J. E. B.

J. E. B.

  Not all the pageant of the setting sun
      Should yield the tired eyes of man delight,
      No sweet beguiling power had stars at night
      To soothe his fainting heart when day is done,
  Nor any secret voice of benison
      Might nature own, were not each sound and sight
      The sign and symbol of the infinite,
      The prophecy of things not yet begun.
  So had these lips, so early sealed with sleep,
      No fruitful word, life no power to move
      Our deeper reverence, did we not see
  How more than all he said, he was,—how, deep
      Below this broken life, he ever wove
      The finer substance of a life to be.