withdraw thee, soul, from strife.
Enter thine unseen bark,
And sail across the dark,
The silent sea of life.
Leave Care and Grief, feared now no more,
To wave and beckon from the shore.
Thy tenement is bare.
Shut are the...
What, comrade of a night,
No sooner meet than fight?
Before the word, the blow?
Well, be it so.
Yet think not Thou I yield,
Lost on a lonely field.
Lo! to my fainting breath,
My champion, Death!
Seal thou the window! Yea, shut out the light
And bar my door to all the airs of spring.
Yet in my cell, concealed from curious sight,
Here will I sit and sing.
Deaf, blind, and wilt Thou have me dumb, also,
Telling in silence these sad beads of days?...
O living image of eternal youth!
Wrought with such large simplicity of truth
That, now the pattern’s made and on the shelf,
Each vows he might have cut it for himself;
Nor marvels that we sang of empty days,
Of rank-grown laurel and unprunëd bays,
...
o hearken, all ye little weeds
That lie beneath the snow,
(So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low!)
The sun hath risen for royal deeds,
A valiant wind the vanguard leads;
Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds
Before ye rise and blow....
