ts August nights and April noons;
The garnered fervors of forgotten Junes
Flare forth again and waste away;
And in the sap that leaps and sings
We hear again the chant the cricket flings
Across the hawthorn-scented dusks of May.

REALITIES

REALITIES

WE are deceived by the shadow, we see not the
substance of things.
For the hills are less solid than thought; and
deeds are but vapors; and flesh
Is a mist thrown off and resumed by the soul, as
a world by a god.
Back of the transient appearance dwells in
ineffable calm
The utter reality, ultimate truth; this seems and
that is.

THE STRUGGLE

I HAVE been down in a dark valley;
I have been groping through a deep gorge;
Far above, the lips of it were rimmed with moonlight,
And here and there the light lay on the dripping
rocks
So that it seemed they dripped with moonlight,
not with water;
So deep it was, that narrow gash among the hills,
That those great pines which fringed its edge
Seemed to me no larger than upthrust fingers
Silhouetted against the sky;
And at its top the vale was strait,
And the rays were slant
And reached but part way down the sides;
I could not see the moon itself;
I walked through darkness, and the valley's edge
Seemed almost level with the stars,
The stars that were like fireflies in the little trees.

It was the midnight of defeat;
I felt that I had failed;
I was mocked of the gods;
There was no way out of that gorge;
The paths led no whither
And I could not remember their beginnings;
I was doomed to wander evermore,
Thirsty, with the sound of mocking waters in
mine ears,
Groping, with gleams of useless light
Splashed in ironic beauty on the rocks above.
And so I whined.

And then despair flashed into rage;
I leapt erect, and cried:
_"Could I but grasp my life as sculptors grasp the clay
And knead and thrust it into shape again!--
If all the scorn of Heaven were but thrown
Into the focus of some creature I could clutch!--
If something tangible were but vouchsafed me
By the cold, far gods!--
If they but sent a Reason for the failure of my life
I'd answer it;
If they but sent a Fiend, I'd conquer it!--_

_But I reach out, and grasp the air,
I rage, and the brute rock echoes my words in
mockery--
How can one fight the sliding moonlight on