ALTER EGO

WHERE is the boyish Poet

Who used with you to write?

Alas! his songs are ended:
I dug his grave last night.

Beneath a flowering myrtle,
His face against the East,
I buried him at midnight;
Without a book or priest.

He had grown older, graver,—
The iron hand of Time
Had chilled the early laughter
That rippled in his rhyme.

He had grown graver, sadder,
Before the darkening years;
His voice, once clear and joyous,
Took evermore of tears.

What should he do but dwindle,
What should he do but go?
He could not sing the summer,
He would not sing the snow.

His lyre was carved for pleasure,
His lot was cast in pain;
Till this gray world grow brighter,
He may not rise again!

So, 'neath a flowering myrtle
Without a book or priest,
I buried him at midnight,
His face against the East.

1923 [1888

FOR A CLOSING PAGE

"Never a palinode!"—" Q."

LIFE, like a page unpenned,

Spreads out its whiteness;

Nothing, from end to end,

Marring its brightness.

Surely a field to claim

Steadfast endeavour?

Where one might win a name
Sounding for ever?

Now-to review it all

What a prosaic,

Forced, ineffectual,

Paltry mosaic!

Plans that ne'er found a base;

Wingless upyearning;

Speed that ne'er won the race;

Fire without burning;

Doubt never set at rest,

Stifle or falter it;

Good that was not the best ...

Yet-would you alter it?

Ν

IN AFTER DAYS

IN after days when grasses high

O'er-top the stone where I shall lie, Though ill or well the world adjust My slender claim to honoured dust, I shall not question or reply.

I shall not see the morning sky;
I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;
I shall be mute, as all men must
In after days!

But yet, now living, fain were 1
That some one then should testify,
Saying " He held his pen in trust
To Art, not serving shame or lust.”
Will none?-Then let my memory die
In after days!