If hearts be high, if hands be pure, A bond unseen shall bind us still,-- The only bond that can endure, Being welded with God’s will! A bond unseen! and yet God speed The apparent sign, when He finds good; When in His sight it types indeed That inward brotherhood. For not the rose-and-emerald bow Can bid the battling storm to cease, But leaps at last, that all may know The sign, not source, of peace. Oh, what shall shameful peace avail, If east or west, if there or here, Men sprung of ancient England fail To hold their birthright dear? If west or east, if here or there, Brute Mammon sit in Freedom’s place, And judge a wailing world’s despair With hard, averted face? O great Co-heir, whose lot is cast Beside the hearthstone loved of yore! Inherit with us that best Past That lives for evermore! Inherit with us! Lo, the days Are evil; who may know the end? Strike hands, and dare the darkening ways, Twin strengths, with God to friend! TO THE MEMORY OF RICHARD WATSON GILDER _Again the summer days beside the sea: The billowing of the russet-feathered grass In the warm wind; the shadow of clouds that sail; The orange field-flower flaming like a torch To light all wings of wavering butterflies; The long wash of the everlasting wave, The same and not the same forevermore. Again the summer nights, a-throb with stars, And that clear Star, the glory of the Lyre, White-burning, hung at the high heart of heaven. Again the summer days, the summer nights,-- All is as it hath been._ _Nay, not for those Who have felt the shadow fall of that strange cloud Which yet seems full of light, the shadow of death, Is aught as it hath been. The dark sea-line Solemnly deepens, and the sunset sweeps With graver splendors through its pageant-pomp._ _I know not why these meadows, yester-year, And these stark pines against the sunset-rose, And these young woods where haply one beholds In some brown pool the mirrored cardinal-flower Lovely and lonely,--why along these ways Sprang up so oft the sudden thought of him, A wayside joy; why memories of his song Floated upon the silvery thistledown; Yet near he seemed. And not less near to-day, Though all he loved, and sang of, gleams through tears, Fresh-haloed with the pathos of the thought That near or far we shall not see again Those luminous eyes whence looked his lyric soul. Star of the Lyre! a spirit like to thee, White-burning, close to the high heart of heaven, We knew; a spirit as clear, with ardors pure Trembling to every touch of the divine Serene sphere-music. Such was he, our friend, Our singer; such is he, though mortal sense Be sealed._