A WET DAY

Too long in the city streets,The alleys of grime and sin,Have I heard the iron beatsOf the heart of toil; whose din,And the throb of whose wild unrestHave stunned the song in my breast,Have marred its music and slainThe bird that was once its guest,And my soul would find it again.

Out there where the great, green book,Whose leaves are the grass and trees,Lies open; where each may look,May muse and read as he please;The book, that is gilt with gleams,Whose pages are ribboned with streams;That says what our souls would sayOf beauty that’s wrought of dreamsAnd buds and blossoms of May.

Dark, drear, and drizzly, with vapor grizzly,The day goes dully unto its close;Its wet robe smutches each thing it touches,Its fingers sully and wreck the rose.Around the railing and garden-palingThe dripping lily hangs low its head:A brood-mare whinnies; and hens and guineasDroop, damp and chilly, beneath the shed.In splashing mire about the byreThe cattle huddle, the farm-hand plods;While to some neighbor’s a wagon laborsThrough pool and puddle and clay that clods.The day, unsplendid, at last is ended,Is dead and buried, and night has come;—Night, blind and footless, and foul and fruitless,With weeping wearied, and sorrow-dumb.Ah, God! for thunder! for winds to sunderThe clouds and o’er us smite rushing bars!And through wild masses of storm, that passes,Roll calm the chorus of moon and stars.

Dark, drear, and drizzly, with vapor grizzly,The day goes dully unto its close;Its wet robe smutches each thing it touches,Its fingers sully and wreck the rose.

Around the railing and garden-palingThe dripping lily hangs low its head:A brood-mare whinnies; and hens and guineasDroop, damp and chilly, beneath the shed.

In splashing mire about the byreThe cattle huddle, the farm-hand plods;While to some neighbor’s a wagon laborsThrough pool and puddle and clay that clods.

The day, unsplendid, at last is ended,Is dead and buried, and night has come;—Night, blind and footless, and foul and fruitless,With weeping wearied, and sorrow-dumb.

Ah, God! for thunder! for winds to sunderThe clouds and o’er us smite rushing bars!And through wild masses of storm, that passes,Roll calm the chorus of moon and stars.

Great clouds of sullen seal and goldBar bleak the tawny west,From which all day the thunder rolled,And storm streamed, crest on crest.Now silvery in its deeps of bronzeThe new moon fills its sphere;And point by point the darkness donsIts pale stars there and here.But still behind the moon and stars,The peace of heaven remainsSuspicion of the wrath that wars,That Nature now restrains.As, lined ’neath tiger eyelids, glareThe wild-beast eyes that sleep,So smoulders in its sunset lairThe rage that rent the deep.

Great clouds of sullen seal and goldBar bleak the tawny west,From which all day the thunder rolled,And storm streamed, crest on crest.

Now silvery in its deeps of bronzeThe new moon fills its sphere;And point by point the darkness donsIts pale stars there and here.

But still behind the moon and stars,The peace of heaven remainsSuspicion of the wrath that wars,That Nature now restrains.

As, lined ’neath tiger eyelids, glareThe wild-beast eyes that sleep,So smoulders in its sunset lairThe rage that rent the deep.

A sea of onyx are the skies,Cloud-islanded with fire;Such nacre-colored flame as dyesA sea-shell’s rosy spire;And at its edge one star sinks slow,Burning, into the overglow.

Save for the cricket in the grass,Or passing bird that twitters,The world is hushed. Like liquid glassThe soundless river glittersBetween the hills that hug and holdIts beauty like a hoop of gold.

The glory deepens; and, meseems,A vasty canvas, paintedWith revelations of God’s dreamsAnd visions symbol-sainted,The west is, that each night-cowled hillKneels down before in worship still.

There is no thing to wake unrest;No sight or sound to jangleThe peace that evening in the breastBrings, smoothing out the tangleOf gnarls and knots of care and strifeThat snarl the colored cord of life.

