Across the plain of Time
I saw them marching all night long,--
The endless throng
Of all who ever dared to fight with wrong.
All the blood of their hearts, the prime
And crown of their fleeting years,
All the toil of their hands, the tears
Of their eyes, the thought of their brain,
For a word from the lips of Truth,
For a glimpse of the scroll of Fate,
Ere love and youth
Were spent in vain,
And even truth too late!
Oh, when the Silence speaks, and the scroll
Unrolls to the eye of the soul,
What will it be that shall pay the cost
Of the pain gone waste and the labor lost!
And then, Dear, waking, I saw you---
And knew.


XVIII

We thought when Love at last should come,
The rose would lose its thorn,
And every lip but Joy's be dumb
When Love, sweet Love, was born;
That never tears should start to rise,
No night o'ertake our morn,