But not that I betrayed a trust;

Broke some girl's heart, and left her to her shame; Sneered young souls out of faith; rose by deceit ; Lifted by credulous mobs to wealth and fame; Waxed fat while good men waned, by lie and cheat; Cringed to the strong; oppressed the poor and weak : When men say this, may some find voice to speak, Though I am dust.

LOVE'S SUICIDE.

ALAS for me for that my love is dead!

Sunk fathom-deep, and may not rise again; Self-murdered, vanished, fled beyond recall, And this is all my pain.

'Tis not that she I loved is

gone

from me,

She lives and grows more lovely day by day;

Not Death could kill my love, but though she lives,

My love has died away.

Nor was it that a form or face more fair

Forswore my troth, for so my love had proved Eye-deep alone, not rooted in the soul;

And 'twas not thus I loved.

Nor that by too long dalliance with delight
And recompense of love, my love had grown
Surfeit with sweets, like some tired bee that flags
'Mid roses over-blown.

None of these slew my love, but some cold wind,

Some chill of doubt, some shadowy dissidence. Born out of too great concord, did o'ercloud Love's subtle inner sense.

So one sweet changeless chord, too long sustained,
Falls at its close into a lower tone:

So the swift train, sped on the long, straight way,
Sways, and is overthrown.

For difference is the soul of life and love,

And not the barren oneness weak souls prize : Rest springs from strife, and dissonant chords beget Divinest harmonies.

THE RIVER OF LIFE.

BRIGHT with unnumbered laughters, and swollen by a thousand tears,

Rushes along, through upland and lowland, the river of

life;

Sometimes foaming and broken, and sometimes silent and slumbrous,

Sometimes through rocky glens, and sometimes through flowery plains.

Sometimes the mountains draw near, and the black depths swirl at their bases,

Sometimes the limitless meads fade on the verge of the

sky,

Sometimes the forests stand round, and the great trees cast terrible shadows,

Sometimes the golden wheat waves, and girls fill their pitchers and sing.

Always the same strange flow, through changes and chances unchanging,

Always-in youth and in age, in calm and in tempest the same

Whether it sparkle transparent and give back the blue

like a mirror,

Or sweep on turbid with flood, and black with the garbage of towns

Whether the silvery scale of the minnow flash on the pebbles,

Or whether the poisonous ooze cling for a shroud round the dead

Whether it struggle through shoals of white blooms and feathery grasses,

Or bear on its bosom the hulls of ocean-tost navies-the

same.

Flow on, O mystical river, flow on through desert and

city;

Broken or smooth, flow onward into the Infinite sea.

Who knows what urges thee on, what dark laws and cosmical forces

Stain thee or keep thee pure, and bring thee at last to thy

goal?

What is the cause of thy rest or unrest, of thy foulness or pureness?

What is the secret of life, or the painful riddle of death?

Why is it better to be than to cease, to flow on than to

stagnate?

Why is the river-stream sweet, while the sea is as bitter as gall?

Surely we know not at all, but the cycle of Being is

eternal,

Life is eternal as death, tears are eternal as joy.

As the stream flowed, it will flow; though 'tis sweet, yet the sea will be bitter :

Foul it with filth, yet the deltas grow green and the ocean is clear.

Always the sun and the winds will strike its broad surface

and gather

Some purer drops from its depths, to float in the clouds of the sky;

Soon these shall fall once again, and replenish the fullflowing river.

Roll round then, O mystical cycle! flow onward, ineffable

stream!