Rend thy bridal robes for sorrow:

Doth the Black Death wait the morrow?

See! the silver vessels goodly

Hands of hirelings stir not rudely;

Gems that deck the board's white wearing,

In a house of noble bearing;

Legendary urns of sorrow:

Death attends the feast to-morrow!

See the rings of wild desire,

Dreamy opal; diamond fire;

Emerald, green as summer grasses

Lit of sun that never passes;

Jets, the dim delights of sorrow,

That the Black Death buys, the morrow.

Chalice see and salver ghostly
That affright the gazer mostly;
Stirrup-cup that awes and blesses,
Cordial drop of last distresses;

Pearl of hope dissolved in sorrow,

Dear where Death is due the morrow.

Take me rather when the hours

Write their journal fair in flowers;

Where our sweet joys die and darken
With the firmament to hearken.

Soft in silence sinks our sorrow;
Resurrection comes to-morrow.

Life ye tear to shred and flitter,
Joying in the costly glitter

To rehearse each art-abortion

That consumes a widow's portion.

Lavish feast makes secret sorrow;

Pinch at heart brings Death to-morrow!

Take me where sweet doctrine, hoarded,

Stays the ravage, ill-afforded;
Wisdom's store, divinely pleasured,

Hero heart-beat, poet-measured.

Song that lightens out of sorrow

Shields from every Death to-morrow.

THE BATTLE-EUCHARIST.

ABOVE the seas of gold and glass
The Christ, transfigured, stands to-day;
Below, in troubled currents, pass
The tidal fates of man away.

Through that environed blessedness
Our sorrow cannot wholly rise,

Nor his swift sympathy redress

The anguish that in Nature lies.

Yet mindful from his banquet sends
The guest of God a cup of wine,

And shares a morsel with his friends,

Who, wondering, wait without the shrine.

Remain with us, O Lord! remain;

Our faint souls will not let thee go:
Bear with us this surpassing pain,

Abide our sacrament of woe,

While ghostly hands from battle-fields Reproach with succor long delayed, And all the wealth our treasure yields Buys not the power to hasten aid.

O Christ, that multipliest bread!
Thou Feeder of the multitude,
On them thy heart's redemption shed,
Feed our beloved with heavenly food;

And open wide the gates of thought,
That, sitting at this feast divine,
Our faith may see deliverance wrought
By pangs that bear the mark of thine.

BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC.

MINE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the

Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred

circling camps;

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews

and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and

flaring lamps.

His day is marching on.