The little tents the wildflowers raiseAre tabernacles where Love praysAnd Beauty preaches all the days.I walk the woodland through and through,And everywhere I see their blueAnd gold where I may worship too.All hearts unto their inmost shrineOf fragrance they invite; and mineEnters and sees the All Divine.I hark; and with some inward earSoft words of praise and prayer I hear,And bow my head and have no fear.For God is present as I seeIn them; and gazes out at meKneeling to His divinity.Oh, holiness that Nature knows,That dwells within each thing that grows,Vestured with dreams, as is the roseWith perfume! whereof all things preach—The birds, the brooks, the leaves that reachOur hearts and souls with loving speech;That makes a tabernacle ofThe flow’rs; whose priests are Truth and Love,Who help our souls to rise aboveThe Earth and that which we name sin,Unto the knowledge, that is kinTo Heaven, to which at last we win.

The little tents the wildflowers raiseAre tabernacles where Love praysAnd Beauty preaches all the days.

I walk the woodland through and through,And everywhere I see their blueAnd gold where I may worship too.

All hearts unto their inmost shrineOf fragrance they invite; and mineEnters and sees the All Divine.

I hark; and with some inward earSoft words of praise and prayer I hear,And bow my head and have no fear.

For God is present as I seeIn them; and gazes out at meKneeling to His divinity.

Oh, holiness that Nature knows,That dwells within each thing that grows,Vestured with dreams, as is the rose

With perfume! whereof all things preach—The birds, the brooks, the leaves that reachOur hearts and souls with loving speech;

That makes a tabernacle ofThe flow’rs; whose priests are Truth and Love,Who help our souls to rise above

The Earth and that which we name sin,Unto the knowledge, that is kinTo Heaven, to which at last we win.

The tufted gold of the sassafras,And the gold of the spicewood-bush,Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,And brighten the underbrush:The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,And the haw with its pearly plumes,And the redbud, misted rosily,Dazzle the woodland glooms.

And I hear the song of the cat-bird wakeI’ the boughs o’ the gnarled wild-crab,Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake,That the silvery sunbeams stab:And it seems to me that a magic liesIn the crystal sweet of its notes,That a myriad blossoms open their eyesAs its strain above them floats.

I see the bluebell’s blue unclose,And the trillium’s stainless white;The bird-foot violet’s purple and rose,And the poppy, golden-bright!And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,And the heads of the white-hearts nod;And the baby mouths of the woodland pinkAnd the sorrel salute the sod.

And this, meseems, does the cat-bird say,As the blossoms crowd i’ the sun:—“Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!Up, up! and out, each one!Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!Come listen and hark to me!The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet,Is passing this way!—Oh, hark to the beatOf her bee-like heart!—Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!Come! open your eyes and see!See, see, see!”

Leaves fall and flowers fade,Days come and go:Now is sweet Summer laidLow in her leafy glade,Low like a fragrant maid,Low, low, ah, low.Tears fall and eyelids ache,Hearts overflow:Here for our dead love’s sakeLet us our farewells make—Will he again awake?Ah, no, no, no.Winds sigh and skies are gray,Days come and go:Wild birds are flown away:Where are the blooms of May?—Dead, dead, this many a day,Under the snow.Lips sigh and cheeks are pale,Hearts overflow:Will not some song or tale,Kiss, or a flower frail,With our dead love avail?—Ah, no, no, no.

Leaves fall and flowers fade,Days come and go:Now is sweet Summer laidLow in her leafy glade,Low like a fragrant maid,Low, low, ah, low.

Tears fall and eyelids ache,Hearts overflow:Here for our dead love’s sakeLet us our farewells make—Will he again awake?Ah, no, no, no.

Winds sigh and skies are gray,Days come and go:Wild birds are flown away:Where are the blooms of May?—Dead, dead, this many a day,Under the snow.

Lips sigh and cheeks are pale,Hearts overflow:Will not some song or tale,Kiss, or a flower frail,With our dead love avail?—Ah, no, no, no.

A sense of something that is sad and strange;Of something that is felt as death is felt,—As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,—Around me seems to melt.It rises, so it seems, from the decayOf the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds,And dead flowers hanging by the woodland waySad, hoary heads of seeds.And from the cricket’s song,—so feeble now’Tis like a sound heard in the heart, a callDreamier than dreams;—and from the shaken bough,And acorns’ drowsy fall.From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow,This presence, that hath neither face nor form;That in the woods sits like demented woe,Whispering of wreck and storm.A presence wrought of melancholy grief,And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night,I shall behold, like some fantastic leaf,Beat at my window’s light.That I shall hear, outside my storm-lashed door,Moan like the wind in some rain-tortured tree;Or round my roof and down my chimney roarAll the wild night to me.

