The Trial by Existence

EVEN the bravest that are slainShall not dissemble their surpriseOn waking to find valor reign,Even as on earth, in paradise;And where they sought without the swordWide fields of asphodel fore'er,To find that the utmost rewardOf daring should be still to dare.The light of heaven falls whole and whiteAnd is not shattered into dyes,The light for ever is morning light;The hills are verdured pasture-wise;The angel hosts with freshness go,And seek with laughter what to brave;--And binding all is the hushed snowOf the far-distant breaking wave.And from a cliff-top is proclaimedThe gathering of the souls for birth,The trial by existence named,The obscuration upon earth.And the slant spirits trooping byIn streams and cross- and counter-streamsCan but give ear to that sweet cryFor its suggestion of what dreams!And the more loitering are turnedTo view once more the sacrificeOf those who for some good discernedWill gladly give up paradise.And a white shimmering concourse rollsToward the throne to witness thereThe speeding of devoted soulsWhich God makes his especial care.And none are taken but who will,Having first heard the life read outThat opens earthward, good and ill,Beyond the shadow of a doubt;And very beautifully God limns,And tenderly, life's little dream,But naught extenuates or dims,Setting the thing that is supreme.Nor is there wanting in the pressSome spirit to stand simply forth,Heroic in its nakedness,Against the uttermost of earth.The tale of earth's unhonored thingsSounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;And the mind whirls and the heart sings,And a shout greets the daring one.But always God speaks at the end:'One thought in agony of strifeThe bravest would have by for friend,The memory that he chose the life;But the pure fate to which you goAdmits no memory of choice,Or the woe were not earthly woeTo which you give the assenting voice.'And so the choice must be again,But the last choice is still the same;And the awe passes wonder then,And a hush falls for all acclaim.And God has taken a flower of goldAnd broken it, and used therefromThe mystic link to bind and holdSpirit to matter till death come.'Tis of the essence of life here,Though we choose greatly, still to lackThe lasting memory at all clear,That life has for us on the wrackNothing but what we somehow chose;Thus are we wholly stripped of prideIn the pain that has but one close,Bearing it crushed and mystified.