Soon ye read in solemn stories Of the men of long ago, Of the pale bewildering glories Shining farther than we know; Of the heroes with the laurel, Of the poets with the bay, Of the two worlds' earnest quarrel For that beauteous Helena; How Achilles at the portal Of the tent heard footsteps nigh, And his strong heart, half-immortal, Met the _keitai_ with a cry; How Ulysses left the sunlight For the pale eidola race Blank and passive through the dun light, Staring blindly in his face; How that true wife said to Poetus, With calm smile and wounded heart, "Sweet, it hurts not!" How Admetus Saw his blessed one depart; How King Arthur proved his mission, And Sir Roland wound his horn, And at Sangreal's moony vision Swords did bristle round like corn. Oh, ye lifted up your head, and it seemed, the while ye read, That this Death, then, must be found A Valhalla for the crowned, The heroic who prevail: None, be sure can enter in Far below a paladin Of a noble noble tale-- So awfully ye thought upon the Dead! III. Ay, but soon ye woke up shrieking, As a child that wakes at night From a dream of sisters speaking In a garden's summer-light,-- That wakes, starting up and bounding, In a lonely lonely bed, With a wall of darkness round him, Stifling black about his head! And the full sense of your mortal Rushed upon you deep and loud, And ye heard the thunder hurtle From the silence of the cloud. Funeral-torches at your gateway Threw a dreadful light within. All things changed: you rose up straightway, And saluted Death and Sin. Since, your outward man has rallied, And your eye and voice grown bold; Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid, With her saddest secret told. Happy places have grown holy: If ye went where once ye went, Only tears would fall down slowly, As at solemn sacrament. Merry books, once read for pastime, If ye dared to read again, Only memories of the last time Would swim darkly up the brain. Household names, which used to flutter Through your laughter unawares,-- God's Divinest ye could utter With less trembling in your prayers. Ye have dropt adown your head, and it seems as if ye tread On your own hearts in the path Ye are called to in His wrath, And your prayers go up in wail --"Dost Thou see, then, all our loss, O Thou agonized on cross? Art thou reading all its tale?" So mournfully ye think upon the Dead! IV.