He has solved it—Life's wonderful problem,
The deepest, the strongest, the last;
And into the school of the angels
With the answer forever has passed.

How strange that, in spite of our questions,
He maketh no answer, nor tells
Why so soon were earth's honoring laurels
Displaced by God's own immortelles.

How strange he should sleep so profoundly,
So young, so unworn by the strife!
While beside him, brimful of Hope's nectar,
Untouched stands the goblet of life.

Men slumber like that when the evening
Of a long, weary day droppeth down;

The cuckoo is singing;
Ye gods, be sure to listen.

The handful here, that once was Mary's earth,
Held, while it breathed, so beautiful a soul,
That, when she died, all recognized her birth,
And had their sorrow in serene control.

“Not here! not here!” to every mourner's heart
The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier;
And when the tomb-door opened, with a start
We heard it echoed from within,—“Not here!”

Shouldst thou, sad pilgrim, who mayst hither pass,
Note in these flowers a delicater hue,
Should spring come earlier to this hallowed grass,
Or the bee later linger on the dew,—

Green bubbles—new-brewed wine;
lumps of red—a small stove for heating;
evening comes and the sky threatens snow—
Could you drink a cup, I wonder?

God be in my head
And in my understanding;

God be in mine eyes
And in my looking;

God be in my mouth
And in my speaking;

God be in my heart,
And in my thinking;

God be at my end,
And at my departing.

Frost called to water “Halt!”
And crusted the moist snow with sparkling salt.
Brooks, their own bridges, stop,
And icicles in long stalactites drop,
And tench in water holes
Lurk under gluey glass like fish in bowls.

In the hard-rutted lane
At every footstep breaks a brittle pane,
And tinkling trees ice-bound,
Changed into weeping willows, sweep the ground;
Dead boughs take root in ponds
And ferns on windows shoot their ghostly fronds.

But vainly the fierce frost
Interns poor fish, ranks trees in an armed host,

From dawn to dark they stood
That long midsummer day,
While fierce and fast
The battle blast
Swept rank on rank away.

From dawn to dark they fought,
With legions torn and cleft;
And still the wide
Black battle tide
Poured deadlier on “Our Left.”

They closed each ghastly gap;
They dressed each shattered rank;
They knew—how well—
That freedom fell
With that exhausted flank.

“Oh, for a thousand men
Like these that melt away!”
And down they came,
With steel and flame,
Four thousand to the fray!

Flap, flap, the captive bird in the cage
Beating its wings against the four corners.
Depressed, depressed the scholar in the narrow street:
Clasping a shadow, he dwells in an empty house.
When he goes out, there is nowhere for him to go:
Bushes and brambles block up his path.
He composes a memorial, but it is rejected and unread,
He is left stranded, like a fish in a dry pond.
Without—he has not a single farthing of salary:
Within—there is not a peck of grain in his larder.
His relations upbraid him for his lack of success:

“Fair is Alexis” I no sooner said
When every one his eyes that way convey'd.
My soul, as when some dog a bone we show
Who snatcheth it—lost we not Phædrus so?

Fair Hebe I left, with a cautious design
To escape from her charms, and to drown them in wine,
I tried it; but found, when I came to depart,
The wine in my head, and still love in my heart.

I repaired to my Reason, entreated her aid;
Who paused on my case and each circumstance weighed,
Then gravely pronounced, in return to my prayer,
That “Hebe was fairest of all that was fair!”

“That's a truth,” replied I, “I've no need to be taught;
I came for your counsel to find out a fault.”
“If that's all,” quoth Reason, “return as you came;