death, or soldier's wound, of country's loss or
safety,
(O heaven! what flash and started endless train of
all!
compared indeed to that!
What wretched shred e'en at the best of all!)
1888 1888-9
AN EVENING LULL
AFTER a week of physical anguish,
Unrest and pain, and feverish heat,
Toward the ending day a calm and lull comes on,
Three hours of peace and soothing rest of brain.2
1888 1888-9
OLD AGE'S LAMBENT PEAKS
THE touch of flame
— the illuminating fire — the loftiest look
at last,
O'er city, passion, sea — o'er prairie,
mountain,
wood — the earth itself;
The airy, different, changing hues of all, in falling twilight,
Objects and
groups, bearings, faces, reminiscences;
The calmer sight — the golden setting, clear and
broad:
So much i' the atmosphere, the points of view,
the
situations whence we scan,
Bro't out by them alone — so much (perhaps the
best) unreck'd before;
The
lights indeed from them — old age's lambent
peaks.
1888 1889
AFTER THE SUPPER AND TALK
AFTER the supper and talk — after the day is done,
As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
Good-
bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
(So hard for his hand to release those hands — no
more will they meet,
No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and
young,
A far-stretching journey
awaits him, to return no more,)
Shunning, postponing severance — seeking to ward
off the last word
ever so little,
E'en at the exit-door turning — charges superfluous
calling back — e'en as he descends
the steps,
Something to eke out a minute additional —
shadows of nightfall deepening,
Farewells, messages
lessening — dimmer the
forthgoer's visage and form,
Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness — loth,
O
so loth to depart!
Garrulous to the very last.
1887 1888-9