Mossy Marbles

Variations after Holmes

Marble lyrés mark

Where minor singers slumber,

[ 88 ]

And the glistering night weeps

On the willows above their graves;

But a wordless wind sweeps

Over the solid dark,

As over Sappho's waves

Of keen thinkers without number.

The weakling who has known

A small grief has his meekness.

They who can teach and show

Know words he never names

Who sweeps the sobbing bow,

Whom pity quickly claims.

" Pity the strong alone

Who seldom show their weakness,

Whose hearts break with no sign

But withered lips and tresses,

Who know, if sounding chord

To all their thought were given-

If they trod out the wine

Longed for, from memory's presses-

The dissonances poured

Would sour their own heaven.