A Boys Will | Page 8

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