AFTER AN INTERVAL (NOVEMBER 22, 1875, MIDNIGHT — SATURN AND MARS IN CONJUNCTION) AFTER an interval, reading, here in the midnight,

With the great stars looking on - all the stars of Orion looking,

And the silent Pleiades-and the duo looking of Saturn and ruddy Mars; Pondering, reading my own songs, after a long interval, (sorrow and death familiar now)

Ere closing the book, what pride! what joy! to find them

Standing so well the test of death and night,

And the duo of Saturn and Mars!

DAREST THOU NOW O SOUL

DAREST thou now, O soul,

Walk out with me toward the unknown region,

Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow ?

No map there, nor guide,

Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,

Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.

I know it not, O soul!

Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, All waits undreamed of in that region, that inaccessible land.

Till when the tie is loosened,

All but the ties eternal, Time and Space, Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.

Then we burst forth, we float, In Time and Space, O soul! prepared for them,

Equal, equipped at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil, O soul!

The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt,

The tree you would seek for in vain; And where once the lords of the forest waved Are grass and the golden grain.

And don't you remember the school, Ben Bolt,

With the master so cruel and grim, And the shaded nook in the running brook

Where the children went to swim? Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt,

The spring of the brook is dry, And of all the boys who were schoolmates then

There are only you and I.

This dream he carried in a hopeful spirit Until in death his patient eye grew dim, And his Redeemer called him to inherit The heaven of wealth long garnered up for him.

So, if I ever win the home in heaven
For whose sweet rest I humbly hope and

pray,

In the great company of the forgiven
I shall be sure to find old Daniel Gray.

BABYHOOD

WHAT is the little one thinking about?
Very wonderful things, no doubt!
Unwritten history!
Unfathomed mystery!

Yet he laughs and cries, and eats and drinks,

And chuckles and crows, and nods and winks,

As if his head were as full of kinks
And curious riddles as any sphinx!

Warped by colic, and wet by tears,
Punctured by pins, and tortured by
fears,

Our little nephew will lose two years; And he'll never know Where the summers go;. He need not laugh, for he 'll find it so!

Who can tell what a baby thinks?
Who can follow the gossamer links

By which the manikin feels his way Out from the shore of the great unknown, Blind, and wailing, and alone,

Into the light of day?

Out from the shore of the unknown sea, Tossing in pitiful agony,

Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, Specked with the barks of little souls Barks that were launched on the other side, And slipped from Heaven on an ebbing tide!

What does he think of his mother's eyes?

What does he think of his mother's hair?
What of the cradle-roof that flies
Forward and backward through the air?
What does he think of his mother's
breast

Bare and beautiful, smooth and white,
Seeking it ever with fresh delight

Cup of his life and couch of his rest?

AN UNINSCRIBED

MONUMENT

ON ONE

OF THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF THE WILDERNESS1

SILENCE and Solitude may hint

(Whose home is in yon piny wood) What I, though tableted, could never tellThe din which here befell,

And striving of the multitude. The iron cones and spheres of death Set round me in their rust,

These, too, if just,

Shall speak with more than animated breath.

Thou who beholdest, if thy thought, Not narrowed down to personal cheer, Take in the import of the quiet here

The after-quiet — the calm full fraught; Thou too wilt silent stand,Silent as I, and lonesome as the land.

CROSSING THE TROPICS

WHILE now the Pole Star sinks from sight

The Southern Cross it climbs the sky; But losing thee, my love, my light, O bride but for one bridal night,

The loss no rising joys supply.

Love, love, the Trade Winds urge abaft, And thee, from thee, they steadfast waft.

By day the blue and silver sea

And chime of waters blandly fanned,-
Nor these, nor Gama's stars to me
May yield delight, since still for thee
I long as Gama longed for land.

I yearn, I yearn, reverting turn,
My heart it streams in wake astern.

When, cut by slanting sleet, we swoop
Where raves the world's inverted year,
If roses all your porch shall loop,
Not less your heart for me will droop,
Doubling the world's last outpost drear

O love, O love, these oceans vast:
Love, love, it is as death were past!