Yet something ever cheers and charms
The rudeness of my labors;
Daily I water with these arms
The cattle of a hundred farms,

And have the birds for neighbors. 50

Men call me Mad, and well they may,

When, full of rage and trouble, I burst my banks of sand and clay, And sweep their wooden bridge away, Like withered reeds or stubble.

Now go and write thy little rhyme,
As of thine own creating.
Thou seest the day is past its prime;
I can no longer waste my time;

The mills are tired of waiting. 60

POSSIBILITIES

WHERE are the Poets, unto whom belong

The Olympian heights; whose singing shafts were sent

Straight to the mark, and not from bows half bent,

But with the utmost tension of the thong?

Where are the stately argosies of song, Whose rushing keels made music as they went

Sailing in search of some new continent,

With all sail set, and steady winds and strong?

Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught

In schools, some graduate of the field or street,

Who shall become a master of the art,

An admiral sailing the high seas of thought,

Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet

For lands not yet laid down in any chart.

DECORATION DAY

SLEEP, comrades, sleep and rest

On this Field of the Grounded Arms, Where foes no more molest,

Nor sentry's shot alarms!

Like the white souls of the saints.

"The saints! Ah, have they grown Forgetful of their own?

Are they asleep, or dead,

That open to the sky
Their ruined Missions lie,

No longer tenanted ?

'Oh, bring us back once more

The vanished days of yore,

50

When the world with faith was
filled;

Bring back the fervid zeal,
The hearts of fire and steel,

The hands that believe and build.

Then from our tower again
We will send over land and main
Our voices of command,

Like exiled kings who return
To their thrones, and the people learn
That the Priest is lord of the
land!"

O Bells of San Blas, in vain

Ye call back the Past again!

The Past is deaf to your prayer;

Out of the shadows of night
The world rolls into light;
It is daybreak everywhere.

FRAGMENTS

October 22, 1838.

60

August 4, 1856.

A lovely morning, without the glare of the sun, the sea in great commotion, chafing and foaming.

So from the bosom of darkness our days come roaring and gleaming,

Chafe and break into foam, sink

into darkness again.

But on the shores of Time each leaves some trace of its passage, Though the succeeding wave washes it out from the sand.