IV.
And the pale hermit veiled his eyes,
and lo throughout his heart there streamed
the sweet sleep of his weary life.
When he awoke (he was dropping
down broad, still writers in a drifting ship)
he cried: Let me remember, Lord!
God, let me dream! Nothing is more sweet,
God, than the end of grief, but ’tis
grievous to forget it; for ’tis hard
to cast away the flower that only smells when plucked.
In “The Two Children” two little ones, having come to blows in heroic fashion at their play one evening, are ignominiously swept off to bed by their mother. In the dark, full of denser shadows, their sobbing gradually ceases, they draw nearer to each other, and when the mother comes to look at them, shading the light with her hand, she finds them pressed close together, good beyond their wont, asleep. And she tucks them in with a smile. The third part takes up the parable as follows:—
III.
Men! in the cruel hour when the wolf is lord,
think on the shade of destiny unknown
that wraps us round, and on the silence awesome
that reigns beyond the short noise of your brawling,
the clamour of your warring—
just a bee’s hum within an empty hive.
Peace, men! in the prone earth
too great’s the mystery, and only he
who gets him brethren in his fear errs not.
Peace, brethren! and let not the arms
that now ye stretch, or shall, to those most near,
know aught of strife or threat.
And like good children sleeping ’twixt the sheets
placid and white, be found,
when unseen and unheard, above you bends
Death, with her lighted lamp.