8 
PYTHAGORAS 
Seasons 
 
Thou vainly, O Man, self-deceiver, exaltest
Thyself the king and only thinker of this world,
Where life aboundeth infinite to destroy thee.

Well-guided are thy forces and govern'd bravely,
But like a tyrant crūel or savage monster
Thou disregardest ignorantly all bēing
Save only thine own insubordinate ruling:

As if the flowër held not a happy pact with Spring;
As if the brutes lack'd reason and sorrow's torment;
Or ev'n divine love from the small atoms grew not,
Their grave affection unto thy passion mingling.


An truly were it nobler and better wisdom
To fear the blind thing blindly, lest it espy thee;
And scrupulously do^vhonour to dumb creatures,

No one offending impiously, nor forcing
To service of vile uses; ordering rather
Thy slave to beauty, compelling lovingkindness.

So should desire, the only priestess of Nature
Divinely inspir'd, like a good monarch rule thee,
And lead thee onward in the consummate motion
Of life eternal unto heav'nly perfection.
 

Elegiacs 
9 
AMIEL 
 
Why, O Maker of all, madest thou man with affections
Tender above thyself, scrupulous and passionate?
Nay, if compassionate thou art, why, thou lover of men,
Hidest thou thy face so pitilessly from us?
If thou in priesthoods and altar-glory delitest,
In torment and tears of trouble and suffering,
Then wert thou displeas'd looking on soft human emotion,
Thou must scorn the devout love of a sire to a son.
'Twas but vainly of old, Man, making Faith to approach thee,
Held an imagin'd scheme of providence in honour;
And, to redeem thy praise, judg'd himself cause, took upon him
Humbly the impossible burden of all misery.
Now casteth he away his books and logical idols
Leaveth again his cell of terrified penitence;
And that stony goddess, his first-born fancy, dethroning,
Hath made after his own homelier art another;
Made sweet Hope, the modest unportion'd daughter of anguish,
Whose brimming eye sees but dimly what it looketh on;
Dreaming a day when fully, without curse or horrible cross,
Thou wilt deign to reveal her vision of happiness.
 

10 
Ah, what a change! Thou, who didst emptily thy happiness seek
In pleasure, art finding thy pleasure in happiness.
Slave to the soul, whom thou heldest in slavery, art thou?
Thou, that wert but a vain idol, adored a goddess?

11 
WALKING HOME 
From the Chinese 
 
Thousand threads of rain and fine white wreathing of air-mist
Hide from us earth's greenness, hide the enarching azure.
Yet will a breath of Spring homeward convoying attend us,
And the mellow flutings of passionate Philomel.
 

12 
THE RUIN 
From the Chinese 
 
These grey stones have rung with mirth and lordly carousel;
Here proud kings mingled pōetry and ruddy wine.
All hath pass'd long ago; nought but this rūin abideth,
Sadly in eyeless trance gazing upon the river.
Wouldst thou know who here visiteth, dwelleth and singeth also,
Ask the swallows fl̄ing from sunny-wall'd Italy.
 

13 
REVENANTS 
From the French 
 
At dead of unseen night ghosts of the departed assembling
Flit to the graves, where each in body had burial.
Ah, then rēvisiting my sad heart their desolate tomb
Troop the desires and loves vainly buried long ago.
 

14 
From the Greek 
 
Mortal though I bé, yea ephemeral, if but a moment
I gaze up to the night's starry domain of heaven,
Then no longer on earth I stand; I touch the Creator,
And my lively spirit drinketh immortality.
 

15 
ANNIVERSARY 
 
See, Love, a year is pass'd: in harvest our summer endeth:
Praising thee the solemn festival I celebrate.
Unto us all our days are love's anniversaries, each one
In turn hath ripen'd something of our happiness.
So, lest heart-contented adown life easily floating,
We note not the passage while living in the delight,
I have honour'd always the attentive vigil of Autumn,
And thy day set apart holy to fair Memory.
 

16 
 
COMMUNION OF SAINTS 
 
From Andre Chenier 
What happy bonds together unite you, ye living and dead,
Your fadeless love-bloom, your manifold memories.
 

17 
 
EPITAPHS 
 
Fight well, my comrades, and prove your bravery. Me too
God call'd out, but crown'd early before the battle.

18 
 
I died in very flow'r: yet call me not unhappy therefore,
Ye that against sweet life once a lament have utter'd.
 

19 
 
When thou, my belovèd, diedst, I saw heaven open,
And all earthly delight inhabiting Paradise.
 

20 
 
Where thou art better I too were, dearest, anywhere, than
Wanting thy well-lov'd lovely presence anywhere.
 

FINIS