Give thanks, my soul, for the things that are free! 
The joy of life and the spring’s ecstasy,
The dreams that have been and the dreams that will be.

DON CUPID

Oh! little pink and white god of love,
  With your tender smiling mouth,
And eyes as blue as the blue above,
  Afar in the sunny south.

No army e’er laid so many low
  Or wounded so many hearts,
No mighty gunner e’er wrought such woe
  As you with your feathered darts.

HEAVEN

Not with the haloed saints would Heaven be
  For such as I;
Who have not reached to their serenity
  So sweet and high.

Not with the martyrs washed by holy flame
  Could I find place,
For they are victors who through glory came
  To see God’s face.

Not with the perfect souls that enter there
  Could mine abide,
For clouded eyes from eyes all cloudless fair
  ’Twere best to hide.

And not for me the wondrous streets of gold
  Or crystal sea—­
I only know the brown earth, worn and old,
  Where sinners be.

Unless I found those who to me belong,
  My dear and own,
I, in the vastness of that shining throng,
  Would be alone.

God guide us to some sun-blessed little star,
  We ask not where,
Nor whether it be near or it be far,
  So Love is there.

SIR HENRY IRVING

   “Thou trumpet made for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!”

No more for thee the music and the lights,
  Thy magic may no more win smile nor frown;
For thee, 0 dear interpreter of dreams,
  The curtain hath rung down.

No more the sea of faces, turned to thine,
  Swayed by impassioned word and breathless pause;
No more the triumph of thine art—­no more
  The thunder of applause.

No more for thee the maddening, mystic bells,
  The haunting horror—­and the falling snow;
No more of Shylock’s fury, and no more
  The Prince of Denmark’s woe.

Not once again the fret of heart and soul,
  The loneliness and passion of King Lear;
No more bewilderment and broken words
  Of wild despair and fear.

And never wilt thou conjure from the past
  The dread and bitter field of Waterloo;
Thy trembling hands will never pluck again
  Its roses or its rue.

Thou art no longer player to the court;
  No longer red-robed cardinal or king;
To-day thou art thyself—­the Well-Beloved—­
  Bereft of crown and ring.

Thy feet have found the path that Shakespeare found,
  Life’s lonely exit of such far renown;
For thee, 0 dear interpreter of dreams,
  The curtain hath rung down.

   October, 1905.

JEAN DE BREBOEUF