For its calm hath fled, and countless dead
Are the spoils it loves to heap.

But at its best, when it lies at rest
On a cloudless summer day,
And, tiger-like, forbears to strike,
But, sated, basks at play,
One seems to hear, with the psychic ear,
Its murmuring wavelets say,--

"No real relief from care and grief
Is found o'er distant waves;
The men who sail to find it, fail,
And sink to lonely graves;
In the firm control of man's own soul
Is alone the peace he craves."




OLD HYMN-TUNES

Dear, old-time tunes of prayer and praise,
Heard first beside my mother's knee,
Your music on my spirit lays
A spell from which I should be free,
If lapse of time gave liberty.

I listen, and the crowded years
Fade, dream-like, from my life, and lo!