And every wave is charmed.’

THE PAST

The debt is paid,

The verdict said,

The Furies laid,

The plague is stayed,

All fortunes made;

Turn the key and bolt the door,

Sweet is death forevermore.

Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,

Nor murdering hate, can enter in.

All is now secure and fast;

Not the gods can shake the Past;

Flies-to the adamantine door

Bolted down forevermore.

None can re-enter there, –

No thief so politic,

No Satan with a royal trick

Steal in by window, chink, or hole,

To bind or unbind, add what lacked,

Insert a leaf, or forge a name,

New-face or finish what is packed,

Alter or mend eternal Fact.

EXPERIENCE

The lords of life, the lords of life, –

I saw them pass,

In their own guise,

Like and unlike,

Portly and grim, –

Use and Surprise,

Surface and Dream,

Succession swift and spectral Wrong,

Temperament without a tongue,

And the inventor of the game

Omnipresent without name; –

Some to see, some to be guessed,

They marched from east to west:

Little man, least of all,

Among the legs of his guardians tall,

Walked about with puzzled look.

Him by the hand dear Nature took,

Dearest Nature, strong and kind,

Whispered, ‘Darling, never mind!

To-morrow they will wear another face,

The founder thou; these are thy race!’

COMPENSATION

I

The wings of Time are black and white,

Pied with morning and with night.

Mountain tall and ocean deep

Trembling balance duly keep.

In changing moon and tidal wave

Glows the feud of Want and Have.

Gauge of more and less through space,

Electric star or pencil plays,

The lonely Earth amid the balls

That hurry through the eternal halls,

A makeweight flying to the void,

Supplemental asteroid,

Or compensatory spark,

Shoots across the neutral Dark.

II

Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine;

Stanch and strong the tendrils twine:

Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,

None from its stock that vine can reave.

Fear not, then, thou child infirm,

There’s no god dare wrong a worm;

Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,

And power to him who power exerts.

Hast not thy share? On winged feet,

Lo! it rushes thee to meet;

And all that Nature made thy own,

Floating in air or pent in stone,

Will rive the hills and swim the sea,

And, like thy shadow, follow thee.

CULTURE

Can rules or tutors educate

The semigod whom we await?

He must be musical,

Tremulous, impressional,

Alive to gentle influence

Of landscape and of sky,

And tender to the spirit-touch

Of man’s or maiden’s eye:

But, to his native centre fast,

Shall into Future fuse the Past,

And the world’s flowing fates in his own mould recast.

POLITICS

Gold and iron are good

To buy iron and gold;

All earth’s fleece and food

For their like are sold.

Hinted Merlin wise,

Proved Napoleon great,

Nor kind nor coinage buys

Aught above its rate.

Fear, Craft, and Avarice

Cannot rear a State.

Out of dust to build