In vain we wage perpetual strife,
'Gainst instincts dumb and blind desires—
Who leads must serve.. The pulse of life
Throbs with the dictates of our sires.
Since when the world began to be,
And life through hidden purpose came,
From sire to son unceasingly
The task bequeathed hath been the same.
We strive, while fetters bind us fast,
We seek to do what needs must be—
We move through bondage with the past
In service to posterity.
STRIFE.
Weary of strife—
The surge and clash of city life—
I sought for peace in solitude,
Within the hushed and darkened wood
And on the lonesome moor—
But found contending leaf and root
Engaged in conflict fierce though mute,
While what was frail was slain
By what was strong in dire dispute—
I sought for peace in vain!
The world, sustained by strife, endures in pain.
"All things that are in conflict be,"
I murmured on the shelving strand,
Where struggling winds would fain be free—
The tides in conflict with the wind's command,
Turned tossing, wearily—
I heard the loud sea labouring to the land—
I saw the dumb land striving with the sea.
SONNET.
(Written in the Stone Gallery of St Paul's.)
The drowsing city sparkles in the heat,
And murmur in mine ears unceasingly
The surging tides of that vast human sea—
The billows of life that break with muffled beat
And vibrate through this high and lone retreat;
While over all, serene, and fair, and free,
Thy dome is reared in naked majesty
Grey, old St Paul's … In thee the Ages meet,
Slumbering amidst the trophies of their strife.
And in their dreams thou hearest, while the cries
Of triumph and despair ascend from Life,
The murmurings of immortality—
Thou Sentinel of Hope that doth despise
What was and is not, waiting what shall be!