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The Trial by Existence

    EVEN the bravest that are slain
    Shall not dissemble their surprise
    On waking to find valor reign,
    Even as on earth, in paradise;
    And where they sought without the sword
    Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
    To find that the utmost reward
    Of daring should be still to dare.
    The light of heaven falls whole and white
    And is not shattered into dyes,
    The light for ever is morning light;
    The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
    The angel hosts with freshness go,
    And seek with laughter what to brave;--
    And binding all is the hushed snow
    Of the far-distant breaking wave.
    And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
    The gathering of the souls for birth,
    The trial by existence named,
    The obscuration upon earth.
    And the slant spirits trooping by
    In streams and cross- and counter-streams
    Can but give ear to that sweet cry
    For its suggestion of what dreams!
    And the more loitering are turned
    To view once more the sacrifice
    Of those who for some good discerned
    Will gladly give up paradise.
    And a white shimmering concourse rolls
    Toward the throne to witness there
    The speeding of devoted souls
    Which God makes his especial care.
    And none are taken but who will,
    Having first heard the life read out
    That opens earthward, good and ill,
    Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
    And very beautifully God limns,
    And tenderly, life's little dream,
    But naught extenuates or dims,
    Setting the thing that is supreme.
    Nor is there wanting in the press
    Some spirit to stand simply forth,
    Heroic in its nakedness,
    Against the uttermost of earth.
    The tale of earth's unhonored things
    Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
    And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
    And a shout greets the daring one.
    But always God speaks at the end:
    'One thought in agony of strife
    The bravest would have by for friend,
    The memory that he chose the life;
    But the pure fate to which you go
    Admits no memory of choice,
    Or the woe were not earthly woe
    To which you give the assenting voice.'
    And so the choice must be again,
    But the last choice is still the same;
    And the awe passes wonder then,
    And a hush falls for all acclaim.
    And God has taken a flower of gold
    And broken it, and used therefrom
    The mystic link to bind and hold
    Spirit to matter till death come.
    'Tis of the essence of life here,
    Though we choose greatly, still to lack
    The lasting memory at all clear,
    That life has for us on the wrack
    Nothing but what we somehow chose;
    Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
    In the pain that has but one close,
    Bearing it crushed and mystified.

In Equal Sacrifice

    THUS of old the Douglas did:
    He left his land as he was bid
    With the royal heart of Robert the Bruce
    In a golden case with a golden lid,
    To carry the same to the Holy Land;
    By which we see and understand
    That that was the place to carry a heart
    At loyalty and love's command,
    And that was the case to carry it in.
    The Douglas had not far to win
    Before he came to the land of Spain,
    Where long a holy war had been
    Against the too-victorious Moor;
    And there his courage could not endure
    Not to strike a blow for God
    Before he made his errand sure.
    And ever it was intended so,
    That a man for God should strike a blow,
    No matter the heart he has in charge
    For the Holy Land where hearts should go.
    But when in battle the foe were met,
    The Douglas found him sore beset,
    With only strength of the fighting arm
    For one more battle passage yet--
    And that as vain to save the day
    As bring his body safe away--
    Only a signal deed to do
    And a last sounding word to say.
    The heart he wore in a golden chain
    He swung and flung forth into the plain,
    And followed it crying 'Heart or death!'
    And fighting over it perished fain.
    So may another do of right,
    Give a heart to the hopeless fight,
    The more of right the more he loves;
    So may another redouble might
    For a few swift gleams of the angry brand,
    Scorning greatly not to demand
    In equal sacrifice with his
    The heart he bore to the Holy Land.

The Tuft of Flowers

    I WENT to turn the grass once after one
    Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
    The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
    Before I came to view the leveled scene.
    I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
    I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
    But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
    And I must be, as he had been,--alone,
    'As all must be,' I said within my heart,
    'Whether they work together or apart.'
    But as I said it, swift there passed me by
    On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly,
    Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
    Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
    And once I marked his flight go round and round,
    As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
    And then he flew as far as eye could see,
    And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
    I thought of questions that have no reply,
    And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
    But he turned first, and led my eye to look
    At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
    A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
    Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
    I left my place to know them by their name,
    Finding them butterfly weed when I came.
    The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
    By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
    Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
    But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
    The butterfly and I had lit upon,
    Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
    That made me hear the wakening birds around,
    And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
    And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
    So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
    But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
    And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
    And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
    With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
    'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
    'Whether they work together or apart.'

Spoils of the Dead

    TWO fairies it was
    On a still summer day
    Came forth in the woods
    With the flowers to play.
    The flowers they plucked
    They cast on the ground
    For others, and those
    For still others they found.
    Flower-guided it was
    That they came as they ran
    On something that lay
    In the shape of a man.
    The snow must have made
    The feathery bed
    When this one fell
    On the sleep of the dead.
    But the snow was gone
    A long time ago,
    And the body he wore
    Nigh gone with the snow.
    The fairies drew near
    And keenly espied
    A ring on his hand
    And a chain at his side.
    They knelt in the leaves
    And eerily played
    With the glittering things,
    And were not afraid.
    And when they went home
    To hide in their burrow,
    They took them along
    To play with to-morrow.
    When you came on death,
    Did you not come flower-guided
    Like the elves in the wood?
    I remember that I did.
    But I recognised death
    With sorrow and dread,
    And I hated and hate
    The spoils of the dead.