POEMS OF OCCASION
Why Death, with downward torch aflame,
Had searched our number till he found him?
Why passed the one who poorly knows
That blithesome spell for either fortune,
Or mocked with lingering menace those
Whose pains the final thrust importune;
Or left the toiling ones who bear
The crowd's neglect, the want that presses,
The woes no human soul can share,
Nor look, nor spoken word, confesses.
And from the earth no answer came,
The forest wore a stillness deeper,
The sky and lake smiled on the same,
And voiceless as the silent sleeper.
And so we turned ourselves away,
By earth and air and water chidden,
And left him with them, where he lay,
A sharer of their secret hidden.
And each the staff and shell again
Took up, and marched with memories haunted;
But henceforth, in our pilgrim-strain,
We'll miss a voice that sweetly chaunted!
THE DEATH OF BRYANT
How was it then with Nature when the soul
Of her own poet heard a voice which came
From out the void, "Thou art no longer lent
To Earth!" when that incarnate spirit, blent
With the abiding force of waves that roll,
Wind-cradled vapors, circling stars that flame,
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