• A boy,—I said
• Bearing the vase of life above my head:
• “Lay me upon the hill whose top
• Gazes above the city's dim turmoil,
• That I may look on these I love,
• And some that climb may hold discourse with me.”

• A Man,—I say:
• “Hide me within some valley, shy, afar,
• That none may see the grave of one
• 10Who, with the strong right arm, declined the war,
• Let slip the vase before his feet,
• And sank, a weed, scorn of the garden-ground.”

• I am: I was:—
• Which now belongs to me—Being, or Been?
• The silence & the shadows stretched afar,
• Because the sun is low? or darkness brief
• A little cloud before the noon?

F. G. S.    

• Oh! weary falls the lapsing time:
• Oh! weary comes the waking day:
• Ah! sadly swerve the shadows round
• By tall trees thrown & grassy mound.

• Most sadly falls this life on me,
• With noble purpose unwrought out:
• The steeled soul rusteth thro' the day;—
• My life it flitteth fast away.

• Like shadows thrown from haughty trees,
• 10My soul its purpose spreadeth out,—
• And turns & wavers, left to right:
• Will the meeting shadows ne'er make night?

F. G. S.