thy sin.

I saw thee fleeing from the cruel light
Of thine own fame; I saw thee hide thy face
In alien dust to cover up the blight
Upon thy brow that time may yet erase.

I knew thy creed, although thy lips were mute;
I knew the gods thou didst not dare to own;
I knew the Upas poison at the root
Of thy last flower of song, in prison blown.

And out of all thy woe there came to me
This miracle of dogma, like a cry:
"No law but freedom for the vagrant bee--
No love but summer for the butterfly."

SILENCE.

I am the word that lovers leave unsaid,
The eloquence of ardent lips grown mute,
The mourning mother's heart-cry for her dead,
The flower of faith that grows to unseen fruit.

I am the speech of prophets when their eyes
Behold some splendid vision of the soul;
The song of morning stars, the hills' replies,
The far call of the immaterial pole.

And, since I must be mateless, I shall win
One boon beyond the meed of common clay:
My life shall end where other lives begin,
And live when other lives have passed away.

COLUMBUS' LAST VOYAGE.

(Written on the exhumation and reburial in Spain of the bones of
Christopher Columbus.)

Once more upon the ocean's heaving breast
He lays his head, not like the lover bold
Who in the brave, chivalric days of old
Wooed from her lips the secret of the West,
But like a tired man going to his rest,
No hopes to thrill, no yearnings to inspire,
No tasks to burden, and no toil to tire,
No morn to waken to a day of quest.
Again upon the trackless deep,--again
About him as of yore the wild winds play;
Behind him lies the world he gave to men,
Before a grave in old Castile for aye:
Peace, winds and tides! Be calm, thou guardian sky,--
The lordliest dust of earth is passing by!

ATONEMENT.

You were a red rose then, I know,
Red as her wine--yea, redder still,--
Say rather her blood; and ages ago
(You know how destiny hath its will)
I placed you deep in her gorgeous hair,
And left you to wither there.

Wine and blood and a red, red rose,--
Feast and song and a long, long sleep;--
And which of us dreamed at the drama's close
That the unforgetful years would keep
Our sin and their vengeance laid away
As a g