Verily, we sow wind; and we
Shall reap the whirlwind, verily.

He who hath little shall not lack;
He who hath plenty shall decay:
Our fathers went; we pass away;
Our children follow on our track:
So generations fail, and so
They are renewed and come and go.

The earth is fattened with our dead;
She swallows more and doth not cease:
Therefore her wine and oil increase
And her sheaves are not numberèd ;
Therefore her plants are green, and all
Her pleasant trees lusty and tall.

Therefore the maidens cease to sing,
And the young men are very sad;
Therefore the sowing is not glad,
And mournful is the harvesting.
Of high and low, of great and small,
Vanity is the lot of all.

A King dwelt in Jerusalem;

He was the wisest man on earth h: He had all riches from his birth, And pleasures till he tired of them; Then, having tested all things, he Witnessed that all are vanity.

SLEEP AT SEA.

OUND the deep waters:

Sou

Who shall sound that deep?

Too short the plummet,

And the watchmen sleep.

Some dream of effort

Up a toilsome steep;

Some dream of pasture grounds

For harmless sheep.

White shapes flit to and fro

From mast to mast;

They feel the distant tempest

That nears them fast:

Great rocks are straight ahead,

Great shoals not past; They shout to one another Upon the blast.

O, soft the streams drop music

Between the hills,

And musical the birds' nests

Beside those rills:

The nests are types of home

Love-hidden from ills,

The nests are types of spirits

Love-music fills.

So dream the sleepers,

Each man in his place;

The lightning shows the smile
Upon each face:

The ship is driving, driving,

It drives apace:

And sleepers smile, and spirits

Bewail their case.

The lightning glares and reddens

Across the skies;

It seems but sunset

To those sleeping eyes. When did the sun go down On such a wise?

From such a sunset

When shall day arise?

"Wake," call the spirits:
But to heedless ears;
They have forgotten sorrows
And hopes and fears;
They have forgotten perils

And smiles and tears;
Their dream has held them long,
Long years and years.

"Wake," call the spirits again :

But it would take

A louder summons

To bid them awake.

Driving and driving,

The ship drives amain:

While swift from mast to mast

Shapes flit again,

Flit silent as the silence

Where men lie slain;

Their shadow cast upon the sails

Is like a stain.

No voice to call the sleepers,

No hand to raise :

They sleep to death in dreaming
Of length of days.
Vanity of vanities,
The Preacher says:

Vanity is the end

Of all their ways.

FROM HOUSE TO HOME.

HE first was like a dream through summer heat,
The second like a tedious numbing swoon,

While the half-frozen pulses lagged to beat

Beneath a winter moon.

"But," says my friend, "what was this thing and where?

It was a pleasure-place within my soul;

An earthly paradise supremely fair

That lured me from the goal.

The first part was a tissue of hugged lies;
The second was its ruin fraught with pain:
Why raise the fair delusion to the skies
But to be dashed again?

My castle stood of white transparent glass
Glittering and frail with many a fretted spire,
But when the summer sunset came to pass
It kindled into fire.