the difficulty of mastering a foreign tongue, the liquid character of our poet's English will come as a surprise. And as a testimony of what the Russian immigrant who so often appears before our eyes, visually and mentally, as a beggar clothed in rags, neither a farmer nor a laborer, poor in muscle but big in brain, can achieve. These verses and others that will be published in THE MACCABÆAN may well stand as a tribute.
THE PHANTOM OF DEATH.
But meager comfort will afford To me thy philosophic lore, The reasoning mind believes each word, But still the aching heart is sore. You tried a soothing balm to give, By telling me that “nothing dies,” But what is life, when I don’t live, What matters light to glassy eyes? And can I ever self forsake, My inmost consciousness disown? And in Creation’s shoreless lake, . My own minute existence drown? My soul is but a helpless thing That cowers ’neath the gaze of Death, And like the drowning man will cling To waning life with lingering breath.
AT QUARANTINE.
The night is cold; through grayish cloudsThe stars are sadly peeping;The sea-wind howls and sends the wavesIn foaming anger leaping.There, far from shore or bay removed,Where waves are wildest flocking,With yellow flag and ghastly lights,A lonely ship is rocking.No living voice on deck is heardThe baleful silence breaking,Her smokeless funnels, spectre-like,Their mournful heads are shaking.She has on board the angel grimOf dire disease, commanding,A stricken ship at quarantine—An outcast kept from landing.