A sense of something that is sad and strange;Of something that is felt as death is felt,—As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,—Around me seems to melt.

It rises, so it seems, from the decayOf the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds,And dead flowers hanging by the woodland waySad, hoary heads of seeds.

And from the cricket’s song,—so feeble now’Tis like a sound heard in the heart, a callDreamier than dreams;—and from the shaken bough,And acorns’ drowsy fall.

From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow,This presence, that hath neither face nor form;That in the woods sits like demented woe,Whispering of wreck and storm.

A presence wrought of melancholy grief,And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night,I shall behold, like some fantastic leaf,Beat at my window’s light.

That I shall hear, outside my storm-lashed door,Moan like the wind in some rain-tortured tree;Or round my roof and down my chimney roarAll the wild night to me.

Dull, dimly gleaming,The dawn looks downwardWhere, flowing townward,The river, steamingWith mist, is hidden:Each bush, that huddlesBeside the road,—the rain has pooled with puddles,—Seems, in the fog, a hag or thing hag-ridden.

Where leaves hang tatteredIn forest tangles,And woodway anglesAre acorn-scattered,Coughing and yawningThe woodsman slouches,Or stands as silent as the hound that crouchesBeside him, ghostly in the mist-drenched dawning.

Through roses, rottingWithin the garden,—With blooms, that harden,Of marigolds, knotting,(Each one an emberDull, dead and dripping,)Her brow, from which their faded wreath is slipping,Mantled in frost and fog, comes in November.

Well, what of it then, if your heart be weighed with the yokeOf the world’s neglect? and the smokeOf doubt, blown into your eyes, makes night of your road?And the sting of the goad,The merciless goad of scorn,And the rise and fallOf the whip of necessity gall,Till your heart, forlorn,Indignant, in rage would rebel?And your bosom fill,And sobbingly swell,With bitterness, yea, against God and ’gainst Fate,Fate, and the world of men,What of it then?...Let it be as it will,If you labor and wait,You, too, will arrive, and the end for you, too, will be well.What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

Well, what of it then? if the hate of the world and of menMake wreck of your dreams again?What of it thenIf contumely and sneer,And ignorant jibe and jeer,Be heaped upon all that you do and dream:And the irresistible streamOf events overwhelm and submergeAll effort—or so it may seem?Not all, not all shall be lost,Not all, in the merciless gurgeAnd pitiless surge!—Though you see it tempestuously tossed,Though you see it sink down or sweep by,Not in vain did you strive, not in vain!The struggle, the longing and toilOf hand and of heart and of brain,Not in vain was it all, say I!For out of the wild turmoilAnd seething and soilOf Time, some part of the whole will arise,Arise and remain,In spite of the wrath of the skiesAnd the hate of men.—What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

The summer takes its hueFrom something opulent as fair in her,And the bright heav’n is brighter than it was;Brighter and lovelier,Arching its beautiful blue,Serene and soft, as her sweet gaze, o’er us.

The springtime takes its moodsFrom something in her made of smiles and tears,And flowery earth is flowerier than before,And happier, it appears,Adding new multitudesTo flowers, like thoughts, that haunt us evermore.

Summer and spring are wedIn her—her nature; and the glamour ofTheir loveliness, their bounty, as it were,Of life, and joy, and love,Her being seems to shed,The magic aura of the heart of her.

When down the west the new moon slipped,A curved canoe that dipped and tipped,When from the rose the dewdrop dripped,As if it shed its heart’s blood slow;As softly silent as a starI climbed a lattice that I know,A window lattice, held ajarBy one slim hand as white as snow:The hand of her who set me here,A rose, to bloom from year to year.I, who have heard the bird of JuneSing all night long beneath the moon;I, who have heard the zephyr croonSoft music ’mid spring’s avenues,Heard then a sweeter sound than these,Among the shadows and the dews—A heart that beat like any bee’s,Sweet with a name—and I know whose:Her heart that, leaning, pressed on me,A rose, she never looked to see.O star and moon! O wind and bird!Ye harkened, too, but never heardThe secret sweet, the whispered wordI heard, when by her lips his nameWas murmured.—Then she saw me there!—But that I heard was I to blame?Whom in the darkness of her hairShe thrust since I had heard the same:Condemned within its deeps to lie,A rose, imprisoned till I die.

