J. E. B.
Reading edition
Not all the pageant of the setting sun Should yield the tired eyes of man delight, No sweet beguiling power had stars at night To soothe his fainting heart when day is done, Nor any secret voice of benison Might nature own, were not each sound and sight The sign and symbol of the infinite, The prophecy of things not yet begun. So had these lips, so early sealed with sleep, No fruitful word, life no power to move Our deeper reverence, did we not see How more than all he said, he was,—how, deep Below this broken life, he ever wove The finer substance of a life to be.
BY A GRAVE
Oft have I stood within the carven door Of some cathedral at the close of the day, And seen its softened splendors fade away From lucent pane and tessellated floor, As if a parting guest who comes no more,— Till over all silence and blackness lay, Then rose sweet murmurings of them that pray, And shone the altar lamps unseen before, So, Dear, as here I stand with thee alone, The voices of the world sound faint and far, The glare and glory of the moon grow dim, And in the stillness, what I had not known, I know,—a light, pure shining as a star, A song, uprising like a holy hymn.