Slow figures in some live remorseless frieze, The approaching days escapeless and unguessed, With mask and shroud impenetrably dressed; Time, whose inexorable destinies Bear down upon us like impending seas; And the huge presence of this world, at best A sightless giant wandering without rest, Agèd and mad with many miseries. The weight and measure of these things who knows? Resting at times beside life's thought-swept stream, Sobered and stunned with unexpected blows, We scarcely hear the uproar; life doth seem, Save for the certain nearness of its woes, Vain and phantasmal as a sick man's dream. OUTLOOK. Not to be conquered by these headlong days, But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways; At every thought and deed to clear the haze Out of our eyes, considering only this, What man, what life, what love, what beauty is, This is to live, and win the final praise. Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human need Beat down the soul, at moments blind and dumb With agony; yet, patience--there shall come Many great voices from life's outer sea, Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed, Murmurs and glimpses of eternity. GENTLENESS. Blind multitudes that jar confusedly At strife, earth's children, will ye never rest From toils made hateful here, and dawns distressed With ravelling self-engendered misery? And will ye never know, till sleep shall see Your graves, how dreadful and how dark indeed Are pride, self-will, and blind-voiced anger, greed, And malice with its subtle cruelty? How beautiful is gentleness, whose face Like April sunshine, or the summer rain, Swells everywhere the buds of generous thought? So easy, and so sweet it is; its grace Smoothes out so soon the tangled knots of pain. Can ye not learn it? will ye not be taught? A PRAYER. Oh earth, oh dewy mother, breathe on us Something of all thy beauty and thy might, Us that are part of day, but most of night, Not strong like thee, but ever burdened thus With glooms and cares, things pale and dolorous Whose gladest moments are not wholly bright; Something of all thy freshness and thy light, Oh earth, oh mighty mother, breathe on us. Oh mother, who wast long before our day, And after us full many an age shalt be. Careworn and blind, we wander from thy way: Born of thy strength, yet weak and halt are we Grant us, oh mother, therefore, us who pray, Some little of thy light and majesty. MUSIC.