Epilogue

Irene.

Not this way will you set your name

A star among the stars.

Poet.

What way?

Irene.

You praise when you should blame

The barbarism of wars.

A juster epoch has begun.

Poet.

Yet tho' this cheek be gray,

And that bright hair the modern sun,

Those eyes the blue to-day,

You wrong me, passionate little friend.

I would that wars should cease,

I would the globe from end to end

Might sow and reap in peace,

And some new Spirit o'erbear the old,

Or Trade re-frain the Powers

From war with kindly links of gold,

Or Love with wreaths of flowers.

Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all

My friends and brother souls,

With all the peoples, great and small,

That wheel between the poles.

But since our mortal shadow, Ill,

To waste this earth began—

Perchance from some abuse of Will

In worlds before the man

Involving ours—he needs must fight

To make true peace his own,

He needs must combat might with might,

Or Might would rule alone;

And who loves War for War's own sake

Is fool, or crazed, or worse;

But let the patriot-soldier take

His meed of fame in verse;

Nay—tho' that realm were in the wrong

For which her warriors bleed,

It still were right to crown with song

The warrior's noble deed—

A crown the Singer hopes may last,

For so the deed endures;

But Song will vanish in the Vast;

And that large phrase of yours

'A Star among the stars,' my dear,

Is girlish talk at best;

For dare we dally with the sphere

As he did half in jest,

Old Horace? 'I will strike' said he

'The stars with head sublime,'

But scarce could see, as now we see,

The man in Space and Time,

So drew perchance a happier lot

Than ours, who rhyme to-day.

The fires that arch this dusky dot—

Yon myriad-worlded way—

The vast sun-clusters' gather'd blaze,

World-isles in lonely skies,

Whole heavens within themselves, amaze

Our brief humanities;

And so does Earth; for Homer's fame,

Tho' carved in harder stone—

The falling drop will make his name

As mortal as my own.

Irene.

No!

Poet.

Let it live then—ay, till when?

Earth passes, all is lost

In what they prophesy, our wise men,

Sun-flame or sunless frost,

And deed and song alike are swept

Away, and all in vain

As far as man can see, except

The man himself remain;

And tho', in this lean age forlorn,

Too many a voice may cry

That man can have no after-morn,

Not yet of these am I.

The man remains, and whatsoe'er

He wrought of good or brave

Will mould him thro' the cycle-year

That dawns behind the grave.

And here the Singer for his Art

Not all in vain may plead

The song that nerves a nation's heart,

Is in itself a deed.'