Within The Gate

L. M. C.     We sat together, last May-day, and talked     Of the dear friends who walked     Beside us, sharers of the hopes and fears     Of five and forty years,     Since first we met in Freedom's hope forlorn,     And heard her battle-horn     Sound through the valleys of the sleeping North,     Calling her children forth,     And youth pressed forward with hope-lighted eyes,     And age, with forecast wise     Of the long strife before the triumph won,     Girded his armor on.     Sadly, ass name by name we called the roll,     We heard the dead-bells toll     For the unanswering many, and we knew     The living were the few.     And we, who waited our own call before     The inevitable door,     Listened and looked, as all have done, to win     Some token from within.     No sign we saw, we heard no voices call;     The impenetrable wall     Cast down its shadow, like an awful doubt,     On all who sat without.     Of many a hint of life beyond the veil,     And many a ghostly tale     Wherewith the ages spanned the gulf between     The seen and the unseen,     Seeking from omen, trance, and dream to gain     Solace to doubtful pain,     And touch, with groping hands, the garment hem     Of truth sufficing them,     We talked; and, turning from the sore unrest     Of an all-baffling quest,     We thought of holy lives that from us passed     Hopeful unto the last,     As if they saw beyond the river of death,     Like Him of Nazareth,     The many mansions of the Eternal days     Lift up their gates of praise.     And, hushed to silence by a reverent awe,     Methought, O friend, I saw     In thy true life of word, and work, and thought     The proof of all we sought.     Did we not witness in the life of thee     Immortal prophecy?     And feel, when with thee, that thy footsteps trod     An everlasting road?     Not for brief days thy generous sympathies,     Thy scorn of selfish ease;     Not for the poor prize of an earthly goal     Thy strong uplift of soul.     Than thine was never turned a fonder heart     To nature and to art     In fair-formed Hellas in her golden prime,     Thy Philothea's time.     Yet, loving beauty, thou couldst pass it by,     And for the poor deny     Thyself, and see thy fresh, sweet flower of fame     Wither in blight and blame.     Sharing His love who holds in His embrace     The lowliest of our race,     Sure the Divine economy must be     Conservative of thee!     For truth must live with truth, self-sacrifice     Seek out its great allies;     Good must find good by gravitation sure,     And love with love endure.     And so, since thou hast passed within the gate     Whereby awhile I wait,     I give blind grief and blinder sense the lie     Thou hast not lived to die!