The Cold Meteorite

WHILE through our air thy kindling course was run

A momentary glory filled the night;

The envious stars shone fainter, for thy light

Garnered the wealth of all their fires in one.

Ah, short-lived splendor! journey ill-begun!

Half-buried in the Earth that broke thy flight,

No longer in thy broidered raiment dight,

Here liest thou dishonored, cold, undone.

"Nay, critic mine, far better 't is to die

"The death that flashes gladness, than alone,

"In frigid dignity, to live on high;

"Better in burning sacrifice be thrown

"Against the world to perish, than the sky

"To circle endlessly a barren stone."

William Reed Huntington

Lowlands

AS one who goes from holding converse sweet

In cloistered walls with great ones of the past,

And steps, enwrapt in visions high and vast,

To meet his fellows in the noisy street;

So we, descending from the mountain's height,

Feel strange discordance in the world below.

Is this the calm that there enchanted so?

It cannot be that we beheld aright.

But courage! not for ever on the mount;

Far oftener in the valley must we move;

The things that lie about us learn to love,

And for the work alloted us account;

Content if, now and then, we track above

The tumbling waters to their placid fount.

William Reed Huntington