Nothing remains but the Eternal Forces,
The sad seas cease complaining and grow dry,
Rivers are drained and altered in their courses,
Great stars pass out and vanish from the sky.
Ideas die and old religions perish,
Our rarest pleasures and our keenest pains
Are swept away with all we hate or cherish--
Nothing remains.
Nothing remains but the Eternal Nameless
And all-creative spirit of the Law,
Uncomprehended, comprehensive, blameless,
Invincible, resistless, with no flaw;
So full of love it must create for ever,
Destroying that it may create again,
Persistent and perfecting in endeavour,
It yet must bring forth angels, after men--
This, this remains!
[FINIS]
An idle rhyme of the summer time,
Sweet, and solemn, and tender;
Fair with the haze of the moon's pale rays,
Bright with the sunset's splendor.
Summer and beauty over the lands--
Careless hours of pleasure;
A meeting of eyes and a touching of hands--
A change in the floating measure.
A deeper hue in the skies of blue,
Winds from the tropics blowing;
A softer grace on the fair moon's face,
And the summer going, going.
The leaves drift down, the green grows brown,
And tears with smiles are blended;
A twilight hour and a treasured flower,--
And now the poem is ended.
[APPLAUSE]
I hold it one of the sad certain laws
Which makes our failures sometime seem more kind
Than that success which brings sure loss behind--
True greatness dies, when sounds the world's applause
Fame blights the object it would bless, because
Weighed down with men's expectancy, the mind
Can no more soar to those far heights, and find
That freedom which its inspiration was.
When once we listen to its noisy cheers
Or hear the populace' approval, then
We catch no more the music of the spheres,
Or walk with gods, and angels, but with men.
Till, impotent from our self-conscious fears,
The plaudits of the world turn into sneers.