Chapter 69

brilliant around a crescent moon, hanging half-way between the mountain and the zenith. Below lies a sea of vapour. Beyond rises a loftier pinnacle, across which is stretched a bar of cloud_. LILY _lies on the cloud, looking earnestly into the mist below_.

_Julian (gazing upward_). And thou wast with me all the time, my God, Even as now! I was not far from thee. Thy spirit spoke in all my wants and fears, And hopes and longings. Thou art all in all. I am not mine, but thine. I cannot speak The thoughts that work within me like a sea. When on the earth I lay, crushed down beneath A hopeless weight of empty desolation, Thy loving face was lighted then, O Christ, With expectation of my joy to come, When all the realm of possible ill should lie Under my feet, and I should stand as now Heart-sure of thee, true-hearted, only One. Was ever soul filled to such overflowing With the pure wine of blessedness, my God! Filled as the night with stars, am I with joys; Filled as the heavens with thee, am I with peace; For now I wait the end of all my prayers-- Of all that have to do with old-world things: What new things come to wake new prayers, my God, Thou know'st; I wait on thee in perfect peace.

[_He turns his gaze downward.--From the fog-sea below half-rises a woman-form, which floats toward him._]

Lo, as the lily lifts its shining bosom From the lone couch of waters where it slept, When the fair morn toucheth and waketh it; So riseth up my lily from the deep Where human souls are vexed in awful dreams!

[LILY _spies her mother, darts down, and is caught in her arms. They land on_ JULIAN'S _peak, and climb_, LILY _leading her mother_.]

_Lily_. Come faster, mother dear; father is waiting.

_Lilia_. Have patience with me, darling. By and by, I think, I shall do better.--Oh my Julian!

_Julian_. I may not help her. She must climb and come.

[_He reaches his hand, and the three are clasped in an infinite embrace_.]

O God, thy thoughts, thy ways, are not as ours: They fill our longing hearts up to the brim.

[_The moon and the stars and the blue night close around them; and the poet awakes from his dream_.]

A HIDDEN LIFE.

TO MY FATHER: _with my second volume of verse_.

I.

Take of the first fruits, father, of thy care, Wrapped in the fresh leaves of my gratitude, Late waked for early gifts ill understood; Claiming in all my harvests rightful share, Whether with song that mounts the joyful air I praise my God, or, in yet deeper mood, Sit dumb because I know a speechless good, Needing no voice, but all the soul for prayer. Thou hast been faithful to my highest need; And I, thy debtor, ever, evermore, Shall never feel the grateful burden sore. Yet most I thank thee, not for any deed, But for the sense thy living self did breed Of fatherhood still at the great world's core.

II.

All childhood, reverence clothed thee, undefined, As for some being of another race; Ah, not with it, departing--growing apace As years did bring me manhood's loftier mind, Able to see thy human life behind-- The same hid heart, the same revealing face-- My own dim contest settling into grace, Of sorrow, strife, and victory combined! So I beheld my God, in childhood's morn, A mist, a darkness, great, and far apart, Moveless and dim--I scarce could say _Thou art_: My manhood came, of joy and sadness born;-- Full soon the misty dark, asunder torn, Revealed man's glory, God's great human heart.

G.M.D. jr.

ALGIERS, _April, 1857_.

A HIDDEN LIFE.

Proudly the youth, sudden with manhood crowned, Went walking by his horses, the first time, That morning, to the plough. No soldier gay Feels at his side the throb of the gold hilt (Knowing the blue blade hides within its sheath, As lightning in the cloud) with more delight, When first he belts it on, than he that day Heard still the clank of the plough-chains against His horses' harnessed sides, as to the field They went to make it fruitful. O'er the hill The sun looked down, baptizing him for toil.

A farmer's son, a farmer's grandson he; Yea, his great-grandsire had possessed those fields. Tradition said they had been tilled by men Who bore the name long centuries ago, And married wives, and reared a stalwart race, And died, and went where all had followed them, Save one old man, his daughter, and the youth Who ploughs in pride, nor ever doubts his toil; And death is far from him this sunny morn. Why should we think of death when life is high? The earth laughs all the day, and sleeps all night. The daylight's labour and the night's repose Are very good, each better in its time.

The boy knew little; but he read old tales Of Scotland's warriors, till his blood ran swift As charging knights upon their death-career. He chanted ancient tunes, till the wild blood Was charmed back into its fountain-well, And tears arose instead. That poet's songs, Whose music evermore recalls his name, His name of waters babbling as they run, Rose from him in the fields among the kine, And met the skylark's, raining from the clouds. But only as the poet-birds he sang-- From rooted impulse of essential song; The earth was fair--he knew not it was fair; His heart was glad--he knew not it was glad; He walked as in a twilight of the sense-- Which this one day shall turn to tender morn.

Long ere the sun had cleared the feathery tops Of the fir-thicket on the eastward hill, His horses leaned and laboured. Each great hand Held rein and plough-stilt in one guiding grasp-- No ploughman there would brook a helper. Proud With a true ploughman's pride--nobler, I think, Than statesman's, ay, or poet's, or painter's pride, For little praise will come that he ploughs well-- He did plough well, proud of his work itself, And not of what would follow. With sure eye, He saw his horses keep the arrow-track; He saw the swift share cut the measured sod; He saw the furrow folding to the right, Ready with nimble foot to aid at need:-- Turning its secrets upward to the sun, And hiding in the dark the sun-born grass, And daisies dipped in carmine, lay the tilth-- A million graves to nurse the buried seed, And send a golden harvest up the air.

When the steep sun had clomb to his decline, And pausing seemed, at edge of slow descent, Upon the keystone of his airy bridge, They rested likewise, half-tired man and horse, And homeward went for food and courage new. Therewith refreshed, they turned again to toil, And lived in labour all the afternoon; Till, in the gloaming, once again the plough Lay like a stranded bark upon the lea, And home with hanging neck the horses went, Walking beside their master, force by will: Then through the lengthening shades a vision came.

It was a lady mounted on a horse, A slender girl upon a mighty steed, That bore her with the pride horses must feel When they submit to women. Home she went, Alone, or else her groom lagged far behind. Scarce had she bent simple acknowledgment Of the hand in silent salutation lifted To the bowed head, when something faithless yielded: The saddle slipped, the horse stopped, and the girl Stood on her feet, still holding fast the reins.

Three paces bore him bounding to her side; Her radiant beauty almost fixed him there; But with main force, as one that grapples fear, He threw the fascination off, and saw The work before him. Soon his hand and knife Had set the saddle firmer than before Upon the gentle horse; and then he turned To mount the maiden. But bewilderment A moment lasted; for he knew not how, With stirrup-hand and steady arm, to throne, Elastic, on her steed, the ascending maid: A moment only; for while yet she thanked, Nor yet had time to teach her further will, About her waist he put his brawny hands, That all but zoned her round; and like a child Lifting her high, he set her on the horse; Whence like a risen moon she smiled on him, Nor turned aside, although a radiant blush Shone in her cheek, and shadowed in her eyes. And he was never sure if from her heart Or from the rosy sunset came the flush. Again she thanked him, while again he stood Bewildered in her beauty. Not a word Answered her words that flowed, folded in tones Round which dissolving lambent music played, Like dropping water in a silver cup; Till, round the shoulder of the neighbouring hill, Sudden she disappeared. And he awoke, And called himself hard names, and turned and went After his horses, bending like them his head.

Ah God! when Beauty passes from the door, Although she came not in, the house is bare: Shut, shut the door; there's nothing in the house! Why seems it always that she should be ours? A secret lies behind which thou dost know, And I can partly guess.

But think not then, The holder of the plough sighed many sighs Upon his bed that night; or other dreams Than pleasant rose upon his view in sleep; Nor think the airy castles of his brain Had less foundation than the air admits. But read my simple tale, scarce worth the name, And answer, if he had not from the fair Beauty's best gift; and proved her not, in sooth, An angel vision from a higher world.

Not much of her I tell. Her glittering life, Where part the waters on the mountain-ridge, Ran down the southern side, away from his. It was not over-blessed; for, I know, Its tale wiled many sighs, one summer eve, From her who told, and him who, in the pines Walking, received it from her loving lips; But now she was as God had made her, ere The world had tried to spoil her; tried, I say, And half succeeded, failing utterly. Fair was she, frank, and innocent as a child That looks in every eye; fearless of ill, Because she knew it not; and brave withal, Because she led a simple country life, And loved the animals. Her father's house-- A Scottish laird was he, of ancient name-- Was distant but two miles among the hills; Yet oft as she had passed his father's farm, The youth had never seen her face before, And should not twice. Yet was it not enough? The vision tarried. She, as the harvest moon That goeth on her way, and knoweth not The fields of corn whose ripening grain she fills With strength of life, and hope, and joy for men, Went on her way, and knew not of the virtue Gone out of her; yea, never thought of him, Save at such times when, all at once, old scenes Return uncalled, with wonder that they come. Soon was she orphaned of her sheltering hills, And rounded with dead glitter, not the shine Of leaves and waters dancing in the sun; While he abode in ever breaking dawns, Breathed ever new-born winds into his soul; And saw the aurora of the heavenly day Still climb the hill-sides of the heapy world.

Again I say, no fond romance of love, No argument of possibilities, If he were some one, and she sought his help, Turned his clear brain into a nest of dreams. As soon he had sat down and twisted cords To snare, and carry home for household help, Some woman-angel, wandering half-seen On moonlight wings, o'er withered autumn fields. But when he rose next morn, and went abroad, (The exultation of his new-found rank Already settling into dignity,) Behold, the earth was beautiful! The sky Shone with the expectation of the sun. Only the daisies grieved him, for they fell Caught in the furrow, with their innocent heads Just out, imploring. A gray hedgehog ran, With tangled mesh of rough-laid spikes, and face Helplessly innocent, across the field: He let it run, and blessed it as it ran. Returned at noon-tide, something drew his feet Into the barn: entering, he gazed and stood. For, through the rent roof lighting, one sunbeam Blazed on the yellow straw one golden spot, Dulled all the amber heap, and sinking far, Like flame inverted, through the loose-piled mound, Crossed the keen splendour with dark shadow-straws, In lines innumerable. 'Twas so bright, His eye was cheated with a spectral smoke That rose as from a fire. He had not known How beautiful the sunlight was, not even Upon the windy fields of morning grass, Nor on the river, nor the ripening corn! As if to catch a wild live thing, he crept On tiptoe silent, laid him on the heap, And gazing down into the glory-gulf, Dreamed as a boy half sleeping by the fire-- Half dreaming rose, and got his horses out.

God, and not woman, is the heart of all. But she, as priestess of the visible earth, Holding the key, herself most beautiful, Had come to him, and flung the portals wide. He entered: every beauty was a glass That gleamed the woman back upon his view. Shall I not rather say: each beauty gave Its own soul up to him who worshipped her, For that his eyes were opened now to see?

Already in these hours his quickened soul Put forth the white tip of a floral bud, Ere long to be a crown-like, aureole flower. His songs unbidden, his joy in ancient tales, Had hitherto alone betrayed the seed That lay in his heart, close hidden even from him, Yet not the less mellowing all his spring: Like summer sunshine came the maiden's face, And in the youth's glad heart the seed awoke. It grew and spread, and put forth many flowers, Its every flower a living open eye, Until his soul was full of eyes within. Each morning now was a fresh boon to him; Each wind a spiritual power upon his life; Each individual animal did share A common being with him; every kind Of flower from every other was distinct, Uttering that for which alone it was-- Its something human, wrapt in other veil.

And when the winter came, when thick the snow Armed the sad fields from gnawing of the frost, When the low sun but skirted his far realms, And sank in early night, he drew his chair Beside the fire; and by the feeble lamp Read book on book; and wandered other climes, And lived in other lives and other needs, And grew a larger self by other selves. Ere long, the love of knowledge had become A hungry passion and a conscious power, And craved for more than reading could supply. Then, through the night (all dark, except the moon Shone frosty o'er the heath, or the white snow Gave back such motes of light as else had sunk In the dark earth) he bent his plodding way Over the moors to where the little town Lay gathered in the hollow. There the student Who taught from lingering dawn to early dark, Had older scholars in the long fore-night; For youths who in the shop, or in the barn, Or at the loom, had done their needful work, Came gathering there through starlight, fog, or snow, And found the fire ablaze, the candles lit, And him who knew waiting for who would know. Here mathematics wiled him to their heights; And strange consent of lines to form and law Made Euclid a profound romance of truth. The master saw with wonder how he seized, How eagerly devoured the offered food, And longed to give him further kinds. For Knowledge Would multiply like Life; and two clear souls That see a truth, and, turning, see at once Each the other's face glow in that truth's delight, Are drawn like lovers. So the master offered To guide the ploughman through the narrow ways To heights of Roman speech. The youth, alert, Caught at the offer; and for years of nights, The house asleep, he groped his twilight way With lexicon and rule, through ancient story, Or fable fine, embalmed in Latin old; Wherein his knowledge of the English tongue, Through reading many books, much aided him-- For best is like in all the hearts and tongues.

At length his progress, through the master's pride In such a pupil, reached the father's ears. Great gladness woke within him, and he vowed, If caring, sparing might accomplish it, He should to college, and there have his fill Of that same learning.

To the plough no more, All day to school he went; and ere a year, He wore the scarlet gown with the closed sleeves.

Awkward at first, but with a dignity Soon finding fit embodiment in speech And gesture and address, he made his way, Unconscious all, to the full-orbed respect Of students and professors; for whose praise More than his worth, society, so called, To its rooms in that great city of the North, Invited him. He entered. Dazzled at first By brilliance of the shining show, the lights, The mirrors, gems, white necks, and radiant eyes, He stole into a corner, and was quiet Until the vision too had quieter grown. Bewildered next by many a sparkling word, Nor knowing the light-play of polished minds, Which, like rose-diamonds cut in many facets, Catch and reflect the wandering rays of truth As if they were home-born and issuing new, He held his peace, and silent soon began To see how little fire it needs to shimmer. Hence, in the midst of talk, his thoughts would wander Back to the calm divine of homely toil; While round him still and ever hung an air Of breezy fields, and plough, and cart, and scythe-- A kind of clumsy grace, in which gay girls Saw but the clumsiness--another sort Saw the grace too, yea, sometimes, when he spoke, Saw the grace only; and began at last, For he sought none, to seek him in the crowd, And find him unexpected, maiden-wise. But oftener far they sought him than they found, For seldom was he drawn away from toil; Seldomer stinted time held due to toil; For if one night his panes were dark, the next They gleamed far into morning. And he won Honours among the first, each session's close.

Nor think that new familiarity With open forms of ill, not to be shunned Where many youths are met, endangered much A mind that had begun to will the pure. Oft when the broad rich humour of a jest With breezy force drew in its skirts a troop Of pestilential vapours following-- Arose within his sudden silent mind The maiden face that once blushed down on him-- That lady face, insphered beyond his earth, Yet visible as bright, particular star. A flush of tenderness then glowed across His bosom--shone it clean from passing harm: Should that sweet face be banished by rude words? It could not stay what maidens might not hear! He almost wept for shame, that face, such jest, Should meet in _his_ house. To his love he made Love's only worthy offering--purity.

And if the homage that he sometimes met, New to the country lad, conveyed in smiles, Assents, and silent listenings when he spoke, Threatened yet more his life's simplicity; An antidote of nature ever came, Even Nature's self. For, in the summer months, His former haunts and boyhood's circumstance Received him to the bosom of their grace. And he, too noble to despise the past, Too proud to be ashamed of manly toil, Too wise to fancy that a gulf gaped wide Betwixt the labouring hand and thinking brain, Or that a workman was no gentleman Because a workman, clothed himself again In his old garments, took the hoe, the spade, The sowing sheet, or covered in the grain, Smoothing with harrows what the plough had ridged. With ever fresher joy he hailed the fields, Returning still with larger powers of sight: Each time he knew them better than before, And yet their sweetest aspect was the old. His labour kept him true to life and fact, Casting out worldly judgments, false desires, And vain distinctions. Ever, at his toil, New thoughts would rise, which, when God's night awoke, He still would seek, like stars, with instruments-- By science, or by truth's philosophy, Bridging the gulf betwixt the new and old. Thus laboured he with hand and brain at once, Nor missed due readiness when Scotland's sons Met to reap wisdom, and the fields were white.

His sire was proud of him; and, most of all, Because his learning did not make him proud: He was too wise to build upon his lore. The neighbours asked what he would make his son: "I'll make a man of him," the old man said; "And for the rest, just what he likes himself. He is my only son--I think he'll keep The old farm on; and I shall go content, Leaving a man behind me, as I say."

So four years long his life swung to and fro, Alternating the red gown and blue coat, The garret study and the wide-floored barn, The wintry city and the sunny fields: In every change his mind was well content, For in himself he was the growing same.

In no one channel flowed his seeking thoughts; To no profession did he ardent turn: He knew his father's wish--it was his own. "Why should a man," he said, "when knowledge grows, Leave therefore the old patriarchal life, And seek distinction in the noise of men?" He turned his asking face on every side; Went reverent with the anatomist, and saw The inner form of man laid skilful bare; Went with the chymist, whose wise-questioning hand Made Nature do in little, before his eyes, And momently, what, huge, for centuries, And in the veil of vastness and lone deeps, She labours at; bent his inquiring eye On every source whence knowledge flows for men: At some he only sipped, at others drank.

At length, when he had gained the master's right-- By custom sacred from of old--to sit With covered head before the awful rank Of black-gowned senators; and each of those, Proud of the scholar, was ready at a word To speed him onward to what goal he would, He took his books, his well-worn cap and gown, And, leaving with a sigh the ancient walls, Crowned with their crown of stone, unchanging gray In all the blandishments of youthful spring, Chose for his world the lone ancestral farm.

With simple gladness met him on the road His gray-haired father--elder brother now. Few words were spoken, little welcome said, But, as they walked, the more was understood. If with a less delight he brought him home Than he who met the prodigal returned, It was with more reliance, with more peace; For with the leaning pride that old men feel In young strong arms that draw their might from them, He led him to the house. His sister there, Whose kisses were not many, but whose eyes Were full of watchfulness and hovering love, Set him beside the fire in the old place, And heaped the table with best country-fare.

When the swift night grew deep, the father rose, And led him, wondering why and where they went, Thorough the limpid dark, by tortuous path Between the corn-ricks, to a loft above The stable, where the same old horses slept Which he had guided that eventful morn. Entering, he saw a change-pursuing hand Had been at work. The father, leading on Across the floor, heaped high with store of grain Opened a door. An unexpected light Flashed on him cheerful from a fire and lamp, That burned alone, as in a fairy-tale: Behold! a little room, a curtained bed, An easy chair, bookshelves, and writing-desk; An old print of a deep Virgilian wood, And one of choosing Hercules! The youth Gazed and spoke not. The old paternal love Had sought and found an incarnation new! For, honouring in his son the simple needs Which his own bounty had begot in him, He gave him thus a lonely thinking space, A silent refuge. With a quiet good night, He left him dumb with love. Faintly beneath, The horses stamped, and drew the lengthening chain.

Three sliding years, with slowly blended change, Drew round their winter, summer, autumn, spring, Fulfilled of work by hands, and brain, and heart. He laboured as before; though when he would, And Nature urged not, he, with privilege, Would spare from hours of toil--read in his room, Or wander through the moorland to the hills; There on the apex of the world would stand, As on an altar, burning, soul and heart-- Himself the sacrifice of faith and prayer; Gaze in the face of the inviting blue That domed him round; ask why it should be blue; Pray yet again; and with love-strengthened heart Go down to lower things with lofty cares.

When Sundays came, the father, daughter, son Walked to the church across their own loved fields. It was an ugly church, with scarce a sign Of what makes English churches venerable. Likest a crowing cock upon a heap It stood--but let us say--St. Peter's cock, Lacking not many a holy, rousing charm For one with whose known self it was coeval, Dawning with it from darkness of the unseen! And its low mounds of monumental grass Were far more solemn than great marble tombs; For flesh is grass, its goodliness the flower. Oh, lovely is the face of green churchyard On sunny afternoons! The light itself Nestles amid the grass; and the sweet wind Says, _I am here_,--no more. With sun and wind And crowing cocks, who can believe in death? He, on such days, when from the church they Came, And through God's ridges took their thoughtful way, The last psalm lingering faintly in their hearts, Would look, inquiring where his ridge would rise; But when it gloomed or rained, he turned aside: What mattered it to him?

And as they walked Homeward, right well the father loved to hear The fresh rills pouring from his son's clear well. For the old man clung not to the old alone, Nor leaned the young man only to the new; They would the best, they sought, and followed it. "The Pastor fills his office well," he said, In homely jest; "--the Past alone he heeds! Honours those Jewish times as he were a Jew, And Christ were neither Jew nor northern man! He has no ear for this poor Present Hour, Which wanders up and down the centuries, Like beggar-boy roaming the wintry streets, With witless hand held out to passers-by; And yet God made the voice of its many cries. Mine be the work that comes first to my hand! The lever set, I grasp and heave withal. I love where I live, and let my labour flow Into the hollows of the neighbour-needs. Perhaps I like it best: I would not choose Another than the ordered circumstance. This farm is God's as much as yonder town; These men and maidens, kine and horses, his; For them his laws must be incarnated In act and fact, and so their world redeemed."

Though thus he spoke at times, he spake not oft; Ruled chief by action: what he said, he did. No grief was suffered there of man or beast More than was need; no creature fled in fear; All slaying was with generous suddenness, Like God's benignant lightning. "For," he said, "God makes the beasts, and loves them dearly well-- Better than any parent loves his child, It may be," would he say; for still the _may be_ Was sacred with him no less than the _is_-- "In such humility he lived and wrought-- Hence are they sacred. Sprung from God as we, They are our brethren in a lower kind, And in their face we see the human look." If any said: "Men look like animals; Each has his type set in the lower kind;" His answer was: "The animals are like men; Each has his true type set in the higher kind, Though even there only rough-hewn as yet. The hell of cruelty will be the ghosts Of the sad beasts: their crowding heads will come, And with encircling, slow, pain-patient eyes, Stare the ill man to madness."

When he spoke, His word behind it had the force of deeds Unborn within him, ready to be born; But, like his race, he promised very slow. His goodness ever went before his word, Embodying itself unconsciously In understanding of the need that prayed, And cheerful help that would outrun the prayer.

When from great cities came the old sad news Of crime and wretchedness, and children sore With hunger, and neglect, and cruel blows, He would walk sadly all the afternoon, With head down-bent, and pondering footstep slow; Arriving ever at the same result-- Concluding ever: "The best that I can do For the great world, is the same best I can For this my world. What truth may be therein Will pass beyond my narrow circumstance, In truth's own right." When a philanthropist Said pompously: "It is not for your gifts To spend themselves on common labours thus: You owe the world far nobler things than such;" He answered him: "The world is in God's hands, This part of it in mine. My sacred past, With all its loves inherited, has led Hither, here left me: shall I judge, arrogant, Primaeval godlike work in earth and air, Seed-time and harvest--offered fellowship With God in nature--unworthy of my hands? I know your argument--I know with grief!-- The crowds of men, in whom a starving soul Cries through the windows of their hollow eyes For bare humanity, nay, room to grow!-- Would I could help them! But all crowds are made Of individuals; and their grief and pain, Their thirst and hunger--all are of the one, Not of the many: the true, the saving power Enters the individual door, and thence Issues again in thousand influences Besieging other doors. I cannot throw A mass of good into the general midst, Whereof each man may seize his private share; And if one could, it were of lowest kind, Not reaching to that hunger of the soul. Now here I labour whole in the same spot Where they have known me from my childhood up And I know them, each individual: If there is power in me to help my own, Even of itself it flows beyond my will, Takes shape in commonest of common acts, Meets every humble day's necessity: --I would not always consciously do good, Not always work from full intent of help, Lest I forget the measure heaped and pressed And running over which they pour for me, And never reap the too-much of return In smiling trust and beams from kindly eyes. But in the city, with a few lame words, And a few wretched coins, sore-coveted, To mediate 'twixt my _cannot_ and my _would_, My best attempts would never strike a root; My scattered corn would turn to wind-blown chaff; I should grow weak, might weary of my kind, Misunderstood the most where almost known, Baffled and beaten by their unbelief: Years could not place me where I stand this day High on the vantage-ground of confidence: I might for years toil on, and reach no man. Besides, to leave the thing that nearest lies, And choose the thing far off, more difficult-- The act, having no touch of God in it, Who seeks the needy for the pure need's sake, Must straightway die, choked in its selfishness." Thus he. The world-wise schemer for the good Held his poor peace, and went his trackless way.

