THE WAY OF DREAMS

          Since I rose out of child-oblivion
          I have walked in a world of many dreams,
          And noble souls beside the shining streams
          Of fancy have with beckonings led me on.

          Their faces oft, mayhap, I could not see,
          Only their waving hands and noble forms.
          Sometimes there sprang between quick-gathered storms,
          But always they came back again to me.

          Women with smiling eyes and star-spun hair
          Spake gentle things, bade me look back to view
          The deeds of the great souls who climbed the stair

          Immortal, and for whom God's manna grew:
          Dante, Anacreon, Euripides,
          And all who set rich wine upon the lees.

THE ACCOLADE

          Men of brave stature came and placed their hands
          Upon my head, and, lifting shining swords,
          Drew through the air signs mightier than words,
          And vanished in the sun upon the sands.

          Glimpses I caught of faces that have come
          Through crowding ages; whisperings of songs;
          And prayers for the redress of human wrongs
          From voices that upon the earth are dumb.

          They were but shadows, but they lent me joy;
          They gave me reverence for all who pace
          The world with hands raised, evil to destroy,

          Who live but for the honour of their race.
          They taught me to strike at no idol raised,
          Worshipped a space, then left to be dispraised.

FALLEN IDOLS

          Stedfastness, shall we find it, then, at all?
          Is it that as the winds blow north and south,
          So must be praises from the loud world's mouth,
          Which on its heroes in their glory fall?

          Because the voice grows stiller, or the arm
          No longer can beat evils back; because
          The shoulders sink beneath new-rising cause,
          And the fine thought has lost its moving charm;

          Because of these shall puny sages shake
          Their heads, and haste to mock the failing one,
          Who in his strength could make the nations quake;

          Prophet like Daniel, King like Solomon!
          In this full time we have seen mockers run
          About the throne of such as Tennyson.

TENNYSON

          Who saith thy hand is weak, King Tennyson?
          Who crieth, See, the monarch is grown old,
          His sceptre falls? Oh, carpers rude and bold,
          You who have fed upon the gracious benison

          Scattered unstinted by him, do you now
          Dispraise the sweet-strung harp, grown tremulous
          'Neath fingers overworn for all of us?
          You cannot tear the laurels from his brow.

          He lives above your idle vaunts and fears,
          Enthroned where all master souls stand up
          In their high place, and fill the golden cup,

          God-blest for kings, with wine of endless years,
          And greet him one with them. O brotherhood
          Of envious dullards, ye are wroth with good.

          THE ANOINTED ONES
          Why, let them rail! God's full anointed ones
          Have heard the world exclaim, "We know you not."
          They who by their souls' travailing have brought
          Us nearer to the wonder of the suns.

          Yet, who can stay the passage of the stars?
          Who can prevail against the thunder-sound?
          The wire that flashes lightning to the ground
          Diverts, but not its potency debars.

          So, men may strike quick stabs at Caesar's worth,—
          They only make his life an endless force,
          'Scaped from its penthouse, flashing through the earth,

          And 'whelming those who railed about his Gorse.
          Men's moods disturb not those born truly great:
          They know their end; they can afford to wait.