I, who have heard the bird of JuneSing all night long beneath the moon;I, who have heard the zephyr croonSoft music ’mid spring’s avenues,Heard then a sweeter sound than these,Among the shadows and the dews—A heart that beat like any bee’s,Sweet with a name—and I know whose:Her heart that, leaning, pressed on me,A rose, she never looked to see.O star and moon! O wind and bird!Ye harkened, too, but never heardThe secret sweet, the whispered wordI heard, when by her lips his nameWas murmured.—Then she saw me there!—But that I heard was I to blame?Whom in the darkness of her hairShe thrust since I had heard the same:Condemned within its deeps to lie,A rose, imprisoned till I die.

I, who went at nightfall, came again at dawn;On Love’s door again I knocked.—Love was gone.He who oft had bade me in, now would bid no more;Silence sat within his house; barred its door.When the slow door opened wide through it I could seeHow the emptiness within stared at me.Through the dreary chambers, long I sought and sighed,But no answering footstep came; naught replied.Then at last I entered, dim, a darkened room:There a taper glimmered gray in the gloom.And I saw one lying crowned with helichrys;Never saw I face as fair as was his.Like a wintry lily was his brow in hue;And his cheeks were each a rose, wintry, too.Then my soul remembered all that made us part,And what I had laughed at once—broke my heart.

I, who went at nightfall, came again at dawn;On Love’s door again I knocked.—Love was gone.

He who oft had bade me in, now would bid no more;Silence sat within his house; barred its door.

When the slow door opened wide through it I could seeHow the emptiness within stared at me.

Through the dreary chambers, long I sought and sighed,But no answering footstep came; naught replied.

Then at last I entered, dim, a darkened room:There a taper glimmered gray in the gloom.

And I saw one lying crowned with helichrys;Never saw I face as fair as was his.

Like a wintry lily was his brow in hue;And his cheeks were each a rose, wintry, too.

Then my soul remembered all that made us part,And what I had laughed at once—broke my heart.

How many things, that we would remember,Sweet or sad, or great or small,Do our minds forget! and how one thing only,One little thing endures o’er all!For many things have I forgotten,But this one thing can never forget—The scent of a primrose, woodland-wet,Long years ago I found in a far land;A fragile flower that April set,Rainy pink, in her forehead’s garland.

How many things by the heart are forgotten!Sad or sweet, or little or great!And how one thing that could mean nothingStays knocking still at the heart’s red gate!For many things has my heart forgotten,But this one thing can never forget—The face of a girl, a moment met,Who smiled in my eyes; whom I passed in pity;A flower-like face, with weeping wet,Flung to the streets of a mighty city.

A modern Poet addresses his Muse, to whom he has devoted the best Years of his Life

Not here, O belovéd! not here let us part, in the city, but there!Out there where the storm can enfold us, on the hills, where its breast is made bare:Its breast, that is rainy and cool as the fern that drips by the fallIn the luminous night of the woodland where winds to the waters call.Not here, O belovéd! not here! but there! out there in the storm!The rush and the reel of the heavens, the tempest, whose rapturous armShall seize us and sweep us together,—resistless as passions seize men,—Through the rocking world of the woodland, with its multitude music, and then,With the rain on our lips, belovéd! in the heart of the night’s wild hell,One last, long kiss forever, and forever and ever farewell.

I am sick of the madness of men; of the bootless struggle and strife:Of the pain and the patience of waiting; the scoff and the scorning of life:I am sick of the shapes and the shadows; the sins and the sorrows that crowdThe gateways of heart and of brain; of the laughter, the shout that is loudIn the mouth of Success—Success, that was never for me, ah me!—And all the wrong and neglect that are heaped beloved, on thee!I am sick of the whining of failure; the boast and the brag of Success;The vainness of effort and longing; the dreams and the days that oppress:I am sick of them all; but am sickest, am sickest in body and soul,Of the love that I bear thee, beloved! and only thy death can make whole.

