’He offered vengeance, lifelong grief
To one dear ghost, uncounted price:
Beasts, Trojans, adverse gods, himself,
Heaped up the sacrifice.
’Self-immolated to his friend,
Shrined in world’s wonder, Homer’s
page,
Is this the man, the less than men,
Of this degenerate age?’
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’Gross from his acorns, tusky boar
Does memorable acts like his;
So for her snared offended young
Bleeds the swart lioness.’
But here she paused; our eyes had met,
And I was whitening with the jeer;
She rose: ‘I went too far,’ she said;
Spoke low: ’Forgive
me, dear.
’To me our days seem pleasant days,
Our home a haven of pure content;
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Forgive me if I said too much,
So much more than I meant.
‘Homer, tho’ greater than his gods,
With rough-hewn virtues was sufficed
And rough-hewn men: but what are such
To us who learn of Christ?’
The much-moved pathos of her voice,
Her almost tearful eyes, her cheek
Grown pale, confessed the strength of love
Which only made her speak:
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For mild she was, of few soft words,
Most gentle, easy to be led,
Content to listen when I spoke
And reverence what I said;
I elder sister by six years;
Not half so glad, or wise, or good:
Her words rebuked my secret self
And shamed me where I stood.
She never guessed her words reproved
A silent envy nursed within,
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A selfish, souring discontent
Pride-born, the devil’s
sin.
I smiled, half bitter, half in jest:
’The wisest man of all the wise
Left for his summary of life
“Vanity of vanities.”
’Beneath the sun there’s nothing new:
Men flow, men ebb, mankind flows on:
If I am wearied of my life,
Why so was Solomon.
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’Vanity of vanities he preached
Of all he found, of all he sought:
Vanity of vanities, the gist
Of all the words he taught.
’This in the wisdom of the world,
In Homer’s page, in all, we find:
As the sea is not filled, so yearns
Man’s universal mind.
’This Homer felt, who gave his men
With glory but a transient state:
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His very Jove could not reverse
Irrevocable fate.
’Uncertain all their lot save this—
Who wins must lose, who lives must die:
All trodden out into the dark
Alike, all vanity.’
She scarcely answered when I paused,
But rather to herself said: ’One
Is here,’ low-voiced and loving, ’Yea,
Greater than Solomon.’
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So both were silent, she and I:
She laid her work aside, and went
Into the garden-walks, like spring,
All gracious with content,