Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/97

Rh In vain to question—save the heart of man,

The throbbing human heart, that still doth keep

Its truth, love, hope, its high and quenchless faith.

By day, by night, when all else faints in sleep,

"Naught is but Life," it cries; "there is no death;

Life, Life doth only live, since Life began."

THE FREED SPIRIT

UNDYING LIGHT

I

in the golden western summer skies

A flaming glory starts, and slowly fades

Through crimson tone on tone to deeper shades,

There falls a silence, while the daylight dies

Lingering—but not with human agonies

That tear the soul, or terror that degrades;

A holy peace the failing world pervades,

Nor any fear of that which onward lies.