In vain to question—save the heart of man,
The throbbing human heart, that still doth keep
Its truth, love, hope, its high and quenchless faith.
By day, by night, when all else faints in sleep,
"Naught is but Life," it cries; "there is no death;
Life, Life doth only live, since Life began."
THE FREED SPIRIT
Brother of sorrow and mortality!
Not always shall we chide the failing flesh
That lets the netted soul to silence fly,
Like a wild bird that breaks the treacherous mesh;
Not always shall men curse in stormy sky
The laughter and the fury of a Power
That sees its chance-born children sink and die—
Hurling or death or life for dole or dower.
Who deep his spirit searches can deny
O nevermore, that life doth leave a trace
Of something not all heavenly; tho' we try
Daily to turn toward Heaven a stedfast face.
Even grief doth soil us with its poisonous breath—
Then free our spirits utterly, pure Death!
UNDYING LIGHT
I
When in the golden western summer skies
A flaming glory starts, and slowly fades
Through crimson tone on tone to deeper shades,
There falls a silence, while the daylight dies
Lingering—but not with human agonies
That tear the soul, or terror that degrades;
A holy peace the failing world pervades,
