Nay, why should I fear Death, Who gives us life, and in exchange takes breath?
He is like cordial Spring That lifts above the soil each buried thing;
Like autumn, kind and brief— The frost that chills the branches frees the leaf;
Like winter’s stormy hours That spread their fleece of snow to save the flowers.
The lordliest of all things, Life lends us only feet, Death gives us wings.
Fearing no covert thrust, Let me walk onward, armed in valiant trust;
Dreading no unseen knife, Across Death’s threshold step from life to life!
O all ye frightened folk, Whether ye wear a crown or bear a yoke,
Laid in one equal bed, When once your coverlet of grass is spread,
What daybreak need you fear?— The Love will rule you there that guides you here!
Where Life, the sower, stands, Scattering the ages from his swinging hands,
Thou waitest, Reaper lone, Until the multitudinous grain hath grown.
Scythe-bearer, when Thy blade Harvests my flesh, let me be unafraid.
God’s husbandman thou art, In His unwithering sheaves, O bind my heart!
Mr. Knowles’ work is virile, earnest, individual, free from affectation or imitation; modern in spirit, recognizing the significance of to-day, and its part in the finer realization of to-morrow; sympathetic in feeling, and spiritual in vision. Its limitations are such as may be trusted to time, being chiefly incident to the earnestness noted above, which now and again borders on didacticism. Excess of conviction is, however, a safer equipment for art than a philosophy already parting with its enthusiasms by the tempering of life, being more likely to undergo the shaping of experience without losing the vital part.
MISS ALICE BROWN has published but one volume of verse; but we live in feelings, not in titles on a cover, and it is possible to prove oneself a poet in one volume of verse, or in one poem thereof. When Miss Brown some years ago paid this tribute at the toll-gate of song by a small volume entitled _The Road to Castaly_, it created no inconsiderable comment among lovers of poetry, and there were not wanting those who saw in it as definite gifts as Miss Brown possesses in fiction; but despite the generous recognition which the collection won, she has not seen fit to follow it with others, and with the exception of occasional poems in the magazines, it remains the sole representation of this phase of her work. Yet within a range of seventy pages she has gathered a stronger group of poems than might be winnowed from several collections of some of those who cultivate verse more assiduously. Nor is this to declare that from cover to cover of her volume the inspired touch is everywhere manifest; doubtless the seventy pages would have gained in strength by compression to fifty. It is, however, to declare that within this compass there is a true accomplishment, at which we shall look briefly.