TO-MORROW
I.
Mysterious One, inscrutable, unknown, A silent Presence, with averted face Whose lineaments no mortal eye can trace, And robes of trailing darkness round thee thrown, Over the midnight hills thou comest alone! What thou dost bring to me from farthest space, What blessing or what ban, what dole, what grace, I may not know. Thy secrets are thine own! Yet, asking not for lightest word or sign To tell me what the hidden fate may be, Without a murmur, or a quickened breath, Unshrinkingly I place my hand in thine, And through the shadowy depths go forth with thee To meet, as thou shalt lead, or life, or death!
II.
Then, if I fear not thee, thou veilèd One Whose face I know not, why fear I to meet Beyond the everlasting hills her feet Who cometh when all Yesterdays are done? Shall I, who have proved thee good, thy sister shun? O thou To-morrow, who dost feel the beat Of life’s long, rhythmic pulses, strong and sweet, In the far realm that hath no need of sun— Thou who art fairer than the fair To-day That I have held so dear, and loved so much— When, slow descending from the hills divine, Thou summonest me to join thee on thy way, Let me not shrink nor tremble at thy touch, Nor fear to break thy bread and drink thy wine!
“O EARTH! ART THOU NOT WEARY?”
O Earth! art thou not weary of thy graves? Dear, patient mother Earth, upon thy breast How are they heaped from farthest east to west! From the dim north, where the wild storm-wind raves O’er the cold surge that chills the shore it laves, To sunlit isles by softest seas caressed, Where roses bloom alway and song-birds nest, How thick they lie—like flecks upon the waves! There is no mountain-top so far and high, No desert so remote, no vale so deep, No spot by man so long untenanted, But the pale moon, slow marching up the sky, Sees over some lone grave the shadows creep! O Earth! art thou not weary of thy dead?
ALEXANDER
There was a man whom all men called The Great. Low lying on his death-bed, we are told, He bade his courtiers (when he should be cold, Breathless, and silent in his last estate, And they who were to bury him should wait Outside the palace) that no cerecloth’s fold Or winding-sheet should round his hands be rolled: Those helpless hands that once had ruled the state! Thus spake he: “On the black pall let them lie, Empty and lorn, that all the world may see How of his riches there was nothing left To Alexander when he came to die.” Lord of two worlds, as treasureless was he As any beggar of his crust bereft!