Requiem

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. MCKINLEY.

“O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida,”
     That call’d my soul to, all these fair years long!
I as from thy fields, sitting with hands folded,
     Heard all this song.

This song called life,—I astral in far freeing;
     And now, as back to earth, as freely come,
To gaze with others at that still’d, lov’d being—
     My erstwhile home.

Could they who pity know the law of graces,
     Which man alive full never can control;
That greater love, which calls from heavenly places,
     Calls out the soul!

Could they but know, who not as spirit seeing,
     Of what the psychic is; its power to soar
Into the far abysses of all being,—
     As perfumes pour!

That we, still’d light, are sometimes Ida’s, glowing
     Only but dimly in our Greek eclipse;
To comprehend the spheres, in cosmic flowing,
     Without ellipse.