Erase the hour from out Thy calendar,
Turn back the hands upon the clock of Time,
Oh, Artificer of destroying War--

Their righteous hate who bore us in our crime!"
"Upon the children!"--'Tis the cold reply
Of Him who makes to those who must not die.






YET LIFE IS SWEET

Yet life is sweet. Thy soul hath breathed along,
Thine eyes have cast their glory on the earth,
Thy foot hath touched it, and thine hour of birth
Didst give a new pulse to the veins of song.

Better to stand amid the toppling towers
Of every valiant hope; a Samson's dream,
Than the deep indolence of Lethe's stream,
The loneliness of slow submerging hours.

Better, oh, better thus to see the wreck,
And to have rocked to motion of the spheres;
Better, oh, better to have trod the deck