What is this marvel that is wrought
Within our silent haunts of thought?
We hail no ships of roseate shells;
We catch no mermaid's bridal bells;
No siren's song with yearning stirs
The souls of drifting mariners.
The world, alas ! hath waxed too wise
To trust her cradle lullabies.
And nevermore her feet may stand
In moonlight glades of fairyland.
Yet on the main whose gray heart beat
Beneath the westward-sailing fleet
That bore Columbus, 'neath the sun
That shone on builded Babylon,
Ourselves unto ourselves grow strange,
Made conscious of our mortal change.
We are the dream, and only we,
'Twixt the enduring sky and sea.
UNDER THE SNOWS.
UNDER the drifted snows, with weeping
and holy rite,
For a little maid's repose let the lonely bed be dight.
Cold is the cradle cover our pitiful hands fold
over
The heart that had won repose or ever it knew
delight.
