power

Remember him, whom Passion's power
Severely---deeply---vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour,
When neither fell, though both were loved.

That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be blessed:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repressed.

Oh! let me feel that all I lost
But saved thee all that Conscience fears;
And blush for every pang it cost
To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue,

God of our fathers, known of old --
Lord of our far-flung battle line --
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine --
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies --
The Captains and the Kings depart --
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget -- lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away --
On dune and headland sinks the fire --

June 22, 1897

God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle-line—
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The captains and the kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!

Far-call’d our navies melt away—

424

Removed from Accident of Loss
By Accident of Gain
Befalling not my simple Days—
Myself had just to earn—

Of Riches—as unconscious
As is the Brown Malay
Of Pearls in Eastern Waters,
Marked His—What Holiday
Would stir his slow conception—
Had he the power to dream
That put the Dower's fraction—
Awaited even—Him—

Forget?
Ah, never!
Your eyes, your voice, your lips.
Those little ways of love,
Half-childish yet all-wise
That held me but a slave to you,
Will never loose their bonds.
The power to forget
Would Fate but yield to me.

Remember?
Ah, too well!
The hurt, the pain, the grief.
The wrack of nightly dreams,
The ruth of brooding days,
Have left a lesion in my soul
That only Heaven can heal.
Remembrance is the lot
That Fate does hold for me.

How dear to me the twilight hour!
It breathes, it speaks of pleasures past;
When Laura sought this humble bower,
And o'er it courtly splendours cast.

Fond fancy's friend, dim twilight, hail!
Thou canst the absent nymph restore;
And as around thy shadows sail,
They bring the form I still adore.

Again her pensive smile I view,
Her modest eye's soft chastened fire;
And mark her cheek of tender hue
From thee a softer tint acquire.

No eye but mine in that dim hour

Remember him, whom Passion's power
Severely---deeply---vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour,
When neither fell, though both were loved.

That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be blessed:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repressed.

Oh! let me feel that all I lost
But saved thee all that Conscience fears;
And blush for every pang it cost
To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue,

As I lay at your feet that afternoon,
Little we spoke, you sat and mused,
Humming a sweet old-fashioned tune,

And I worshipped you, with a sense confused
Of the good time gone and the bad on the way,
While my hungry eyes your face perused

To catch and brand on my soul for aye
The subtle smile which had grown my doom.
Drinking sweet poison hushed I lay

Till the sunset shimmered athwart the room.
I rose to go. You stood so fair
And dim in the dead day's tender gloom:

In the dense entangled street,
Where the web of Trade is weaving,
Forms unknown in crowds I meet
Much of each and all believing;
Each his small designs achieving
Hurries on with restless feet,
While, through Fancy’s power deceiving,
Self in every form I greet.

Oft in yonder rocky dell
Neath the birches’ shadow seated,
I have watched the darksome well,
Where my stooping form, repeated,
Now advanced and now retreated
With the spring’s alternate swell,
Till destroyed before completed

Rouse ye! torpid daylight-dreamers, cast your carking cares away!
As calm air to troubled water, so my night is to your day;
All the dreary day you labour, groping after common sense,
And your eyes ye will not open on the night's magnificence.
Ye would scow were I to tell you how a guiding radiance gleams
On the outer world of action from my inner world of dreams.

When, with mind released from study, late I lay note down to sleep,
From the midst of facts and figures, into boundless space I leap;