What of the vision now? the vision fair Sent forth to meet him, when at eve he went Home from his first day's ploughing? Oft he dreamed She passed him smiling on her stately horse; But never band or buckle yielded more; Never again his hands enthroned the maid; He only worshipped with his eyes, and woke. Nor woke he then with foolish vain regret; But, saying, "I have seen the beautiful," Smiled with his eyes upon a flower or bird, Or living form, whate'er, of gentleness, That met him first; and all that morn, his face Would oftener dawn into a blossomy smile.

And ever when he read a lofty tale, Or when the storied leaf, or ballad old, Or spake or sang of woman very fair, Or wondrous good, he saw her face alone; The tale was told, the song was sung of her. He did not turn aside from other maids, But loved their faces pure and faithful eyes. He may have thought, "One day I wed a maid, And make her mine;" but never came the maid, Or never came the hour: he walked alone. Meantime how fared the lady? She had wed One of the common crowd: there must be ore For the gold grains to lie in: virgin gold Lies in the rock, enriching not the stone. She was not one who of herself could _be_; And she had found no heart which, tuned with hers, Would beat in rhythm, growing into rime. She read phantasmagoric tales, sans salt, Sans hope, sans growth; or listlessly conversed With phantom-visitors--ladies, not friends, Mere spectral forms from fashion's concave glass. She haunted gay assemblies, ill-content-- Witched woods to hide in from her better self, And danced, and sang, and ached. What had she felt, If, called up by the ordered sounds and motions, A vision had arisen--as once, of old, The minstrel's art laid bare the seer's eye, And showed him plenteous waters in the waste;-- If the gay dance had vanished from her sight, And she beheld her ploughman-lover go With his great stride across a lonely field, Under the dark blue vault ablaze with stars, Lifting his full eyes to the radiant roof, Live with our future; or had she beheld Him studious, with space-compelling mind Bent on his slate, pursue some planet's course; Or reading justify the poet's wrath, Or sage's slow conclusion?--If a voice Had whispered then: This man in many a dream, And many a waking moment of keen joy, Blesses you for the look that woke his heart, That smiled him into life, and, still undimmed, Lies lamping in the cabinet of his soul;-- Would her sad eyes have beamed with sudden light? Would not her soul, half-dead with nothingness, Have risen from the couch of its unrest, And looked to heaven again, again believed In God and life, courage, and duty, and love? Would not her soul have sung to its lone self: "I have a friend, a ploughman, who is wise. He knows what God, and goodness, and fair faith Mean in the words and books of mighty men. He nothing heeds the show of worldly things, But worships the unconquerable truth. This man is humble and loves me: I will Be proud and very humble. If he knew me, Would he go on and love me till we meet!"?

In the third year, a heavy harvest fell, Full filled, before the reaping-hook and scythe. The heat was scorching, but the men and maids Lightened their toil with merry jest and song; Rested at mid-day, and from brimming bowl, Drank the brown ale, and white abundant milk. The last ear fell, and spiky stubble stood Where waved the forests of dry-murmuring corn; And sheaves rose piled in shocks, like ranged tents Of an encamping army, tent by tent, To stand there while the moon should have her will.

The grain was ripe. The harvest carts went out Broad-platformed, bearing back the towering load, With frequent passage 'twixt homeyard and field. And half the oats already hid their tops, Their ringing, rustling, wind-responsive sprays, In the still darkness of the towering stack; When in the north low billowy clouds appeared, Blue-based, white-crested, in the afternoon; And westward, darker masses, plashed with blue, And outlined vague in misty steep and dell, Clomb o'er the hill-tops: thunder was at hand. The air was sultry. But the upper sky Was clear and radiant.

Downward went the sun, Below the sullen clouds that walled the west, Below the hills, below the shadowed world. The moon looked over the clear eastern wall, And slanting rose, and looked, rose, looked again, And searched for silence in her yellow fields, But found it not. For there the staggering carts, Like overladen beasts, crawled homeward still, Sped fieldward light and low. The laugh broke yet, That lightning of the soul's unclouded skies-- Though not so frequent, now that toil forgot Its natural hour. Still on the labour went, Straining to beat the welkin-climbing heave Of the huge rain-clouds, heavy with their floods. Sleep, old enchantress, sided with the clouds, The hoisting clouds, and cast benumbing spells On man and horse. One youth who walked beside A ponderous load of sheaves, higher than wont, Which dared the lurking levin overhead, Woke with a start, falling against the wheel, That circled slow after the slumbering horse. Yet none would yield to soft-suggesting sleep, And quit the last few shocks; for the wild storm Would catch thereby the skirts of Harvest-home, And hold her lingering half-way in the rain.

The scholar laboured with his men all night. He did not favour such prone headlong race With Nature. To himself he said: "The night Is sent for sleep; we ought to sleep in the night, And leave the clouds to God. Not every storm That climbeth heavenward overwhelms the earth; And when God wills, 'tis better he should will; What he takes from us never can be lost." But the father so had ordered, and the son Went manful to his work, and held his peace.

When the dawn blotted pale the clouded east, The first drops, overgrown and helpless, fell On the last home-bound cart, oppressed with sheaves; And by its side, the last in the retreat, The scholar walked, slow bringing up the rear. Half the still lengthening journey he had gone, When, on opposing strength of upper winds Tumultuous borne, at last the labouring racks Met in the zenith, and the silence ceased: The lightning brake, and flooded all the world, Its roar of airy billows following it. The darkness drank the lightning, and again Lay more unslaked. But ere the darkness came, In the full revelation of the flash, Met by some stranger flash from cloudy brain, He saw the lady, borne upon her horse, Careless of thunder, as when, years agone, He saw her once, to see for evermore. "Ah, ha!" he said, "my dreams are come for me! Now shall they have me!" For, all through the night, There had been growing trouble in his frame, An overshadowing of something dire. Arrived at home, the weary man and horse Forsook their load; the one went to his stall, The other sought the haven of his bed-- There slept and moaned, cried out, and woke, and slept: Through all the netted labyrinth of his brain The fever shot its pent malignant fire. 'Twas evening when to passing consciousness He woke and saw his father by his side: His guardian form in every vision drear That followed, watching shone; and the healing face Of his true sister gleamed through all his pain, Soothing and strengthening with cloudy hope; Till, at the weary last of many days, He woke to sweet quiescent consciousness, Enfeebled much, but with a new-born life-- His soul a summer evening after rain.

Slow, with the passing weeks, he gathered strength, And ere the winter came, seemed half restored; And hope was busy. But a fire too keen Burned in his larger eyes; and in his cheek Too ready came the blood at faintest call, Glowing a fair, quick-fading, sunset hue.

Before its hour, a biting frost set in. It gnawed with icy fangs his shrinking life; And that disease bemoaned throughout the land, The smiling, hoping, wasting, radiant death, Was born of outer cold and inner heat.

One morn his sister, entering while he slept, Spied in his listless hand a handkerchief Spotted with red. Cold with dismay, she stood, Scared, motionless. But catching in the glass The sudden glimpse of a white ghostly face, She started at herself, and he awoke. He understood, and said with smile unsure, "Bright red was evermore my master-hue; And see, I have it in me: that is why." She shuddered; and he saw, nor jested more, But smiled again, and looked Death in the face.

When first he saw the red blood outward leap, As if it sought again the fountain-heart Whence it had flowed to fill the golden bowl, No terror seized--an exaltation swelled His spirit: now the pondered mystery Would fling its portals wide, and take him in, One of the awful dead! Them, fools conceive As ghosts that fleet and pine, bereft of weight, And half their valued lives: he otherwise;-- Hoped now, and now expected; and, again, Said only, "I await the thing to come."

So waits a child the lingering curtain's rise, While yet the panting lamps restrained burn At half-height, and the theatre is full.

But as the days went by, they brought sad hours, When he would sit, his hands upon his knees, Drooping, and longing for the wine of life. For when the ninefold crystal spheres, through which The outer light sinks in, are cracked and broken, Yet able to keep in the 'piring life, Distressing shadows cross the chequered soul: Poor Psyche trims her irresponsive lamp, And anxious visits oft her store of oil, And still the shadows fall: she must go pray! And God, who speaks to man at door and lattice, Glorious in stars, and winds, and flowers, and waves, Not seldom shuts the door and dims the pane, That, isled in calm, his still small voice may sound The clearer, by the hearth, in the inner room-- Sound on until the soul, fulfilled of hope, Look undismayed on that which cannot kill; And saying in the dark, _I will the light_, Glow in the gloom the present will of God: Then melt the shadows of her shaken house.

He, when his lamp shot up a spiring flame, Would thus break forth and climb the heaven of prayer: "Do with us what thou wilt, all-glorious heart! Thou God of them that are not yet, but grow! We trust thee for the thing we shall be yet; We too are ill content with what we are." And when the flame sank, and the darkness fell, He lived by faith which is the soul of sight.

Yet in the frequent pauses of the light, When all was dreary as a drizzling thaw, When sleep came not although he prayed for sleep, And wakeful-weary on his bed he lay, Like frozen lake that has no heaven within; Then, then the sleeping horror woke and stirred, And with the tooth of unsure thought began To gnaw the roots of life:--What if there were No truth in beauty! What if loveliness Were but the invention of a happier mood! "For, if my mind can dim or slay the Fair, Why should it not enhance or make the Fair?" "Nay," Psyche answered; "for a tired man May drop his eyelids on the visible world, To whom no dreams, when fancy flieth free, Will bring the sunny excellence of day. 'Tis easy to destroy; God only makes. Could my invention sweep the lucid waves With purple shadows--next create the joy With which my life beholds them? Wherefore should One meet the other without thought of mine, If God did not mean beauty in them and me, But dropped them, helpless shadows, from his sun? There were no God, his image not being mine, And I should seek in vain for any bliss! Oh, lack and doubt and fear can only come Because of plenty, confidence, and love! Those are the shadow-forms about the feet Of these--because they are not crystal-clear To the all-searching sun in which they live: Dread of its loss is Beauty's certain seal!" Thus reasoned mourning Psyche. Suddenly The sun would rise, and vanish Psyche's lamp, Absorbed in light, not swallowed in the dark.

It was a wintry time with sunny days, With visitings of April airs and scents, That came with sudden presence, unforetold, As brushed from off the outer spheres of spring In the great world where all is old and new. Strange longings he had never known till now, Awoke within him, flowers of rooted hope. For a whole silent hour he would sit and gaze Upon the distant hills, whose dazzling snow Starred the dim blue, or down their dark ravines Crept vaporous; until the fancy rose That on the other side those rampart walls, A mighty woman sat, with waiting face, Calm as that life whose rapt intensity Borders on death, silent, waiting for him, To make him grand for ever with a kiss, And send him silent through the toning worlds.

The father saw him waning. The proud sire Beheld his pride go drooping in the cold, Like snowdrop on its grave; and sighed deep thanks That he was old. But evermore the son Looked up and smiled as he had heard strange news Across the waste, of tree-buds and primroses. Then all at once the other mood would come, And, like a troubled child, he would seek his father For father-comfort, which fathers all can give: Sure there is one great Father in the world, Since every word of good from fathers' lips Falleth with such authority, although They are but men as we! This trembling son, Who saw the unknown death draw hourly nigher, Sought solace in his father's tenderness, And made him strong to die.

One shining day, Shining with sun and snow, he came and said, "What think you, father--is death very sore?" "My boy," the father answered, "we will try To make it easy with the present God. But, as I judge, though more by hope than sight, It seems much harder to the lookers on Than to the man who dies. Each panting breath We call a gasp, may be in him the cry Of infant eagerness; or, at worst, the sob With which the unclothed spirit, step by step. Wades forth into the cool eternal sea. I think, my boy, death has two sides to it-- One sunny, and one dark--as this round earth Is every day half sunny and half dark. We on the dark side call the mystery _death_; They on the other, looking down in light, Wait the glad _birth_, with other tears than ours." "Be near me, father, when I die," he said. "I will, my boy, until a better Father Draws your hand out of mine. Be near in turn, When my time comes--you in the light beyond, And knowing well the country--I in the dark."

The days went by, until the tender green Shone through the snow in patches. Then the hope Of life, reviving faintly, stirred his heart; For the spring drew him--warm, soft, budding spring, With promises, and he went forth to meet her.

But he who once had strode a king on the fields, Walked softly now; lay on the daisied grass; And sighed sometimes in secret, that so soon The earth, with all its suns and harvests fair, Must lie far off, an old forsaken thing.

But though I lingering listen to the old, Ere yet I strike new chords that seize the old And lift their lost souls up the music-stair-- Think not he was too fearful-faint of heart To look the blank unknown full in the void; For he had hope in God--the growth of years, Of ponderings, of childish aspirations, Of prayers and readings and repentances; For something in him had ever sought the peace Of other something deeper in him still-- A _faint_ sound sighing for a harmony With other fainter sounds, that softly drew Nearer and nearer from the unknown depths Where the Individual goeth out in God: The something in him heard, and, hearing, listened, And sought the way by which the music came, Hoping at last to find the face of him To whom Saint John said _Lord_ with holy awe, And on his bosom fearless leaned the while.

As his slow spring came on, the swelling life, The new creation inside of the old, Pressed up in buds toward the invisible. And burst the crumbling mould wherein it lay. Not once he thought of that still churchyard now; He looked away from earth, and loved the sky. One earthly notion only clung to him:-- He thanked God that he died not in the cold; "For," said he, "I would rather go abroad When the sun shines, and birds are singing blithe.--It may be that we know not aught of place, Or any sense, and only live in thought; But, knowing not, I cling to warmth and light. I _may_ pass forth into the sea of air That swings its massy waves around the earth, And I would rather go when it is full Of light, and blue, and larks, than when gray fog Dulls it with steams of old earth winter-sick. Now in the dawn of summer I shall die-- Sinking asleep ere sunset, I will hope, And going with the light. And when they say, 'He's dead; he rests at last; his face is changed;' I shall be saying: Yet, yet, I live, I love!'"

The weary nights did much to humble him; They made the good he knew seem all ill known: He would go by and by to school again! "Father," he said, "I am nothing; but Thou _art_!" Like half-asleep, whole-dreaming child, he was, Who, longing for his mother, has forgot The arms about him, holding him to her heart: _Mother_ he murmuring moans; she wakes him up That he may see her face, and sleep indeed.

Father! we need thy winter as thy spring; We need thy earthquakes as thy summer showers; But through them all thy strong arms carry us, Thy strong heart bearing large share in our grief. Because thou lovest goodness more than joy In them thou lovest, thou dost let them grieve: We must not vex thee with our peevish cries, But look into thy face, and hold thee fast, And say _O Father, Father_! when the pain Seems overstrong. Remember our poor hearts: We never grasp the zenith of the time! We have no spring except in winter-prayers! But we believe--alas, we only hope!--That one day we shall thank thee perfectly For every disappointment, pang, and shame, That drove us to the bosom of thy love.

One night, as oft, he lay and could not sleep. His spirit was a chamber, empty, dark, Through which bright pictures passed of the outer world: The regnant Will gazed passive on the show; The magic tube through which the shadows came, Witch Memory turned and stayed. In ones and troops, Glided across the field the things that were, Silent and sorrowful, like all things old: Even old rose-leaves have a mournful scent, And old brown letters are more sad than graves.

At length, as ever in such vision-hours, Came the bright maiden, high upon her horse. Will started all awake, passive no more, And, necromantic sage, the apparition That came unbid, commanded to abide.

Gathered around her form his brooding thoughts: How had she fared, spinning her history Into a psyche-cradle? With what wings Would she come forth to greet the aeonian summer? Glistening with feathery dust of silver? or Dull red, and seared with spots of black ingrained? "I know," he said, "some women fail of life! The rose hath shed her leaves: is she a rose?"

The fount of possibilities began To gurgle, threatful, underneath the thought: Anon the geyser-column raging rose;-- For purest souls sometimes have direst fears In ghost-hours when the shadow of the earth Is cast on half her children, and the sun Is busy giving daylight to the rest.

"Oh, God!" he cried, "if she be such as those!-- Angels in the eyes of poet-boys, who still Fancy the wavings of invisible wings, But, in their own familiar, chamber-thoughts, Common as clay, and of the trodden earth!-- It cannot, cannot be! She is of God!-- And yet things lovely perish! higher life Gives deeper death! fair gifts make fouler faults!-- Women themselves--I dare not think the rest!" Such thoughts went walking up and down his soul But found at last a spot wherein to rest, Building a resolution for the day.

The next day, and the next, he was too worn To clothe intent in body of a deed. A cold dry wind blew from the unkindly east, Making him feel as he had come to the earth Before God's spirit moved on the water's face, To make it ready for him.

But the third Morning rose radiant. A genial wind Rippled the blue air 'neath the golden sun, And brought glad summer-tidings from the south.

He lay now in his father's room; for there The southern sun poured all the warmth he had. His rays fell on the fire, alive with flames, And turned it ghostly pale, and would have slain-- Even as the sunshine of the higher life, Quenching the glow of this, leaves but a coal. He rose and sat him down 'twixt sun and fire; Two lives fought in him for the mastery; And half from each forth flowed the written stream "Lady, I owe thee much. Stay not to look Upon my name: I write it, but I date From the churchyard, where it shall lie in peace, Thou reading it. Thou know'st me not at all; Nor dared I write, but death is crowning me Thy equal. If my boldness yet offend, Lo, pure in my intent, I am with the ghosts; Where when thou comest, thou hast already known God equal makes at first, and Death at last."

"But pardon, lady. Ere I had begun, My thoughts moved toward thee with a gentle flow That bore a depth of waters: when I took My pen to write, they rushed into a gulf, Precipitate and foamy. Can it be That Death who humbles all hath made me proud?"

"Lady, thy loveliness hath walked my brain, As if I were thy heritage bequeathed From many sires; yet only from afar I have worshipped thee--content to know the vision Had lifted me above myself who saw, And ta'en my angel nigh thee in thy heaven. Thy beauty, lady, hath overflowed, and made Another being beautiful, beside, With virtue to aspire and be itself. Afar as angels or the sainted dead, Yet near as loveliness can haunt a man, Thy form hath put on each revealing dress Of circumstance and history, high or low, In which, from any tale of selfless life, Essential womanhood hath shone on me."

"Ten years have passed away since the first time, Which was the last, I saw thee. What have these Made or unmade in thee?--I ask myself. O lovely in my memory! art thou As lovely in thyself? Thy glory then Was what God made thee: art thou such indeed? Forgive my boldness, lady--I am dead: The dead may cry, their voices are so small."

"I have a prayer to make thee--hear the dead. Lady, for God's sake be as beautiful As that white form that dwelleth in my heart; Yea, better still, as that ideal Pure That waketh in thee, when thou prayest God, Or helpest thy poor neighbour. For myself I pray. For if I die and find that she, My woman-glory, lives in common air, Is not so very radiant after all, My sad face will afflict the calm-eyed ghosts, Unused to see such rooted sorrow there. With palm to palm my kneeling ghost implores Thee, living lady--justify my faith In womanhood's white-handed nobleness, And thee, its revelation unto me."

"But I bethink me:--If thou turn thy thoughts Upon thyself, even for that great sake Of purity and conscious whiteness' self, Thou wilt but half succeed. The other half Is to forget the former, yea, thyself, Quenching thy moonlight in the blaze of day, Turning thy being full unto thy God. Be thou in him a pure, twice holy child, Doing the right with sweet unconsciousness-- Having God in thee, thy completing soul."

"Lady, I die; the Father holds me up. It is not much to thee that I should die; It may be much to know he holds me up."

"I thank thee, lady, for the gentle look Which crowned me from thine eyes ten years ago, Ere, clothed in nimbus of the setting sun, Thee from my dazzled eyes thy horse did bear, Proud of his burden. My dull tongue was mute-- I was a fool before thee; but my silence Was the sole homage possible to me then: That now I speak, and fear not, is thy gift. The same sweet look be possible to thee For evermore! I bless thee with thine own, And say farewell, and go into my grave-- No, to the sapphire heaven of all my hopes."

Followed his name in full, and then the name Of the green churchyard where his form should lie.

Back to his couch he crept, weary, and said: "O God, I am but an attempt at life! Sleep falls again ere I am full awake. Light goeth from me in the morning hour. I have seen nothing clearly; felt no thrill Of pure emotion, save in dreams, ah--dreams! The high Truth has but flickered in my soul-- Even at such times, in wide blue midnight hours, When, dawning sudden on my inner world, New stars came forth, revealing unknown depths, New heights of silence, quelling all my sea, And for a moment I saw formless fact, And knew myself a living lonely thought, Isled in the hyaline of Truth alway! I have not reaped earth's harvest, O my God; Have gathered but a few poor wayside flowers, Harebells, red poppies, daisies, eyebrights blue-- Gathered them by the way, for comforting! Have I aimed proudly, therefore aimed too low, Striving for something visible in my thought, And not the unseen thing hid far in thine? Make me content to be a primrose-flower Among thy nations, so the fair truth, hid In the sweet primrose, come awake in me, And I rejoice, an individual soul, Reflecting thee--as truly then divine As if I towered the angel of the sun. Once, in a southern eve, a glowing worm Gave me a keener joy than the heaven of stars: Thou camest in the worm nearer me then! Nor do I think, were I that green delight, I would change to be the shadowy evening star. Ah, make me, Father, anything thou wilt, So be thou will it! I am safe with thee. I laugh exulting. Make me something, God-- Clear, sunny, veritable purity Of mere existence, in thyself content. And seeking no compare. Sure I _have_ reaped Earth's harvest if I find this holy death!-- Now I am ready; take me when thou wilt."

He laid the letter in his desk, with seal And superscription. When his sister came, He told her where to find it--afterwards.

As the slow eve, through paler, darker shades, Insensibly declines, until at last The lordly day is but a memory, So died he. In the hush of noon he died. The sun shone on--why should he not shine on? Glad summer noises rose from all the land; The love of God lay warm on hill and plain: 'Tis well to die in summer.

When the breath, After a hopeless pause, returned no more, The father fell upon his knees, and said: "O God, I thank thee; it is over now! Through the sore time thy hand has led him well. Lord, let me follow soon, and be at rest." Therewith he rose, and comforted the maid, Who in her brother had lost the pride of life, And wept as all her heaven were only rain.

Of the loved lady, little more I know. I know not if, when she had read his words, She rose in haste, and to her chamber went, And shut the door; nor if, when she came forth, A dawn of holier purpose gleamed across The sadness of her brow. But this I know, That, on a warm autumnal afternoon, When headstone-shadows crossed three neighbour graves, And, like an ended prayer, the empty church Stood in the sunshine, or a cenotaph, A little boy, who watched a cow near by Gather her milk where alms of clover-fields Lay scattered on the sides of silent roads, All sudden saw, nor knew whence she had come, A lady, veiled, alone, and very still, Seated upon a grave. Long time she sat And moved not, weeping sore, the watcher said-- Though how he knew she wept, were hard to tell. At length, slow-leaning on her elbow down, She hid her face a while in the short grass, And pulled a something small from off the mound-- A blade of grass it must have been, he thought, For nothing else was there, not even a daisy-- And put it in a letter. Then she rose, And glided silent forth, over the wall, Where the two steps on this side and on that Shorten the path from westward to the church.-- The clang of hoofs and sound of light, swift wheels Arose and died upon the listener's ear.

A STORY OF THE SEA-SHORE.

TO THEM THAT MOURN.

Let your tears flow; let your sad sighs have scope; Only take heed they fan, they water Hope.

A STORY OF THE SEA-SHORE.

INTRODUCTION.

I sought the long clear twilights of my home, Far in the pale-blue skies and slaty seas, What time the sunset dies not utterly, But withered to a ghost-like stealthy gleam, Round the horizon creeps the short-lived night, And changes into sunrise in a swoon. I found my home in homeliness unchanged: The love that made it home, unchangeable, Received me as a child, and all was well. My ancient summer-heaven, borne on the hills, Once more embraced me; and once more the vale, So often sighed for in the far-off nights, Rose on my bodily vision, and, behold, In nothing had the fancy mocked the fact! The hasting streams went garrulous as of old; The resting flowers in silence uttered more; The blue hills rose and dwelt alone in heaven; Householding Nature from her treasures brought Things old and new, the same yet not the same, For all was holier, lovelier than before; And best of all, once more I paced the fields With him whose love had made me long for God So good a father that, needs-must, I sought A better still, Father of him and me.

