“To join the throngs whose efforts prove How dear the wealth they earn; Or those whose thought the world can move To deeds for which they yearn; All this were well; but gold is mined In depths that lure below, And thought more lasting forms can find Than lip and line bestow. When gem and scroll a living soul With all its powers may be, Naught else that might my deeds control Can claim the most from me. “Ah, why through all life’s little day Should drum and trumpet call, And cluster’d smoke from many a fray Hang o’er earth like a pall? How small a space above each fight Its rising thunder jars! The echo sleeps in paths of light Where shine unmoved the stars. To draw toward love like heaven’s above One’s earthly work may be; And nothing less than perfect love Can claim the most from me.” I spoke, and, ere the beams of day Could bar him out, each guest That I had thought had gone for aye, Return’d and term’d me blest. One call’d me ruler of the land; One chief of hosts enroll’d; One brought me wealth; one bade my hand A pen immortal hold; And every voice breath’d forth: “Rejoice; O soul, thy wisdom see:— While love rules all, thy ruling choice Must claim the most from me.” NOTES FROM THE VICTORY. Ah me, who is ringing those bells? Right merry for funeral knells! If the winds of hell could ring them as well, What woe would the demons lack? My light blew out in the gust of the rout: My boy will never come back. And drums!—How lightly they roll! Coarse drums, can they call the soul? Folks, out of breath, do you shout at death? Can you rend the tomb?—Alack, Vain echoes around, pale under the ground, My boy will never come back. Guns too! O why do they roar? Alas, I thought it was o’er. Though why care I, though a million die, And all of us wear but black? I, too, with the proud have my blood-stain’d shroud: My boy will never come back. Our land!—Who wants it to last! Its future is doom’d by the past. And the tears that rise to its mourners’ eyes Will ever dim all they track. Chill, shivering breast, freeze, freeze into rest: My boy will never come back. THE POET’S LESSON. “O poet vain, put by thy pen, Put by this dreamy mood, Move outward through the walks of men; And do the world some good.” These words I heard, and waived my will, And left my rhymes behind, And past the sill and down the hill Went forth my work to find. And first I spied a romping child. “My child,” I stopt and said, “The sun is bright; the air is mild; Your cheeks with health are red.