Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/114

POEMS OF MANHATTAN XVII

But last the Poet, sorrowing, stood

Above the tiny clay, and said:

Whither so far away hast fled?

Full soon thou tryest that other sphere:

Whate'er is lacking in our lives

Thou dost attain; for Heaven is near,

Methinks, to pilgrims wandering here,

As to that one who never strives

With fortune,—has not come to know

The pride and pain that dwell so low

In valleys of Bohemia."

XVIII

He ceased, and pointed solemnly

Through western windows; and we saw

That lustrous castle of the sky

Gleam, touched with flame; and heard with awe,

About us, gentle whisperings

Of unseen watchers hovering near

Our dead, and rustling angel wings!

Now, whether this or that year brings

The valley's end, or, haply, here

Our pilgrimage for life must last,

We know not; but a sacred past

Has hallowed all Bohemia.

THE BALLAD OF LAGER BIER

fallow college days, Tom Harland,

We both have known the ways of Yale,

And talked of many a nigh and far land,

O'er many a famous tap of ale. 84