There will be other towers for thee to build;
  There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends, and all filled
  With greater marvels and more glorified.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
  Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listen to voices in the upper air,
  Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.

CHANGED

From the outskirts of the town
  Where of old the mile-stone stood.
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
  Of the dark and haunted wood.

Is it changed, or am I changed?
  Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
  By the years that intervene.

Bright as ever flows the sea,
  Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
  Not the tides that used to run.

THE CHALLENGE

I have a vague remembrance
  Of a story, that is told
In some ancient Spanish legend
  Or chronicle of old.

It was when brave King Sanchez
  Was before Zamora slain,
And his great besieging army
  Lay encamped upon the plain.

Don Diego de Ordonez
  Sallied forth in front of all,
And shouted loud his challenge
  To the warders on the wall.

All the people of Zamora,
  Both the born and the unborn,
As traitors did he challenge
  With taunting words of scorn.

The living, in their houses,
  And in their graves, the dead!
And the waters of their rivers,
  And their wine, and oil, and bread!

There is a greater army,
  That besets us round with strife,
A starving, numberless army,
  At all the gates of life.

The poverty-stricken millions
  Who challenge our wine and bread,
And impeach us all as traitors,
  Both the living and the dead.

And whenever I sit at the banquet,
  Where the feast and song are high,
Amid the mirth and the music
  I can hear that fearful cry.

And hollow and haggard faces
  Look into the lighted hall,
And wasted hands are extended
  To catch the crumbs that fall.

For within there is light and plenty,
  And odors fill the air;
But without there is cold and darkness,
  And hunger and despair.

And there in the camp of famine,
  In wind and cold and rain,
Christ, the great Lord of the army,
  Lies dead upon the plain!

THE BROOK AND THE WAVE

The brooklet came from the mountain,
  As sang the bard of old,
Running with feet of silver
  Over the sands of gold!

Far away in the briny ocean
  There rolled a turbulent wave,
Now singing along the sea-beach,
  Now howling along the cave.

And the brooklet has found the billow
  Though they flowed so far apart,
And has filled with its freshness and sweetness
  That turbulent bitter heart!

AFTERMATH

When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
  And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
  And gather in the aftermath.

Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
  Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mired with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
  In the silence and the gloom.