And ever the man he rides me hard,
    And never a night stays he;
  For I feel his curse as a haunted bough,
    On the trunk of a haunted tree.

WELTSCHMERTZ

  You ask why I am sad to-day,
  I have no cares, no griefs, you say? 
  Ah, yes, ’t is true, I have no grief—­
  But—­is there not the falling leaf?

  The bare tree there is mourning left
  With all of autumn’s gray bereft;
  It is not what has happened me,
  Think of the bare, dismantled tree.

  The birds go South along the sky,
  I hear their lingering, long good-bye. 
  Who goes reluctant from my breast? 
  And yet—­the lone and wind-swept nest.

  The mourning, pale-flowered hearse goes by,
  Why does a tear come to my eye? 
  Is it the March rain blowing wild? 
  I have no dead, I know no child.

  I am no widow by the bier
  Of him I held supremely dear. 
  I have not seen the choicest one
  Sink down as sinks the westering sun.

  Faith unto faith have I beheld,
  For me, few solemn notes have swelled;
  Love bekoned me out to the dawn,
  And happily I followed on.

  And yet my heart goes out to them
  Whose sorrow is their diadem;
  The falling leaf, the crying bird,
  The voice to be, all lost, unheard—­

  Not mine, not mine, and yet too much
  The thrilling power of human touch,
  While all the world looks on and scorns
  I wear another’s crown of thorns.

  Count me a priest who understands
  The glorious pain of nail-pierced hands;
  Count me a comrade of the thief
  Hot driven into late belief.

  Oh, mother’s tear, oh, father’s sigh,
  Oh, mourning sweetheart’s last good-bye,
  I yet have known no mourning save
  Beside some brother’s brother’s grave.

ROBERT GOULD SHAW

  Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
    Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
    Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footstep roves,
  And charge thee seek the turmoil of the state? 
  What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
    Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
    To lead th’ unlettered and despised droves
  To manhood’s home and thunder at the gate?

  Far better the slow blaze of Learning’s light,
    The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,
  Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight,
    This cold endurance of the final pain,—­
  Since thou and those who with thee died for right
    Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!

ROSES

  Oh, wind of the spring-time, oh, free wind of May,
    When blossoms and bird-song are rife;
  Oh, joy for the season, and joy for the day,
    That gave me the roses of life, of life,
    That gave me the roses of life.