J. E. B.

Not all the pageant of the setting sun

Should yield the tired eyes of man delight,

No sweet beguiling power had stars at night

To soothe his fainting heart when day is done,

Nor any secret voice of benison

Might nature own, were not each sound and sight

The sign and symbol of the infinite,

The prophecy of things not yet begun.

So had these lips, so early sealed with sleep,

No fruitful word, life no power to move

Our deeper reverence, did we not see

How more than all he said, he was,— how, deep

Below this broken life, he ever wove

The finer substance of a life to be.