Then, if I fear not thee, thou veilèd One
Whose face I know not, why fear I to meet
Beyond the everlasting hills her feet
Who cometh when all Yesterdays are done?
Shall I, who have proved thee good, thy sister shun?
O thou To-morrow, who dost feel the beat
Of life’s long, rhythmic pulses, strong and sweet,
In the far realm that hath no need of sun—
Thou who art fairer than the fair To-day
That I have held so dear, and loved so much—
When, slow descending from the hills divine,
Thou summonest me to join thee on thy way,
Let me not shrink nor tremble at thy touch,
Nor fear to break thy bread and drink thy wine!
“O EARTH! ART THOU NOT WEARY?”
O Earth! art thou not weary of thy graves?
Dear, patient mother Earth, upon thy breast
How are they heaped from farthest east to west!
From the dim north, where the wild storm-wind raves
O’er the cold surge that chills the shore it laves,
To sunlit isles by softest seas caressed,
Where roses bloom alway and song-birds nest,
How thick they lie—like flecks upon the waves!
There is no mountain-top so far and high,
No desert so remote, no vale so deep,
No spot by man so long untenanted,
But the pale moon, slow marching up the sky,
Sees over some lone grave the shadows creep!
O Earth! art thou not weary of thy dead?