Once on a day, my cousin Frank and I Sat swiftly borne behind the dear white mare That oft had carried me in bygone days Along the lonely paths of moorland hills; But now we sought the coast, where deep waves foam 'Gainst rocks that lift their dark fronts to the north. And with us went a girl, on whose kind face I had not looked for many a youthful year, But the old friendship straightway blossomed new. The heavens were sunny, and the earth was green; The large harebells in families stood along The grassy borders, of a tender blue Transparent as the sky, haunted with wings Of many butterflies, as blue as they. And as we talked and talked without restraint, Brought near by memories of days that were, And therefore are for ever; by the joy Of motion through a warm and shining air; By the glad sense of freedom and like thoughts; And by the bond of friendship with the dead, She told the tale which here I tell again.

I had returned to childish olden time, And asked her if she knew a castle worn, Whose masonry, razed utterly above, Yet faced the sea-cliff up, and met the waves:-- 'Twas one of my child-marvels; for, each year, We turned our backs upon the ripening corn, And sought some village on the Moray shore; And nigh this ruin, was that I loved the best.

For oh the riches of that little port!-- Down almost to the beach, where a high wall Inclosed them, came the gardens of a lord, Free to the visitor with foot restrained-- His shady walks, his ancient trees of state; His river--that would not be shut within, But came abroad, went dreaming o'er the sands, And lost itself in finding out the sea; Inside, it bore grave swans, white splendours--crept Under the fairy leap of a wire bridge, Vanished in leaves, and came again where lawns Lay verdurous, and the peacock's plumy heaven Bore azure suns with green and golden rays. It was my childish Eden; for the skies Were loftier in that garden, and the clouds More summer-gracious, edged with broader white; And when they rained, it was a golden rain That sparkled as it fell--an odorous rain. And then its wonder-heart!--a little room, Half-hollowed in the side of a steep hill, Which rose, with columned, windy temple crowned, A landmark to far seas. The enchanted cell Was clouded over in the gentle night Of a luxuriant foliage, and its door, Half-filled with rainbow hues of coloured glass, Opened into the bosom of the hill. Never to sesame of mine that door Gave up its sanctuary; but through the glass, Gazing with reverent curiosity, I saw a little chamber, round and high, Which but to see was to escape the heat, And bathe in coolness of the eye and brain; For all was dusky greenness; on one side, A window, half-blind with ivy manifold, Whose leaves, like heads of gazers, climbed to the top, Gave a joy-saddened light, for all that came Through the thick veil was green, oh, kindest hue! But the heart has a heart--this heart had one: Still in the midst, the _ever more_ of all, On a low column stood, white, cold, dim-clear, A marble woman. Who she was I know not-- A Psyche, or a Silence, or an Echo: Pale, undefined, a silvery shadow, still, In one lone chamber of my memory, She is a power upon me as of old.

But, ah, to dream there through hot summer days, In coolness shrouded and sea-murmurings, Forgot by all till twilight shades grew dark! To find half-hidden in the hollowed wall, A nest of tales, old volumes such as dreams Hoard up in bookshops dim in tortuous streets! That wondrous marble woman evermore Filling the gloom with calm delirium Of radiated whiteness, as I read!-- The fancied joy, too plenteous for its cup, O'erflowed, and turned to sadness as it fell.

But the gray ruin on the shattered shore, Not the green refuge in the bowering hill, Drew forth our talk that day. For, as I said, I asked her if she knew it. She replied, "I know it well. A woman used to live In one of its low vaults, my mother says." "I found a hole," I said, "and spiral stair, Leading from level of the ground above To a low-vaulted room within the rock, Whence through a small square window I looked forth Wide o'er the waters; the dim-sounding waves Were many feet below, and shrunk in size To a great ripple." "'Twas not there," she said, "--Not in that room half up the cliff, but one Low down, within the margin of spring tides: When both the tide and northern wind are high, 'Tis more an ocean-cave than castle-vault." And then she told me all she knew of her.

It was a simple tale, a monotone: She climbed one sunny hill, gazed once abroad, Then wandered down, to pace a dreary plain; Alas! how many such are told by night, In fisher-cottages along the shore!

Farewell, old summer-day! I turn aside To tell her story, interwoven with thoughts Born of its sorrow; for I dare not think A woman at the mercy of a sea.

THE STORY.

Aye as it listeth blows the listless wind, Swelling great sails, and bending lordly masts, Or hurrying shadow-waves o'er fields of corn, And hunting lazy clouds across the sky: Now, like a white cloud o'er another sky, It blows a tall brig from the harbour's mouth, Away to high-tossed heads of wallowing waves, 'Mid hoverings of long-pinioned arrowy birds. With clouds and birds and sails and broken crests, All space is full of spots of fluttering white, And yet the sailor knows that handkerchief Waved wet with tears, and heavy in the wind. Blow, wind! draw out the cord that binds the twain; Draw, for thou canst not break the lengthening cord. Blow, wind! yet gently; gently blow, fair wind! And let love's vision slowly, gently die; Let the bright sails all solemn-slowly pass, And linger ghost-like o'er the vanished hull, With a white farewell to her straining eyes; For never more in morning's level beams, Will those sea-shadowing sails, dark-stained and worn, From the gray-billowed north come dancing in; Oh, never, gliding home 'neath starry skies, Over the dusk of the dim-glancing sea, Will the great ship send forth a herald cry Of home-come sailors, into sleeping streets! Blow gently, wind! blow slowly, gentle wind!

Weep not yet, maiden; 'tis not yet thy hour. Why shouldst thou weep before thy time is come? Go to thy work; break into song sometimes-- Song dying slow-forgotten, in the lapse Of dreamy thought, ere natural pause ensue, Or sudden dropt what time the eager heart Hurries the ready eye to north and east. Sing, maiden, while thou canst, ere yet the truth, Slow darkening, choke the heart-caged singing bird!

The weeks went by. Oft leaving household work, With bare arms and uncovered head she clomb The landward slope of the prophetic hill; From whose green head, as from the verge of time, Far out on the eternity of blue, Shading her hope-rapt eyes, seer-like she gazed, If from the Hades of the nether world, Slow climbing up the round side of the earth, Haply her prayers were drawing his tardy sails Over the threshold of the far sky-sea-- Drawing her sailor home to celebrate, With holy rites of family and church, The apotheosis of maidenhood.

Months passed; he came not; and a shadowy fear, Long haunting the horizon of her soul, In deeper gloom and sharper form drew nigh; And growing in bulk, possessed her atmosphere, And lost all shape, because it filled all space, And reached beyond the bounds of consciousness-- In sudden incarnations darting swift From out its infinite a gulfy stare Of terror blank, of hideous emptiness, Of widowhood ere ever wedding-day.

On granite ridge, and chalky cliff, and pier, Far built into the waves along our shores, Maidens have stood since ever ships went forth; The same pain at the heart; the same slow mist Clouding the eye; the same fixed longing look, As if the soul had gone, and left the door Wide open--gone to lean, hearken, and peer Over the awful edge where voidness sinks Sheer to oblivion--that horizon-line Over whose edge he vanished--came no more. O God, why are our souls, waste, helpless seas, Tortured with such immitigable storm? What is this love, that now on angel wing Sweeps us amid the stars in passionate calm; And now with demon arms fast cincturing, Drops us, through all gyrations of keen pain, Down the black vortex, till the giddy whirl Gives fainting respite to the ghastly brain? O happy they for whom the Possible Opens its gates of madness, and becomes The Real around them!--such to whom henceforth There is but one to-morrow, the next morn, Their wedding-day, ever one step removed, The husband's foot ever upon the verge Of the day's threshold, in a lasting dream! Such madness may be but a formless faith-- A chaos which the breath of God will blow Into an ordered world of seed and fruit. Shall not the Possible become the Real? God sleeps not when he makes his daughters dream. Shall not the morrow dawn at last which leads The maiden-ghost, confused and half awake, Into the land whose shadows are our dreams?-- Thus questioning we stand upon the shore, And gaze across into the Unrevealed.

Upon its visible symbol gazed the girl, Till earth behind her ceased, and sea was all, Possessing eyes and brain and shrinking soul-- A universal mouth to swallow up, And close eternally in one blue smile! A still monotony of pauseless greed, Its only voice an endless, dreary song Of wailing, and of craving from the world!

A low dull dirge that ever rose and died, Recurring without pause or change or close, Like one verse chaunted ever in sleepless brain, Still drew her to the shore. It drew her down, Like witch's spell, that fearful endless moan; Somewhere, she thought, in the green abyss below, His body, at the centre of the moan, Obeyed the motions whence the moaning grew; Now, now, in circle slow revolved, and now Swayed like a wind-swung bell, now swept along Hither and thither, idly to and fro, Heedlessly wandering through the heedless sea. Its fascination drew her onward still-- On to the ridgy rocks that seaward ran, And out along their furrows and jagged backs, To the last lonely point where the green mass Arose and sank, heaved slow and forceful. There She shuddered and recoiled. Thus, for a time, Sport-slave of power occult, she came and went, Betwixt the shore and sea alternating, Drawn ever to the greedy lapping lip, Then, terror-stung, driven backward: there it lay, The heartless, cruel, miserable deep, Ambushed in horror, with its glittering eye Still drawing her to its green gulfing maw!

But every ocean hath its isles, each woe Its scattered comfortings; and this was one That often came to her--that she, wave-caught, Must, in the wash of ever-shifting waters, In some good hour sure-fixed of pitiful fate, _All-conscious still of love, despite the sea_, Float over some stray bone, some particle, Which far-diffused sense would know as his: Heart-glad she would sit down, and watch the tide Slow-growing--till it reached at length her feet, When, at its first cold touch, up she would spring, And, ghastful, flee, with white-rimmed sightless eye.

But still, where'er she fled, the sea-voice followed; Whisperings innumerable of water-drops Would grow together to a giant cry; Now hoarse, half-stifled, pleading, warning tones, Now thunderous peals of billowy, wrathful shouts, Called after her to come, and make no pause. From the loose clouds that mingled with the spray, And from the tossings of the lifted seas, Where plunged and rose the raving wilderness, Outreaching arms, pursuing, beckoning hands, Came shoreward, lengthening, feeling after her. Then would she fling her own wild arms on high, Over her head, in tossings like the waves, Or fix them, with clasped hands of prayer intense, Forward, appealing to the bitter sea. Sometimes she sudden from her shoulders tore Her garments, one by one, and cast them out Into the roarings of the heedless surge, In vain oblation to the hungry waves. As vain was Pity's will to cover her; Best gifts but bribed the sea, and left her bare. In her poor heart and brain burned such a fire That all-unheeded cold winds lapped her round, And sleet-like spray flashed on her tawny skin. Her food she seldom ate; her naked arms Flung it far out to feed the sea; her hair Streamed after it, like rooted ocean-weed In headlong current. But, alas, the sea Took it, and came again--it would have _her_! And as the wave importunate, so despair, Back surging, on her heart rushed ever afresh: Sickening she moaned--half muttered and half moaned-- "She winna be content; she'll hae mysel!"

But when the night grew thick upon the sea, Quenching it almost, save its quenchless voice, Then, half-released until the light, she rose, And step by step withdrew--as dreaming man, With an eternity of slowness, drags His earth-bound, lead-like, irresponsive feet Back from a sleeping horror, she withdrew. But when, upon the narrow beach at last, She turned her back upon her hidden foe, It blended with her phantom-breeding brain, And, scared at very fear, she cried and fled-- Fled to the battered base of the old tower, And round the rock, and through the arched gap Into the yawning blackness of the vault-- There sank upon the sand, and gasped, and raved. Close cowering in a nook, she sat all night, Her face turned to the entrance of the vault, Through which a pale light shimmered--from the eye Of the great sleepless ocean--Argus more dread Than he with hundred lidless watching orbs, And slept, and dreamed, and dreaming saw the sea. But in the stormy nights, when all was dark, And the wild tempest swept with slanting wing Against her refuge, and the heavy spray Shot through the doorway serpentine cold arms To seize the fore-doomed morsel of the sea, She slept not, evermore stung to new life By new sea-terrors. Now it was the gull: His clanging pinions darted through the arch, And flapped about her head; now 'twas a wave Grown arrogant: it rushed into her house, Clasped her waist-high, then out again and away To swell the devilish laughter in the fog, And leave her clinging to the rocky wall, With white face watching. When it came no more, And the tide ebbed, not yet she slept--sat down, And sat unmoving, till the low gray dawn Grew on the misty dance of spouting waves, That made a picture in the rugged arch; Then the old fascination woke and drew; And, rising slowly, forth she went afresh, To haunt the border of the dawning sea.

Yet all the time there lay within her soul An inner chamber, quietest place; but she Turned from its door, and staid out in the storm. She, entering there, had found a refuge calm As summer evening, as a mother's arms. There had she found her lost love, only lost In that he slept, and she was still awake. There she had found, waiting for her to come, The Love that waits and watches evermore.

Thou too hast such a chamber, quietest place, Where that Love waits for thee. What is it, say, That will not let thee enter? Is it care For the provision of the unborn day, As if thou wert a God that must foresee? Is it poor hunger for the praise of men? Is it ambition to outstrip thy fellow In this world's race? Or is it love of self-- That greed which still to have must still destroy?-- Go mad for some lost love; some voice of old, Which first thou madest sing, and after sob; Some heart thou foundest rich, and leftest bare, Choking its well of faith with thy false deeds-- Unlike thy God, who keeps the better wine Until the last, and, if he giveth grief, Giveth it first, and ends the tale with joy: Such madness clings about the feet of God, Nor lets them go. Better a thousandfold Be she than thou! for though thy brain be strong And clear and workful, hers a withered flower That never came to seed, her heart is full Of that in whose live might God made the world; She is a well, and thou an empty cup. It was the invisible unbroken cord Between the twain, her and her sailor-lad, That drew her ever to the ocean marge. Better to die for love, to rave for love, Than not to love at all! but to have loved, And, loved again, then to have turned away-- Better than that, never to have been born!

But if thy heart be noble, say if thou Canst ever all forget an hour of pain, When, maddened with the thought that could not be, Thou might'st have yielded to the demon wind That swept in tempest through thy scorching brain, And rushed into the night, and howled aloud, And clamoured to the waves, and beat the rocks; And never found thy way back to the seat Of conscious self, and power to rule thy pain, Had not God made thee strong to bear and live! The tale is now in thee, not thou in it; But the sad woman, in her wildest mood, Thou knowest her thy sister! She is fair No more; her eyes like fierce suns blaze and burn; Her cheeks are parched and brown; her haggard form Is wasted by wild storms of soul and sea; Yet in her very self is that which still Reminds thee of a story, old, not dead, Which God has in his keeping--of thyself.

Ah, not forgot are children when they sleep! The darkness lasts all night, and clears the eyes; Then comes the morning with the joy of light. Oh, surely madness hideth not from Him! Nor doth a soul cease to be beautiful In his sight, that its beauty is withdrawn, And hid by pale eclipse from human eyes. As the chill snow is friendly to the earth, And pain and loss are friendly to the soul, Shielding it from the black heart-killing frost; So madness is but one of God's pale winters; And when the winter over is and gone, Then smile the skies, then blooms the earth again, And the fair time of singing birds is come: Into the cold wind and the howling night, God sent for her, and she was carried in Where there was no more sea.

What messenger Ran from the door of heaven to bring her home? The sea, her terror.

In the rocks that stand Below the cliff, there lies a rounded hollow, Scooped like a basin, with jagged and pinnacled sides: Low buried when the wind heaps up the surge, It lifts in the respiration of the tide Its broken edges, and, then, deep within Lies resting water, radiantly clear: There, on a morn of sunshine, while the wind Yet blew, and heaved yet the billowy sea With memories of a night of stormy dreams, At rest they found her: in the sleep which is And is not death, she, lying very still, Absorbed the bliss that follows after pain. O life of love, conquered at last by fate! O life raised from the dead by saviour Death! O love unconquered and invincible! The enemy sea had cooled her burning brain; Had laid to rest the heart that could not rest; Had hid the horror of its own dread face! 'Twas but one desolate cry, and then her fear Became a blessed fact, and straight she knew What God knew all the time--that it was well.

O thou whose feet tread ever the wet sands And howling rocks along the wearing shore, Roaming the borders of the sea of death! Strain not thine eyes, bedimmed with longing tears, No sail comes climbing back across that line. Turn thee, and to thy work; let God alone, And wait for him: faint o'er the waves will come Far-floating whispers from the other shore To thine averted ears. Do thou thy work, And thou shalt follow--follow, and find thine own.

And thou who fearest something that may come; Around whose house the storm of terror breaks All night; to whose love-sharpened ear, all day, The Invisible is calling at the door, To render up a life thou canst not keep, Or love that will not stay,--open thy door, And carry out thy dying to the marge Of the great sea; yea, walk into the flood, And lay thy dead upon the moaning waves. Give them to God to bury; float them again, With sighs and prayers to waft them through the gloom, Back to the spring of life. Say--"If they die, Thou, the one life of life, art still alive, And thou canst make thy dead alive again!"

Ah God, the earth is full of cries and moans, And dull despair, that neither moans nor cries; Thousands of hearts are waiting helplessly; The whole creation groaneth, travaileth For what it knows not--with a formless hope Of resurrection or of dreamless death! Raise thou the dead; restore the Aprils withered In hearts of maidens; give their manhood back To old men feebly mournful o'er a life That scarce hath memory but the mournfulness! There is no past with thee: bring back once more The summer eves of lovers, over which The wintry wind that raveth through the world Heaps wretched leaves in gusts of ghastly snow; Bring back the mother-heaven of orphans lone, The brother's and the sister's faithfulness;-- Bring in the kingdom of the Son of Man.

They troop around me, children wildly crying; Women with faded eyes, all spent of tears; Men who have lived for love, yet lived alone; Yea, some consuming in cold fires of shame! O God, thou hast a work for all thy strength In saving these thy hearts with full content-- Except thou give them Lethe's stream to drink, And that, my God, were all unworthy thee!

Dome up, O heaven, yet higher o'er my head! Back, back, horizon; widen out my world! Rush in, O fathomless sea of the Unknown! For, though he slay me, I will trust in God.

THE DISCIPLE.

DEDICATION.

To all who fain Would keep the grain, And cast the husk away-- That it may feed The living seed, And serve it with decay-- I offer this dim story Whose clouds crack into glory.

THE DISCIPLE.

I.

The times are changed, and gone the day When the high heavenly land, Though unbeheld, quite near them lay, And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here, Did love it more than this; They enter in, are filled with cheer, And pain expires in bliss.

All glorious gleams the blessed land!-- O God, forgive, I pray: The heart thou holdest in thy hand Loves more this sunny day!

I see the hundred thousand wait Around the radiant throne: Ah, what a dreary, gilded state! What crowds of beings lone!

I do not care for singing psalms; I tire of good men's talk; To me there is no joy in palms, Or white-robed, solemn walk.

I love to hear the wild winds meet, The wild old winds at night; To watch the cold stars flash and beat, The feathery snow alight.

I love all tales of valiant men, Of women good and fair: If I were rich and strong, ah, then I would do something rare!

But for thy temple in the sky, Its pillars strong and white-- I cannot love it, though I try, And long with all my might.

Sometimes a joy lays hold on me, And I am speechless then; Almost a martyr I could be, To join the holy men.

Straightway my heart is like a clod, My spirit wrapt in doubt:-- _A pillar in the house of God, And never more go out_!

No more the sunny, breezy morn; All gone the glowing noon; No more the silent heath forlorn, The wan-faced waning moon!

My God, this heart will never burn, Must never taste thy joy! Even Jesus' face is calm and stern: I am a hapless boy!

* * * * *

II.

I read good books. My heart despairs. In vain I try to dress My soul in feelings like to theirs-- These men of holiness.

My thoughts, like doves, abroad I fling Into a country fair: Wind-baffled, back, with tired wing, They to my ark repair.

Or comes a sympathetic thrill With long-departed saint, A feeble dawn, without my will, Of feelings old and quaint,

As of a church's holy night, With low-browed chapels round, Where common sunshine dares not light On the too sacred ground,--

One glance at sunny fields of grain, One shout of child at play-- A merry melody drives amain The one-toned chant away!

My spirit will not enter here To haunt the holy gloom; I gaze into a mirror mere, A mirror, not a room.

And as a bird against the pane Will strike, deceived sore, I think to enter, but remain Outside the closed door.

Oh, it will call for many a sigh If it be what it claims-- This book, so unlike earth and sky, Unlike man's hopes and aims!--

To me a desert parched and bare-- In which a spirit broods Whose wisdom I would gladly share At cost of many goods!

* * * * *

III.

O hear me, God! O give me joy Such as thy chosen feel; Have pity on a wretched boy; My heart is hard as steel.

I have no care for what is good; Thyself I do not love; I relish not this Bible-food; My heaven is not above.

Thou wilt not hear: I come no more; Thou heedest not my woe. With sighs and tears my heart is sore. Thou comest not: I go.

* * * * *

IV.

Once more I kneel. The earth is dark, And darker yet the air; If light there be, 'tis but a spark Amid a world's despair--

One hopeless hope there yet may be A God somewhere to hear; The God to whom I bend my knee-- A God with open ear.

I know that men laugh still to scorn The grief that is my lot; Such wounds, they say, are hardly borne, But easily forgot.

What matter that my sorrows rest On ills which men despise! More hopeless heaves my aching breast Than when a prophet sighs.

AEons of griefs have come and gone-- My grief is yet my mark. The sun sets every night, yet none Sees therefore in the dark.

There's love enough upon the earth, And beauty too, they say: There may be plenty, may be dearth, I care not any way.

The world hath melted from my sight; No grace in life is left; I cry to thee with all my might, Because I am bereft.

In vain I cry. The earth is dark, And darker yet the air; Of light there trembles now no spark In my lost soul's despair.

* * * * *

V.

I sit and gaze from window high Down on the noisy street: No part in this great coil have I, No fate to go and meet.

My books unopened long have lain; In class I am all astray: The questions growing in my brain, Demand and have their way.

Knowledge is power, the people cry; Grave men the lure repeat: After some rarer thing I sigh, That makes the pulses beat.

Old truths, new facts, they preach aloud-- Their tones like wisdom fall: One sunbeam glancing on a cloud Hints things beyond them all.

* * * * *

VI.

But something is not right within; High hopes are far gone by. Was it a bootless aim--to win Sight of a loftier sky?

They preach men should not faint, but pray, And seek until they find; But God is very far away, Nor is his countenance kind.

Yet every night my father prayed, Withdrawing from the throng! Some answer must have come that made His heart so high and strong!

Once more I'll seek the God of men, Redeeming childhood's vow.-- --I failed with bitter weeping then, And fail cold-hearted now!

VII.

Why search for God? A man I tread This old life-bearing earth; High thoughts awake and lift my head-- In me they have their birth.

The preacher says a Christian must Do all the good he can:-- I must be noble, true, and just, Because I am a man!

They say a man must watch, and keep Lamp burning, garments white, Else he shall sit without and weep When Christ comes home at night:--

A man must hold his honour free, His conscience must not stain, Or soil, I say, the dignity Of heart and blood and brain!

Yes, I say well--said words are cheap! For action man was born! What praise will my one talent reap? What grapes are on my thorn?

Have high words kept me pure enough? In evil have I no part? Hath not my bosom "perilous stuff That weighs upon the heart"?

I am not that which I do praise; I do not that I say; I sit a talker in the ways, A dreamer in the day!

VIII.

The preacher's words are true, I know-- That man may lose his life; That every man must downward go Without the upward strife.

'Twere well my soul should cease to roam, Should seek and have and hold! It may be there is yet a home In that religion old.

Again I kneel, again I pray: _Wilt thou be God to me? Wilt thou give ear to what I say, And lift me up to thee_?

Lord, is it true? Oh, vision high! The clouds of heaven dispart; An opening depth of loving sky Looks down into my heart!

There _is_ a home wherein to dwell-- The very heart of light! Thyself my sun immutable, My moon and stars all night!

I thank thee, Lord. It must be so, Its beauty is so good. Up in my heart thou mad'st it go, And I have understood.

The clouds return. The common day Falls on me like a _No_; But I have seen what might be--may, And with a hope I go.

IX.

I am a stranger in the land; It gives no welcome dear; Its lilies bloom not for my hand, Its roses for my cheer.

The sunshine used to make me glad, But now it knows me not; This weight of brightness makes me sad-- It isolates a blot.

I am forgotten by the hills, And by the river's play; No look of recognition thrills The features of the day.

Then only am I moved to song, When down the darkening street, While vanishes the scattered throng, The driving rain I meet.

The rain pours down. My thoughts awake, Like flowers that languished long; From bare cold hills the night-winds break, From me the unwonted song.

X.

I read the Bible with my eyes, But hardly with my brain; Should this the meaning recognize, My heart yet reads in vain.

