THE OBELISK
(Place de la Concorde, Paris)
There rise the palace walls as fair to-day,
As when with arms and banners gleaming bright,
The pageantry of royal pomp and might
Passed through the guarded gates and went its way.
The blue, translucent beams of morning play
On arch triumphal, veiled in silver light;
And here, where blind red fury reached its height,
An ancient column rises grim and gray.
Slumbering in mystic sleep it seems to be,
And dreaming dreams of Egypt long ago,
Unmindful of the ceaseless ebb and flow
About its feet of life's unresting sea;
But 'mid the roar, I hear it murmur low:
Poor fools, they know not all is vanity!
GRAY BIRDS
Gray birds of passage from another sky
Are those long hours I sit and wait for you;
Borne by strong wings across the sunlit blue
They go—dark flecks of shadow drifting by.
Sometimes they bring a song—a joyful cry,
As morn and eve your coming used to do;
But sometimes plaintive notes of sorrow too,
Amid the joyful echoes wail and die.
Then as I watch the beating of the wings
That seek a haven by far northern lakes,
And catch the note of some bird-heart that sings,
Or hear the plaintive cry of one that breaks,
I turn once more to half-forgotten things,
And the old longing in my heart awakes.