All night the lone cicada
Kept shrilling through the rain,
A voice of joy undaunted
By unforgotten pain.
Down from the tossing branches
Rang out the high refrain,
By tumult undisheartened,
By storm assailed in vain.
To looming vasts of mountain,
To shadowy deeps of plain
The ephemeral, brave defiance
Adventured not in vain,—
Till to my faltering spirit,
And to my weary brain,
From loss and fear and failure
My joy returned again.
EASTWARD BOUND
We mount the arc of ocean's round
To meet the splendours of the sun;
Then downward rush into the dark
When the blue, spacious day is done.
The slow, eternal drift of stars
Draws over us until the dawn.
Then the grey steep we mount once more,
And night is down the void withdrawn.
Space, and interminable hours,
And moons that rise, and sweep, and fall,—
On-swinging earth, and orbéd sea,—
And voyaging souls more vast than all!