These words of promise and of woe Seem but a tinkling sound; As through an ancient tomb I go, With dust-filled urns around.

Or, as a sadly searching child, Afar from love and home, Sits in an ancient chamber, piled With scroll and musty tome,

So I, in these epistles old From men of heavenly care, Find all the thoughts of other mould Than I can love or share.

No sympathy with mine they show, Their world is not the same; They move me not with joy or woe, They touch me not with blame.

I hear no word that calls my life, Or owns my struggling powers; Those ancient ages had their strife, But not a strife like ours.

Oh, not like men they move and speak, Those pictures in old panes! They alter not their aspect meek For all the winds and rains!

Their thoughts are full of figures strange, Of Jewish forms and rites: A world of air and sea I range, Of mornings and of nights!

XI.

I turn me to the gospel-tale:-- My hope is faint with fear That hungriest search will not avail To find a refuge here.

A misty wind blows bare and rude From dead seas of the past; And through the clouds that halt and brood, Dim dawns a shape at last:

A sad worn man who bows his face, And treads a frightful path, To save an abject hopeless race From an eternal wrath.

Kind words he speaks--but all the time As from a formless height To which no human foot can climb-- Half-swathed in ancient night.

Nay, sometimes, and to gentle heart, Unkind words from him go! Surely it is no saviour's part To speak to women so!

Much rather would I refuge take With Mary, dear to me, To whom that rough hard speech he spake-- _What have I to do with thee_?

Surely I know men tenderer, Women of larger soul, Who need no prayer their hearts to stir, Who always would make whole!

Oftenest he looks a weary saint, Embalmed in pallid gleam; Listless and sad, without complaint, Like dead man in a dream.

And, at the best, he is uplift A spectacle, a show:-- The worth of such an outworn gift I know too much to know!

How find the love to pay my debt?-- He leads me from the sun!-- Yet it is hard men should forget A good deed ever done!--

Forget that he, to foil a curse, Did, on that altar-hill, Sun of a sunless universe, Hang dying, patient, still!

But what is He, whose pardon slow At so much blood is priced?-- If such thou art, O Jove, I go To the Promethean Christ!

XII.

A word within says I am to blame, And therefore must confess; Must call my doing by its name, And so make evil less.

"I could not his false triumph bear, For he was first in wrong." "Thy own ill-doings are thy care, His to himself belong."

"To do it right, my heart should own Some sorrow for the ill." "Plain, honest words will half atone, And they are in thy will."

The struggle comes. Evil or I Must gain the victory now. I am unmoved and yet would try: O God, to thee I bow.

The skies are brass; there falls no aid; No wind of help will blow. But I bethink me:--I am made A man: I rise and go.

XIII.

To Christ I needs must come, they say; Who went to death for me: I turn aside; I come, I pray, My unknown God, to thee.

He is afar; the story old Is blotted, worn, and dim; With thee, O God, I can be bold-- I cannot pray to him.

_Pray_! At the word a cloudy grief Around me folds its pall: Nothing I have to call belief! How can I pray at all?

I know not if a God be there To heed my crying sore; If in the great world anywhere An ear keeps open door!

An unborn faith I will not nurse, Pursue an endless task; Loud out into its universe My soul shall call and ask!

Is there no God--earth, sky, and sea Are but a chaos wild! Is there a God--I know that he Must hear his calling child!

XIV.

I kneel. But all my soul is dumb With hopeless misery: Is he a friend who will not come, Whose face I must not see?

I do not think of broken laws, Of judge's damning word; My heart is all one ache, because I call and am not heard.

A cry where there is none to hear, Doubles the lonely pain; Returns in silence on the ear, In torture on the brain.

No look of love a smile can bring, No kiss wile back the breath To cold lips: I no answer wring From this great face of death.

XV.

Yet sometimes when the agony Dies of its own excess, A dew-like calm descends on me, A shadow of tenderness;

A sense of bounty and of grace, A cool air in my breast, As if my soul were yet a place Where peace might one day rest.

God! God! I say, and cry no more, But rise, and think to stand Unwearied at the closed door Till comes the opening hand.

XVI.

But is it God?--Once more the fear Of _No God_ loads my breath: Amid a sunless atmosphere I fight again with death.

Such rest may be like that which lulls The man who fainting lies: His bloodless brain his spirit dulls, Draws darkness o'er his eyes.

But even such sleep, my heart responds, May be the ancient rest Rising released from bodily bonds, And flowing unreprest.

The o'ertasked will falls down aghast In individual death; God puts aside the severed past, Breathes-in a primal breath.

For how should torture breed a calm? Can death to life give birth? No labour can create the balm That soothes the sleeping earth!

I yet will hope the very One Whose love is life in me, Did, when my strength was overdone, Inspire serenity.

XVII.

When the hot sun's too urgent might Hath shrunk the tender leaf, Water comes sliding down the night, And makes its sorrow brief.

When poet's heart is in eclipse, A glance from childhood's eye, A smile from passing maiden's lips, Will clear a glowing sky.

Might not from God such influence come A dying hope to lift? Might he not send to poor heart some Unmediated gift?

My child lies moaning, lost in dreams, Abandoned, sore dismayed; Her fancy's world with horror teems, Her soul is much afraid:

I lay my hand upon her breast, Her moaning dies away; She does not wake, but, lost in rest, Sleeps on into the day.

And when my heart with soft release Grows calm as summer-sea, Shall I not hope the God of peace Hath laid his hand on me?

XVIII.

But why from thought should fresh doubt start-- An ever-lengthening cord? Might he not make my troubled heart Right sure it was the Lord?

God will not let a smaller boon Hinder the coming best; A granted sign might all too soon Rejoice thee into rest.

Yet could not any sign, though grand As hosts of fire about, Though lovely as a sunset-land, Secure thy soul from doubt.

A smile from one thou lovedst well Gladdened thee all the day; The doubt which all day far did dwell Came home with twilight gray.

For doubt will come, will ever come, Though signs be perfect good, Till heart to heart strike doubting dumb, And both are understood.

XIX.

I shall behold him, one day, nigh. Assailed with glory keen, My eyes will open wide, and I Shall see as I am seen.

Of nothing can my heart be sure Except the highest, best When God I see with vision pure, That sight will be my rest.

Forward I look with longing eye, And still my hope renew; Backward, and think that from the sky _Did_ come that falling dew.

XX.

But if a vision should unfold That I might banish fear; That I, the chosen, might be bold, And walk with upright cheer;

My heart would cry: But shares my race In this great love of thine? I pray, put me not in good case Where others lack and pine.

Nor claim I thus a loving heart That for itself is mute: In such love I desire no part As reaches not my root.

But if my brothers thou dost call As children to thy knee, Thou givest me my being's all, Thou sayest child to me.

If thou to me alone shouldst give, My heart were all beguiled: It would not be because I live, And am my Father's child!

XXI.

As little comfort would it bring, Amid a throng to pass; To stand with thousands worshipping Upon the sea of glass;

To know that, of a sinful world, I one was saved as well; My roll of ill with theirs upfurled, And cast in deepest hell;

That God looked bounteously on one, Because on many men; As shone Judea's earthly sun On all the healed ten.

No; thou must be a God to me As if but me were none; I such a perfect child to thee As if thou hadst but one.

XXII.

Oh, then, my Father, hast thou not A blessing just for me? Shall I be, barely, not forgot?-- Never come home to thee?

Hast thou no care for this one child, This thinking, living need? Or is thy countenance only mild, Thy heart not love indeed?

For some eternal joy I pray, To make me strong and free; Yea, such a friend I need alway As thou alone canst be.

Is not creative infinitude Able, in every man, To turn itself to every mood Since God man's life began?

Art thou not each man's God--his own, With secret words between, As thou and he lived all alone, Insphered in silence keen?

Ah, God, my heart is not the same As any heart beside; My pain is different, and my blame, My pity and my pride!

My history thou know'st, my thoughts Different from other men's; Thou knowest all the sheep and goats That mingle in my pens.

Thou knowest I a love might bring By none beside me due; One praiseful song at least might sing Which could not but be new.

XXIII.

Nor seek I thus to stand apart, In aught my kind above; My neighbour, ah, my troubled heart Must rest ere thee it love!

If God love not, I have no care, No power to love, no hope. What is life here or anywhere? Or why with darkness cope?

I scorn my own love's every sign, So feeble, selfish, low, If his love give no pledge that mine Shall one day perfect grow.

But if I knew Thy love even such, As tender and intense As, tested by its human touch, Would satisfy my sense

Of what a father never was But should be to his son, My heart would leap for joy, because My rescue was begun.

Oh then my love, by thine set free, Would overflow thy men; In every face my heart would see God shining out again!

There are who hold high festival And at the board crown Death: I am too weak to live at all Except I breathe thy breath.

Show me a love that nothing bates, Absolute, self-severe-- Even at Gehenna's prayerless gates I should not "taint with fear."

XXIV.

I cannot brook that men should say-- Nor this for gospel take-- That thou wilt hear me if I pray Asking for Jesus' sake.

For love to him is not to me, And cannot lift my fate; The love is not that is not free, Perfect, immediate.

Love is salvation: life without No moment can endure. Those sheep alone go in and out Who know thy love is pure.

XXV.

But what if God requires indeed, For cause yet unrevealed, Assent to one fixed form of creed, Such as I cannot yield?

Has God made _for Christ's sake_ a test-- To take or leave the crust, That only he may have the best Who licks the serpent-dust?

No, no; the words I will not say With the responding folk; I at his feet a heart would lay, Not shoulders for a yoke.

He were no lord of righteousness Who subjects such would gain As yield their birthright for a mess Of liberty from pain!

"And wilt thou bargain then with Him?" The priest makes answer high. 'Tis thou, priest, makest the sky dim: My hope is in the sky.

XXVI.

But is my will alive, awake? The one God will not heed If in my lips or hands I take A half-word or half-deed.

Hour after hour I sit and dream, Amazed in outwardness; The powers of things that only seem The things that are oppress;

Till in my soul some discord sounds, Till sinks some yawning lack; Then turn I from life's rippling rounds, And unto thee come back.

Thou seest how poor a thing am I, Yet hear, whate'er I be; Despairing of my will, I cry, Be God enough to me.

My spirit, low, irresolute, I cast before thy feet; And wait, while even prayer is mute, For what thou judgest meet.

XXVII.

My safety lies not, any hour, In what I generate, But in the living, healing power Of that which doth create.

If he is God to the incomplete, Fulfilling lack and need, Then I may cast before his feet A half-word or half-deed.

I bring, Lord, to thy altar-stair, To thee, love-glorious, My very lack of will and prayer, And cry--Thou seest me thus!

From some old well of life they flow! The words my being fill!-- "Of me that man the truth shall know Who wills the Father's will."

XXVIII.

What is his will?--that I may go And do it, in the hope That light will rise and spread and grow, As deed enlarges scope.

I need not search the sacred book To find my duty clear; Scarce in my bosom need I look, It lies so very near.

Henceforward I must watch the door Of word and action too; There's one thing I must do no more, Another I must do.

Alas, these are such little things! No glory in their birth! Doubt from their common aspect springs-- If God will count them worth.

But here I am not left to choose, My duty is my lot; And weighty things will glory lose If small ones are forgot.

I am not worthy high things yet; I'll humbly do my own; Good care of sheep may so beget A fitness for the throne.

Ah fool! why dost thou reason thus? Ambition's very fool! Through high and low, each glorious, Shines God's all-perfect rule.

'Tis God I need, not rank in good: 'Tis Life, not honour's meed; With him to fill my every mood, I am content indeed.

XXIX.

_Will do: shall know_: I feel the force, The fullness of the word; His holy boldness held its course, Claiming divine accord.

What if, as yet, I have never seen The true face of the Man! The named notion may have been A likeness vague and wan;

A thing of such unblended hues As, on his chamber wall, The humble peasant gladly views, And _Jesus Christ_ doth call.

The story I did never scan With vision calm and strong; Have never tried to see the Man, The many words among.

Pictures there are that do not please With any sweet surprise, But gain the heart by slow degrees Until they feast the eyes;

And if I ponder what they call The gospel of God's grace, Through mists that slowly melt and fall May dawn a human face.

What face? Oh, heart-uplifting thought, That face may dawn on me Which Moses on the mountain sought, God would not let him see!

XXX.

All faint at first, as wrapt in veil Of Sinai's cloudy dark, But dawning as I read the tale, I slow discern and mark

A gracious, simple, truthful man, Who walks the earth erect, Nor stoops his noble head to one From fear or false respect;

Who seeks to climb no high estate, No low consent secure, With high and low serenely great, Because his love is pure.

Oh not alone, high o'er our reach, Our joys and griefs beyond! To him 'tis joy divine to teach Where human hearts respond;

And grief divine it was to him To see the souls that slept: "How often, O Jerusalem!" He said, and gazed, and wept.

Love was his very being's root, And healing was its flower; Love, human love, its stem and fruit, Its gladness and its power.

Life of high God, till then unseen! Undreamt-of glorious show! Glad, faithful, childlike, love-serene!-- How poor am I! how low!

XXXI.

As in a living well I gaze, Kneeling upon its brink: What are the very words he says? What did the one man think?

I find his heart was all above; Obedience his one thought; Reposing in his father's love, His father's will he sought.

* * * * *

XXXII.

Years have passed o'er my broken plan To picture out a strife, Where ancient Death, in horror wan, Faced young and fearing Life.

More of the tale I tell not so-- But for myself would say: My heart is quiet with what I know, With what I hope, is gay.

And where I cannot set my faith, Unknowing or unwise, I say "If this be what _he_ saith, Here hidden treasure lies."

Through years gone by since thus I strove, Thus shadowed out my strife, While at my history I wove, Thou wovest in the life.

Through poverty that had no lack For friends divinely good; Through pain that not too long did rack, Through love that understood;

Through light that taught me what to hold And what to cast away; Through thy forgiveness manifold, And things I cannot say,

Here thou hast brought me--able now To kiss thy garment's hem, Entirely to thy will to bow, And trust thee even for them

Who in the darkness and the mire Walk with rebellious feet, Loose trailing, Lo, their soiled attire For heavenly floor unmeet!

Lord Jesus Christ, I know not how-- With this blue air, blue sea, This yellow sand, that grassy brow, All isolating me--

Thy thoughts to mine themselves impart, My thoughts to thine draw near; But thou canst fill who mad'st my heart, Who gav'st me words must hear.

Thou mad'st the hand with which I write, The eye that watches slow Through rosy gates that rosy light Across thy threshold go;

Those waves that bend in golden spray, As if thy foot they bore: I think I know thee, Lord, to-day, Shall know thee evermore.

I know thy father thine and mine: Thou the great fact hast bared: Master, the mighty words are thine-- Such I had never dared!

Lord, thou hast much to make me yet-- Thy father's infant still: Thy mind, Son, in my bosom set, That I may grow thy will.

My soul with truth clothe all about, And I shall question free: The man that feareth, Lord, to doubt, In that fear doubteth thee.

THE GOSPEL WOMEN.

I.

_THE MOTHER MARY_.

I.

Mary, to thee the heart was given For infant hand to hold, And clasp thus, an eternal heaven, The great earth in its fold.

He seized the world with tender might By making thee his own; Thee, lowly queen, whose heavenly height Was to thyself unknown.

He came, all helpless, to thy power, For warmth, and love, and birth; In thy embraces, every hour, He grew into the earth.

Thine was the grief, O mother high, Which all thy sisters share Who keep the gate betwixt the sky And this our lower air;

But unshared sorrows, gathering slow, Will rise within thy heart, Strange thoughts which like a sword will go Thorough thy inward part.

For, if a woman bore a son That was of angel brood, Who lifted wings ere day was done, And soared from where she stood,

Wild grief would rave on love's high throne; She, sitting in the door, All day would cry: "He was my own, And now is mine no more!"

So thou, O Mary, years on years, From child-birth to the cross, Wast filled with yearnings, filled with fears, Keen sense of love and loss.

His childish thoughts outsoared thy reach; His godlike tenderness Would sometimes seem, in human speech, To thee than human less.

Strange pangs await thee, mother mild, A sorer travail-pain; Then will the spirit of thy child Be born in thee again.

Till then thou wilt forebode and dread; Loss will be still thy fear-- Till he be gone, and, in his stead, His very self appear.

For, when thy son hath reached his goal, And vanished from the earth, Soon wilt thou find him in thy soul, A second, holier birth.

II.

Ah, there he stands! With wondering face Old men surround the boy; The solemn looks, the awful place Bestill the mother's joy.

In sweet reproach her gladness hid, Her trembling voice says--low, Less like the chiding than the chid-- "How couldst thou leave us so?"

But will her dear heart understand The answer that he gives-- Childlike, eternal, simple, grand, The law by which he lives?

"Why sought ye me?" Ah, mother dear, The gulf already opes That will in thee keep live the fear, And part thee from thy hopes!

"My father's business--that ye know I cannot choose but do." Mother, if he that work forego, Not long he cares for you.

Creation's harder, better part Now occupies his hand: I marvel not the mother's heart Not yet could understand.

III.

The Lord of life among them rests; They quaff the merry wine; They do not know, those wedding guests, The present power divine.

Believe, on such a group he smiled, Though he might sigh the while; Believe not, sweet-souled Mary's child Was born without a smile.

He saw the pitchers, high upturned, Their last red drops outpour; His mother's cheek with triumph burned, And expectation wore.

He knew the prayer her bosom housed, He read it in her eyes; Her hopes in him sad thoughts have roused Ere yet her words arise.

"They have no wine!" she, halting, said, Her prayer but half begun; Her eyes went on, "Lift up thy head, Show what thou art, my son!"

A vision rose before his eyes, The cross, the waiting tomb, The people's rage, the darkened skies, His unavoided doom:

Ah woman dear, thou must not fret Thy heart's desire to see! His hour of honour is not yet-- 'Twill come too soon for thee!

His word was dark; his tone was kind; His heart the mother knew; His eyes in hers looked deep, and shined; They gave her heart the cue.

Another, on the word intent, Had read refusal there; She heard in it a full consent, A sweetly answered prayer.

"Whate'er he saith unto you, do." Out flowed his grapes divine; Though then, as now, not many knew Who makes the water wine.

IV.

"He is beside himself!" Dismayed, His mother, brothers talked: He from the well-known path had strayed In which their fathers walked!

With troubled hearts they sought him. Loud Some one the message bore:-- He stands within, amid a crowd, They at the open door:--

"Thy mother and thy brothers would Speak with thee. Lo, they stand Without and wait thee!" Like a flood Of sunrise on the land,

A new-born light his face o'erspread; Out from his eyes it poured; He lifted up that gracious head, Looked round him, took the word:

"My mother--brothers--who are they?" Hearest thou, Mary mild? This is a sword that well may slay-- Disowned by thy child!

Ah, no! My brothers, sisters, hear-- They are our humble lord's! O mother, did they wound _thy_ ear?-- _We_ thank him for the words.

"Who are my friends?" Oh, hear him say, Stretching his hand abroad, "My mother, sisters, brothers, are they That do the will of God!"

_My brother_! Lord of life and me, If life might grow to this!-- Would it not, brother, sister, be Enough for all amiss?

Yea, mother, hear him and rejoice: Thou art his mother still, But may'st be more--of thy own choice Doing his Father's will.

Ambition for thy son restrain, Thy will to God's will bow: Thy son he shall be yet again. And twice his mother thou.

O humble man, O faithful son! That woman most forlorn Who yet thy father's will hath done, Thee, son of man, hath born!

V.

Life's best things gather round its close To light it from the door; When woman's aid no further goes, She weeps and loves the more.

She doubted oft, feared for his life, Yea, feared his mission's loss; But now she shares the losing strife, And weeps beside the cross.

The dreaded hour is come at last, The sword hath reached her soul; The hour of tortured hope is past, And gained the awful goal.

There hangs the son her body bore, The limbs her arms had prest! The hands, the feet the driven nails tore Had lain upon her breast!

He speaks; the words how faintly brief, And how divinely dear! The mother's heart yearns through its grief Her dying son to hear.

"Woman, behold thy son.--Behold Thy mother." Blessed hest That friend to her torn heart to fold Who understood him best!

Another son--ah, not instead!-- He gave, lest grief should kill, While he was down among the dead, Doing his father's will.

No, not _instead_! the coming joy Will make him hers anew; More hers than when, a little boy, His life from hers he drew.

II.

_THE WOMAN THAT LIFTED UP HER VOICE_.

Filled with his words of truth and right, Her heart will break or cry: A woman's cry bursts forth in might Of loving agony.

"Blessed the womb, thee, Lord, that bare! The bosom that thee fed!" A moment's silence filled the air, All heard the words she said.

He turns his face: he knows the cry, The fountain whence it springs-- A woman's heart that glad would die For woman's best of things.

Good thoughts, though laggard in the rear, He never quenched or chode: "Yea, rather, blessed they that hear And keep the word of God!"

He would uplift her, not rebuke. The crowd began to stir. We miss how she the answer took; We hear no more of her.

III.

_THE MOTHER OF ZEBEDEE'S CHILDREN_.

She knelt, she bore a bold request, Though shy to speak it out: Ambition, even in mother's breast, Before him stood in doubt.

"What is it?" "Grant thy promise now, My sons on thy right hand And on thy left shall sit when thou Art king, Lord, in the land."

"Ye know not what ye ask." There lay A baptism and a cup She understood not, in the way By which he must go up.

Her mother-love would lift them high Above their fellow-men; Her woman-pride would, standing nigh, Share in their grandeur then!

Would she have joyed o'er prosperous quest, Counted her prayer well heard, Had they, of three on Calvary's crest, Hung dying, first and third?

She knoweth neither way nor end: In dark despair, full soon, She will not mock the gracious friend With prayer for any boon.

Higher than love could dream or dare To ask, he them will set; They shall his cup and baptism share, And share his kingdom yet!

They, entering at his palace-door, Will shun the lofty seat; Will gird themselves, and water pour, And wash each other's feet;

Then down beside their lowly Lord On the Father's throne shall sit: For them who godlike help afford God hath prepared it.

IV.

_THE SYROPHENICIAN WOMAN_.

"Grant, Lord, her prayer, and let her go; She crieth after us." Nay, to the dogs ye cast it so; Serve not a woman thus.

Their pride, by condescension fed, He shapes with teaching tongue: "It is not meet the children's bread To little dogs be flung."

The words, for tender heart so sore, His voice did seem to rue; The gentle wrath his countenance wore, With her had not to do.

He makes her share the hurt of good, Takes what she would have lent, That those proud men their evil mood May see, and so repent;

And that the hidden faith in her May burst in soaring flame: With childhood deeper, holier, Is birthright not the same?

Ill names, of proud religion born-- She'll wear the worst that comes; Will clothe her, patient, in their scorn, To share the healing crumbs!

"Truth, Lord; and yet the puppies small Under the table eat The crumbs the little ones let fall-- That is not thought unmeet."

The prayer rebuff could not amate Was not like water spilt: "O woman, but thy faith is great! Be it even as thou wilt."

Thrice happy she who yet will dare, Who, baffled, prayeth still! He, if he may, will grant her prayer In fulness of _her_ will!

V.

_THE WIDOW OF NAIN_.

Forth from the city, with the load That makes the trampling low, They walk along the dreary road That dust and ashes go.

The other way, toward the gate Their trampling strong and loud, With hope of liberty elate, Comes on another crowd.

Nearer and nearer draw the twain-- One with a wailing cry! How could the Life let such a train Of death and tears go by!

"Weep not," he said, and touched the bier: They stand, the dead who bear; The mother knows nor hope nor fear-- He waits not for her prayer.

"Young man, I say to thee, arise." Who hears, he must obey: Up starts the body; wide the eyes Flash wonder and dismay.

The lips would speak, as if they caught Some converse sudden broke When the great word the dead man sought, And Hades' silence woke.

The lips would speak: the eyes' wild stare Gives place to ordered sight; The murmur dies upon the air; The soul is dumb with light.

He brings no news; he has forgot, Or saw with vision weak: Thou sees! all our unseen lot, And yet thou dost not speak.

Hold'st thou the news, as parent might A too good gift, away, Lest we should neither sleep at night, Nor do our work by day?

The mother leaves us not a spark Of her triumph over grief; Her tears alone have left their mark Upon the holy leaf:

Oft gratitude will thanks benumb, Joy will our laughter quell: May not Eternity be dumb With things too good to tell?

Her straining arms her lost one hold; Question she asketh none; She trusts for all he leaves untold; Enough, to clasp her son!

The ebb is checked, the flow begun, Sent rushing to the gate: Death turns him backward to the sun, And life is yet our fate!

VI.

_THE WOMAN WHOM SATAN HAD BOUND_.

