Perchance a canvass of the town
Would find him far from flags and shouts,
And leave him only the renown
Of many smiles and many doubts;
Perchance the crude and common tongue
Would havoc strangely with his worth;
But she, with innocence unstung,
Would read his name around the earth.
And others, knowing how this youth
Would shine, if love could make him great,
When caught and tortured for the truth
Would only writhe and hesitate;
While she, arranging for his days
What centuries could not fulfil,
Transmutes him with her faith and praise,
And has him shining where she will.
She crowns him with her gratefulness,
And says again that life is good;
And should the gift of God be less
In him than in her motherhood,
His fame, though vague, will not be small,
As upward through her dream he fares,
Half clouded with a crimson fall
Of roses thrown on marble stairs.
Scribner’s Edwin Arlington Robinson
SONNET XXIX
In the fair picture of my life’s estate
Which long ago my yearning fancy drew
From hints of poets, prophets, lords of fate,
What place is there, belovèd one, for you?
How in this edifice of the soaring dome,
Noble, harmonious, lifted towards the stars,
Shall I carve forth a niche to be the home
Of you and of my love that round you wars?
Ah, folly his, who builds him such a house
Too early, by impatient visions led,
Ere he can know what blood shall stain his brows,
And from what troubled streams his heart is fed.
Now must he labor, in late night, alone
To wreck,—and then rebuild it, stone by stone.
The Forum Arthur Davison Ficke
ROMANCE
The last farewells were said, friends hurried ashore,—
The screw threshed foam, and jarred; the pier slid by;
Hands went to ears to still the siren’s roar,
Handkerchiefs waved, and there was call and cry;
Over it all, austere and pure and high,
Glittering snow and gold, the towers looked down,—
Serene and cold, regardless of the town.
The wind blew north; and gravely on it came
The trolling of the Metropolitan bells,
First the four chimes, softly as puffs of flame,
Then the deep five ... Slow, gentle gleaming swells
Came glancing in the sun, with ocean smells,
Up from the harbor and the further sea;
Over the stern poised white gulls, giddily.