—But lo, it was I who gave thee thy hair;
—And mark thee, thine eyes, were they some time not mine?
—With my lips thou the mind of a maid did'st ensnare.
—'Tis my youth within thee doth blossom and pine.
From us thou hast all that is much thy delight,
For thou art our fruit. With the past do not atrive,
Because upon tombs thy tapers burn bright,
We are not in the tomb,—we are in thee alive.
Each step that thou takest, beside thee we stay:
And behind thee, as true as thy shadow we throng.
While with space and with time thou art waging the fray,
Unnumbered to conquest we bear thee along.
2. THE GREATEST JOY.
Can there, O soul, a joy more wondrous be,
Than, when is drawing near the hour to die,
And with the jaws of boorish death hard by,
To tell the world : All have I given thee.
'Tis only cravens fear mortality.
But I am strong, nor have a bondsman's eye:
Nay, proud as monarch o'er his realms, this cry
My lips shall utter, when no more I see.
