Not by magic is health to be obtained. Flying carpets will not reach it. Fasts and prayers will not call it down from heaven. Fixed, immortal, the laws continue. Always unchanged; always inexorable. The wages of the sin of disobedience are disease.
July 24.
"Dead, Dead, Dead."
I wonder if there is still anyone in all the world to whom this date is important? And after all why should it be? In twenty-three years a whole generation has come into life; has wept and laughed, and loved and married, and produced another generation to do the same thing—and who remembers the roses that withered even yesterday?
Oh, wild, loud wind,
Who, moaning, as in pain,
Beats with wet fingers at my door in vain,
Dost thou come from the graves with that sad cry
Which pleads for entrance, and denied, goes by
To faint in tears amidst the freezing rain?
In here the live red fire glows again.
Of life and living we are full and fain.
Here is no thought of death, or men that die—
Oh, wild, loud wind!
Why shouldst thou come then to my window pane
To wring thy hands and weep, and sore complain
That they alone all sad and cold must lie
In wet, dark graves, and we breathe not a sigh?
We have forgot. The quick and dead are twain,
Oh, wild, loud wind!