Never dismayed at the dark nor the distance!
Never deployed for the steep nor the storm!
Hear him say, “Hold fast, the night wears to morning!
This God of promise is God to perform.”
Up with thee, heart of fear, high as the heaven!
Thou hast known one wore this life without stain.
What if for thee and me,—street, Yard, or Common,—
Such a white captain appear not again!
Fight on alone! Let the faltering spirit
Within thee recall how he carried a host,
Rearward and van, as Wind shoulders a dust-heap;
One Way till strife be done, strive each his most.
Take the last vesture of beauty upon thee,
Thou doubting world; and with not an eye dim
Say, when they ask if thou knowest a Saviour,
“Brooks was His brother, and we have known him.”
JOHN ELIOT BOWEN
Here at the desk where once you sat,
Who wander now with poets dead
And summers gone, afield so far,
There sits a stranger in your stead.
Here day by day men come who knew
Your steadfast ways and loved you well;
And every comer with regret
Has some new thing of praise to tell.
The poet old, whose lyric heart
Is fresh as dew and bright as flame,
Longs for “his boy,” and finds you not,
And goes the wistful way he came.
Here where you toiled without reproach,
Builded and loved and dreamed and planned,
At every door, on every page,
Lurks the tradition of your hand.
And if to you, like reverie,
There comes a thought of how they fare
Whose footsteps go the round you went
Of noisy street and narrow stair,