Part 7 (1/2)

Murmur not, sleeper!

Yours is the key To all things that were and To all things that be-- While the lark's trilling, While the grain's filling, Laugh with the wind At Life's Riddle-me-ree!

How you were born of it?

Why was the thorn of it?

Where the new morn of it?

Yours is the Key!

Sleep deeper, brother!

Sleep and forget Red lips that trembled Eyes that were wet-- Though love be weeping, Turn to your sleeping, Life has no giving That death need regret.

Here at the end of all Hear the Beginning call, Life's but death's seneschal-- Sleep and forget!

The Tyrant

ONE comes with foot insistent to my door, Calling my name; Nor voice nor footstep have I heard before, Yet clear the calling sounds and o'er and o'er-- It seems the sunlight burns along the floor With paler flame!

”'Tis vain to call with morning on the wing, With noon so near, With Life a dancer in the masque of Spring And Youth new wedded with a golden ring-- When falls the night and birds have ceased to sing My heart may hear!

”'Tis vain to pause. Pa.s.s, friend, upon your way!

I may not heed; Too swift the hours; too sweet, too brief the day: Only one life, one spring, one perfect May-- I crush each moment, with its sweets to stay Life's joyous greed!

”Call not again! The wind is roaming by Across the heath-- The Wind's a tell-tale and will bear your sigh To dim the smiling gladness of the sky Or kill the spring's first violets that lie In purple sheath--

”If you must call, call low! My heart grows still, Still as my breath, Still as your smile, O Ancient One! A chill Strikes through the sun upon the window-sill-- I know you now--I follow where you will, O tyrant Death!”

The Gifts

I GIVE you Life, O child, a garden fair; I give you Love, a rose that blossoms there-- I give a day to pluck it and to wear!

I give you Death, O child--a boon more great-- That, when your Rose has withered and 'tis late, You may pa.s.s out and, smiling, close the gate!

The Town Between

A WALL impregnable surrounds The Town wherein I dwell; No man may scale it and it has Two gates that guard it well.

One opened long ago, and I A vagrant soul, slipped through, Bewildered and forgetting all The wider world I knew.