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To one who goes and leaves the other here.
To sever souls so bound by love and time,
For any one but God, would be a crime.

Yet death will entertain his own, I think.
To one who stays life gives the gall to drink;
To one who stays, or be it you, or me,
There waits the Garden of Gethsemane.
Oh, dark, inevitable, and awful day,

When one of us must go and one must stay!

E

SO MANY WAYS.

I.

ARTH has so many ways of being fair:

Its sweet young Spring, its Summer clothed

in light,

Its regal Autumn trailing into sight

As Summer wafts her last kiss on the air.
Bold virile Winter with the wind-blown hair
And the broad beauty of a world in white.
Mysterious dawn, high noon, and pensive night,
And over all God's great worlds watching there.
The voices of the birds at break of day;
The smell of young buds bursting on the tree;
The soft suggested promises of bliss,

Uttered by every subtle voice of May;

And the strange wonder of the mighty sea,
Lifting its cheek to take the full moon's kiss.

II.

Love has so many ways of being sweet.
The timorous rose-hued dawning of its reign
Before the senses waken; that dear pain
Of mingled doubt and certainty: the fleet
First moment when the clasped hands meet
In wordless eloquence; the loss and gain

When the strong billows from the deeper main Submerge the valleys of the incomplete.

The restless passion rising into peace;

The growing beauty of two paths that blend
Into one perfect way. The glorious faith
That feels no fear of life's expiring lease.
And that majestic victory at the end

When love, unconquered, triumphs over death.

THE PROTEST.

AID the great machine of iron and wood,

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"Lo, I am a creature meant for good."
But the criminal clutch of Godless greed
Has made me a monster that scatters need
And want and hunger wherever I go.

I would lift men's burdens and lighten their woe
I would give them leisure to laugh in the sun,
If owned by the Many-instead of the one.

If owned by the people, the whole wide earth
Should learn my purpose and know my worth.
I would close the chasm that yawns in our soil
'Twixt unearned riches and ill-paid toil.

No man should hunger, and no man labour

To fill the purse of an idle neighbour;

And each man should know when his work was done,
Were I shared by the Many-not owned by one.

I am forced by the few with their greed for gain,
To forge for the many new fetters of pain.
Yet this is my purpose, and ever will be
To set the slaves of the workshop free.
God hasten the day when, overjoyed
That desperate host of the unemployed
Shall hear my message and understand,
And hail me friend in an opulent land.

A

THE SNOWFLAKE.

LL sheltered by the mother-cloud
The little flake looked down;

It saw the city's seething crowd,

It saw the shining town.

"How fair and far those steeples rise

To greet us, mother dear!

It is so lovely in the skies,
Why do we linger here?

"The south wind says the merry earth Is full of life and glow;

I long to mingle with its mirth-
O mother! let us go."

The mother-cloud reached out her arm, "Oh, little flake," quoth she, "The earth is full of sin and harm, Bide here, bide here, with me."

But when the pale cloud-mother slept. The north wind whispered "Fly!" And from her couch the snowflake crept And tiptoed down the sky.

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