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VEN the
bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their
surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on
earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the
sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find
that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to
dare.
The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light for ever is
morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angel hosts with freshness go,
And seek with
laughter what to brave;--
And binding all is the
hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.
And
from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the
souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The
obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits
trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion
of what dreams!
And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some
good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a
white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to
witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which
God makes his especial care.
And none are taken but
who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow
of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And
tenderly, life's little dream,
But naught extenuates
or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.
Nor is
there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand
simply forth,
Heroic in its nakedness,
Against the
uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth's unhonored
things
Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout
greets the daring one.
But always God speaks at the
end:
'One thought in agony of strife
The bravest
would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose
the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits
no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.'
And so the
choice must be again,
But the last choice is still
the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a
hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a
flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter
till death come.
'Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting
memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the
wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are
we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but
one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.
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