Classic Poem

First printed in Blackwood with the two preceding.
Methinks we do as fretful children do,
Leaning their faces on the window-pane
To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain,
And shut the sky and landscape from their view:
And thus, alas, since God the maker drew
A mystic separation 'twixt those twain, —
The life beyond us, and our souls in pain, —
We miss the prospect which we are called unto
By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong,
O man, my brother! Hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large window pure from wrong!
That so, as life's appointment issueth,
Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death.