I Should Not Dare To

For 'tis Not In Mere Death That Men Die Most.

When We First Met And Loved, I Did Not Build Upon The Event With Marble. . . .

She Lived, We'll Say, A Harmless Life, She Called A Virtuous Life, A Quiet Life, Which Was Not Life At All (but That She Had Not Lived Enough To Know)

I Have Done Most Of My Talking By Post Of Late Years--as People Shut Up In Dungeons Take Up With Scrawling Mottoes On The Walls.

The Holy Night We Sate Among The Stalls At Bethlehem; The Dumb Kine From Their Fodder Turning Them, Softened Their Horned Faces To Almost Human Gazes Toward The Newly Born: The Simple Shepherds From The Star-lit Brooks Brought Visionary Looks, As Yet In Their Astonied Hearing Rung The Strange Sweet Angel-tongue: The Magi Of The East, In Sandals Worn, Knelt Reverent, Sweeping Round, With Long Pale Beards, Their Gifts Upon The Ground, The Incense, Myrrh, And Gold These Baby Hands Were Impotent To Hold: So Let All Earthlies And Celestials Wait Upon Thy Royal State. Sleep, Sleep, My Kingly One!