Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/361

Rh Yet still with us his golden spirit stayed:

On the same page

That told his end, his living verse I read—

His lyric rage.

Behold! I thought, they call him cold in death,

But hither turn—

See where his soul, a glorious, flaming breath,

Doth pulse and burn!

This is the poet's triumph, his high doom!

After life's stress,

For him the silent, dark, o'er-shadowing tomb

Is shadowless.

And this the miracle, the mystery:

In that he gives

His soul away, magnificently free—

By this he lives.

JOHN HENRY BONER

"A WONDROUS SONG"

song,

Rank with sea smells and the keen lust of life;

Echoing with battle trumpets, and the moan

Of dying men in reeking hospitals;

Thrilling all through with human pity and love

And crying courage in the face of doom;—

With all its love of life still praising death