If Fate, indeed, with fixed and stony face,
⁠Looked death on Aspiration's eager fire,
⁠Stilled the strained chords of Hope's ecstatic lyre,
And mutely mocked life's glory, power, and grace,
The soul, as stolid as its sphinx-faced doom,
With cold and patient scorn might pass into the gloom.

If like the brave fore-fated band whose breasts
⁠Court a beleaguered bastion's iron rain,
⁠Humanity's fleeting myriads not in vain
Might pave fair paths to conquest's hidden crests
"With their dead generations, there are those
Who'd calmly pass to earth dreaming of life's full rose.

But shall it ever flower? If, in sooth,
⁠From dust to dust in endless cycles sum
⁠The hope of all the ages, love is dumb,
And sacrifice may mourn its squandered ruth.
What food hath faith, whose farthest dreams descry
Ephemeral motes that crowd a dull infinity?

Life! and what life? The life that, like a spark,
⁠Quickens a moment deftly-moulded clay —
⁠Teaching it torture's thrill, some passing play
Of cheating rapture, quenched in hastening dark —
Is worthless as a marsh-fire, though it light
Eyes numberless as are the stars of winter's night.

What interest, though selfless as the love
⁠Of self-slain Deity, may live though all
⁠The eternal farce of life ephemeral,
With dreams beyond its destiny, hopes above
Its highest stretch, and pains unmotived, save
As prelude to that birth whose portal is — a grave?

What welfare is there worth a prayer, a pain,
⁠If rounded by the final ill of death?
⁠Or boots it e'en to breathe unburthened breath
Some bare brief days, then stoop to dust again?
To whom, or man or God, hath life such worth
That's but an interlude of dreams 'twixt earth and earth?

Soul-life hath no true glory save the crown
⁠Of immortality. If that's a dream,
⁠Face we our fate, scorn we illusion's gleam,
But shape not lies to dupe us while we drown.
Why mock the man-mime's hour of storm and stress
With ghosts of baseless love and barren selflessness?

All hope is fled, but through the night,
Forth from the temple's inmost height,
Streams up to heaven God's holy light.

Six weary months of toil and care,
One week of famine and despair,
And yet the wondrous sheen is there.

Before the dawn the warriors fly,
Ah! God of hosts, no help is nigh,
But still the flame leaps up on high.

With stealthy tread and muffled face,
Forth flit the last of David's race,
But God is in his holy place.

The wisest elders, sad and slow,
Depart as suppliants to the foe,
But still the heavenly flashes glow.

Then Judah's maidens pace along,
Her mothers lead the weeping throng,
And yet the blaze is bright and strong.

Now, gathering in the lonesome street,
The bands of famished children meet, —
List to the pattering of their feet.

The glory rises as a cloud,
And settling on the infant crowd
Enwraps them in a glistering shroud.

Dear love, thou art so far above my song,
⁠It is small wonder that it fears to rise,
⁠Knowing it cannot reach my Paradise;
Yet ever to dwell here my thoughts among,
Nor try its upward flight, would do thee wrong.
⁠What time the lark soars singing to the skies
⁠We know he falters, know the sweet song dies
That fain would reach Heaven's gate sustained and strong;
⁠But angels, bending from the shining brink,
Catch the faint note and know the poor song fails,
⁠Having no strength to reach their heavenly height.
So listen thou, beloved, and so think.
More for the earth than heaven his song avails,
⁠Yet sweetest heard when nearest to God's light.