But to show in the afternoon sun, With an aspect of hollow-eyed care, When none wished to see me come there, Was a garish thing, better undone. Yes; wrong was the way; But yet, let me say, I may right it—some day. “I THOUGHT, MY HEART” I THOUGHT, my Heart, that you had healed Of those sore smartings of the past, And that the summers had oversealed All mark of them at last. But closely scanning in the night I saw them standing crimson-bright Just as she made them: Nothing could fade them; Yea, I can swear That there they were— They still were there! Then the Vision of her who cut them came, And looking over my shoulder said, “I am sure you deal me all the blame For those sharp smarts and red; But meet me, dearest, to-morrow night, In the churchyard at the moon’s half-height, And so strange a kiss Shall be mine, I wis, That you’ll cease to know If the wounds you show Be there or no!” FRAGMENT AT last I entered a long dark gallery, Catacomb-lined; and ranged at the side Were the bodies of men from far and wide Who, motion past, were nevertheless not dead. “The sense of waiting here strikes strong; Everyone’s waiting, waiting, it seems to me; What are you waiting for so long?— What is to happen?” I said. “O we are waiting for one called God,” said they, “(Though by some the Will, or Force, or Laws; And, vaguely, by some, the Ultimate Cause;) Waiting for him to see us before we are clay. Yes; waiting, waiting, for God _to know it_” . . . “To know what?” questioned I. “To know how things have been going on earth and below it: It is clear he must know some day.” I thereon asked them why. “Since he made us humble pioneers Of himself in consciousness of Life’s tears, It needs no mighty prophecy To tell that what he could mindlessly show His creatures, he himself will know. “By some still close-cowled mystery We have reached feeling faster than he, But he will overtake us anon, If the world goes on.” MIDNIGHT ON THE GREAT WESTERN In the third-class seat sat the journeying boy, And the roof-lamp’s oily flame Played down on his listless form and face, Bewrapt past knowing to what he was going, Or whence he came. In the band of his hat the journeying boy Had a ticket stuck; and a string Around his neck bore the key of his box, That twinkled gleams of the lamp’s sad beams Like a living thing. What past can be yours, O journeying boy Towards a world unknown, Who calmly, as if incurious quite On all at stake, can undertake This plunge alone?