List, O list to the song I sing
To the varying note of the sighing breeze
Blowing in cool, refreshing waves
From the endless realm of the seven seas:
Waste not life in pursuit of war,
Holding the nations for one short day,
For the death of the king destroys the realm
Which vanishes like the great Mongol's sway.
Nor hoard up silver in thy vaults,
For the silver once spent, the pleasure is passed,
Or before it is spent, we will mourn thy death:
In the world, neither conquest nor silver last.
Seek, O seek but an hour's joy;
Pleasure and love though they may not endure
Will soothe life's sorrow and bitterness—
The present alone of all time is sure!
Live in the circle of mine arms;
Live in the light of the love in mine eye;
Live in the music of my song;
And, as the music of my song—die!
October 22, 1911.

THE AURORA

Night in purple fringed with the faintest crimson
Conquered the slowly paling glow of sunset;
Softly the western light expired; and yet
Came there no stars forth—
O'er the tow'ring cliffs and the vales and waters,
O'er the whisp'ring woodland of swaying hemlocks,
O'er the streamlets trickling down on the crag-rocks,
Came there no moon forth.
Rose in distance, a dim and fearful spectre;
Rose, accompanied by the forest's singing,
An omen of evil, certainty bringing
Of the divine wroth—
Far from northern forests descends some army;
Far in the heavens, their fires are reflected;
Waver the lights in an archway collected,
Sign of divine wroth—
Shines the arch in a flick'ring wavy brilliance;
Lighting earth from its quivering span of silver;
Shines the Aurora soft o'er lake and river,
Shines from the far north.
December 8, 1911.

THE WILL O' THE WISP

Over the moorland, over the moor,
Sibilant sounds the rain-storm's sneer,
Sneeringly sounds, yet with a lure
Like the lure of the mermaids of the mere,
Calling the fishermen into their snare—
Through watery veils, my dim eyes peer,
Where can a light or a path be, where?
Lost on the moor, the moorland drear—
Lost, and the storm-lion's out of his lair,
Raging rampant with mighty roar;
And the glistening lightning flashes its glare;
And the torrents descend with a wind-driven pour.
Only the lightning to show by its fire
The tears of Heaven flooding Earth's floor;
And, above the sound of the storm-lion's ire,
Shriek the rain-sheets over the tor,
Shriek in a quavering, tuneless choir.
What's that in the distance shining afar?
See it flickering higher and higher,
Light in a broadening, lengthening bar—
Who is abroad at this lonely hour?
Or is it a cottage high on the scar?
Or does it shine in My Lady's tower
To guide her Lord from lands afar?
Nearer and nearer, I haste—Oh, for power
To reach that light—Oh, to be sure,
My Lady would welcome me in her bower—
I fall; I sink; it was the marsh's lure—
December 26, 1911.