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T H E WOR L D | 37 And joy of union strengthens with its strength, Deepens and widens as the union grows. Hence the pure light of long-enduring love, Lives blended slowly, softly, into one. Hence civic pride, and glory in our states, And the fierce thrill of patriotic fire When millions feel as one! When we shall learn To live together fully; when each man And woman works in conscious interchange With all the world,—union as wide as man,— No human soul can ever suffer more The devastating grief of loneliness. The Keeper of the Light A lighthouse keeper with a loving heart Toiled at his service in the lonely tower, Keeping his giant lenses clear and bright, And feeding with pure oil the precious light Whose power to save was as his own heart’s power. He loved his kind, and being set alone To help them by the means of his great light, He poured his whole heart’s service into it, And sent his love down the long beams that lit The waste of broken water in the night. He loved his kind, and joyed to see the ships Come out of nowhere into his bright field, And glide by safely with their living men, Past him and out into the dark again, To other hands their freight of joy to yield. His work was noble and his work was done; He kept the ships in safety and was glad; And yet, late coming with the light’s supplies, They found the love no longer in his eyes— The keeper of the light had fallen mad. Immortality When I was grass, perhaps I may have wept As every year the grass-blades paled and slept; Or shrieked in anguish impotent, beneath The smooth impartial cropping of great teeth— I don’t remember much what came to pass When I was grass. 38 | In This Our World When I was monkey, I’m afraid the trees Weren’t always havens of contented ease; Things killed us, and we never could tell why; No doubt we blamed the earth or sea or sky— I have forgotten my rebellion’s shape When I was ape. Now I have reached the comfortable skin This stage of living is enveloped in, And hold the spirit of my mighty race Self-conscious prisoner under one white face,— I’m awfully afraid I’m going to die, Now I am I. So I have planned a hypothetic life To pay me somehow for my toil and strife. Blessed or damned, I someway must contrive That I eternally be kept alive! In this an endless, boundless bliss I see,— Eternal me! . . . . . . . . When I was man, no doubt I used to care About the little things that happened there, And fret to see the years keep going by, And nations, families, and persons die. I didn’t much appreciate life’s plan When I was man. Waste Doth any man consider what we waste Here in God’s garden? While the sea is full, The sunlight smiles, and all the blessed earth Offers her wealth to our intelligence. We waste our food, enough for half the world, In helpless luxury among the rich, In helpless ignorance among the poor, In spilling what we stop to quarrel for. We waste our wealth in failing to produce, In robbing of each other every day In place of making things,—our human crown. We waste our strength, in endless effort poured Like water on the sand, still toiling on To make a million things we do not want. We waste our lives, those which should still lead on, Each new one gaining on the age behind, In doing what we all have done before. ...

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