For years eighteen she, patient soul, Her eyes had graveward sent; Her earthly life was lapt in dole, She was so bowed and bent.

What words! To her? Who can be near? What tenderness of hands! Oh! is it strength, or fancy mere? New hope, or breaking bands?

The pent life rushes swift along Channels it used to know; Up, up, amid the wondering throng, She rises firm and slow--

To bend again in grateful awe-- For will is power at length-- In homage to the living Law Who gives her back her strength.

Uplifter of the down-bent head! Unbinder of the bound! Who seest all the burdened Who only see the ground!

Although they see thee not, nor cry, Thou watchest for the hour To lift the forward-beaming eye, To wake the slumbering power!

Thy hand will wipe the stains of time From off the withered face; Upraise thy bowed old men, in prime Of youthful manhood's grace!

Like summer days from winter's tomb, Shall rise thy women fair; Gray Death, a shadow, not a doom, Lo, is not anywhere!

All ills of life shall melt away As melts a cureless woe, When, by the dawning of the day Surprised, the dream must go.

I think thou, Lord, wilt heal me too, Whate'er the needful cure; The great best only thou wilt do, And hoping I endure.

VII.

_THE WOMAN WHO CAME BEHIND HIM IN THE CROWD_.

Near him she stole, rank after rank; She feared approach too loud; She touched his garment's hem, and shrank Back in the sheltering crowd.

A shame-faced gladness thrills her frame: Her twelve years' fainting prayer Is heard at last! she is the same As other women there!

She hears his voice. He looks about. Ah! is it kind or good To drag her secret sorrow out Before that multitude?

The eyes of men she dares not meet-- On her they straight must fall!-- Forward she sped, and at his feet Fell down, and told him all.

To the one refuge she hath flown, The Godhead's burning flame! Of all earth's women she alone Hears there the tenderest name:

"Daughter," he said, "be of good cheer; Thy faith hath made thee whole:" With plenteous love, not healing mere, He comforteth her soul.

VIII.

_THE WIDOW WITH THE TWO MITES_.

Here _much_ and _little_ shift and change, With scale of need and time; There _more_ and _less_ have meanings strange, Which the world cannot rime.

Sickness may be more hale than health, And service kingdom high; Yea, poverty be bounty's wealth, To give like God thereby.

Bring forth your riches; let them go, Nor mourn the lost control; For if ye hoard them, surely so Their rust will reach your soul.

Cast in your coins, for God delights When from wide hands they fall; But here is one who brings two mites, And thus gives more than all.

I think she did not hear the praise-- Went home content with need; Walked in her old poor generous ways, Nor knew her heavenly meed.

IX.

_THE WOMEN WHO MINISTERED UNTO HIM_.

Enough he labours for his hire; Yea, nought can pay his pain; But powers that wear and waste and tire, Need help to toil again.

They give him freely all they can, They give him clothes and food; In this rejoicing, that the man Is not ashamed they should.

High love takes form in lowly thing; He knows the offering such; To them 'tis little that they bring, To him 'tis very much.

X.

_PILATE'S WIFE_.

Why came in dreams the low-born man Between thee and thy rest? In vain thy whispered message ran, Though justice was its quest!

Did some young ignorant angel dare-- Not knowing what must be, Or blind with agony of care-- To fly for help to thee?

I know not. Rather I believe, Thou, nobler than thy spouse, His rumoured grandeur didst receive, And sit with pondering brows,

Until thy maidens' gathered tale With possible marvel teems: Thou sleepest, and the prisoner pale Returneth in thy dreams.

Well mightst thou suffer things not few For his sake all the night! In pale eclipse he suffers, who Is of the world the light.

Precious it were to know thy dream Of such a one as he! Perhaps of him we, waking, deem As poor a verity.

XI.

_THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA_.

In the hot sun, for water cool She walked in listless mood: When back she ran, her pitcher full Forgot behind her stood.

Like one who followed straying sheep, A weary man she saw, Who sat upon the well so deep, And nothing had to draw.

"Give me to drink," he said. Her hand Was ready with reply; From out the old well of the land She drew him plenteously.

He spake as never man before; She stands with open ears; He spake of holy days in store, Laid bare the vanished years.

She cannot still her throbbing heart, She hurries to the town, And cries aloud in street and mart, "The Lord is here: come down."

Her life before was strange and sad, A very dreary sound: Ah, let it go--or good or bad: She has the Master found!

XII.

_MARY MAGDALENE_.

With wandering eyes and aimless zeal, She hither, thither, goes; Her speech, her motions, all reveal A mind without repose.

She climbs the hills, she haunts the sea, By madness tortured, driven; One hour's forgetfulness would be A gift from very heaven!

She slumbers into new distress; The night is worse than day: Exulting in her helplessness, Hell's dogs yet louder bay.

The demons blast her to and fro; She has no quiet place, Enough a woman still, to know A haunting dim disgrace.

A human touch! a pang of death! And in a low delight Thou liest, waiting for new breath. For morning out of night.

Thou risest up: the earth is fair, The wind is cool; thou art free! Is it a dream of hell's despair Dissolves in ecstasy?

That man did touch thee! Eyes divine Make sunrise in thy soul; Thou seëst love in order shine:-- His health hath made thee whole!

Thou, sharing in the awful doom, Didst help thy Lord to die; Then, weeping o'er his empty tomb, Didst hear him _Mary_ cry.

He stands in haste; he cannot stop; Home to his God he fares: "Go tell my brothers I go up To my Father, mine and theirs."

Run, Mary! lift thy heavenly voice; Cry, cry, and heed not how; Make all the new-risen world rejoice-- Its first apostle thou!

What if old tales of thee have lied, Or truth have told, thou art All-safe with him, whate'er betide-- Dwell'st with him in God's heart!

XIII.

_THE WOMAN IN THE TEMPLE_.

A still dark joy! A sudden face! Cold daylight, footsteps, cries! The temple's naked, shining space, Aglare with judging eyes!

All in abandoned guilty hair, With terror-pallid lips, To vulgar scorn her honour bare, To lewd remarks and quips,

Her eyes she fixes on the ground Her shrinking soul to hide, Lest, at uncurtained windows found, Its shame be clear descried.

All idle hang her listless hands, They tingle with her shame; She sees not who beside her stands, She is so bowed with blame.

He stoops, he writes upon the ground, Regards nor priests nor wife; An awful silence spreads around, And wakes an inward strife.

Then comes a voice that speaks for thee, Pale woman, sore aghast: "Let him who from this sin is free At her the first stone cast!"

Ah then her heart grew slowly sad! Her eyes bewildered rose; She saw the one true friend she had, Who loves her though he knows.

He stoops. In every charnel breast Dead conscience rises slow: They, dumb before that awful guest, Turn, one by one, and go.

Up in her deathlike, ashy face Rises the living red; No greater wonder sure had place When Lazarus left the dead!

She is alone with him whose fear Made silence all around; False pride, false shame, they come not near, She has her saviour found!

Jesus hath spoken on her side, Those cruel men withstood! From him her shame she will not hide! For him she _will_ be good!

He rose; he saw the temple bare; They two are left alone! He said unto her, "Woman, where Are thine accusers gone?"

"Hath none condemned thee?" "Master, no," She answers, trembling sore. "Neither do I condemn thee. Go, And sin not any more."

She turned and went.--To hope and grieve? Be what she had not been? We are not told; but I believe His kindness made her clean.

Our sins to thee us captive hale-- Ambitions, hatreds dire; Cares, fears, and selfish loves that fail, And sink us in the mire:

Our captive-cries with pardon meet; Our passion cleanse with pain; Lord, thou didst make these miry feet-- Oh, wash them clean again!

XIV.

_MARTHA_.

With joyful pride her heart is high: Her humble house doth hold The man her nation's prophecy Long ages hath foretold!

Poor, is he? Yes, and lowly born: Her woman-soul is proud To know and hail the coming morn Before the eyeless crowd.

At her poor table will he eat? He shall be served there With honour and devotion meet For any king that were!

'Tis all she can; she does her part, Profuse in sacrifice; Nor dreams that in her unknown heart A better offering lies.

But many crosses she must bear; Her plans are turned and bent; Do what she can, things will not wear The form of her intent.

With idle hands and drooping lid, See Mary sit at rest! Shameful it was her sister did No service for their guest!

Dear Martha, one day Mary's lot Must rule thy hands and eyes; Thou, all thy household cares forgot, Must sit as idly wise!

But once more first she set her word To bar her master's ways, Crying, "By this he stinketh, Lord, He hath been dead four days!"

Her housewife-soul her brother dear Would fetter where he lies! Ah, did her buried best then hear, And with the dead man rise?

XV.

_MARY_.

I.

She sitteth at the Master's feet In motionless employ; Her ears, her heart, her soul complete Drinks in the tide of joy.

Ah! who but she the glory knows Of life, pure, high, intense, In whose eternal silence blows The wind beyond the sense!

In her still ear, God's perfect grace Incarnate is in voice; Her thoughts, the people of the place, Receive it, and rejoice.

Her eyes, with heavenly reason bright, Are on the ground cast low; His words of spirit, life, and light-- _They_ set them shining so.

But see! a face is at the door Whose eyes are not at rest; A voice breaks on divinest lore With petulant request.

"Master," it said, "dost thou not care She lets me serve alone? Tell her to come and take her share." But Mary's eyes shine on.

She lifts them with a questioning glance, Calmly to him who heard; The merest sign, she'll rise at once, Nor wait the uttered word.

His "Martha, Martha!" with it bore A sense of coming _nay_; He told her that her trouble sore Was needless any day.

And he would not have Mary chid For want of needless care; The needful thing was what she did, At his feet sitting there.

Sure, joy awoke in her dear heart Doing the thing it would, When he, the holy, took her part, And called her choice the good!

Oh needful thing, Oh Mary's choice, Go not from us away! Oh Jesus, with the living voice, Talk to us every day!

II.

Not now the living words are poured Into one listening ear; For many guests are at the board, And many speak and hear.

With sacred foot, refrained and slow, With daring, trembling tread, She comes, in worship bending low Behind the godlike head.

The costly chrism, in snowy stone, A gracious odour sends; Her little hoard, by sparing grown, In one full act she spends.

She breaks the box, the honoured thing! See how its riches pour! Her priestly hands anoint him king Whom peasant Mary bore.

* * * * *

Not so does John the tale repeat: He saw, for he was there, Mary anoint the Master's feet, And wipe them with her hair.

Perhaps she did his head anoint, And then his feet as well; And John this one forgotten point Loved best of all to tell.

'Twas Judas called the splendour waste, 'Twas Jesus said--Not so; Said that her love his burial graced: "Ye have the poor; I go."

Her hands unwares outsped his fate, The truth-king's felon-doom; The other women were too late, For he had left the tomb.

XVI.

_THE WOMAN THAT WAS A SINNER_.

His face, his words, her heart awoke; Awoke her slumbering truth; She judged him well; her bonds she broke, And fled to him for ruth.

With tears she washed his weary feet; She wiped them with her hair; Her kisses--call them not unmeet, When they were welcome _there_.

What saint a richer crown could throw At his love-royal feet! Her tears, her lips, her hair, down go, His reign begun to greet.

His holy manhood's perfect worth Owns her a woman still; It is impossible henceforth For her to stoop to ill.

Her to herself his words restore, The radiance to the day; A horror to herself no more, Not yet a cast-away!

Her hands and kisses, ointment, tears, Her gathered wiping hair, Her love, her shame, her hopes, her fears, Mingle in worship rare.

Thou, Mary, too, thy hair didst spread To wipe the anointed feet; Nor didst thou only bless his head With precious spikenard sweet.

But none say thou thy tears didst pour To wash his parched feet first; Of tears thou couldst not have such store As from this woman burst!

If not in love she first be read, Her queen of sorrow greet; Mary, do thou anoint his head, And let her crown his feet.

Simon, her kisses will not soil; Her tears are pure as rain; The hair for him she did uncoil Had been baptized in pain.

Lo, God hath pardoned her so much, Love all her being stirs! His love to his poor child is such That it hath wakened hers!

But oh, rejoice, ye sisters pure, Who scarce can know her case-- There is no sin but has its cure, Its all-consuming grace!

He did not leave her soul in hell, 'Mong shards the silver dove; But raised her pure that she might tell Her sisters how to love!

She gave him all your best love can! Despised, rejected, sad-- Sure, never yet had mighty man Such homage as he had!

Jesus, by whose forgiveness sweet, Her love grew so intense, Earth's sinners all come round thy feet: Lord, make no difference!

A BOOK OF SONNETS.

_THE BURNT-OFFERING_.

Thrice-happy he whose heart, each new-born night, When old-worn day hath vanished o'er earth's brim, And he hath laid him down in chamber dim, Straightway begins to tremble and grow bright, And loose faint flashes toward the vaulted height Of the great peace that overshadoweth him: Keen lambent flames of hope awake and swim Throughout his soul, touching each point with light! The great earth under him an altar is, Upon whose top a sacrifice he lies, Burning in love's response up to the skies Whose fire descended first and kindled his: When slow the flickering flames at length expire, Sleep's ashes only hide a glowing fire.

_THE UNSEEN FACE_.

"I do beseech thee, God, show me thy face." "Come up to me in Sinai on the morn! Thou shall behold as much as may be borne." And on a rock stood Moses, lone in space. From Sinai's top, the vaporous, thunderous place, God passed in cloud, an earthy garment worn To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn, He put him in a clift of the rock's base, Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen-- Passed--lifted it: his back alone appears! Ah, Moses, had he turned, and hadst thou seen The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears, The eyes of the true man, by men belied, Thou hadst beheld God's face, and straightway died!

_CONCERNING JESUS_.

I.

If thou hadst been a sculptor, what a race Of forms divine had thenceforth filled the land! Methinks I see thee, glorious workman, stand, Striking a marble window through blind space-- Thy face's reflex on the coming face, As dawns the stone to statue 'neath thy hand-- Body obedient to its soul's command, Which is thy thought, informing it with grace! So had it been. But God, who quickeneth clay, Nor turneth it to marble--maketh eyes, Not shadowy hollows, where no sunbeams play-- Would mould his loftiest thought in human guise: Thou didst appear, walking unknown abroad, God's living sculpture, all-informed of God.

II.

If one should say, "Lo, there thy statue! take Possession, sculptor; now inherit it; Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit; As with a trumpet-cry at morning, wake The sleeping nations; with light's terror, shake The slumber from their hearts, that, where they sit, They leap straight up, aghast, as at a pit Gaping beneath;" I hear him answer make: "Alas for me, I cannot nor would dare Inform what I revered as I did trace! Who would be fool that he like fool might fare, With feeble spirit mocking the enorm Strength on his forehead!" Thou, God's thought thy form, Didst live the large significance of thy face.

III.

Men have I seen, and seen with wonderment, Noble in form, "lift upward and divine," In whom I yet must search, as in a mine, After that soul of theirs, by which they went Alive upon the earth. And I have bent Regard on many a woman, who gave sign God willed her beautiful, when he drew the line That shaped each float and fold of beauty's tent: Her soul, alas, chambered in pigmy space, Left the fair visage pitiful--inane-- Poor signal only of a coming face When from the penetrale she filled the fane!-- Possessed of thee was every form of thine, Thy very hair replete with the divine.

IV.

If thou hadst built a temple, how my eye Had hungering fed thereon, from low-browed crypt Up to the soaring pinnacles that, tipt With stars, gave signal when the sun drew nigh! Dark caverns in and under; vivid sky Its home and aim! Say, from the glory slipt, And down into the shadows dropt and dipt, Or reared from darkness up so holy-high?-- Thou build'st the temple of thy holy ghost From hid foundation to high-hidden fate-- Foot in the grave, head at the heavenly gate, From grave and sky filled with a fighting host! Man is thy temple; man thy work elect; His glooms and glory thine, great architect!

V.

If thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks, What outbursts of pent glories, what new grace Had shone upon us from the great world's face! How had we read, as in eternal books, The love of God in loneliest shiest nooks! A lily, in merest lines thy hand did trace, Had plainly been God's child of lower race! And oh how strong the hills, songful the brooks! To thee all nature's meanings lie light-bare, Because thy heart is nature's inner side; Clear as, to us, earth on the dawn's gold tide, Her notion vast up in thy soul did rise; Thine is the world, thine all its splendours rare, Thou Man ideal, with the unsleeping eyes!

VI.

But I have seen pictures the work of man, In which at first appeared but chaos wild: So high the art transcended, they beguiled The eye as formless, and without a plan. Not soon, the spirit, brooding o'er, began To see a purpose rise, like mountain isled, When God said, Let the Dry appear! and, piled Above the waves, it rose in twilight wan. So might thy pictures then have been too strange For us to pierce beyond their outmost look; A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book; An atmosphere too high for wings to range; And so we could but, gazing, pale and change, And tremble as at a void thought cannot brook.

VII.

But earth is now thy living picture, where Thou shadowest truth, the simple and profound By the same form in vital union bound: Where one can see but the first step of thy stair, Another sees it vanish far in air. When thy king David viewed the starry round, From heart and fingers broke the psaltery-sound: Lord, what is man, that thou shouldst mind his prayer! But when the child beholds the heavens on high, He babbles childish noises--not less dear Than what the king sang praying--to the ear Of him who made the child and king and sky. Earth is thy picture, painter great, whose eye Sees with the child, sees with the kingly seer.

VIII.

If thou hadst built some mighty instrument, And set thee down to utter ordered sound, Whose faithful billows, from thy hands unbound, Breaking in light, against our spirits went, And caught, and bore above this earthly tent, The far-strayed back to their prime natal ground, Where all roots fast in harmony are found, And God sits thinking out a pure consent;-- Nay, that thou couldst not; that was not for thee! Our broken music thou must first restore-- A harder task than think thine own out free; And till thou hast done it, no divinest score, Though rendered by thine own angelic choir, Can lift one human spirit from the mire.

IX.

If thou hadst been a poet! On my heart The thought flashed sudden, burning through the weft Of life, and with too much I sank bereft. Up to my eyes the tears, with sudden start, Thronged blinding: then the veil would rend and part! The husk of vision would in twain be cleft! Thy hidden soul in naked beauty left, I should behold thee, Nature, as thou art! O poet Jesus! at thy holy feet I should have lien, sainted with listening; My pulses answering ever, in rhythmic beat, The stroke of each triumphant melody's wing, Creating, as it moved, my being sweet; My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string.

X.

Thee had we followed through the twilight land Where thought grows form, and matter is refined Back into thought of the eternal mind, Till, seeing them one, Lo, in the morn we stand!-- Then started fresh and followed, hand in hand, With sense divinely growing, till, combined, We heard the music of the planets wind In harmony with billows on the strand!-- Till, one with earth and all God's utterance, We hardly knew whether the sun outspake, Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake-- Whether we think, or winds and blossoms dance! Alas, O poet leader, for such good Thou wast God's tragedy, writ in tears and blood!

XI.

Hadst thou been one of these, in many eyes, Too near to be a glory for thy sheen, Thou hadst been scorned; and to the best hadst been A setter forth of strange divinities; But to the few construct of harmonies, A sudden sun, uplighting the serene High heaven of love; and, through the cloudy screen That 'twixt our souls and truth all wretched lies, Dawning at length, hadst been a love and fear, Worshipped on high from Magian's mountain-crest, And all night long symbolled by lamp-flames clear, Thy sign, a star upon thy people's breast-- Where that strange arbitrary token lies Which once did scare the sun in noontide skies.

XII.

But as thou camest forth to bring the poor, Whose hearts are nearer faith and verity, Spiritual childhood, thy philosophy-- So taught'st the A B C of heavenly lore; Because thou sat'st not lonely evermore, With mighty truths informing language high, But, walking in thy poem continually, Didst utter deeds, of all true forms the core-- Poet and poem one indivisible fact; Because thou didst thine own ideal act, And so, for parchment, on the human soul Didst write thine aspirations--at thy goal Thou didst arrive with curses for acclaim, And cry to God up through a cloud of shame.

XIII.

For three and thirty years, a living seed, A lonely germ, dropt on our waste world's side, Thy death and rising thou didst calmly bide; Sore companied by many a clinging weed Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need; Hither and thither tossed, by friends denied; Pitied of goodness dull, and scorned of pride; Until at length was done the awful deed, And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower Three days asleep--oh, slumber godlike-brief For man of sorrows and acquaint with grief! Life-seed thou diedst, that Death might lose his power, And thou, with rooted stem and shadowy leaf, Rise, of humanity the crimson flower.

XIV.

Where dim the ethereal eye, no art, though clear As golden star in morning's amber springs, Can pierce the fogs of low imaginings: Painting and sculpture are a mockery mere. Where dull to deafness is the hearing ear, Vain is the poet. Nought but earthly things Have credence. When the soaring skylark sings How shall the stony statue strain to hear? Open the deaf ear, wake the sleeping eye, And Lo, musicians, painters, poets--all Trooping instinctive, come without a call! As winds that where they list blow evermore; As waves from silent deserts roll to die In mighty voices on the peopled shore.

XV.

Our ears thou openedst; mad'st our eyes to see. All they who work in stone or colour fair, Or build up temples of the quarried air, Which we call music, scholars are of thee. Henceforth in might of such, the earth shall be Truth's temple-theatre, where she shall wear All forms of revelation, all men bear Tapers in acolyte humility. O master-maker, thy exultant art Goes forth in making makers! Pictures? No, But painters, who in love and truth shall show Glad secrets from thy God's rejoicing heart. Sudden, green grass and waving corn up start When through dead sands thy living waters go.

XVI.

From the beginning good and fair are one, But men the beauty from the truth will part, And, though the truth is ever beauty's heart, After the beauty will, short-breathed, run, And the indwelling truth deny and shun. Therefore, in cottage, synagogue, and mart, Thy thoughts came forth in common speech, not art; With voice and eye, in Jewish Babylon, Thou taughtest--not with pen or carved stone, Nor in thy hand the trembling wires didst take: Thou of the truth not less than all wouldst make; For Truth's sake even her forms thou didst disown: Ere, through the love of beauty, truth shall fail, The light behind shall burn the broidered veil!

XVII.

Holy of holies, my bare feet draw nigh: Jesus, thy body is the shining veil By which I look on God, nor grow death-pale. I know that in my verses poor may lie Things low, for see, the thinker is not high! But were my song as loud as saints' all-hail, As pure as prophet's cry of warning wail, As holy as thy mother's ecstasy-- He sings a better, who, for love or ruth, Into his heart a little child doth take. Nor thoughts nor feelings, art nor wisdom seal The man who at thy table bread shall break. Thy praise was not that thou didst know, or feel, Or show, or love, but that thou didst the truth.

XVIII.

Despised! Rejected by the priest-led roar Of the multitude! The imperial purple flung About the form the hissing scourge had stung, Witnessing naked to the truth it bore! True son of father true, I thee adore. Even the mocking purple truthful hung On thy true shoulders, bleeding its folds among, For thou wast king, art king for evermore! _I know the Father: he knows me the truth_. Truth-witness, therefore the one essential king, With thee I die, with thee live worshipping! O human God, O brother, eldest born, Never but thee was there a man in sooth, Never a true crown but thy crown of thorn!

_A MEMORIAL OF AFRICA_.

I.

Upon a rock I sat--a mountain-side, Far, far forsaken of the old sea's lip; A rock where ancient waters' rise and dip, Recoil and plunge, eddy, and oscillant tide, Had worn and worn, while races lived and died, Involved channels. Where the sea-weed's drip Followed the ebb, now crumbling lichens sip Sparse dews of heaven that down with sunset slide. I sat long-gazing southward. A dry flow Of withering wind sucked up my drooping strength, Itself weak from the desert's burning length. Behind me piled, away and up did go Great sweeps of savage mountains--up, away, Where snow gleams ever, panthers roam, they say.

II.

This infant world has taken long to make, Nor hast Thou done with it, but mak'st it yet, And wilt be working on when death has set A new mound in some churchyard for my sake. On flow the centuries without a break; Uprise the mountains, ages without let; The lichens suck; the hard rock's breast they fret; Years more than past, the young earth yet will take. But in the dumbness of the rolling time, No veil of silence shall encompass me-- Thou wilt not once forget and let me be; Rather wouldst thou some old chaotic prime Invade, and, moved by tenderness sublime, Unfold a world, that I, thy child, might see.

_A. M. D_.

Methinks I see thee, lying straight and low, Silent and darkling, in thy earthy bed, The mighty strength in which I trusted, fled, The long arms lying careless of kiss or blow; On thy tall form I see the night-robe flow Down from the pale, composed face--thy head Crowned with its own dark curls: though thou wast dead, They dressed thee as for sleep, and left thee so! My heart, with cares and questionings oppressed, Not oft since thou didst leave us turns to thee; But wait, my brother, till I too am dead, And thou shalt find that heart more true, more free, More ready in thy love to take its rest, Than when we lay together in one bed.