Imperfect, imperfect God made us,—or the power that men call God.—And I think that a Power so perfect, that made us with merely a nod,Could have fashioned us beings less faulty; more able to wear and to bear;Less open to mar and to fracture; less filled with the stuff of despair:Less damned with the unavailing; less empty of all good things—The hopes and the dreams that mature not while the clay still to them clings:I am sick of it all, belovéd! of the world and the ways of God;The thorns that have pierced thy bosom; the shards of the paths we have trod:I am sick of going and coming; and of love I am sickest of all:The striving, the praying, the dreaming; and the things that never befall.—So there in the storm and the darkness,—O fair, and O fugitive!—Out there in the night, belovéd, must thou die so I may live!

January

Shaggy with skins of frost-furred gray and drab,Harsh, hoary hair framing a bitter face,He bends above the dead Year’s fireplaceNursing the last few embers of its slabTo sullen glow: from pinched lips, cold and crab,The starved flame shrinks; his breath, like a menáce,Shrieks in the flue, fluttering its sooty lace,Piercing the silence like an icy stab.From rheum-gnarled knees he rises, slow with cold,And to the frost-bound window, muttering, goes,With iron knuckles knocking on the pane;And, lo! outside, his minions manifoldAnswer the summons: wolf-like shapes of woe,Hunger and suffering, trooping to his train.

February

Gray-muffled to his eyes in rags of cloud,His whip of winds forever in his hand,Driving the herded storms along the land,—That shake the wild sleet from wild hair and crowdHeaven with tumultuous bulks,—he comes, low-browedAnd heavy-eyed; the hail, like stinging sand,Whirls white behind, swept backward by his bandOf wild-hoofed gales that o’er the world ring loud.All day the tatters of his dark cloak streamCongealing moisture, till in solid iceThe forests stand; and, clang on thunderous clang,All night is heard,—as in the moon’s cold gleamTightens his grip of frost, his iron vise,—The boom of bursting boughs that icicles fang.

March

This is the tomboy month of all the year,March, who comes shouting o’er the winter hills,Waking the world with laughter, as she wills,Or wild halloos, a windflower in her ear.She stops a moment by the half-thawed mereAnd whistles to the wind, and straightway shrillsThe hyla’s song, and hoods of daffodilsCrowd golden round her, leaning their heads to hear.Then through the woods, that drip with all their eaves,Her mad hair blown about her, loud she goesSinging and calling to the naked trees,And straight the oilets of the little leavesOpen their eyes in wonder, rows on rows,And the first bluebird bugles to the breeze.

The gate, on ice-hoarse hinges, stiff with frost,Croaks open; and harsh wagon-wheels are heardCreaking through cold; the horses’ breath is furredAround their nostrils; and with snow deep-mossedThe hut is barely seen, from which, uptossed,The wood-smoke pillars the icy air unstirred;And every sound, each axe-stroke and each word,Comes as through crystal, then again is lost.The sun strikes bitter on the frozen pane,And all around there is a tingling,—tenseAs is a wire stretched upon a diskVibrating without sound:—It is the strainThat Winter plays, to which each tree and fence,It seems, is strung, as ’twere of ringing bisque.

There is no inspiration in the view.From where this acorn drops its thimbles brownThe landscape stretches like a shaggy frown;The wrinkled hills hang haggard and harsh of hue:Above them hollows the heaven’s stony blue,Like a dull thought that haunts some sleep-dazed clownPlodding his homeward way; and, whispering down,The dead leaves dance, a sere and shelterless crew.Let the sick day stagger unto its close,Morose and mumbling, like a hoary croneBeneath her faggots—huddled fogs that soonShall flare the windy west with ashen glows,Like some deep, dying hearth; and let the loneNight come at last—night, and its withered moon.

The wind is rising and the leaves are sweptWildly before it, hundreds on hundreds fallHuddling beneath the trees. With brag and brawlOf storm the day is grown a tavern, keptOf madness, where, with mantles torn and rippedOf flying leaves that beat above it all,The wild winds fight; and, like some half-spent ball,The acorn stings the rout; and, silver-stripped,The milkweed-pod winks an exhausted lamp:Now, in his coat of tatters dark that streams,The ragged rain sweeps stormily this way,With all his clamorous followers—clouds that campAround the hearthstone of the west where gleamsThe last chill flame of the expiring day.

