The thing thou cravest so waits in the distance, Wrapt in the silences, unseen and dumb: Essential to thy soul and thy existence-- Live worthy of it--call, and it shall come. DEATHLESS. There lies in the center of each man’s heart, A longing and love for the good and pure; And if but an atom, or larger part, I tell you this shall endure--endure After the body has gone to decay-- Yea, after the world has passed away. The longer I live and the more I see Of the struggle of souls toward the heights above, The stronger this truth comes home to me: That the Universe rests on the shoulders of love; A love so limitless, deep, and broad, That men have renamed it and called it--God. And nothing that ever was born or evolved, Nothing created by light or force, But deep in its system there lies dissolved A shining drop from the Great Love Source; A shining drop that shall live for aye-- Though kingdoms may perish and stars decay. KEEP OUT OF THE PAST. Keep out of the Past! for its highways Are damp with malarial gloom; Its gardens are sere and its forests are drear. And everywhere molders a tomb. Who seeks to regain its lost pleasures, Finds only a rose turned to dust; And its storehouse of wonderful treasures Are covered and coated with rust. Keep out of the Past. It is haunted: He who in its avenues gropes, Shall find there the ghost of a joy prized the most, And a skeleton throng of dead hopes. In place of its beautiful rivers, Are pools that are stagnant with slime; And these graves gleaming in a phosphoric light, Hide dreams that were slain in their prime. Keep out of the Past. It is lonely, And barren and bleak to the view; Its fires have grown cold, and its stories are old-- Turn, turn to the Present--the New: To-day leads you up to the hilltops That are kissed by the radiant sun, To-day shows no tomb, life’s hopes are in bloom, And to-day holds a prize to be won. THE FAULT OF THE AGE. The fault of the age is a mad endeavor To leap to heights that were made to climb: By a burst of strength, of a thought most clever, We plan to forestall and outwit Time. We scorn to wait for the thing worth having; We want high noon at the day’s dim dawn; We find no pleasure in toiling and saving, As our forefathers did in the old times gone. We force our roses, before their season, To bloom and blossom for us to wear; And then we wonder and ask the reason Why perfect buds are so few and rare. We crave the gain, but despise the getting; We want wealth--not as reward, but dower; And the strength that is wasted in useless fretting Would fell a forest or build a tower.