Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 13.djvu/744

 738 Under the Cliff. [June, Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest, Himself the undefeated that shall be ! Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test, His triumph in eternity Too plainly manifest .' Whence judge if he learn forthwith what the wind Means in its moaning, by the happy, prompt, Instinctive way of youth, I mean, for kind Calm years, exacting their accompt Of pain, mature the mind : And some midsummer morning, at the lull Just about daybreak, as he looks across A sparkling foreign country, wonderful To the sea's edge for gloom and gloss Next minute must annul, Then, when the wind begins among the vines, So low, so low, what shall it mean but this ? " Here is the change beginning, here the lines Circumscribe beauty, set to bliss The limit time assigns." Nothing can be as it has been before ; Better, so call it, only not the same. To draw one beauty into our hearts' core, And keep it changeless ! such our claim ; So answered, Never more ! Simple ? Why, this is the old woe o' the world, Tune to whose rise and fall we live and die. Rise through it, then ! Rejoice that man is hurled From change to change unceasingly, His soul's wings never furled ! That 's a new question ; still remains the fact, Nothing endures: the wind moans, saying so ; We moan in acquiescence : there 's life's pact, Perhaps probation, do / know ? God does : endure His act ! Only, for man, how bitter not to grave On his soul's hands' palms one fair, good, wise thing Just as he grasped it ! For himself, death's wave ; While time first washes ah, the sting ! O'er all he 'd sink to save.