_TO GARIBALDI--WITH A BOOK_.

When at Philippi, he who would have freed Great Rome from tyrants, for the season brief That lay 'twixt him and battle, sought relief From painful thoughts, he in a book did read, That so the death of Portia might not breed Unmanful thoughts, and cloud his mind with grief: Brother of Brutus, of high hearts the chief, When thou at length receiv'st thy heavenly meed, And I have found my hoping not in vain, Tell me my book has wiled away one pang That out of some lone sacred memory sprang, Or wrought an hour's forgetfulness of pain, And I shall rise, my heart brimful of gain, And thank my God amid the golden clang.

_TO S. F. S_.

They say that lonely sorrows do not chance: More gently, I think, sorrows together go; A new one joins the funeral gliding slow With less of jar than when it breaks the dance. Grief swages grief, and joy doth joy enhance; Nature is generous to her children so. And were they quick to spy the flowers that blow, As quick to feel the sharp-edged stones that lance The foot that must walk naked in life's way,-- Blest by the roadside lily, free from fear, Oftener than hurt by dash of flinty spear, They would walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay; And when the soft night closed the weary day, Would sleep like those that far-off music hear.

_RUSSELL GURNEY_.

In that high country whither thou art gone, Right noble friend, thou walkest with thy peers, The gathered great of many a hundred years! Few are left like thee--few, I say, not none, Else were thy England soon a Babylon, A land of outcry, mockery, and tears! Higher than law, a refuge from its fears, Wast thou, in whom embodied Justice shone. The smile that gracious broke on thy grand face Was like the sunrise of a morn serene Among the mountains, making sweet their awe. Thou both the gentle and the strong didst draw; Thee childhood loved, and on thy breast would lean, As, whence thou cam'st, it knew the lofty place.

_TO ONE THREATENED WITH BLINDNESS_.

I.

Lawrence, what though the world be growing dark, And twilight cool thy potent day inclose! The sun, beneath the round earth sunk, still glows All the night through, sleepless and young and stark. Oh, be thy spirit faithful as the lark, More daring: in the midnight of thy woes, Dart through them, higher than earth's shadow goes, Into the Light of which thou art a spark! Be willing to be blind--that, in thy night, The Lord may bring his Father to thy door, And enter in, and feast thy soul with light. Then shall thou dream of darksome ways no more, Forget the gloom that round thy windows lies, And shine, God's house, all radiant in our eyes.

II.

Say thou, his will be done who is the good! His will be borne who knoweth how to bear! Who also in the night had need of prayer, Both when awoke divinely longing mood, And when the power of darkness him withstood. For what is coming take no jot of care: Behind, before, around thee as the air, He o'er thee like thy mother's heart will brood. And when thou hast wearied thy wings of prayer, Then fold them, and drop gently to thy nest, Which is thy faith; and make thy people blest With what thou bring'st from that ethereal height, Which whoso looks on thee will straightway share: He needs no eyes who is a shining light!

_TO AUBREY DE VERE_.

Ray of the Dawn of Truth, Aubrey de Vere, Forgive my play fantastic with thy name, Distilling its true essence by the flame Which Love 'neath Fancy's limbeck lighteth clear. I know not what thy semblance, what thy cheer; If, as thy spirit, hale thy bodily frame, Or furthering by failure each high aim; If green thy leaf, or, like mine, growing sear; But this I think, that thou wilt, by and by-- Two journeys stoutly, therefore safely trod-- We laying down the staff, and He the rod-- So look on me I shall not need to cry-- "We must be brothers, Aubrey, thou and I: We mean the same thing--will the will of God!"

_GENERAL GORDON_.

I.

Victorious through failure! faithful Lord, Who for twelve angel legions wouldst not pray From thine own country of eternal day, To shield thee from the lanterned traitor horde, Making thy one rash servant sheathe his sword!-- Our long retarded legions, on their way, Toiling through sands, and shouldering Nile's down-sway, To reach thy soldier, keeping at thy word, Thou sawest foiled--but glorifiedst him, Over ten cities giving him thy rule! We will not mourn a star that grew not dim, A soldier-child of God gone home from school! A dregless cup, with life brimmed, he did quaff, And quaffs it now with Christ's imperial staff!

II.

Another to the witnesses' roll-call Hath answered, "Here I am!" and so stept out-- With willingness crowned everywhere about, Not the head only, but the body all, In one great nimbus of obedient fall, His heart's blood dashing in the face of doubt-- Love's last victorious stand amid the rout! --Silence is left, and the untasted gall. No chariot with ramping steeds of fire The Father sent to fetch his man-child home; His brother only called, "My Gordon, come!" And like a dove to heaven he did aspire, His one wing Death, his other, Heart's-desire. --Farewell a while! we climb where thou hast clomb!

_THE CHRYSALIS_.

Methought I floated sightless, nor did know That I had ears until I heard the cry As of a mighty man in agony: "How long, Lord, shall I lie thus foul and slow? The arrows of thy lightning through me go, And sting and torture me--yet here I lie A shapeless mass that scarce can mould a sigh!" The darkness thinned; I saw a thing below Like sheeted corpse, a knot at head and feet. Slow clomb the sun the mountains of the dead, And looked upon the world: the silence broke! A blinding struggle! then the thunderous beat Of great exulting pinions stroke on stroke! And from that world a mighty angel fled.

_THE SWEEPER OF THE FLOOR_.

Methought that in a solemn church I stood. Its marble acres, worn with knees and feet, Lay spread from door to door, from street to street. Midway the form hung high upon the rood Of him who gave his life to be our good; Beyond, priests flitted, bowed, and murmured meet, Among the candles shining still and sweet. Men came and went, and worshipped as they could-- And still their dust a woman with her broom, Bowed to her work, kept sweeping to the door. Then saw I, slow through all the pillared gloom, Across the church a silent figure come: "Daughter," it said, "thou sweepest well my floor!" It is the Lord! I cried, and saw no more.

_DEATH_.

Mourn not, my friends, that we are growing old: A fresher birth brings every new year in. Years are Christ's napkins to wipe off the sin. See now, I'll be to you an angel bold! My plumes are ruffled, and they shake with cold, Yet with a trumpet-blast I will begin. --Ah, no; your listening ears not thus I win! Yet hear, sweet sisters; brothers, be consoled:-- Behind me comes a shining one indeed; Christ's friend, who from life's cross did take him down, And set upon his day night's starry crown! _Death_, say'st thou? Nay--thine be no caitiff creed!-- A woman-angel! see--in long white gown! The mother of our youth!--she maketh speed.

ORGAN SONGS.

_TO A. J. SCOTT_

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM.

I walked all night: the darkness did not yield. Around me fell a mist, a weary rain, Enduring long. At length the dawn revealed

A temple's front, high-lifted from the plain. Closed were the lofty doors that led within; But by a wicket one might entrance gain.

'Twas awe and silence when I entered in; The night, the weariness, the rain were lost In hopeful spaces. First I heard a thin

Sweet sound of voices low, together tossed, As if they sought some harmony to find Which they knew once, but none of all that host

Could wile the far-fled music back to mind. Loud voices, distance-low, wandered along The pillared paths, and up the arches twined

With sister arches, rising, throng on throng, Up to the roof's dim height. At broken times The voices gathered to a burst of song,

But parted sudden, and were but single rimes By single bells through Sabbath morning sent, That have no thought of harmony or chimes.

Hopeful confusion! Who could be content Looking and hearkening from the distant door? I entered further. Solemnly it went--

Thy voice, Truth's herald, walking the untuned roar, Calm and distinct, powerful and sweet and fine: I loved and listened, listened and loved more.

May not the faint harp, tremulous, combine Its ghostlike sounds with organ's mighty tone? Let my poor song be taken in to thine.

Will not thy heart, with tempests of its own, Yet hear aeolian sighs from thin chords blown?

_LIGHT_.

First-born of the creating Voice! Minister of God's Spirit, who wast sent Waiting upon him first, what time he went Moving about mid the tumultuous noise Of each unpiloted element Upon the face of the void formless deep! Thou who didst come unbodied and alone Ere yet the sun was set his rule to keep, Or ever the moon shone, Or e'er the wandering star-flocks forth were driven! Thou garment of the Invisible, whose skirt Sweeps, glory-giving, over earth and heaven! Thou comforter, be with me as thou wert When first I longed for words, to be A radiant garment for my thought, like thee!

We lay us down in sorrow, Wrapt in the old mantle of our mother Night; In vexing dreams we strive until the morrow; Grief lifts our eyelids up--and Lo, the light! The sunlight on the wall! And visions rise Of shining leaves that make sweet melodies; Of wind-borne waves with thee upon their crests; Of rippled sands on which thou rainest down; Of quiet lakes that smooth for thee their breasts; Of clouds that show thy glory as their own; O joy! O joy! the visions are gone by! Light, gladness, motion, are reality!

Thou art the god of earth. The skylark springs Far up to catch thy glory on his wings; And thou dost bless him first that highest soars. The bee comes forth to see thee; and the flowers Worship thee all day long, and through the skies Follow thy journey with their earnest eyes. River of life, thou pourest on the woods, And on thy waves float out the wakening buds; The trees lean toward thee, and, in loving pain, Keep turning still to see thee yet again; South sides of pines, haunted all day by thee, Bear violins that tremble humanly. And nothing in thine eyes is mean or low: Where'er thou art, on every side, All things are glorified; And where thou canst not come, there thou dost throw Beautiful shadows, made out of the dark, That else were shapeless; now it bears thy mark.

And men have worshipped thee. The Persian, on his mountain-top, Waits kneeling till thy sun go up, God-like in his serenity. All-giving, and none-gifted, he draws near, And the wide earth waits till his face appear-- Longs patient. And the herald glory leaps Along the ridges of the outlying clouds, Climbing the heights of all their towering steeps. Sudden, still multitudinous laughter crowds The universal face: Lo, silently, Up cometh he, the never-closing eye! Symbol of Deity, men could not be Farthest from truth when they were kneeling unto thee!

Thou plaything of the child, When from the water's surface thou dost spring, Thyself upon his chamber ceiling fling, And there, in mazy dance and motion wild, Disport thyself--etherial, undefiled. Capricious, like the thinkings of the child! I am a child again, to think of thee In thy consummate glee. How I would play with thee, athirst to climb On sloping ladders of thy moted beams, When through the gray dust darting in long streams! How marvel at the dusky glimmering red, With which my closed fingers thou hadst made Like rainy clouds that curtain the sun's bed! And how I loved thee always in the moon! But most about the harvest-time, When corn and moonlight made a mellow tune, And thou wast grave and tender as a cooing dove! And then the stars that flashed cold, deathless love! And the ghost-stars that shimmered in the tide! And more mysterious earthly stars, That shone from windows of the hill and glen-- Thee prisoned in with lattice-bars, Mingling with household love and rest of weary men! And still I am a child, thank God!--to spy Thee starry stream from bit of broken glass Upon the brown earth undescried, Is a found thing to me, a gladness high, A spark that lights joy's altar-fire within, A thought of hope to prophecy akin, That from my spirit fruitless will not pass.

Thou art the joy of age: Thy sun is dear when long the shadow falls. Forth to its friendliness the old man crawls, And, like the bird hung out in his poor cage To gather song from radiance, in his chair Sits by the door; and sitteth there His soul within him, like a child that lies Half dreaming, with half-open eyes, At close of a long afternoon in summer-- High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where The raven is almost the only comer-- Half dreams, half broods, in wonderment At thy celestial ascent Through rifted loop to light upon the gold That waves its bloom in some high airy rent: So dreams the old man's soul, that is not old, But sleepy mid the ruins that infold.

What soul-like changes, evanescent moods, Upon the face of the still passive earth, Its hills, and fields, and woods, Thou with thy seasons and thy hours art ever calling forth! Even like a lord of music bent Over his instrument, Giving to carol, now to tempest birth! When, clear as holiness, the morning ray Casts the rock's dewy darkness at its feet, Mottling with shadows all the mountain gray; When, at the hour of sovereign noon, Infinite silent cataracts sheet Shadowless through the air of thunder-breeding June; When now a yellower glory slanting passes 'Twixt longer shadows o'er the meadow grasses; And now the moon lifts up her shining shield, High on the peak of a cloud-hill revealed; Now crescent, low, wandering sun-dazed away, Unconscious of her own star-mingled ray, Her still face seeming more to think than see, Makes the pale world lie dreaming dreams of thee! No mood, eternal or ephemeral, But wakes obedient at thy silent call!

Of operative single power, And simple unity the one emblem, Yet all the colours that our passionate eyes devour, In rainbow, moonbow, or in opal gem, Are the melodious descant of divided thee. Lo thee in yellow sands! Lo thee In the blue air and sea! In the green corn, with scarlet poppies lit, Thy half-souls parted, patient thou dost sit. Lo thee in dying triumphs of the west! Lo thee in dew-drop's tiny breast! Thee on the vast white cloud that floats away, Bearing upon its skirt a brown moon-ray! Gold-regent, thou dost spendthrift throw Thy hoardless wealth of gleam and glow! The thousand hues and shades upon the flowers Are all the pastime of thy leisure hours; The jewelled ores in mines that hidden be, Are dead till touched by thee.

Everywhere, Thou art lancing through the air! Every atom from another Takes thee, gives thee to his brother; Continually, Thou art wetting the wet sea, Bathing its sluggish woods below, Making the salt flowers bud and blow; Silently, Workest thou, and ardently, Waking from the night of nought Into being and to thought;

Influences Every beam of thine dispenses, Potent, subtle, reaching far, Shooting different from each star. Not an iron rod can lie In circle of thy beamy eye, But its look doth change it so That it cannot choose but show Thou, the worker, hast been there; Yea, sometimes, on substance rare, Thou dost leave thy ghostly mark Even in what men call the dark. Ever doing, ever showing, Thou dost set our hearts a glowing-- Universal something sent To shadow forth the Excellent!

When the firstborn affections-- Those winged seekers of the world within, That search about in all directions, Some bright thing for themselves to win-- Through pathless woods, through home-bred fogs, Through stony plains, through treacherous bogs, Long, long, have followed faces fair, Fair soul-less faces, vanished into air, And darkness is around them and above, Desolate of aught to love, And through the gloom on every side, Strange dismal forms are dim descried, And the air is as the breath From the lips of void-eyed Death, And the knees are bowed in prayer To the Stronger than despair-- Then the ever-lifted cry, _Give us light, or we shall die_, Cometh to the Father's ears, And he hearkens, and he hears:--

As some slow sun would glimmer forth From sunless winter of the north, We, hardly trusting hopeful eyes, Discern and doubt the opening skies. From a misty gray that lies on Our dim future's far horizon, It grows a fresh aurora, sent Up the spirit's firmament, Telling, through the vapours dun, Of the coming, coming sun! Tis Truth awaking in the soul! His Righteousness to make us whole! And what shall we, this Truth receiving, Though with but a faint believing, Call it but eternal Light? 'Tis the morning, 'twas the night!

All things most excellent Are likened unto thee, excellent thing! Yea, he who from the Father forth was sent, Came like a lamp, to bring, Across the winds and wastes of night, The everlasting light. Hail, Word of God, the telling of his thought! Hail, Light of God, the making-visible! Hail, far-transcending glory brought In human form with man to dwell-- Thy dazzling gone; thy power not less To show, irradiate, and bless; The gathering of the primal rays divine Informing chaos, to a pure sunshine!

Dull horrid pools no motion making! No bubble on the surface breaking! The dead air lies, without a sound, Heavy and moveless on the marshy ground.

Rushing winds and snow-like drift, Forceful, formless, fierce, and swift! Hair-like vapours madly riven! Waters smitten into dust! Lightning through the turmoil driven, Aimless, useless, yet it must!

Gentle winds through forests calling! Bright birds through the thick leaves glancing! Solemn waves on sea-shores falling! White sails on blue waters dancing! Mountain streams glad music giving! Children in the clear pool laving! Yellow corn and green grass waving! Long-haired, bright-eyed maidens living! Light, O radiant, it is thou! Light!--we know our Father now!

Forming ever without form; Showing, but thyself unseen; Pouring stillness on the storm; Breathing life where death had been! If thy light thou didst draw in, Death and Chaos soon were out, Weltering o'er the slimy sea, Riding on the whirlwind's rout, In wild unmaking energy! God, be round us and within, Fighting darkness, slaying sin.

Father of Lights, high-lost, unspeakable, On whom no changing shadow ever fell! Thy light we know not, are content to see; Thee we know not, and are content to be!-- Nay, nay! until we know thee, not content are we! But, when thy wisdom cannot be expressed, Shall we imagine darkness in thy breast? Our hearts awake and witness loud for thee! The very shadows on our souls that lie, Good witness to the light supernal bear; The something 'twixt us and the sky Could cast no shadow if light were not there! If children tremble in the night, It is because their God is light! The shining of the common day Is mystery still, howe'er it ebb and flow-- Behind the seeing orb, the secret lies: Thy living light's eternal play, Its motions, whence or whither, who shall know?-- Behind the life itself, its fountains rise! In thee, the Light, the darkness hath no place; And we _have_ seen thee in the Saviour's face.

Enlighten me, O Light!--why art thou such? Why art thou awful to our eyes, and sweet? Cherished as love, and slaying with a touch? Why in thee do the known and unknown meet? Why swift and tender, strong and delicate? Simple as truth, yet manifold in might? Why does one love thee, and another hate? Why cleave my words to the portals of my speech When I a goodly matter would indite? Why mounts my thought of thee beyond my reach? --In vain to follow thee, I thee beseech, For God is light.

_TO A. J. SCOTT_.

When, long ago, the daring of my youth Drew nigh thy greatness with a little thing, Thou didst receive me; and thy sky of truth

Has domed me since, a heaven of sheltering, Made homely by the tenderness and grace Which round thy absolute friendship ever fling

A radiant atmosphere. Turn not thy face From that small part of earnest thanks, I pray, Which, spoken, leaves much more in speechless case.

I see thee far before me on thy way Up the great peaks, and striding stronger still; Thy intellect unrivalled in its sway,

Upheld and ordered by a regnant will; Thy wisdom, seer and priest of holy fate, Searching all truths its prophecy to fill;

But this my joy: throned in thy heart so great, High Love is queen, and sits without a mate.

_May_, 1857.

_I WOULD I WERE A CHILD_.

I would I were a child, That I might look, and laugh, and say, My Father! And follow thee with running feet, or rather Be led through dark and wild!

How I would hold thy hand, My glad eyes often to thy glory lifting! Should darkness 'twixt thy face and mine come drifting, My heart would but expand.

If an ill thing came near, I would but creep within thy mantle's folding, Shut my eyes close, thy hand yet faster holding, And soon forget my fear.

O soul, O soul, rejoice! Thou art God's child indeed, for all thy sinning; A poor weak child, yet his, and worth the winning With saviour eyes and voice.

Who spake the words? Didst Thou? They are too good, even for such a giver: Such water drinking once, I should feel ever As I had drunk but now.

Yet sure the Word said so, Teaching our lips to cry with his, Our Father! Telling the tale of him who once did gather His goods to him, and go!

Ah, thou dost lead me, God! But it is dark and starless, the way dreary; Almost I sleep, I am so very weary Upon this rough hill-road.

_Almost_! Nay, I _do_ sleep; There is no darkness save in this my dreaming; Thy fatherhood above, around, is beaming; Thy hand my hand doth keep.

With sighs my soul doth teem; I have no knowledge but that I am sleeping; Haunted with lies, my life will fail in weeping; Wake me from this my dream.

How long shall heavy night Deny the day? How long shall this dull sorrow Say in my heart that never any morrow Will bring the friendly light?

Lord, art thou in the room? Come near my bed; oh, draw aside the curtain! A child's heart would say _Father_, were it certain That it would not presume.

But if this dreary sleep May not be broken, help thy helpless sleeper To rest in thee; so shall his sleep grow deeper-- For evil dreams too deep.

_Father_! I dare at length; My childhood sure will hold me free from blaming: Sinful yet hoping, I to thee come, claiming Thy tenderness, my strength.

_A PRAYER FOR THE PAST_.

_All sights and sounds of day and year, All groups and forms, each leaf and gem, Are thine, O God, nor will I fear To talk to thee of them_.

Too great thy heart is to despise, Whose day girds centuries about; From things which we name small, thine eyes See great things looking out.

Therefore the prayerful song I sing May come to thee in ordered words: Though lowly born, it needs not cling In terror to its chords.

I think that nothing made is lost; That not a moon has ever shone, That not a cloud my eyes hath crossed But to my soul is gone.

That all the lost years garnered lie In this thy casket, my dim soul; And thou wilt, once, the key apply, And show the shining whole.

_But were they dead in me, they live In thee, whose Parable is--Time, And Worlds, and Forms--all things that give Me thoughts, and this my rime_.

_And after what men call my death, When I have crossed the unknown sea, Some heavenly morn, on hopeful breath, Shall rise this prayer to thee_.

Oh let me be a child once more, And dream fine glories in the gloom, Of sun and moon and stars in store To ceil my humble room.

Oh call again the moons that crossed Blue gulfs, behind gray vapours crept; Show me the solemn skies I lost Because in thee I slept.

Once more let gathering glory swell, And lift the world's dim eastern eye; Once more let lengthening shadows tell Its time is come to die.

But show me first--oh, blessed sight! The lowly house where I was young; There winter sent wild winds at night, And up the snow-heaps flung;

Or soundless brought a chaos fair, Full, formless, of fantastic forms, White ghostly trees in sparkling air-- Chamber for slumbering storms.

There sudden dawned a dewy morn; A man was turning up the mould; And in our hearts the spring was born, Crept thither through the cold.

_And Spring, in after years of youth, Became the form of every form For hearts now bursting into truth, Now sighing in the storm_.

On with the glad year let me go, With troops of daisies round my feet; Flying my kite, or, in the glow Of arching summer heat,

Outstretched in fear upon a bank, Lest, gazing up on awful space, I should fall down into the blank, From off the round world's face.

And let my brothers come with me To play our old games yet again, Children on earth, more full of glee That we in heaven are men.

If then should come the shadowy death, Take one of us and go, We left would say, under our breath, "It is a dream, you know!"

"And in the dream our brother's gone Upstairs: he heard our father call; For one by one we go alone, Till he has gathered all."

_Father, in joy our knees we bow: This earth is not a place of tombs: We are but in the nursery now; They in the upper rooms_.

For are we not at home in thee, And all this world a visioned show; That, knowing what Abroad is, we What Home is too may know?

_And at thy feet I sit, O Lord, As once of old, in moonlight pale, I at my father's sat, and heard Him read a lofty tale_.

On with my history let me go, And reap again the gliding years, Gather great noontide's joyous glow, Eve's love-contented tears;

One afternoon sit pondering In that old chair, in that old room, Where passing pigeon's sudden wing Flashed lightning through the gloom;

There try once more, with effort vain, To mould in one perplexed things; There find the solace yet again Hope in the Father brings;

Or mount and ride in sun and wind, Through desert moors, hills bleak and high, Where wandering vapours fall, and find In me another sky!

_For so thy Visible grew mine, Though half its power I could not know; And in me wrought a work divine, Which thou hadst ordered so_;

Giving me cups that would not spill, But water carry and yield again; New bottles with new wine to fill For comfort of thy men.

But if thou thus restore the past One hour, for me to wander in, I now bethink me at the last-- O Lord, leave out the sin.

_And with the thought comes doubt, my God: Shall I the whole desire to see, And walk once more, of that hill-road By which I went to thee_?

A PRAYER FOR THE PAST.

_Now far from my old northern land, I live where gentle winters pass; Where green seas lave a wealthy strand, And unsown is the grass_;

Where gorgeous sunsets claim the scope Of gazing heaven to spread their show, Hang scarlet clouds in the topmost cope, With fringes flaming low;

With one beside me in whose eyes Once more old Nature finds a home; There treasures up her changeful skies, Her phosphorescent foam.

O'er a new joy this day we bend, Soft power from heaven our souls to lift; A wondering wonder thou dost lend With loan outpassing gift--

A little child. She sees the sun-- Once more incarnates thy old law: One born of two, two born in one, Shall into one three draw.

But is there no day creeping on Which I should tremble to renew? I thank thee, Lord, for what is gone-- Thine is the future too!

_And are we not at home in Thee, And all this world a visioned show, That, knowing what Abroad is, we What Home is too may know_?

_LONGING_.

