ego.

How lie the dead below?
Above them grasses grow;
Willow and cypress weep along their streets;
Patient, within each tomb,
Vainly they wait for doom;
It glads not them if time or creeps or fleets.

They neither sleep nor dream;
They neither are nor seem;
They are not now, and yet forevermore.
Our minds, like rats or moles,
Can dig into their holes,
And watch them lose the likeness which they bore.

On dewy dawns of spring
Glad larks above them sing;
Long summer days brood o'er them, soft and kind;
In every winter night
Their slabs gleam weird and white,
And snows drift round them on the drifting wind.

Storms come with phantom hosts,
Moaning like damned ghosts —
Like ghosts far off and sad with all despair;
And fiends, that shriek aloud,
Rend the dead winter's shroud,
And flutter it in wanton frenzy there.

What are the names they knew?
Some plainly writ, 'tis true —
Their owners died at such a recent date.
Old Time walks here, alone,
And rubs them from each stone,
As children rub the letters from a slate.

And what is fame to those
O'er whom deep Lethe flows,
Who know not of men's curses or their tears?
Our voices fade in air;
They hear not, lying there,
The thunder of the treading of the years.

Armies above them shout
In victory or rout;
Great cannon boom and shiver overhead;
Old creeds to earth are hurled,
Thrones fall and shake the world —
All this the dead know not, for they are dead.

Be wise, Myself, be wise;
Live life then, ere it flies;
Oh, be not cheated by a lying creed:
Sate well each eager sense,
Or else thou wilt go hence,
And, having died, thou wilt be dead indeed.

alter ego.

How shall a man shut out
His foolish hope, his doubt?
Such wondrous overtones about him ring.
So oft, when wine is best,
There comes a vague unrest,
A chill, as though from unseen angel wing.

Why do we love to flee
From scenes of revelry
Alone to wander 'neath the awful stars?
To gaze into the deeps
Till something in us leaps
And fiercely seems to shake its prison bars?

To stand upon the beach
And let our dim eyes reach
Beyond the light-house and far out amain;
To list the rhythmic roar
Of waves that march ashore,
And hear them chant in deep, prophetic strain?

Who knows what far, fair isles,
Where summer dreams and smiles,
What slopes they saw all sweet with lotos' blows?
What shores of peace and bliss
They fled from with a kiss
Before they hither came — who knows, who knows?

And if old Triton rise,
Dim seen where sea-scud flies,
Floating serene through foamy trough and swell,
How doth it lift and thrill
To hear him softly shrill,
Then shriek and thunder on his hollow shell.

Thus stars and storms and seas
Hint at great mysteries,
And link the man to worthiness and power,
Showing the simple mind
What sages often find
In vernal sprout or modest hedgerow flower.

Ah me, in wretched way!
Blind at the full of day,
Having no wings, yet, sick for love of flight;
Warmed by celestial fire,
Enwrapped in base desire,
Hoping for morn and cowering in the night.

justice.

Delve not for hidden things;
Drink from Truth's wayside springs,
And grovel not because the fleet years flee.
Good surely is man's best,
For this must be God's test:
" Not what he was, but what he strove to be. "