All things come to an end, my sweet- The years that are taking and giving. Soon shalt thou have thy bliss supreme, III. Snow in thy garden, falling thick and fast, Snow in thy garden where the grass shall be! What dreams to-night? Thy dreaming nights are past, Thou hast no glad or grievous memory. Love in thy garden boweth down his head, Death in thy garden! In the violent air That sweeps thy radiant garden thou art still; For thee is no more rapture or despair, And Love and Death of thee have had their will. Night in the garden, white with snow and sleetNight rushing on with wind and storm toward day! Alas, thy garden holdeth nothing sweet, Nor sweet can come again, and thou away. TO THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. DELIVERED AT THE MEETING OF 1880, BURLINGTON, Vt. O! remnant of that perished host, Beneath these star-strewn bannered skies! Aye conquer! So that cycles through Than the banner of this land. And conquer all with love! With hands Have long divided them, let each Man slay his man with love. Aye, teach The world the art of war; to know That love beats down the bravest foe. And that hate shall cease forever And wars forever cease, To you, brave men, Peace makes appeal. To you who know the awful woe Of studied war, who bore the steel Above that noblest, bravest foe That ever fell, saw lifted there Pale boyish faces, touched white hands That dropt the sword to lift in prayer And die along the blood-soaked lands. To you Peace makes appeal for Peace; For only he who bears a scar Can know the agonies That track the trade of war. Grim heroes of an age, the dream As June to May, blend blue to gray! Strike hands and hold as honored guest Each brave and battered hero You last met breast to breast. True men were they in that dark day To cause they deemed the truth. God frowned Displeasure, and they passed away, Pride-crushed and penitent. The ground Is tilled. The high-born son lays bare Yea, they have borne defeat like gods. It takes a truer man to bear Defeat like that than win the fight. Grand men, you too have donned the gray; That broader stream rolls dark before. Your ranks grow thin; the reveillé Beats ever on that farther shore Fill up, 'bout face, and so prepare To cross together; aye, to vie In valor in that crossing where THE FORTUNATE ISLES. You sail and you seek for the Fortunate Isles, Nay, not to the left, nay, not to the right, But on, straight on, and the Isles are in sight. These Fortunate Isles they are not so far, They lie within reach of the lowliest door, You can see them gleam by the twilight star; You can hear them sing by the moon's white shoreNay, never look back! Those leveled grave-stones They were landing-steps; they were steps unto thrones Of glory for souls that have sailed before, And have set white feet on the fortunate shore. And what are the names of the Fortunate Isles? SOPHIE PEROWSKAJA. Down from her high estate she stept, A maiden, gently born, And by the icy Volga kept Sad watch, and waited morn; And peasants say that where she slept Yet on and on, through shoreless snows While never once for all these woes She toiled, she taught the peasant, taught Inspiréd with her lofty thought, Rose up and sought to be What God at the creation wrought, Yet e'er before him yawned the black Siberian mines! And oh, |