Part 7 (1/2)

Wet winds have swayed the birch and oak, And caught and swirled away the smoke, But, all day long, the wooden clock Went on, Nic-noc, nic-noc.

When deep at night I wake with fear, And shudder in the dark to hear The roaring storm's unguided strength, Peace steals into my heart at length, When, calm amid the shout and shock, I hear, Nic-noc, nic-noc.

And all the winter long 't is I Who bless its sheer monotony-- Its scorn of days, which cares no whit For time, except to measure it: The prosy, dozy, cosy clock, Nic-noc, nic-noc, nic-noc!

Tear Stains

Tear-marks stain from page to page This book my fathers left to me,-- So dull that nothing but its age Were worth its freight across the sea.

But tear stains! When, by whom, and why?

Thus takes my fancy to its wings; For grief is old, and one may cry About so many things!

A Prayer

If many years should dim my inward sight, Till, stirred with no emotion, I might stand gazing at the fall of night Across the gloaming ocean;

Till storm, and sun, and night, vast with her stars, Would seem an oft-told story, And the old sorrow of heroic wars Be faded of its glory;

Till, hearing, while June's roses blew their musk, The noise of field and city, The human struggle, sinking tired at dusk, I felt no thrill of pity;

Till dawn should come without her old desire, And day brood o'er her stages,-- O let me die, too frail for nature's hire, And rest a million ages.

She Being Young

The home of love is her blue eyes, Wherein all joy, all beauty lies, More sweet than hopes of paradise, She being young.

Speak of her with a miser's praise; She craves no golden speech; her ways Wind through charmed nights and magic days, She being young.

She is so far from pain and death, So warm her cheek, so sweet her breath Glad words are all the words she saith, She being young.

Seeing her face, it seems not far To Troy's heroic field of war, To Troy and all great things that are, She being young.

Paul Jones

A century of silent suns Have set since he was laid on sleep, And now they bear with booming guns And streaming banners o'er the deep A withered skin and clammy hair Upon a frame of human bones: Whose corse? We neither know nor care, Content to name it John Paul Jones.

His dust were as another's dust; His bones--what boots it where they lie?