Front matter (continued 2)

When you were tired and went away, I said, amid my new heart-ache: "When I catch breath from pain some day, I will teach grief a worthier way, And make a great song for his sake!" Yet there is silence. O my friend, You gave me love such years ago— A child who could not comprehend Its worth, yet kept it to the end— How can I sing when you lie low? Not always silence. O my dear, Not when the empty heart and hand Reach out for you, who are not near. If you could see, if you could hear, I think that you would understand. The grief that can get leave to run In channels smooth of tender song Wins solace mine has never won. I have left all my work undone, And only dragged my grief along. Many who loved you many years (Not more than I shall always do), Will breathe their songs in your dead ears; God help them if they weep such tears As I, who have no song for you. You would forgive me, if you knew! Silence is all I have to bring (Where tears are many, words are few); I have but tears to bring to you, For, since you died, I cannot sing!

Your dainty Muse her form arrays In soft brocades of bygone days. She walks old gardens where the dews Gem sundials and trim-cut yews And tremble on the tulip's blaze. The magic scent her charm conveys Which lives on when the rose decays. She had her portrait done by Greuze— Your dainty Muse! Mine's hardier—walks life's muddy ways Barefooted; preaches, sometimes prays, Is modern, is advanced, has views; Goes in for lectures, reads the news, And sends her homespun verse to praise Your dainty Muse!

Dream and delight had passed away, Their springs dried by the dusty day, And sordid fetters bound me tight, Forged for poor song by money-might; I writhed, and could not get away. There might have been no flowering may In all the world—life looked so gray With dust of railways, choking quite Dream and delight. When, lo! your white book came my way, With scent of honey-buds and hay, Starshine and day-dawns pure and bright, The rose blood-red, the may moon-white. I owe you—would I could repay— Dream and delight.

There is a country far away from here— A world of dreams—a fair enchanted land— Where woods bewitched and fairy forests stand, And all the seasons rhyme through all the year. The greenest meadows, deepest skies, are there; There grows the rose of dreams, that never dies; And there men's heads and hands and hearts and eyes Are never, as here, too tired to find them fair. Thither, when life becomes too hard to bear, The poet and the painter steal away To watch those glories of the night and day Which here the days and nights so seldom wear. In that brave land I, too, have part and lot. Dim woods, lush meadows, little red-roofed towns, Walled flowery gardens, wide gray moors and downs; Sedge, meadow-sweet, and wet forget-me-not; The Norman church, with whispering elm trees round; A certain wood where earliest violets grow; One wide still marsh where hidden waters flow; The cottage porch with honey-buds enwound— These are my portion of enchanted ground, To these the years add somewhat in their flight; Some wood or field, deep-dyed in heart's delight, Becomes my own—treasure to her who found. To my dream fields your art adds one field more, A field of red, red clover, blossoming, Where the sun shines, and where more skylarks sing Than ever in any field of mine before.

Between the midnight and the morn When wake the weary heart and head, Troops of gray ghosts from lands forlorn Keep tryst about my sleepless bed. I hear their cold, thin voices say: "Your youth is dying; by-and-by All that makes up your life to-day, Withered by age, will shrink and die!" Will it be so? Will age slay all The dreams of love and hope and faith— Put out the sun beyond recall, And lap us in a living death? Will hearts grown old forget their youth? And hands grown old give up the strife? Shall we accept as ordered truth The dismal anarchy of life? Better die now—at once be free Of hope and fear—renounce the whole: For of what worth would living be Should one—grown old—outlive one's soul? Yet see: through curtains closely drawn Creeps in the exorcising light; The sacred fingers of the dawn Put all my troop of ghosts to flight. And then I hear the brave Sun's voice, Though still the skies are gray and dim: "Old age comes never—Oh, rejoice— Except to those who beckon him. "All that youth's dreams are nourished by, By that shall dreams in age be fed— Thy noble dreams can never die Until thyself shall wish them dead!"