Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/22

 In spite of all fine science disavows, Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill There yet remains what fashion cannot kill, Though years have thinned the laurel from his brows.

Whether or not we read him, we can feel From time to time the vigor of his name Against us like a finger for the shame And emptiness of what our souls reveal In books that are as altars where we kneel To consecrate the flicker, not the flame.

SONNET , for a poet—for a beacon bright To rift this changeless glimmer of dead gray: To spirit back the Muses, long astray, And flush Parnassus with a newer light: To put these little sonnet-men to flight Who fashion, in a shrewd mechanic way, Songs without souls that flicker for a day To vanish in irrevocable night.

What does it mean, this barren age of ours? Here are the men, the women, and the flowers,— The seasons, and the sunset, as before. What does it mean?—Shall not one bard arise To wrench one banner from the western skies, And mark it with his name for evermore?

THE ALTAR , remote, nor witting where I went, I found an altar builded in a dream— A fiery place, whereof there was a gleam So swift, so searching, and so eloquent Of upward promise that love's murmur, blent With sorrow's warning, gave but a supreme Unending impulse to that human stream Whose flood was all for the flame's fury bent.