Part 2 (2/2)

Thus 'twas ordained that Death and Pain Should raise man to a n.o.bler plane.

Switzerland

Land of mountain, lake and river, Waterfalls, and rus.h.i.+ng streams By the wayside where the cattle Gather with their bells a-ringing, In the day's departing beams.

Land of glorious dawns and sunsets, Glowing shades of every hue, Mists enchanted, floating, rising, Fine-spun softness, tints Olympian, Regal purple, virgin blue.

Tinkling zither, echoing jodel, Horns that loudly hail the morn From the upland's stony pathways Where the snowline meets the outposts Of the forest, spa.r.s.e and lorn.

Nether tracts by sunlight heated, Show the vines in serried rows, Basking through the drowsy summer Till their rich and generous vintage From the wine-press redly flows.

Land of mountain peaks stupendous, Lakes that fade to meet the sky!

Land for G.o.ds, for dreaming poets, Fit for men of soaring greatness, Sons of gifted ancestry.

G.o.ds I found not, neither poets, Only little men who toil To supply the pa.s.sing stranger, Bound upon the wheel of pleasure, With the produce of the soil.

What would Bonivard or Calvin Think of you, my little men, With your minds on money turning, While you strain with itching fingers Fast the golden calf to pen?

Yet I love your honest peasants Dwelling on the mountain slope, Slow and stolid, yet the children Of the spirit born of freedom, Of the patience born of hope.

For among these humble toilers, From the grasping instinct free, Still we find the cheerful-hearted, Earnest, honest Switzer people With the old simplicity.

Burial at Sea

'Twas midnight in the southern seas And windless. On the placid deep Flashed sparkling phosph.o.r.escences, While moonbeams, bright in silver bars, Lay like a pathway to the stars.

Tireless, our engines, day and night, A month had throbbed their endless round Without a pause to mark time's flight.

We heard it all unconsciously Till suddenly it ceased to be.

For now the slowing pulse that beat, Stopped in the vessel's iron breast And quickly changed my slumber sweet To wandering and uneasy thought Of what the midnight might have brought.

Gaining the deck, I looked around With drowsy eyes and half asleep, And saw a something wrapped and bound And weighted. I was standing near Some hapless seaman's simple bier.

A shapeless form in canvas lay, Stretched on a wooden grating low, Waiting the word to pa.s.s away Into the silent depths of sea And boundless realm of fantasy.

Before the bulwark's opening stood A group about a lantern's light Moveless like figures carved in wood, Whilst one with gruff solemnity, Read prayers for those who die at sea.

Then at the end, with sudden leap, That sent the sparkling water high, The body plunged into the deep Amid a million points of light That glittered as it sank from sight.

Scarce had a moment pa.s.sed, before The men with silent haste had gone: The engines plied their task, once more, The s.h.i.+p her steady course pursued Across the moonlit solitude.

The morning dawned, the hours pa.s.sed by And life on board from day to day Was changeless as the sea and sky.

And so unreal the memory seemed I wondered if I had not dreamed.

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