"Oh, Zoroaster, my beloved, my beloved! Say not any more that I am unfaithful, for I have been faithful even unto death, and I shall be with you beyond the stars for ever!"
"Beyond the stars and for ever!" he cried; "in the light of the glory of God most high!"
The keen sword flashed and severed Nehushta's neck and found its sheath in her lover's heart; and they fell down dead together.
Our father's God! from out whose hand The centuries fall like grains of sand, We meet to-day, united, free And loyal to our land and Thee, To thank Thee for the era done, And trust Thee for the opening one.
Here where of old, by Thy design, The fathers spake that word of Thine Whose echo is the glad refrain Of rended bolt and falling chain, To grace our festal time, from all The zones of earth, our guests we call.
Be with us while the New World greets The Old World thronging all its streets Unveiling all the triumphs won By art or toil beneath the sun; And unto common good ordain This rivalship of hand and brain.
Thou, who hast here in concord furled The war flags of a gathered world, Beneath the Western skies fulfill The Orient's mission of good-will, And, freighted with love's Golden Fleece, Send back its Argonauts of peace.
For art and labor met in truce, For beauty made the bride of use, We thank Thee; but, withal, we crave The austere virtues strong to save, The honor proof to place or gold, The manhood never bought nor sold!
Oh, make Thou us, through centuries long, In peace secure, in justice strong; Around our gift of freedom draw The safeguards of Thy righteous law; And, cast in some diviner mold, Let the new cycle shame the old!
[21] By permission of, and special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., authorized publishers of this author's works.
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,-- The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings, In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; Wrecked is the ship of pearl! And every chambered cell, Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, Before thee lies revealed,-- Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!