My grander duty lies afar
From haunts of the insane hussar,
Where charging horse and struggling foot
Are grimed alike with cannon-soot. 
When Loveliness and Valor meet
Beneath the trees to dance, and eat,
And sing, and much beside, behold
My golden glories all unfold! 
There formidably are displayed
The useful horrors of my blade
In time of feast and dance and ballad,
I am for cutting chicken salad.

A RETORT

As vicious women think all men are knaves,
And shrew-bound gentlemen discourse of slaves;
As reeling drunkards judge the world unsteady
And idlers swear employers ne’er get ready—­
Thieves that the constable stole all they had,
The mad that all except themselves are mad;
So, in another’s clear escutcheon shown,
Barnes rails at stains reflected from his own;
Prates of “docility,” nor feels the dark
Ring round his neck—­the Ralston collar mark. 
Back, man, to studies interrupted once,
Ere yet the rogue had merged into the dunce. 
Back, back to Yale! and, grown with years discreet,
The course a virgin’s lust cut short, complete. 
Go drink again at the Pierian pool,
And learn—­at least to better play the fool. 
No longer scorn the draught, although the font,
Unlike Pactolus, waters not Belmont.

A VISION OF RESURRECTION

I had a dream.  The habitable earth—­
Its continents and islands, all were bare
Of cities and of forests.  Naught remained
Of its old aspect, and I only knew
(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)
That this was earth and that all men were dead. 
On every side I saw the barren land,
Even to the distant sky’s inclosing blue,
Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the graves
Save one were open—­not as newly dug,
But rather as by some internal force
Riven for egress.  Tombs of stone were split
And wide agape, and in their iron decay
The massive mausoleums stood in halves. 
With mildewed linen all the ground was white. 
Discarded shrouds upon memorial stones
Hung without motion in the soulless air. 
While greatly marveling how this should be
I heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,
Low like an angel’s, delicately strong,
And sweet as music.

—­“Spirit,” it said, “behold
The burial place of universal Man! 
A million years have rolled away since here
His sheeted multitudes (save only some
Whose dark misdeeds required a separate
And individual arraignment) rose
To judgment at the trumpet’s summoning
And passed into the sky for their award,
Leaving behind these perishable things
Which yet, preserved by miracle, endure
Till all are up.  Then they and all of earth,
Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,
River and wilderness and sites of dead