See where the auras from the olden fountain
        Starward aspire;
The sacred sign upon the holy mountain
        Shines in white fire: 
Waving and flaming yonder o’er the snows
        The diamond light
Melts into silver or to sapphire glows
        Night beyond night;
And from the heaven of heavens descends on earth
        A dew divine. 
Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth
        Around the shrine! 
Enchantress, mighty mother, to our home
        In thee we press,
Thrilled by the fiery breath and wrapt in some
        Vast tenderness
The homeward birds uncertain o’er their nest
        Wheel in the dome,
Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest,
        Wheel in the dome,
But gather ye to whose undarkened eyes
        The night is day: 
Leap forth, Immortals, Birds of Paradise,
        In bright array
Robed like the shining tresses of the sun;
        And by his name
Call from his haunt divine the ancient one
        Our Father Flame. 
Aye, from the wonder-light that wraps the star,
        Come now, come now;
Sun-breathing Dragon, ray thy lights afar,
        Thy children bow;
Hush with more awe the breath; the bright-browed races
        Are nothing worth
By those dread gods from out whose awful faces
        The earth looks forth
Infinite pity, set in calm; their vision cast
        Adown the years
Beholds how beauty burns away at last
        Their children’s tears. 
Now while our hearts the ancient quietness
        Floods with its tide,
The things of air and fire and height no less
        In it abide;
And from their wanderings over sea and shore
        They rise as one
Unto the vastness and with us adore
        The midnight sun;
And enter the innumerable All,
        And shine like gold,
And starlike gleam in the immortals’ hall,
        The heavenly fold,
And drink the sun-breaths from the mother’s lips
        Awhile—­and then
Fail from the light and drop in dark eclipse
        To earth again,
Roaming along by heaven-hid promontory
        And valley dim. 
Weaving a phantom image of the glory
        They knew in Him. 
Out of the fulness flow the winds, their son
        Is heard no more,
Or hardly breathes a mystic sound along
        The dreamy shore: 
Blindly they move unknowing as in trance,
        Their wandering
Is half with us, and half an inner dance
        Led by the King.

—­January 15, 1896

W. Q. J. *

O hero of the iron age,
Upon thy grave we will not weep,
Nor yet consume away in rage
For thee and thy untimely sleep. 
Our hearts a burning silence keep.

O martyr, in these iron days
One fate was sure for soul like thine: 
Well you foreknew but went your ways. 
The crucifixion is the sign,
The meed of all the kingly line.