Last night I lay awake and heard the wind,That madman jongleur of the world of air,Making wild music: now he seemed to fareWith harp and lute, so intimately twinnedThey were as one; now on a drum he dinned,Now on a tabor; now, with blow and blareOf sackbut and recorder, everywhereShattered the night; then on a sudden thinnedTo bagpipe wailings as of maniac griefThat whined itself to sleep. And then, me-seemed,Out in the darkness, mediæval-dim,I saw him dancing, like an autumn leaf,In tattered tunic, while around him streamedHis lute’s wild ribbons ’thwart the moon’s low rim.

Bald, with old eyes a blood-shot blue, he comesInto the Boar’s Head Inn: the hot sweat streaksHis fulvous face, and all his raiment reeksOf all the stews and all the Eastcheap slums.Upon the battered board again he drumsAnd croaks for sack: then sits, his harsh-haired cheeksSunk in his hands, rough with the grime of weeks,While round the tap one great bluebottle hums.All, all are gone, the old companions—theyWho made his rogue’s world merry: of them allNot one is left. Old, toothless now, and gray,Alone he waits: the swagger of that dayGone from his bulk—departed even as Doll,And he, his Hal, who broke his heart, they say.

I stood upon a height and listened toThe solemn psalmody of many pines,And with the sound I seemed to see long linesOf mountains rise, blue peak on cloudy blue,And hear the roar of torrents hurling throughRiven ravines; or from the crags’ gaunt spinesPouring wild hair, where,—as an eyeball shines,—A mountain pool shone, clear and cold of hue.And then my soul remembered—felt, how once,In ages past, ’twas here that I, a Faun,Startled an Oread at her morning bath,Who stood revealed; her beauty, like the sun’s,Veiled in her hair, heavy with dews of dawn,Through which, like stars, burnt blue her eyes’ bright wrath.

Withered and gray as winter; gnarled and old,With bony hands he crouches by the coals;His beggar’s coat is patched and worn in holes;Rags are his shoes: clutched in his claw-like holdA chest he hugs wherein he hoards his gold.Far-heard a bell of midnight slowly tolls:The bleak blasts shake his hut like wailing souls,And door and window chatter with the cold.Nor sleet nor snow he heeds, nor storm nor night.Let the wind howl! and let the palsy twitchHis rheum-racked limbs! here’s that will make them glowAnd warm his heart! here’s comfort, joy and light!—How the gold glistens!—Rich he is; how rich—Only the death that knocks outside shall know.

Unto what end, I ask, unto what endIs all this effort, this unrest and toil?Work that avails not? strife and mad turmoil?Ambitions vain that rack our hearts and rend?Did labor but avail! did it defendThe soul from its despair, who would recoilFrom sweet endeavor then? work that were oilTo still the storms that in the heart contend!But still to see all effort valueless!To toil in vain year after weary yearAt Song! beholding every other ArtConsidered more than Song’s high holiness,—The difficult, the beautiful and dear!—Doth break my heart, ah God! doth break my heart!

We have worshipped two gods from our earliest youth,Soul of my soul and heart of me!Young forever and true as truth—The gods of Beauty and Poesy.Sweet to us are their tyrannies,Sweet their chains that have held us long,For God’s own self is a part of these,Part of our gods of Beauty and Song.What to us if the world revile!What to us if its heart rejects!It may scorn our gods, or curse with a smile,The gods we worship, that it neglects:Nothing to us is its blessing or curse;Less than nothing its hate and wrong:For Love smiles down through the universeSmiles on our gods of Beauty and Song.We go our ways: and the dreams we dream,People our path and cheer us on;And ever before is the golden gleam,The star we follow, the streak of dawn:Nothing to us is the word men say;For a wiser word still keeps us strong,God’s word, that makes fine fire of clay,That shaped our gods of Beauty and Song.

What to us if the world revile!What to us if its heart rejects!It may scorn our gods, or curse with a smile,The gods we worship, that it neglects:Nothing to us is its blessing or curse;Less than nothing its hate and wrong:For Love smiles down through the universeSmiles on our gods of Beauty and Song.

We go our ways: and the dreams we dream,People our path and cheer us on;And ever before is the golden gleam,The star we follow, the streak of dawn:Nothing to us is the word men say;For a wiser word still keeps us strong,God’s word, that makes fine fire of clay,That shaped our gods of Beauty and Song.

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