Unto the portal of the House of Song,
Symbols of wrong and emblems of unrest,
And mottoes of despair and envious jest,
And stony masks of scorn and hate belong.
Who enters here shall feel his soul denied
All welcome; where the chiselled form of Love
Stares down in marble on the shrine above
The tomb of Beauty where he dreamed and died.
Who enters here shall know no poppy flowers
Of Rest, or harp-tones of serene Content;
Only sad ghosts of music and of scent
Shall mock his mind with their remembered powers.
Here must he wait till striving Patience carves
His name upon the century-storied floor;
His heart’s blood staining one dim pane the more
In Fame’s high casement while he sings and starves.
FLOWERS
Oh, why for us the blighted bloom,
The blossom that lies withering!—
Why has He, of Life’s changeless loom,
Created here no changeless thing?
Where grows the rose of fadeless Grace?
Through which the spirit manifests
The fact of an immortal place,
The dream on which religion rests.
Where buds the lily of our Faith?
That grows for us in unknown wise,
Out of the barren dust of death,
The pregnant bloom of Paradise.
In Heaven! so near that flowers know!
That flowers see how near!—and thus
Reflect the knowledge here below
Of love and life unknown to us.