Vainly and long have we waited, Through the night of the human roar, For a single song on the harp of Hope, Or a ray from a day-lit shore. Songs aye come floating, marvelous sweet, And bow-dyed flashes gleam; But the sweets are Lies, and the weary feet Run after a marsh-light beam. In the hour of our need the song departs, And the sea-moans of sorrow swell; The siren mocks with a gurgling laugh That is drowned in the deep death-knell. The light we chased with our stumbling feet As the goal of happier years, Swings high and low and vanishes,-- The bow-dyes were of our tears. God is a lie, and Faith is a lie, And a tenfold lie is Love; Life is a problem without a why, And never a thing to prove. It adds, and subtracts, and multiplies, And divides without aim or end; Its answers all false, though false-named true,-- Wife, husband, lover, friend. We know it now, and we care no more; What matters life or death? We tiny insects emerge from earth, Suffer, and yield our breath. Like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill, Dreaming of "mighty things,"-- Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean's wrath, In the rush of Time's awful wings. The sun smiles gold, and the planets white, And a billion stars smile, still; Yet, fierce as we, each wheels towards death, And cannot stay his will. Then build, ye fools, your mighty things, That Time shall set at naught; Grow warm with the song the sweet Lie sings, And the false bow your tears have wrought. For us, a truce to Gods, loves, and hopes, And a pledge to fire and wave; A swifter whirl to the dance of death, And a loud huzza for the Grave! =Philadelphia,= 1892. IN MEMORIAM (To Dyer D. Lum, my friend and teacher, who died April 6, 1893.) Great silent heart! These barren drops of grief Are not for you, attained unto your rest; This sterile salt upon the withered leaf Of love, is mine--mine the dark burial guest. Far, far within that deep, untroubled sea We watched together, walking on the sands, Your soul has melted,--painless, silent, free; Mine the wrung heart, mine the clasped, useless hands. Into the whirl of life, where none remember, I bear your image, ever unforgot; The "Whip-poor-will," still "wailing in December," Cries the same cry--cries, cries, and ceases not. The future years with all their waves of faces Roll shoreward singing the great undertone; Yours is not there;--in the old, well-loved places I look, and pass, and watch the sea alone. Alone along the gleaming, white sea-shore, The sea-spume spraying thick around my head, Through all the beat of waves and winds that roar, I go, remembering that you are dead.