IN MEMORIAM F. A. S.

ET, O stricken heart, remember, O remember

YET

How of human days he lived the better part. April came to bloom and never dim December

Breathed its killing chills upon the head or heart.

Doomed to know not Winter, only Spring, a being

Trod the flowery April blithely for awhile, Took his fill of music, joy of thought and seeing,

Came and stayed and went, nor ever ceased to smile.

Came and stayed and went, and now when all is finished,

You alone have crossed the melancholy stream,

Yours the pang, but his, O his, the undiminished

Undecaying gladness, undeparted dream.

All that life contains of torture, toil, and

treason,

Shame, dishonour, death, to him were but

a name.

Here, a boy, he dwelt through all the singing

season

And ere the day of sorrow departed as he

came.

DAVOS, 1881.

PEACE

TO MY FATHER

EACE and her huge invasion to these shores

Puts daily home; innumerable sails

Dawn on the far horizon and draw near;
Innumerable loves, uncounted hopes

To our wild coasts, not darkling now, approach:

Not now obscure, since thou and thine art there,

And bright on the lone isle, the foundered

reef,

The long, resounding foreland, Pharos stands.

These are thy works, O father, these thy

crown;

Whether on high the air be pure, they shine Along the yellowing sunset, and all night Among the unnumbered stars of God they shine;

Or whether fogs arise and far and wide

The low sea-level drown each finds a

tongue

And all night long the tolling bell resounds:
So shine, so toll, till night be overpast,
Till the stars vanish, till the sun return,
And in the haven rides the fleet secure.

In the first hour, the seaman in his skiff Moves through the unmoving bay, to where the town

Its earliest smoke into the air upbreathes And the rough hazels climb along the beach. To the tugg'd oar the distant echo speaks. The ship lies resting, where by reef and

roost

Thou and thy lights have led her like a child.

This hast thou done, and I

-

can I be base?

I must arise, O father, and to port

Some lost, complaining seaman pilot home.

WIT

XXIX

IN THE STATES

ITH half a heart I wander here
As from an age gone by

-

A brother yet though young in years,
An elder brother, I.

You speak another tongue than mine,
Though both were English born.
I towards the night of time decline,
You mount into the morn.

Youth shall grow great and strong and free,

But age must still decay:

To-morrow for the States
England and Yesterday.

SAN FRANCISCO.

for me,