None may slight it, and none may know How high the flames that aspire and glow From heart and spirit and soul may climb And triumph; higher than the souls lie low Whose hearing hears not the livelong rhyme, Whose eyesight sees not the light sublime, That shines, that sounds, that ascends and lives Unquenched of change, unobscured of time. A long life's length, as a man's life gives Space for the spirit that soars and strives To strive and soar, has the soul shone through That heeds not whither the world's wind drives Now that the days and the ways it knew Are strange, are dead as the dawn's grey dew At high midnoon of the mounting day That mocks the might of the dawn it slew. Yet haply may not--and haply may-- No sense abide of the dead sun's ray Wherein the soul that outsoars us now Rejoiced with ours in its radiant sway. Hope may hover, and doubt may bow, Dreaming. Haply--they dream not how-- Not life but death may indeed be dead When silence darkens the dead man's brow. Hope, whose name is remembrance, fed With love that lightens from seasons fled, Dreams, and craves not indeed to know, That death and life are as souls that wed. But change that falls on the heart like snow Can chill not memory nor hope, that show The soul, the spirit, the heart and head, Alive above us who strive below. AN OLD SAYING Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can the floods drown it. Who shall snare or slay the white dove Faith, whose very dreams crown it, Gird it round with grace and peace, deep, Warm, and pure, and soft as sweet sleep? Many waters cannot quench love, Neither can the floods drown it. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, As a seal upon thine arm. How should we behold the days depart And the nights resign their charm? Love is as the soul: though hate and fear Waste and overthrow, they strike not here. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, As a seal upon thine arm. A MOSS-ROSE If the rose of all flowers be the rarest That heaven may adore from above, And the fervent moss-rose be the fairest That sweetens the summer with love, Can it be that a fairer than any Should blossom afar from the tree? Yet one, and a symbol of many, Shone sudden for eyes that could see. In the grime and the gloom of November The bliss and the bloom of July Bade autumn rejoice and remember The balm of the blossoms gone by. Would you know what moss-rose now it may be That puts all the rest to the blush, The flower was the face of a baby, The moss was a bonnet of plush. TO A CAT I