Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/432

VARIOUS POEMS Torn are the bannerols, and dry

The silver fountains in its halls;

But the drear sea, with endless sigh,

Moans round and over the crumbled walls.

Let the winds blow! let the white surge

Ever among those ruins wail!

Its moaning is a welcome dirge

For wishes that could not avail.

Let the winds blow! a fiercer gale

Is wild within me! what may quell

That sullen tempest? I must sail

Whither, O whither, who can tell!

THE TEST

women loved him. When the wrinkled pall

Enwrapt him from their unfulfilled desire

(Death, pale, triumphant rival, conquering all,)

They came, for that last look, around his pyre.

One strewed white roses, on whose leaves were hung

Her tears, like dew; and in discreet attire

Warbled her tuneful sorrow. Next among

The group, a fair-haired virgin moved serenely,

Whose saintly heart no vain repinings wrung,

Reached the calm dust, and there, composed and queenly,

Gazed, but the missal trembled in her hand:

"That's with the past," she said, "nor may I meanly

Give way to tears!" and passed into the land.

The third hung feebly on the portals, moaning,

With whitened lips, and feet that stood in sand,

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