(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, She is not by, to know my task is done!~) The corn-shocks westward on the stubble plain Show like an Indian village of dead days; The long smoke trails behind the crawling train, And floats atop the distant woods ablaze With orange, crimson, purple. The low haze Dims the scarped bluffs above the inland sea, Whose wide and slaty waters in cold glaze Await yon full-moon of the night-to-be, (. . . far . . . and far . . . and far . . .) These are the solemn horizons of man's ways, These are the horizons of solemn thought to me. (~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, She is not by, to know my task is done!~) And this the hill she visited, as friend; And this the hill she lingered on, as bride -- Down in the yellow valley is the end: They laid her . . . in no evening autumn tide . . . Under fresh flowers of that May morn, beside The queens and cave-women of ancient earth . . . This is the hill . . . and over my city's towers, Across the world from sunset, yonder in air, Shines, through its scaffoldings, a civic dome Of piled masonry, which shall be ours To give, completed, to our children there . . . And yonder far roof of my abandoned home Shall house new laughter . . . Yet I tried . . . I tried And, ever wistful of the doom to come, I built her many a fire for love . . . for mirth . . . (When snows were falling on our oaks outside, Dear, many a winter fire upon the hearth) . . . (. . . farewell . . . farewell . . . farewell . . .) We dare not think too long on those who died, While still so many yet must come to birth. Death -- Divination. [Charles Wharton Stork] Death is like moonlight in a lofty wood, That pours pale magic through the shadowy leaves; 'T is like the web that some old perfume weaves In a dim, lonely room where memories brood; Like snow-chilled wine it steals into the blood, Spurring the pulse its coolness half reprieves; Tenderly quickening impulses it gives, As April winds unsheathe an opening bud. Death is like all sweet, sense-enfolding things, That lift us in a dream-delicious trance Beyond the flickering good and ill of chance; But most is Death like Music's buoyant wings, That bear the soul, a willing Ganymede, Where joys on joys forevermore succeed. The Mould. [Gladys Cromwell] No doubt this active will, So bravely steeped in sun, This will has vanquished Death And foiled oblivion. But this indifferent clay, This fine experienced hand, So quiet, and these thoughts That all unfinished stand, Feel death as though it were A shadowy caress; And win and wear a frail Archaic wistfulness. In Patris Mei Memoriam. [John Myers O'Hara]