Comrades belovèd, see, the fire burns low,
And darkness thickens. Soon shall our brief part
On earth forever end, and we shall go

To join the unseen ranks; nor will we swerve
Or fear, when to the silent, great reserve

At last we ordered are

as one by one

Our Captains have been called, their labors done,
To rest and wait in the Celestial Field.
Ay, year by year, we to the dead did yield.
Our bravest. Them we followed to the tomb
Sorrowing; for they were worthy of our love-
High-souled and generous, loving peace above
War and its glories: therefore lives no gloom
In this our sorrow; rather pride, and praise,
And gratitude, and memory of old days.

A little while and these tired hands will cease
To lift obedient or in war or peace
Faithful we trust in peace as once in war;
And on the scroll of peace some triumphs are
Noble as battles won; tho' less resounds
The fame, as deep and bitter are the wounds.

But now the fire burns low, and we must sleep
Erelong, while other eyes than ours the vigil keep.
And after we are gone, to other eyes

That watch below shall come, in starry skies,

A fairer dawn, whereon in fiery light

The Eternal Captain shall his signals write;
And shaken from rest, and gazing at that sign,

On shall the mighty Nation mové, led by a hand divine.

Time is the fire that hath consumed them all.

Statue and wall

In ruin strew the universal floor.

II

Greece lives, but Greece no more!

Its ashes breed

The undying seed

Blown westward till, in Rome's imperial towers,

Athens reflowers;

Still westward-lo, a veiled and virgin shore!

III

Say not, "Greece is no more."

Through the clear morn

On light winds borne

Her white-winged soul sinks on the New World's breast.

Ah! happy West

Greece flowers anew, and all her temples soar!

IV

One bright hour, then no more

Shall to the skies

These columns rise.

But tho' art's flower shall fade, again the seed
Onward shall speed,

Quickening the land from lake to ocean's roar.

V

Art lives, tho' Greece may never

From the ancient mold

As once of old

Exhale to heaven the inimitable bloom;

Yet from that tomb

Beauty walks forth to light the world forever!

THE VANISHING CITY

I

ENRAPTURED memory, and all ye powers of being,
To new life waken! Stamp the vision clear
On the soul's inmost substance. O, let seeing
Be more than seeing; let the entranced ear
Take deep these surging sounds, inweaved with light
Of unimagined radiance; let the intense.
Illumined loveliness that thrills the night

Strike in the human heart some deeper sense!
So shall these domes that meet heaven's curvèd blue,
And yon long, white, imperial colonnade,

And many-columned peristyle, endue

The mind with beauty that shall never fade;

Tho' all too soon to dark oblivion wending –
Reared in one happy hour to know as swift an ending.

II

Thou shalt of all the cities of the world

Famed for their grandeur, evermore endure Imperishably and all alone impearled

In the world's living thought, the one most sure

THE VANISHING CITY

Of love undying and of endless praise

For beauty only chief of all thy kind;
Immortal, even because of thy brief days;

Thou cloud-built, fairy city of the mind!
Here man doth pluck from the full tree of life
The latest, lordliest flower of earthly art;
This doth he breathe, while resting from his strife,
This presses he against his weary heart;

Then, wakening from his dream within a dream,

203

He flings the faded flower on Time's down-rushing

stream.

III

O, never as here in the eternal years

Hath burst to bloom man's free and soaring spirit, Joyous, untrammeled, all untouched by tears.

And the dark weight of woe it doth inherit.

Never so swift the mind's imaginings

Caught sculptured form, and color. Never before,Save where the soul beats unembodied wings

'Gainst viewless skies,—was such enchanted shore Jeweled with ivory palaces like these:

By day a miracle, a dream by night;

Yet real as beauty is, and as the seas

Whose waves glance back keen lines of glittering light When million lamps, and coronets of fire,

And fountains as of flame, to the bright stars aspire.

IV

Glide, magic boat, from out the green lagoon,
'Neath the dark bridge, into this smiting glow
And unthought glory. Even the glistening moon.
Hangs in the nearer splendor. Let not go
The scene, my soul, till ever 't is thine own!

This is Art's citadel and crown. How still

The innumerous multitudes from every zone,

That watch and listen; while each eye doth fill
With joyous tears unwept. Now solemn strains
Of brazen music give the waiting soul
Voice and a sigh-it other speech disdains,

Here where the visual sense faints to its goal!
Ah, silent multitudes, ye are a part

Of the wise architect's supreme and glorious art!

O joy almost too high for saddened mortal!
O ecstasy envisioned! Thou shouldst be
Lasting as thou art lovely; as immortal

As through all time the matchless thought of thee!
Yet would we miss, then, the sweet, piercing pain
Of thy inconstancy! Could we but banish.
This haunting pang, ah, then thou wouldst not reign
One with the golden sunset that doth vanish
Through myriad lingering tints down melting skies;
Nor the pale mystery of the New World flower
That blooms once only, then forever dies –

Pouring a century's wealth on one dear hour.

Then vanish, City of Dream, and be no more;

Soon shall this fair Earth's self be lost on the unknown shore.

THE TOWER OF FLAME

(THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, JULY 10, 1893)

HERE for the world to see men brought their fairest, Whatever of beauty is in all the earth;

The priceless flower of art, the loveliest, rarest, Here by our inland ocean came to glorious birth.