My heart is full of inarticulate pain, And beats laborious. Cold ungenial looks Invade my sanctuary. Men of gain, Wise in success, well-read in feeble books, No nigher come, I pray: your air is drear; 'Tis winter and low skies when ye appear.

Beloved, who love beauty and fair truth, Come nearer me; too near ye cannot come; Make me an atmosphere with your sweet youth; Give me your souls to breathe in, a large room; Speak not a word, for, see, my spirit lies Helpless and dumb; shine on me with your eyes.

O all wide places, far from feverous towns; Great shining seas; pine forests; mountains wild; Rock-bosomed shores; rough heaths, and sheep-cropt downs; Vast pallid clouds; blue spaces undefiled-- Room! give me room! give loneliness and air-- Free things and plenteous in your regions fair!

White dove of David, flying overhead, Golden with sunlight on thy snowy wings, Outspeeding thee my longing thoughts are fled To find a home afar from men of things; Where in his temple, earth o'erarched with sky, God's heart to mine may speak, my heart reply.

O God of mountains, stars, and boundless spaces, O God of freedom and of joyous hearts, When thy face looketh forth from all men's faces, There will be room enough in crowded marts! Brood thou around me, and the noise is o'er, Thy universe my closet with shut door.

Heart, heart, awake! The love that loveth all Maketh a deeper calm than Horeb's cave. God in thee, can his children's folly gall? Love may be hurt, but shall not love be brave?-- Thy holy silence sinks in dews of balm; Thou art my solitude, my mountain-calm!

_I KNOW WHAT BEAUTY IS_.

I know what beauty is, for thou Hast set the world within my heart; Of me thou madest it a part; I never loved it more than now.

I know the Sabbath afternoons; The light asleep upon the graves: Against the sky the poplar waves; The river murmurs organ tunes.

I know the spring with bud and bell; The hush in summer woods at night; Autumn, when trees let in more light; Fantastic winter's lovely spell.

I know the rapture music gives, Its mystery of ordered tones: Dream-muffled soul, it loves and moans, And, half-alive, comes in and lives.

And verse I know, whose concord high Of thought and music lifts the soul Where many a glimmering starry shoal Glides through the Godhead's living sky.

Yea, Beauty's regnant All I know-- The imperial head, the thoughtful eyes; The God-imprisoned harmonies That out in gracious motions go.

But I leave all, O Son of man, Put off my shoes, and come to thee! Most lovely thou of all I see, Most potent thou of all that can!

As child forsakes his favourite toy, His sisters' sport, his new-found nest, And, climbing to his mother's breast, Enjoys yet more his late-left joy--

I lose to find. On fair-browed bride Fair pearls their fairest light afford; So, gathered round thy glory, Lord, All glory else is glorified.

_SYMPATHY_.

Grief held me silent in my seat; I neither moved nor smiled: Joy held her silent at my feet, My shining lily-child.

She raised her face and looked in mine; She deemed herself denied; The door was shut, there was no shine; Poor she was left outside!

Once, twice, three times, with infant grace Her lips my name did mould; Her face was pulling at my face-- She was but ten months old.

I saw; the sight rebuked my sighs; It made me think--Does God Need help from his poor children's eyes To ease him of his load?

Ah, if he did, how seldom then The Father would be glad! If comfort lay in the eyes of men, He little comfort had!

We cry to him in evil case, When comfort sore we lack; And when we troubled seek his face, Consoled he sends us back;

Nor waits for prayer to rise and climb-- He wakes the sleeping prayer; He is our father all the time, And servant everywhere.

I looked not up; foreboding hid Kept down my heart the while; 'Twas he looked up; my Father did Smile in my infant's smile.

_THE THANK-OFFERING_.

My Lily snatches not my gift; Glad is she to be fed, But to her mouth she will not lift The piece of broken bread, Till on my lips, unerring, swift, The morsel she has laid.

This is her grace before her food, This her libation poured; Even thus his offering, Aaron good Heaved up to thank the Lord, When for the people all he stood, And with a cake adored.

So, Father, every gift of thine I offer at thy knee; Else take I not the love divine With which it comes to me; Not else the offered grace is mine Of sharing life with thee.

Yea, all my being I would bring, Yielding it utterly, Not yet a full-possessed thing Till heaved again to thee: Away, my self! away, and cling To him that makes thee be!

_PRAYER_.

We doubt the word that tells us: Ask, And ye shall have your prayer; We turn our thoughts as to a task, With will constrained and rare.

And yet we have; these scanty prayers Yield gold without alloy: O God, but he that trusts and dares Must have a boundless joy!

_REST_.

I.

When round the earth the Father's hands Have gently drawn the dark; Sent off the sun to fresher lands, And curtained in the lark; 'Tis sweet, all tired with glowing day, To fade with fading light, And lie once more, the old weary way, Upfolded in the night.

If mothers o'er our slumbers bend, And unripe kisses reap, In soothing dreams with sleep they blend, Till even in dreams we sleep. And if we wake while night is dumb, 'Tis sweet to turn and say, It is an hour ere dawning come, And I will sleep till day.

II.

There is a dearer, warmer bed, Where one all day may lie, Earth's bosom pillowing the head, And let the world go by. There come no watching mother's eyes, The stars instead look down; Upon it breaks, and silent dies, The murmur of the town.

The great world, shouting, forward fares: This chamber, hid from none, Hides safe from all, for no one cares For him whose work is done. Cheer thee, my friend; bethink thee how A certain unknown place, Or here or there, is waiting now, To rest thee from thy race.

III.

Nay, nay, not there the rest from harms, The still composed breath! Not there the folding of the arms, The cool, the blessed death! _That_ needs no curtained bed to hide The world with all its wars, No grassy cover to divide From sun and moon and stars.

It is a rest that deeper grows In midst of pain and strife; A mighty, conscious, willed repose, The death of deepest life. To have and hold the precious prize No need of jealous bars; But windows open to the skies, And skill to read the stars!

IV.

Who dwelleth in that secret place, Where tumult enters not, Is never cold with terror base, Never with anger hot. For if an evil host should dare His very heart invest, God is his deeper heart, and there He enters in to rest.

When mighty sea-winds madly blow, And tear the scattered waves, Peaceful as summer woods, below Lie darkling ocean caves: The wind of words may toss my heart, But what is that to me! Tis but a surface storm--thou art My deep, still, resting sea.

_O DO NOT LEAVE ME_.

O do not leave me, mother, lest I weep; Till I forget, be near me in that chair. The mother's presence leads her down to sleep-- Leaves her contented there.

O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends, Till I am dead, and resting in my place. Love-compassed thus, the girl in peace ascends, And leaves a raptured face.

Leave me not, God, until--nay, until when? Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind; Not till the Life is Light in me, and then Leaving is left behind.

_BLESSED ARE THE MEEK, FOR THEY SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH_.

A quiet heart, submissive, meek, Father, do thou bestow, Which more than granted, will not seek To have, or give, or know.

Each little hill then holds its gift Forth to my joying eyes; Each mighty mountain then doth lift My spirit to the skies.

Lo, then the running water sounds With gladsome, secret things! The silent water more abounds, And more the hidden springs.

Live murmurs then the trees will blend With all the feathered song; The waving grass low tribute lend Earth's music to prolong.

The sun will cast great crowns of light On waves that anthems roar; The dusky billows break at night In flashes on the shore.

Each harebell, each white lily's cup, The hum of hidden bee, Yea, every odour floating up, The insect revelry--

Each hue, each harmony divine The holy world about, Its soul will send forth into mine, My soul to widen out.

And thus the great earth I shall hold, A perfect gift of thine; Richer by these, a thousandfold, Than if broad lands were mine.

_HYMN FOR A SICK GIRL_.

Father, in the dark I lay, Thirsting for the light, Helpless, but for hope alway In thy father-might.

Out of darkness came the morn, Out of death came life, I, and faith, and hope, new-born, Out of moaning strife!

So, one morning yet more fair, I shall, joyous-brave, Sudden breathing loftier air, Triumph o'er the grave.

Though this feeble body lie Underneath the ground, Wide awake, not sleeping, I Shall in him be found.

But a morn yet fairer must Quell this inner gloom-- Resurrection from the dust Of a deeper tomb!

Father, wake thy little child; Give me bread and wine Till my spirit undefiled Rise and live in thine.

_WRITTEN FOR ONE IN SORE PAIN_.

Shepherd, on before thy sheep, Hear thy lamb that bleats behind! Scarce the track I stumbling keep! Through my thin fleece blows the wind!

Turn and see me, Son of Man! Turn and lift thy Father's child; Scarce I walk where once I ran: Carry me--the wind is wild!

Thou art strong--thy strength wilt share; My poor weight thou wilt not feel; Weakness made thee strong to bear, Suffering made thee strong to heal!

I were still a wandering sheep But for thee, O Shepherd-man! Following now, I faint, I weep, Yet I follow as I can!

Shepherd, if I fall and lie Moaning in the frosty wind, Yet, I know, I shall not die-- Thou wilt miss me--and wilt find!

_A CHRISTMAS CAROL FOR 1862_,

THE YEAR OF THE TROUBLE IN LANCASHIRE.

The skies are pale, the trees are stiff, The earth is dull and old; The frost is glittering as if The very sun were cold. And hunger fell is joined with frost, To make men thin and wan: Come, babe, from heaven, or we are lost; Be born, O child of man.

The children cry, the women shake, The strong men stare about; They sleep when they should be awake, They wake ere night is out. For they have lost their heritage-- No sweat is on their brow: Come, babe, and bring them work and wage; Be born, and save us now.

Across the sea, beyond our sight, Roars on the fierce debate; The men go down in bloody fight, The women weep and hate; And in the right be which that may, Surely the strife is long! Come, son of man, thy righteous way, And right will have no wrong.

Good men speak lies against thine own-- Tongue quick, and hearing slow; They will not let thee walk alone, And think to serve thee so: If they the children's freedom saw In thee, the children's king, They would be still with holy awe, Or only speak to sing.

Some neither lie nor starve nor fight, Nor yet the poor deny; But in their hearts all is not right,-- They often sit and sigh. We need thee every day and hour, In sunshine and in snow: Child-king, we pray with all our power-- Be born, and save us so.

We are but men and women, Lord; Thou art a gracious child! O fill our hearts, and heap our board, Pray thee--the winter's wild! The sky is sad, the trees are bare, Hunger and hate about: Come, child, and ill deeds and ill fare Will soon be driven out.

_A CHRISTMAS CAROL_.

Babe Jesus lay in Mary's lap, The sun shone in his hair; And this was how she saw, mayhap, The crown already there.

For she sang: "Sleep on, my little king; Bad Herod dares not come; Before thee sleeping, holy thing, The wild winds would be dumb."

"I kiss thy hands, I kiss thy feet, My child, so long desired; Thy hands will never be soiled, my sweet; Thy feet will never be tired."

"For thou art the king of men, my son; Thy crown I see it plain! And men shall worship thee, every one, And cry, Glory! Amen!"

Babe Jesus he opened his eyes wide-- At Mary looked her lord. Mother Mary stinted her song and sighed; Babe Jesus said never a word.

_THE SLEEPLESS JESUS_.

'Tis time to sleep, my little boy: Why gaze thy bright eyes so? At night our children, for new joy Home to thy father go, But thou art wakeful! Sleep, my child; The moon and stars are gone; The wind is up and raving wild, But thou art smiling on!

My child, thou hast immortal eyes That see by their own light; They see the children's blood--it lies Red-glowing through the night! Thou hast an ever-open ear For sob or cry or moan: Thou seemest not to see or hear, Thou only smilest on!

When first thou camest to the earth, All sounds of strife were still; A silence lay about thy birth, And thou didst sleep thy fill: Thou wakest now--why weep'st thou not? Thy earth is woe-begone; Both babes and mothers wail their lot, But still thou smilest on!

I read thy face like holy book; No hurt is pictured there; Deep in thine eyes I see the look Of one who answers prayer. Beyond pale grief and wild uproars, Thou seest God's will well done; Low prayers, through chambers' closed doors, Thou hear'st--and smilest on.

Men say: "I will arise and go;" God says: "I will go meet:" Thou seest them gather, weeping low, About the Father's feet; And each for each begin to bear, And standing lonely none: Answered, O eyes, ye see all prayer! Smile, Son of God, smile on.

_CHRISTMAS, 1873_.

Christmas-Days are still in store:-- Will they change--steal faded hither? Or come fresh as heretofore, Summering all our winter weather?

Surely they will keep their bloom All the countless pacing ages: In the country whence they come Children only are the sages!

Hither, every hour and year, Children come to cure our oldness-- Oft, alas, to gather sear Unbelief, and earthy boldness!

Men they grow and women cold, Selfish, passionate, and plaining! Ever faster they grow old:-- On the world, ah, eld is gaining!

Child, whose childhood ne'er departs! Jesus, with the perfect father! Drive the age from parents' hearts; To thy heart the children gather.

Send thy birth into our souls, With its grand and tender story. Hark! the gracious thunder rolls!-- News to men! to God old glory!

_CHRISTMAS, 1884_.

Though in my heart no Christmas glee, Though my song-bird be dumb, Jesus, it is enough for me That thou art come.

What though the loved be scattered far, Few at the board appear, In thee, O Lord, they gathered are, And thou art here.

And if our hearts be low with lack, They are not therefore numb; Not always will thy day come back-- Thyself will come!

_AN OLD STORY_.

I.

In the ancient house of ages, See, they cannot rest! With a hope, which awe assuages, Tremble all the blest. For the son and heir eternal, To be son yet more, Leaves his stately chair supernal For the earth's low floor;

Leaves the room so high and old, Leaves the all-world hearth, Seeks the out-air, frosty-cold, Of the twilight earth-- To be throned in newer glory In a mother's lap, Gather up our broken story, And right every hap.

II.

There Earth's foster-baby lies, Sleep-dimmed all his graces, 'Neath four stars of parents' eyes, And two heavens of faces! See! the cow and ass, dumb-staring, Feel the skirts of good Fold them in dull-blessed sharing Of infinitude.

Make a little room betwixt you, Pray you, Ass and Cow! Sure we shall, if I kneel next you, Know each other now! To the pit-fallen comes salvation-- Love is never loath! Here we are, thy whole creation, Waiting, Lord, thy growth!

III.

On the slopes of Bethlehem, Round their resting sheep, Shepherds sat, and went and came, Guarding holy sleep; But the silent, high dome-spaces, Airy galleries, Thronged they were with watching faces, Thronged with open eyes.

Far across the desert floor, Come, slow-drawing nigher, Sages deep in starry lore, Priests of burning Fire. In the sky they read his story, And, through starlight cool, They come riding to the Glory, To the Wonderful.

IV.

Babe and mother, coming Mage, Shepherd, ass, and cow! Angels watching the new age, Time's intensest Now! Heaven down-brooding, Earth upstraining, Far ends closing in! Sure the eternal tide is gaining On the strand of sin!

See! but see! Heaven's chapel-master Signs with lifted hand; Winds divine blow fast and faster, Swelling bosoms grand. Hark the torrent-joy let slip! Hark the great throats ring! Glory! Peace! Good-fellowship! And a Child for king!

_A SONG FOR CHRISTMAS_.

Hark, in the steeple the dull bell swinging Over the furrows ill ploughed by Death! Hark the bird-babble, the loud lark singing! Hark, from the sky, what the prophet saith!

Hark, in the pines, the free Wind, complaining-- Moaning, and murmuring, "Life is bare!" Hark, in the organ, the caught Wind, outstraining, Jubilant rise in a soaring prayer!

Toll for the burying, sexton tolling! Sing for the second birth, angel Lark! Moan, ye poor Pines, with the Past condoling! Burst out, brave Organ, and kill the Dark!

II.

Sit on the ground, and immure thy sorrow; I will give freedom to mine in song! Haunt thou the tomb, and deny the morrow; I will go watch in the dawning long!

For I shall see them, and know their faces-- Tenderer, sweeter, and shining more; Clasp the old self in the new embraces; Gaze through their eyes' wide open door.

Loved ones, I come to you: see my sadness; I am ashamed--but you pardon wrong! Smile the old smile, and my soul's new gladness Straight will arise in sorrow and song!

_TO MY AGING FRIENDS_.

It is no winter night comes down Upon our hearts, dear friends of old; But a May evening, softly brown, Whose wind is rather cold.

We are not, like yon sad-eyed West, Phantoms that brood o'er Time's dust-hoard, We are like yon Moon--in mourning drest, But gazing on her lord.

Come nearer to the hearth, sweet friends, Draw nigher, closer, hand and chair; Ours is a love that never ends, For God is dearest there!

We will not talk about the past, We will not ponder ancient pain; Those are but deep foundations cast For peaks of soaring gain!

We, waiting Dead, will warm our bones At our poor smouldering earthly fire; And talk of wide-eyed living ones Who have what we desire.

O Living, ye know what is death-- We, by and by, shall know it too! Humble, with bated, hoping breath, We are coming fast to you!

_CHRISTMAS SONG OF THE OLD CHILDREN_.

Well for youth to seek the strong, Beautiful, and brave! We, the old, who walk along Gently to the grave, Only pay our court to thee, Child of all Eternity!

We are old who once were young, And we grow more old; Songs we are that have been sung, Tales that have been told; Yellow leaves, wind-blown to thee, Childhood of Eternity!

If we come too sudden near, Lo, Earth's infant cries, For our faces wan and drear Have such withered eyes! Thou, Heaven's child, turn'st not away From the wrinkled ones who pray!

Smile upon us with thy mouth And thine eyes of grace; On our cold north breathe thy south. Thaw the frozen face: Childhood all from thee doth flow-- Melt to song our age's snow.

Gray-haired children come in crowds, Thee, their Hope, to greet: Is it swaddling clothes or shrouds Hampering so our feet? Eldest child, the shadows gloom: Take the aged children home.

We have had enough of play, And the wood grows drear; Many who at break of day Companied us here-- They have vanished out of sight, Gone and met the coming light!

Fair is this out-world of thine, But its nights are cold; And the sun that makes it fine Makes us soon so old! Long its shadows grow and dim-- Father, take us back with him!

1891.

_CHRISTMAS MEDITATION_.

He who by a mother's love Made the wandering world his own, Every year comes from above, Comes the parted to atone, Binding Earth to the Father's throne.

Nay, thou comest every day! No, thou never didst depart! Never hour hast been away! Always with us, Lord, thou art, Binding, binding heart to heart!

_THE OLD CASTLE_.

The brother knew well the castle old, Every closet, each outlook fair, Every turret and bartizan bold, Every chamber, garnished or bare. The brother was out in the heavenly air; Little ones lost the starry way, Wandered down the dungeon stair. The brother missed them, and on the clay Of the dungeon-floor he found them all. Up they jumped when they heard him call! He led the little ones into the day-- Out and up to the sunshine gay, Up to the father's own door-sill-- In at the father's own room door, There to be merry and work and play, There to come and go at their will, Good boys and girls to be lost no more!

CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

Cold my heart, and poor, and low, Like thy stable in the rock; Do not let it orphan go, It is of thy parent stock! Come thou in, and it will grow High and wide, a fane divine; Like the ruby it will glow, Like the diamond shine!

_SONG OF THE INNOCENTS_.

Merry, merry we well may be, For Jesus Christ is come down to see: Long before, at the top of the stair, He set our angels a waiting there, Waiting hither and thither to fly, Tending the children of the sky, Lest they dash little feet against big stones, And tumble down and break little bones; For the path is rough, and we must not roam; We have learned to walk, and must follow him home!

_CHRISTMAS DAY AND EVERY DAY_.

Star high, Baby low: 'Twixt the two Wise men go; Find the baby, Grasp the star-- Heirs of all things Near and far!

THE CHILDREN'S HEAVEN.

The infant lies in blessed ease Upon his mother's breast; No storm, no dark, the baby sees Invade his heaven of rest. He nothing knows of change or death-- Her face his holy skies; The air he breathes, his mother's breath; His stars, his mother's eyes!

Yet half the soft winds wandering there Are sighs that come of fears; The dew slow falling through that air-- It is the dew of tears; And ah, my child, thy heavenly home Hath storms as well as dew; Black clouds fill sometimes all its dome, And quench the starry blue!

"My smile would win no smile again, If baby saw the things That ache across his mother's brain The while to him she sings! Thy faith in me is faith in vain-- I am not what I seem: O dreary day, O cruel pain, That wakes thee from thy dream!"

Nay, pity not his dreams so fair, Fear thou no waking grief; Oh, safer he than though thou were Good as his vague belief! There is a heaven that heaven above Whereon he gazes now; A truer love than in thy kiss; A better friend than thou!

The Father's arms fold like a nest Both thee and him about; His face looks down, a heaven of rest, Where comes no dark, no doubt. Its mists are clouds of stars that move On, on, with progress rife; Its winds, the goings of his love; Its dew, the dew of life.

We for our children seek thy heart, For them we lift our eyes: Lord, should their faith in us depart, Let faith in thee arise. When childhood's visions them forsake, To women grown and men, Back to thy heart their hearts oh take, And bid them dream again.

_REJOICE_.

"Rejoice," said the Sun; "I will make thee gay With glory and gladness and holiday; I am dumb, O man, and I need thy voice!" But man would not rejoice.

"Rejoice in thyself," said he, "O Sun, For thy daily course is a lordly one; In thy lofty place rejoice if thou can: For me, I am only a man."

"Rejoice," said the Wind; "I am free and strong, And will wake in thy heart an ancient song; Hear the roaring woods, my organ noise!" But man would not rejoice.

"Rejoice, O Wind, in thy strength," said he, "For thou fulfillest thy destiny; Shake the forest, the faint flowers fan; For me, I am only a man."

"Rejoice," said the Night, "with moon and star, For the Sun and the Wind are gone afar; I am here with rest and dreaming choice!" But man would not rejoice;

For he said--"What is rest to me, I pray, Whose labour leads to no gladsome day? He only can dream who has hope behind: Alas for me and my kind!"

Then a voice that came not from moon or star, From the sun, or the wind that roved afar, Said, "Man, I am with thee--hear my voice!" And man said, "I rejoice."

_THE GRACE OF GRACE_.

Had I the grace to win the grace Of some old man in lore complete, My face would worship at his face, And I sit lowly at his feet.

Had I the grace to win the grace Of childhood, loving shy, apart, The child should find a nearer place, And teach me resting on my heart.

Had I the grace to win the grace Of maiden living all above, My soul would trample down the base, That she might have a man to love.

A grace I had no grace to win Knocks now at my half open door: Ah, Lord of glory, come thou in!-- Thy grace divine is all, and more.

_ANTIPHON_.

Daylight fades away. Is the Lord at hand In the shadows gray Stealing on the land?

Gently from the east Come the shadows gray; But our lowly priest Nearer is than they.

It is darkness quite. Is the Lord at hand, In the cloak of night Stolen upon the land?

But I see no night, For my Lord is here With him dark is light, With him far is near.

List! the cock's awake. Is the Lord at hand? Cometh he to make Light in all the land?

Long ago he made Morning in my heart; Long ago he bade Shadowy things depart.

Lo, the dawning hill! Is the Lord at hand, Come to scatter ill, Ruling in the land?

He hath scattered ill, Ruling in my mind; Growing to his will, Freedom comes, I find.

We will watch all day, Lest the Lord should come; All night waking stay In the darkness dumb.

I will work all day, For the Lord hath come; Down my head will lay All night, glad and dumb.

For we know not when Christ may be at hand; But we know that then Joy is in the land.

For I know that where Christ hath come again, Quietness without care Dwelleth in his men.

_DORCAS_.

If I might guess, then guess I would That, mid the gathered folk, This gentle Dorcas one day stood, And heard when Jesus spoke.

She saw the woven seamless coat-- Half envious, for his sake: "Oh, happy hands," she said, "that wrought The honoured thing to make!"

Her eyes with longing tears grow dim: She never can come nigh To work one service poor for him For whom she glad would die!

But, hark, he speaks! Oh, precious word! And she has heard indeed! "When did we see thee naked, Lord, And clothed thee in thy need?"

"The King shall answer, Inasmuch As to my brethren ye Did it--even to the least of such-- Ye did it unto me."

Home, home she went, and plied the loom, And Jesus' poor arrayed. She died--they wept about the room, And showed the coats she made.

_MARRIAGE SONG_.

"They have no more wine!" she said. But they had enough of bread; And the vessels by the door Held for thirst a plenteous store: Yes, _enough_; but Love divine Turned the water into wine!

When should wine like water flow, But when home two glad hearts go! When, in sacred bondage bound, Soul in soul hath freedom found! Such the time when, holy sign, Jesus turned the water wine.

