A street half flecked with shade and sun,
A last year’s leaf along it blown,
A gray wall where green lichens run;
Like water falling on dry stone,
A robin’s ripe notes dropping one by one.
Sad sun and shade and sadness over all
The distance blended into solemn hues,
On the warm air suspended as a pall
The sweetness dying violets diffuse,
While from a single tree the ashen elm flowers fall.
At the street’s sudden end a shining square,
The sunny threshold of an open door,
Thick with the dust of an untrodden stair
That leads beyond me to the upper floor—
Then memory halts—it dares not enter there.
THE SAGE
I do not see the lightning’s flash,
Nor hear the thunder’s din;
What though the storms about me crash—
My refuge is within.
Though every evil stands confest,
And every pleasure flies,
I bear a world within my breast,
A light within my eyes.
Of every fount from out the earth
I, too, have drunk my fill,
And all the joys I count of worth
Become my own at will.
Though I have never loved a maid,
Love’s heights I may ascend;
Though no friend’s hand my own has stayed,
I still can pledge my friend.
From good and bad alike I draw
Security of soul;
Naught happens but becomes a law
To strengthen my control.
No passions ever rock my heart,
I know not fear nor hate;
A peace in which all worlds have part
Encompasses my fate.