INTELLECT Go, speed the stars of Thought GIFTS GIFTS of one who loved me, PROMISE In countless upward-striving waves Not less are summer mornings dear To every child they wake, And each with novel life his sphere Fills for his proper sake. CARITAS In the suburb, in the town, POWER His tongue was framed to music, And his hand was armed with skill; His face was the mould of beauty, And his heart the throne of will. WEALTH WHO shall tell what did befall, Far away in time, when once, Hung idle stars and suns? What god the element obeyed? Knew the strong task to it assigned, ages strew The granite slab to clothe and hide, Ere wheat can wave its golden pride. What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled (In dizzy æons dim and mute The reeling brain can ill compute) Copper and iron, lead and gold? What oldest star the fame can save Of races perishing to pave The planet with a floor of lime? Dust is their pyramid and mole: Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed But when the quarried means were piled, But though light-headed man forget, Still, through her motes and masses, draw Which bind the strengths of Nature wild ILLUSIONS FLOW, flow the waves hated, Accursed, adored, The waves of mutation; No anchorage is. Sleep is not, death is not; Who seem to die live. House you were born in, Friends of your spring-time, Old man and young maid, Day's toil and its guerdon, They are all vanishing, Fleeing to fables, Cannot be moored. See the stars through them, Through treacherous marbles. Know the stars yonder, The stars everlasting, Are fugitive also, And emulate, vaulted, The lambent heat lightning And fire-fly's flight. When thou dost return On the wave's circulation, |