Farewell! What word should answer but farewell
From thee, O happy spirit, whose clear gaze
Discerned the path—clear, but unsearchable—
Where Olivet sweetens, deepens, Ida's praise,
The path that strikes as thro' a sunlit haze Through Time to that clear reconciling height
Where our commingling gleams of godhead dwell;
Strikes thro' the turmoil of our darkling days
To that great harmony where, like light in light,
Wisdom and Beauty still
Haunt the thrice-holy hill,
And Love, immortal Love ... what answer but farewell?
THE ELECTRIC TRAM
I
Bluff and burly and splendid
Thro' roaring traffic-tides,
By secret lightnings attended
The land-ship hisses and glides.
And I sit on its bridge and I watch and I dream
While the world goes gallantly by,
With all its crowded houses and its colored shops a-stream
Under the June-blue sky,
Heigh, ho!
Under the June-blue sky.
II
There's a loafer at the kerb with a sulphur-coloured pile
Of "Lights! Lights! Lights!" to sell;
And a flower-girl there with some lilies and a smile
By the gilt swing-doors of a drinking hell,
Where the money is rattling loud and fast,
And I catch one glimpse as the ship swings past
Of a woman with a babe at her breast
Wrapped in a ragged shawl;
She is drinking away with the rest,
And the sun shines over it all,
Heigh, ho!
The sun shines over it all!
III
And a barrel-organ is playing,
Somewhere, far away,
Abide with me, and The world is gone a-maying,
And What will the policeman say?
There's a glimpse of the river down an alley by a church,
And the barges with their tawny-coloured sails,
And a grim and grimy coal-wharf where the London pigeons perch
And flutter and spread their tails,
Heigh, ho!
Flutter and spread their tails.
IV