But honey-pale and rosy-red!

Brief lights that made a little shining! Beautiful looks about us shed

They leave us to the old repining.

Think not the watchful dim despair
Has come to you, the first, sweet-hearted!
For oh, the gold in Helen's hair!

And how she cried when that departed!

Perhaps that one that took the most,
The swiftest borrower, wildest spender,
May count, as we do not, the cost-
And grow to us more true and tender.

Happy are we if in his eyes

We see no shadow of forgetting.
Nay-if our star sinks in those skies
We shall not wholly see its setting.

Then let us laugh as do the brooks
That such immortal youth is ours,
If memory keeps for them our looks
As fresh as are the spring-time flowers.

Oh, grieve not, ladies, if at night

Ye wake to feel the cold December! Rather recall the early light

And in your loved one's arms, remember.

The Monk in the Kitchen

I

Order is a lovely thing;
On disarray it lays its wing,
Teaching simplicity to sing.
It has a meek and lowly grace,

Quiet as a nun's face.

Lo-I will have thee in this place!

Tranquil well of deep delight,

All things that shine through thee appear
As stones through water, sweetly clear.
Thou clarity,

That with angelic charity

Revealest beauty where thou art,
Spread thyself like a clean pool.

Then all the things that in thee are,

Shall seem more spiritual and fair,
Reflection from serener air-
Sunken shapes of many a star
In the high heavens set afar.

п

Ye stolid, homely, visible things,
Above you all brood glorious wings
Of your deep entities, set high,
Like slow moons in a hidden sky.
But you, their likenesses, are spent
Upon another element.

Truly ye are but seemings-
The shadowy cast-off gleamings
Of bright solidities. Ye seem
Soft as water, vague as dream;
Image, cast in a shifting stream.

What are ye?

I know not.

III

Brazen pan and iron pot,
Yellow brick and gray flag-stone
That my feet have trod upon-
Ye seem to me

Vessels of bright mystery.

For ye do bear a shape, and so

Though ye were made by man, I know

An inner Spirit also made,

And ye his breathings have obeyed.

IV

Shape, the strong and awful Spirit,
Laid his ancient hand on you.

He waste chaos doth inherit;

He can alter and subdue.

Verily, he doth lift up

Matter, like a sacred cup.

Into deep substance he reached, and lo

Where ye were not, ye were; and so

Out of useless nothing, ye

Groaned and laughed and came to be.

And I use you, as I can,

Wonderful uses, made for man,

Iron pot and brazen pan.

What are ye?

I know not;

Nor what I really do

When I move and govern you.

There is no small work unto God.
He requires of us greatness;

Of his least creature

A high angelic nature,

Stature superb and bright completeness.
He sets to us no humble duty.
Each act that he would have us do
Is haloed round with strangest beauty;
Terrific deeds and cosmic tasks
Of his plainest child he asks.
When I polish the brazen pan
I hear a creature laugh afar
In the gardens of a star,

And from his burning presence run
Flaming wheels of many a sun.
Whoever makes a thing more bright,
He is an angel of all light.

When I cleanse this earthen floor
My spirit leaps to see

Bright garments trailing over it,

A cleanness made by me.

Purger of all men's thoughts and ways,
With labor do I sound Thy praise,
My work is done for Thee.

Whoever makes a thing more bright,
He is an angel of all light.
Therefore let me spread abroad
The beautiful cleanness of my God.

VI

One time in the cool of dawn
Angels came and worked with me.
The air was soft with many a wing.
They laughed amid my solitude
And cast bright looks on everything.
Sweetly of me did they ask

That they might do my common task.
And all were beautiful-but one
With garments whiter than the sun
Had such a face

Of deep, remembered grace;

That when I saw I cried-"Thou art

The great Blood-Brother of my heart.
Where have I seen thee?"-And he said,
"When we are dancing round God's throne,
How often thou art there.

Beauties from thy hands have flown
Like white doves wheeling in mid air.
Nay-thy soul remembers not?
Work on, and cleanse thy iron pot."

VII

What are we? I know not.

AMY LOWELL (1874-1925)

Anticipation

I have been temperate always,

But I am like to be very drunk
With your coming.

There have been times

I feared to walk down the street

Lest I should reel with the wine of you,

And jerk against my neighbors

As they go by.

I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth, But my brain is noisy

With the clash and gurgle of filling wine-cups.

A Gift

See! I give myself to you, Beloved!

My words are little jars

For you to take and put upon a shelf.

Their shapes are quaint and beautiful,

And they have many pleasant colors and lustres

To recommend them.

Also the scent from them fills the room

With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses.

When I shall have given you the last one
You will have the whole of me,

But I shall be dead.

THEODOSIA GARRISON (1874-)

Stains

The three ghosts on the lonesome road
Spake each to one another,

"Whence came that stain about your mouth

No lifted hand may cover?"

"From eating of forbidden fruit,

Brother, my brother."

The three ghosts on the sunless road

Spake each to one another,

"Whence came that red burn on your foot
No dust nor ash may cover?"

"I stamped a neighbor's hearth-flame out,
Brother, my brother."

The three ghosts on the windless road
Spake each to one another,
"Whence came that blood upon your hand
No other hand may cover?"

"From breaking of a woman's heart,
Brother, my brother."

"Yet on the earth clean men we walked,
Glutton and Thief and Lover;
White flesh and fair it hid our stains
That no man might discover."

"Naked the soul goes up to God,
Brother, my brother."

ROBERT W. SERVICE (1874—)

The Song of the Soldier-Born

Give me the scorn of the stars and a peak defiant;
Wail of the pines and a wind with the shout of a giant;
Night and a trail unknown and a heart reliant.

Give me to live and love in the old, bold fashion;
A soldier's billet at night and a soldier's ration:
A heart that leaps to the fight with a soldier's passion.

For I hold as a simple faith there's no denying:
The trade of a soldier's the only trade worth plying;
The death of a soldier's the only death worth dying.

So let me go and leave your safety behind me;

Go to the spaces of hazard where nothing shall bind me;
Go till the word is War-and then you will find me.

Then you will call me and claim me because you will need me; Cheer me and gird me and into the battle-wrath speed me. . . . And when it's over, spurn me and no longer heed me.