Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair
Hear the dull summons and gather there: 
No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail,
Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale;
No knight whispers love in the chatelaine’s ear,
His next-door neighbor this five-hundred year;
No monk has a sleek benedicite
For the great lord shadowy now as he; 50
Nor needeth any to hold his breath,
Lest he lose the least word of Doctor Death.

He chooses his text in the Book Divine,
Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine: 
’"Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do,
That do with thy whole might, or thou shalt rue;
For no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave,
In that quencher of might-be’s and would-be’s, the grave.” 
Bid by the Bridegroom, “To-morrow,” ye said,
And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; 60
Ye said, “God can wait; let us finish our wine;”
Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!’

But I can’t pretend to give you the sermon,
Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German;
Whatever he preached in, I give you my word
The meaning was easy to all that heard;
Famous preachers there have been and be,
But never was one so convincing as he;
So blunt was never a begging friar,
No Jesuit’s tongue so barbed with fire, 70
Cameronian never, nor Methodist,
Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist.

And would you know who his hearers must be? 
I tell you just what my guide told me: 
Excellent teaching men have, day and night,
From two earnest friars, a black and a white,
The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life;
And between these two there is never strife,
For each has his separate office and station,
And each his own work in the congregation; 80
Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears,
And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears,
Awake In his coffin must wait and wait,
In that blackness of darkness that means too late,
And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls,
As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls,
To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine
Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine.

ARCADIA REDIVIVA

I, walking the familiar street,
  While a crammed horse-car jingled through it,
Was lifted from my prosy feet
  And in Arcadia ere I knew it.

Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread,
  And shepherd’s pipes my ear delighted;
The riddle may be lightly read: 
  I met two lovers newly plighted.

They murmured by in happy care,
  New plans for paradise devising, 10
Just as the moon, with pensive stare,
  O’er Mistress Craigie’s pines was rising.

Astarte, known nigh threescore years,
  Me to no speechless rapture urges;
Them in Elysium she enspheres,
  Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges.