Page:Poems Jackson.djvu/160

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112
POEMS.
Grave and searching, with hidden fire,
My black-eyed boy kneels like a priest;
I know that, looking where he looks,
We shall see the "Star in the East."

No name as yet my baby has,
Her rosy hands are just uncurled;
But with wet eyes we kiss her cheeks,
And thank God for our sweet "new world."

Sail east, sail west, dear wanderer!
God cares for you and cares for me;
He knows for which of us 't was best
To stay with children round her knee.

Steamship China, November 12, 1863.


"DROPPED DEAD."
ALL, royal strengths in life, until the end,
Will bear themselves still royally. Degrees
Of dying they know not: the muddy lees
They will not drink: no man shall see them bend
Or slacken in the storm: no man can lend
To them. Those feeble souls who crouch on knees
That fail, and cling to shadows of lost ease,
Death tortures. But, as kings to kings may send,
He challenges the strong.
He challenges the strong.Such death as this
O'ertakes great love; a lesser love will miss
Such stroke; may dwindle painfully away,
And fade, and simply cease to breathe, some day.
But great loves, to the last, have pulses red;
All great loves that have ever died dropped dead.