measures

Till the soul lies within in a circle of Go winding around us, with roll upon roll, pleasures

Which hideth the soul.

And we run with the stag, and we leap with the horse,

And we swim with the fish through the broad water-course,

And we strike with the falcon, and hunt with the hound,

And the joy which is in us flies out by a wound.

And we shout so aloud, 'We exult, we rejoice,'

That we lose the low moan of our

Yet we are not ashamed,

And the dew of the roses that runneth unblamed

Down our cheeks, is not taken for tears. Help us, God, trust us, man, love us, woman! 'I hold

Thy small head in my hands,—with its grapelets of gold

Growing bright through my fingers,like altar for oath,

'Neath the vast golden spaces like witnessing faces

That watch the eternity strong in the troth

I love thee, I leave thee,
Live for thee, die for thee!
I prove thee, deceive thee,
Undo evermore thee!

Help me, God, slay me, man!—one is mourning for both.'

And we stand up, though young, near the funeral-sheet

Which covers the Caesar and old Pharamond,

And death is so nigh us, life cools from its heat.

O Life, O Beyond,

Art thou fair,-art thou sweet?

Speed me, God!-serve me, man!—I am god over men

When I speak in my cloud, none shall answer again.

'Neath the stripe and the bond, Lie and mourn at my feet!' O thou Life, O Beyond,

Thou art strange, thou art sweet!

VI

Then we grow into thought,—and with inward ascensions

Touch the bounds of our Being. We lie in the dark here, swathed doubly around

With our sensual relations and social conventions,

Yet are 'ware of a sight, yet are 'ware of a sound

Beyond Hearing and Seeing,— Are aware that a Hades rolls deep on all sides

With its infinite tides

About and above us,-until the strong arch

Of our life creaks and bends as if ready for falling,

And through the dim rolling we hear the sweet calling

Ofspirits that speak in a soft under-tongue The sense of the mystical march. And we cry to them softly, 'Come nearer, come nearer, And lift up the lap of this Dark, and speak clearer,

And teach us the song that ye sung." And we smile in our thought if they

And our hand knots in air, with the bridge that it flings,

Two peaks far disrupted by ocean and skies,

And, lifting a fold of the smooth-flowing Thames,

Till the silver meets round the earth gelid and dense,

Shedding sparks of electric responding intense

On the dark of eclipse.

Then we hear through the silence and glory afar,

As from shores of a star

In aphelion, the new generations that cry Disenthralled by our voice to harmonious reply,

'God,' 'Liberty,' ''Truth!' We are glorious forsoothAnd our name has a seat, Though the shroud should be donned. O Life, O Beyond,

Thou art strange, thou art sweet!

could walk, step for step, with an
angel beside,

On the heaven-heights of truth!
Oh, the soul keeps its youth,

But the body faints sore, it is tired in the race,

and pothers,

While the swans float on softly, untouched in their calms

By humanity's hum at the root of the springs.

And with reachings of Thought we reach down to the deeps

Of the souls of our brothers,We teach them full words with our slowmoving lips,

'God,' 'Liberty,''Truth,'-which they

hearken and think

And work into harmony, link upon link,

the goal,

It is weak, it is cold,

The rein drops from its holdItsinks back, with the death in its face. On, chariot-on, soul,

Ye are all the more fleet-
Be alone at the goal

Of the strange and the sweet!

IX

Love us, God, love us, man! we believe, we achieve

Let us love, let us live,