
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.

TEARS

BY LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE

When I consider Life and its few years-
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done.
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;

A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;

The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat; The burst of music down an unlistening street,

I wonder at the idleness of tears.

Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,

Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep, By every cup of sorrow that you had,

Loose me from tears, and make me see aright How each hath back what once he stayed to weep: Homer his sight, David his little lad!

PANDORA'S SONG

(From the Fire-Bringer)

BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

Of wounds and sore defeat
I made my battle stay;
Winged sandals for my feet
I wove of my delay;
Of weariness and fear
I made my shouting spear;
Of loss, and doubt and dread,
And swift oncoming doom,

I made a helmet for my head
And a floating plume.
From the shutting mist of death,
From the failure of the breath,
I made a battle-horn to blow
Across the vales of overthrow.
O hearken, love, the battle-horn!
The triumph clear, the silver scorn!
O hearken where the echoes bring,
Down the grey disastrous morn,
Laughter and rallying.