Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/188

POEMS OF OCCASION When the veil from the eyes is lifted

The seer's head is gray;

When the sailor to shore has drifted

The sirens are far away.

Why must the clearer vision,

The wisdom of Life's late hour,

Come, as in Fate's derision,

When the hand has lost its power?

Is there a rarer being,

Is there a fairer sphere

Where the strong are not unseeing,

And the harvests are not sere;

Where, ere the season's dwindle

They yield their due return;

Where the lamps of knowledge kindle

While the flames of youth still burn?

O for the young man's chances!

O for the old man's will!

Those flee while this advances,

And the strong years cheat us still.

VII

WHAT CHEER?

there naught else?—you say,—

No braver prospect far away?

No gladder song, no ringing call

Beyond the misty mountain-wall?

And were it thus indeed, I know

Your hearts would still with courage glow;

I know how yon historic stream

Is laden yet, as in the past,

With dreamful longings on it cast,

By those who saunter from the crown

Of this broad slope, their reverend Academe,—

Who reach the meadowed banks, and lay them down

On the green sward, and set their faces south, 158