Good is all the feasting then; Good the merry words of men; Good the laughter and the smiles; Good the wine that grief beguiles;-- Crowning good, the Word divine Turning water into wine!

Friends, the Master with you dwell! Daily work this miracle! When fair things too common grow, Bring again their heavenly show! Ever at your table dine, Turning water into wine!

So at last you shall descry All the patterns of the sky: Earth a heaven of short abode; Houses temples unto God; Water-pots, to vision fine, Brimming full of heavenly wine.

_BLIND BARTIMEUS_.

As Jesus went into Jericho town, Twas darkness all, from toe to crown, About blind Bartimeus. He said, "My eyes are more than dim, They are no use for seeing him: No matter--he can see us!"

"Cry out, cry out, blind brother--cry; Let not salvation dear go by.-- Have mercy, Son of David." Though they were blind, they both could hear-- They heard, and cried, and he drew near; And so the blind were saved.

O Jesus Christ, I am very blind; Nothing comes through into my mind; 'Tis well I am not dumb: Although I see thee not, nor hear, I cry because thou may'st be near: O son of Mary, come!

I hear it through the all things blind: Is it thy voice, so gentle and kind-- "Poor eyes, no more be dim"? A hand is laid upon mine eyes; I hear, and hearken, see, and rise;-- 'Tis He! I follow him!

_COME UNTO ME_.

Come unto me, the Master says:-- But how? I am not good; No thankful song my heart will raise, Nor even wish it could.

I am not sorry for the past, Nor able not to sin; The weary strife would ever last If once I should begin!

Hast thou no burden then to bear? No action to repent? Is all around so very fair? Is thy heart quite content?

Hast thou no sickness in thy soul? No labour to endure? Then go in peace, for thou art whole; Thou needest not his cure.

Ah, mock me not! I often sigh; I have a nameless grief, A faint sad pain--but such that I Can look for no relief.

Come, come to him who made thy heart; Come weary and oppressed; To come to Jesus is thy part, His part to give thee rest.

New grief, new hope he will bestow, Thy grief and pain to quell; Into thy heart himself will go, And that will make thee well.

_MORNING HYMN_.

O Lord of life, thy quickening voice Awakes my morning song! In gladsome words I would rejoice That I to thee belong.

I see thy light, I feel thy wind; The world, it is thy word; Whatever wakes my heart and mind, Thy presence is, my Lord.

The living soul which I call me Doth love, and long to know; It is a thought of living thee, Nor forth of thee can go.

Therefore I choose my highest part, And turn my face to thee; Therefore I stir my inmost heart To worship fervently.

Lord, let me live and will this day-- Keep rising from the dead; Lord, make my spirit good and gay-- Give me my daily bread.

Within my heart, speak, Lord, speak on, My heart alive to keep, Till comes the night, and, labour done, In thee I fall asleep.

_NOONTIDE HYMN_.

I love thy skies, thy sunny mists, Thy fields, thy mountains hoar, Thy wind that bloweth where it lists-- Thy will, I love it more.

I love thy hidden truth to seek All round, in sea, on shore; The arts whereby like gods we speak-- Thy will to me is more.

I love thy men and women, Lord, The children round thy door; Calm thoughts that inward strength afford-- Thy will than these is more.

But when thy will my life doth hold Thine to the very core, The world, which that same will doth mould, I love, then, ten times more!

_EVENING HYMN_.

O God, whose daylight leadeth down Into the sunless way, Who with restoring sleep dost crown The labour of the day!

What I have done, Lord, make it clean With thy forgiveness dear; That so to-day what might have been, To-morrow may appear.

And when my thought is all astray, Yet think thou on in me; That with the new-born innocent day My soul rise fresh and free.

Nor let me wander all in vain Through dreams that mock and flee; But even in visions of the brain, Go wandering toward thee.

_THE HOLY MIDNIGHT_.

Ah, holy midnight of the soul, When stars alone are high; When winds are resting at their goal, And sea-waves only sigh!

Ambition faints from out the will; Asleep sad longing lies; All hope of good, all fear of ill, All need of action dies;

Because God is, and claims the life He kindled in thy brain; And thou in him, rapt far from strife, Diest and liv'st again.

_RONDEL_.

I follow, tottering, in the funeral train That bears my body to the welcoming grave. As those I mourn not, that entomb the brave, But smile as those that lay aside the vain;

To me it is a thing of poor disdain, A clod I would not give a sigh to save! I follow, careless, in the funeral train, My outworn raiment to the cleansing grave.

I follow to the grave with growing pain-- Then sudden cry: Let Earth take what she gave! And turn in gladness from the yawning cave-- Glad even for those whose tears yet flow amain: They also follow, in their funeral train, Outworn necessities to the welcoming grave!

_A PRAYER_.

When I look back upon my life nigh spent, Nigh spent, although the stream as yet flows on, I more of follies than of sins repent, Less for offence than Love's shortcomings moan. With self, O Father, leave me not alone-- Leave not with the beguiler the beguiled; Besmirched and ragged, Lord, take back thine own: A fool I bring thee to be made a child.

_HOME FROM THE WARS_.

A tattered soldier, gone the glow and gloss, With wounds half healed, and sorely trembling knee, Homeward I come, to claim no victory-cross: I only faced the foe, and did not flee.

_GOD; NOT GIFT_.

Gray clouds my heaven have covered o'er; My sea ebbs fast, no more to flow; Ghastly and dry, my desert shore Parched, bare, unsightly things doth show.

'Tis thou, Lord, cloudest up my sky; Stillest the heart-throb of my sea; Tellest the sad wind not to sigh, Yea, life itself to wait for thee!

Lord, here I am, empty enough! My music but a soundless moan! Blind hope, of all my household stuff, Leaves me, blind hope, not quite alone!

Shall hope too go, that I may trust Purely in thee, and spite of all? Then turn my very heart to dust-- On thee, on thee, I yet will call.

List! list! his wind among the pines Hark! hark! that rushing is his sea's! O Father, these are but thy signs!-- For thee I hunger, not for these!

Not joy itself, though pure and high-- No gift will do instead of thee! Let but my spirit know thee nigh, And all the world may sleep for me!

_TO ANY FRIEND_.

If I did seem to you no more Than to myself I seem, Not thus you would fling wide the door, And on the beggar beam!

You would not don your radiant best, Or dole me more than half! Poor palmer I, no angel guest; A shaking reed my staff!

At home, no rich fruit, hanging low, Have I for Love to pull; Only unripe things that must grow Till Autumn's maund be full!

But I forsake my niggard leas, My orchard, too late hoar, And wander over lands and seas To find the Father's door.

When I have reached the ancestral farm, Have clomb the steepy hill, And round me rests the Father's arm, Then think me what you will.

VIOLIN SONGS.

_HOPE DEFERRED_.

Summer is come again. The sun is bright, And the soft wind is breathing. Airy joy Is sparkling in thine eyes, and in their light My soul is shining. Come; our day's employ Shall be to revel in unlikely things, In gayest hopes, fondest imaginings, And make-believes of bliss. Come, we will talk Of waning moons, low winds, and a dim sea; Till this fair summer, deepening as we walk, Has grown a paradise for you and me.

But ah, those leaves!--it was not summer's mouth Breathed such a gold upon them. And look there-- That beech how red! See, through its boughs, half-bare, How low the sun lies in the mid-day south!-- The sweetness is but one pined memory flown Back from our summer, wandering alone! See, see the dead leaves falling! Hear thy heart, Which, with the year's pulse beating swift or slow, Takes in the changing world its changing part, Return a sigh, an echo sad and low, To the faint, scarcely audible sound With which the leaf goes whispering to the ground! O love, sad winter lieth at the door-- Behind sad winter, age--we know no more.

Come round me, dear hearts. All of us will hold Each of us compassed: we are growing old; And if we be not as a ring enchanted, Hearts around heart, with love to keep it gay, The young, who claim the joy that haunted Our visions once, will push us far away Into the desolate regions, dim and gray, Where the sea moans, and hath no other cry, The clouds hang low, and have no tears, Old dreams lie mouldering in a pit of years, And hopes and songs all careless pass us by. But if all each do keep, The rising tide of youth will sweep Around us with its laughter-joyous waves, As ocean fair some palmy island laves, To loneliness heaved slow from out the deep; And our youth hover round us like the breath Of one that sleeps, and sleepeth not to death.

Thus ringed eternally, to parted graves, The sundered doors into one palace home, Stumbling through age's thickets, we will go, Faltering but faithful--willing to lie low, Willing to part, not willing to deny The lovely past, where all the futures lie.

Oh! if thou be, who of the live art lord, Not of the dead--Lo, by that self-same word, Thou art not lord of age, but lord of youth-- Because there is no age, in sooth, Beyond its passing shows! A mist o'er life's dimmed lantern grows; Thou break'st the glass, out streams the light That knows not youth nor age, That fears no darkness nor the rage Of windy tempests--burning still more bright Than when glad youth was all about, And summer winds were out!

1845.

_DEATH_.

When in the bosom of the eldest night This body lies, cold as a sculptured rest; When through its shaded windows comes no light, And its pale hands are folded on its breast--

How shall I fare, who had to wander out, And of the unknown land the frontier cross, Peering vague-eyed, uncertain, all about, Unclothed, mayhap unwelcomed, bathed in loss?

Shall I depart slow-floating like a mist, Over the city murmuring beneath; Over the trees and fields, where'er I list, Seeking the mountain and the lonely heath?

Or will a darkness, o'er material shows Descending, hide them from the spirit's sight; As from the sun a blotting radiance flows Athwart the stars all glorious through the night;

And the still spirit hang entranced, alone, Like one in an exalted opium-dream-- Soft-flowing time, insisting space, o'erblown, With form and colour, tone and touch and gleam,

Thought only waking--thought that may not own The lapse of ages, or the change of spot; Its doubt all cast on what it counted known, Its faith all fixed on what appeareth not?

Or, worn with weariness, shall we sleep until, Our life restored by long and dreamless rest, Of God's oblivion we have drunk our fill, And wake his little ones, peaceful and blest?

I nothing know, and nothing need to know. God is; I shall be ever in his sight! Give thou me strength to labour well, and so Do my day's work ere fall my coming night.

_HARD TIMES_.

I am weary, and very lonely, And can but think--think. If there were some water only That a spirit might drink--drink, And arise, With light in the eyes And a crown of hope on the brow, To walk abroad in the strength of gladness, Not sit in the house, benumbed with sadness-- As now!

But, Lord, thy child will be sad-- As sad as it pleases thee; Will sit, not seeking to be glad, Till thou bid sadness flee, And, drawing near, With thy good cheer Awake thy life in me.

_IF I WERE A MONK, AND THOU WERT A NUN_.

If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun, Pacing it wearily, wearily, Twixt chapel and cell till day were done-- Wearily, wearily-- How would it fare with these hearts of ours That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?

To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call, Morning foul or fair!-- Such prayer as from weary lips might fall-- Words, but hardly prayer-- The chapel's roof, like the law in stone, Caging the lark that up had flown!

Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon, The God-revealing, Turning thy face from the boundless boon-- Painfully kneeling; Or, in brown-shadowy solitude, Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!

I, in a bare and lonely nook, Gloomily, gloomily, Poring over some musty book, Thoughtfully, thoughtfully; Or painting pictures of things of old On parchment-margin in purple and gold!

Perchance in slow procession to meet, Wearily, wearily, In antique, narrow, high-gabled street, Wearily, wearily; Thine eyes dark-lifted to mine, and then Heavily sinking to earth again!

Sunshine and air! bird-music and spring! Merrily, merrily!-- Back to its cell each weary thing, Wearily, wearily! Our poor hearts, withered and dry and old, Most at home in the cloister cold!

Thou slow rising at vespers' call, Wearily, wearily; I looking up on the darkening wall, Wearily, wearily; The chime so sweet to the boat at sea, Listless and dead to thee and me!

At length for sleep a weary assay, On the lone couch wearily! Rising at midnight again to pray, Wearily, wearily! And if through the dark dear eyes looked in, Sending them far as a thought of sin!

And at last, thy tired soul passing away, Dreamily, dreamily-- Its worn tent fluttering in slow decay, Sleepily, sleepily-- Over thee held the crucified Best, But no warm cheek to thy cold cheek pressed!

And then my passing from cell to clay, Dreamily, dreamily! My gray head lying on ashes gray, Sleepily, sleepily! But no woman-angel hovering above, Ready to clasp me in deathless love!

Now, now, ah, now! thy hand in mine, Peacefully, peacefully; My arm round thee, and my lips on thine, Lovingly, lovingly-- Oh! is not a better thing to us given Than wearily going alone to heaven?

_MY HEART_.

I.

Night, with her power to silence day, Filled up my lonely room, Quenching all sounds but one that lay Beyond her passing doom, Where in his shed a workman gay Went on despite the gloom.

I listened, and I knew the sound, And the trade that he was plying; For backwards, forwards, bound on bound, A shuttle was flying, flying-- Weaving ever--till, all unwound, The weft go out a sighing.

II.

As hidden in thy chamber lowest As in the sky the lark, Thou, mystic thing, on working goest Without the poorest spark, And yet light's garment round me throwest, Who else, as thou, were dark.

With body ever clothing me, Thou mak'st me child of light; I look, and, Lo, the earth and sea, The sky's rejoicing height, A woven glory, globed by thee, Unknowing of thy might!

And when thy darkling labours fail, And thy shuttle moveless lies, My world will drop, like untied veil From before a lady's eyes; Or, all night read, a finished tale That in the morning dies.

III.

Yet not in vain dost thou unroll The stars, the world, the seas-- A mighty, wonder-painted scroll Of Patmos mysteries, Thou mediator 'twixt my soul And higher things than these!

Thy holy ephod bound on me, I pass into a seer; For still in things thou mak'st me see, The unseen grows more clear; Still their indwelling Deity Speaks plainer in mine ear.

Divinely taught the craftsman is Who waketh wonderings; Whose web, the nursing chrysalis Round Psyche's folded wings, To them transfers the loveliness Of its inwoven things.

Yet joy when thou shalt cease to beat!-- For a greater heart beats on, Whose better texture follows fleet On thy last thread outrun, With a seamless-woven garment, meet To clothe a death-born son.

_THE FLOWER-ANGELS_.

Of old, with goodwill from the skies-- God's message to them given-- The angels came, a glad surprise, And went again to heaven.

But now the angels are grown rare, Needed no more as then; Far lowlier messengers can bear God's goodwill unto men.

Each year, the snowdrops' pallid dawn Breaks from the earth below; Light spreads, till, from the dark updrawn, The noontide roses glow.

The snowdrops first--the dawning gray; Then out the roses burn! They speak their word, grow dim--away To holy dust return.

Of oracles were little dearth, Should heaven continue dumb; From lowliest corners of the earth God's messages will come.

In thy face his we see, O Lord, And are no longer blind; Need not so much his rarer word, In flowers even read his mind.

_TO MY SISTER_,

ON HER TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY.

I.

Old fables are not all a lie That tell of wondrous birth, Of Titan children, father Sky, And mighty mother Earth.

Yea, now are walking on the ground Sons of the mingled brood; Yea, now upon the earth are found Such daughters of the Good.

Earth-born, my sister, thou art still A daughter of the sky; Oh, climb for ever up the hill Of thy divinity!

To thee thy mother Earth is sweet, Her face to thee is fair; But thou, a goddess incomplete, Must climb the starry stair.

II.

Wouldst thou the holy hill ascend, Wouldst see the Father's face? To all his other children bend, And take the lowest place.

Be like a cottage on a moor, A covert from the wind, With burning fire and open door, And welcome free and kind.

Thus humbly doing on the earth The things the earthly scorn, Thou shalt declare the lofty birth Of all the lowly born.

III.

Be then thy sacred womanhood A sign upon thee set, A second baptism--understood-- For what thou must be yet.

For, cause and end of all thy strife, And unrest as thou art, Still stings thee to a higher life The Father at thy heart.

_OH THOU OF LITTLE FAITH_!

Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop lies Buried in sepulchre of ghastly snow; But spring is floating up the southern skies, And darkling the pale snowdrop waits below.

Let me persuade: in dull December's day We scarce believe there is a month of June; But up the stairs of April and of May The hot sun climbeth to the summer's noon.

Yet hear me: I love God, and half I rest. O better! God loves thee, so all rest thou. He is our summer, our dim-visioned Best;-- And in his heart thy prayer is resting now.

_WILD FLOWERS_.

Content Primroses, With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care, Peeping as from his mother's lap the child Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!-- Hanging Harebell, Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes, Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!-- Fluttering-wild Anemone, so well Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free, Yieldest thee, helpless--wilfully, With _Take me or leave me, Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone_!-- Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!-- Fire-winged Pimpernel, Communing with some hidden well, And secrets with the sun-god holding, At fixed hour folding and unfolding!-- How is it with you, children all, When human children on you fall, Gather you in eager haste, Spoil your plenty with their waste-- Fill and fill their dropping hands? Feel you hurtfully disgraced By their injurious demands? Do you know them from afar, Shuddering at their merry hum, Growing faint as near they come? Blind and deaf they think you are-- Is it only ye are dumb? You alive at least, I think, Trembling almost on the brink Of our lonely consciousness: If it be so, Take this comfort for your woe, For the breaking of your rest, For the tearing in your breast, For the blotting of the sun, For the death too soon begun, For all else beyond redress-- Or what seemeth so to be-- That the children's wonder-springs Bubble high at sight of you, Lovely, lowly, common things: In you more than you they see! Take this too--that, walking out, Looking fearlessly about, Ye rebuke our manhood's doubt, And our childhood's faith renew; So that we, with old age nigh, Seeing you alive and well Out of winter's crucible, Hearing you, from graveyard crept, Tell us that ye only slept-- Think we die not, though we die.

Thus ye die not, though ye die-- Only yield your being up, Like a nectar-holding cup: Deaf, ye give to them that hear, With a greatness lovely-dear; Blind, ye give to them that see-- Poor, but bounteous royally. Lowly servants to the higher, Burning upwards in the fire Of Nature's endless sacrifice, In great Life's ascent ye rise, Leave the lowly earth behind, Pass into the human mind, Pass with it up into God, Whence ye came though through the clod-- Pass, and find yourselves at home Where but life can go and come; Where all life is in its nest, At loving one with holy Best;-- Who knows?--with shadowy, dawning sense Of a past, age-long somnolence!

_SPRING SONG_.

Days of old, Ye are not dead, though gone from me; Ye are not cold, But like the summer-birds fled o'er some sea.

The sun brings back the swallows fast O'er the sea; When he cometh at the last, The days of old come back to me.

_SUMMER SONG_.

"Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan, Many a tune in a single tone, For every ear with a secret true-- The sea-shell wants to whisper to you."

"Yes--I hear it--far and faint, Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint; Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain; Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain."

"By smiling lip and fixed eye, You are hearing a song within the sigh: The murmurer has many a lovely phrase-- Tell me, darling, the words it says."

"I hear a wind on a boatless main Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain; On the dreaming waters dreams the moon-- But I hear no words in the doubtful tune."

"If it tell thee not that I love thee well, 'Tis a senseless, wrinkled, ill-curved shell: If it be not of love, why sigh or sing? 'Tis a common, mechanical, stupid thing!"

"It murmurs, it whispers, with prophet voice Of a peace that comes, of a sealed choice; It says not a word of your love to me, But it tells me I love you eternally."

_AUTUMN SONG_.

Autumn clouds are flying, flying O'er the waste of blue; Summer flowers are dying, dying, Late so lovely new. Labouring wains are slowly rolling Home with winter grain; Holy bells are slowly tolling Over buried men.

Goldener light sets noon a sleeping Like an afternoon; Colder airs come stealing, creeping From the misty moon; And the leaves, of old age dying, Earthy hues put on; Out on every lone wind sighing That their day is gone.

Autumn's sun is sinking, sinking Down to winter low; And our hearts are thinking, thinking Of the sleet and snow; For our sun is slowly sliding Down the hill of might; And no moon is softly gliding Up the slope of night.

See the bare fields' pillaged prizes Heaped in golden glooms! See, the earth's outworn sunrises Dream in cloudy tombs! Darkling flowers but wait the blowing Of a quickening wind; And the man, through Death's door going, Leaves old Death behind.

Mourn not, then, clear tones that alter; Let the gold turn gray; Feet, though feeble, still may falter Toward the better day! Brother, let not weak faith linger O'er a withered thing; Mark how Autumn's prophet finger Burns to hues of Spring.

_WINTER SONG_.

They were parted then at last? Was it duty, or force, or fate? Or did a worldly blast Blow-to the meeting-gate?

An old, short story is this! A glance, a trembling, a sigh, A gaze in the eyes, a kiss-- Why will it not go by!

PICTURE SONGS.

I.

A pale green sky is gleaming; The steely stars are few; The moorland pond is steaming A mist of gray and blue.

Along the pathway lonely My horse is walking slow; Three living creatures only, He, I, and a home-bound crow!

The moon is hardly shaping Her circle in the fog; A dumb stream is escaping Its prison in the bog.

But in my heart are ringing Tones of a lofty song; A voice that I know, is singing, And my heart all night must long.

II.

Over a shining land-- Once such a land I knew-- Over its sea, by a soft wind fanned, The sky is all white and blue.

The waves are kissing the shores, Murmuring love and for ever; A boat gleams green, and its timeful oars Flash out of the level river.

Oh to be there with thee And the sun, on wet sands, my love! With the shining river, the sparkling sea, And the radiant sky above!

III.

The autumn winds are sighing Over land and sea; The autumn woods are dying Over hill and lea; And my heart is sighing, dying, Maiden, for thee.

The autumn clouds are flying Homeless over me; The nestless birds are crying In the naked tree; And my heart is flying, crying, Maiden, to thee.

The autumn sea is crawling Up the chilly shore; The thin-voiced firs are calling Ghostily evermore: Maiden, maiden! I am falling Dead at thy door.

IV.

The waters are rising and flowing Over the weedy stone-- Over it, over it going: It is never gone.

Waves upon waves of weeping Went over the ancient pain; Glad waves go over it leaping-- Still it rises again!

_A DREAM SONG_.

I dreamed of a song--I heard it sung; In the ear of my soul its strange notes rung. What were its words I could not tell, Only the voice I heard right well, For its tones unearthly my spirit bound In a calm delirium of mystic sound-- Held me floating, alone and high, Placeless and silent, drinking my fill Of dews that from cloudless skies distil On desert places that thirst and sigh. 'Twas a woman's voice, deep calling to deep, Rousing old echoes that all day sleep In cavern and solitude, each apart, Here and there in the waiting heart;-- A voice with a wild melodious cry Reaching and longing afar and high. Sorrowful triumph, and hopeful strife, Gainful death, and new-born life, Thrilled in each note of the prophet-song. In my heart it said: O Lord, how long Shall we groan and travail and faint and pray, Ere thy lovely kingdom bring the day!

1842.

_AT MY WINDOW AFTER SUNSET_.

Heaven and the sea attend the dying day, And in their sadness overflow and blend-- Faint gold, and windy blue, and green and gray: Far out amid them my pale soul I send.

For, as they mingle, so mix life and death; An hour draws near when my day too will die; Already I forecast unheaving breath, Eviction on the moorland of yon sky.

Coldly and sadly lone, unhoused, alone, Twixt wind-broke wave and heaven's uncaring space! At board and hearth from this time forth unknown! Refuge no more in wife or daughter's face!

Cold, cold and sad, lone as that desert sea! Sad, lonely, as that hopeless, patient sky! Forward I cannot go, nor backward flee! I am not dead; I live, and cannot die!

Where are ye, loved ones, hither come before? Did you fare thus when first ye came this way? Somewhere there must be yet another door!-- A door in somewhere from this dreary gray!

Come walking over watery hill and glen, Or stoop your faces through yon cloud perplext; Come, any one of dearest, sacred ten, And bring me patient hoping for the next.

Maker of heaven and earth, father of me, My words are but a weak, fantastic moan! Were I a land-leaf drifting on the sea, Thou still wert with me; I were not alone!

I am in thee, O father, lord of sky, And lord of waves, and lord of human souls! In thee all precious ones to me more nigh Than if they rushing came in radiant shoals!

I shall not be alone although I die, And loved ones should delay their coming long; Though I saw round me nought but sea and sky, Bare sea and sky would wake a holy song.

They are thy garments; thou art near within, Father of fathers, friend-creating friend! Thou art for ever, therefore I begin; Thou lov'st, therefore my love shall never end!

Let loose thy giving, father, on thy child; I pray thee, father, give me everything; Give me the joy that makes the children wild; Give throat and heart an old new song to sing.

Ye are my joy, great father, perfect Christ, And humble men of heart, oh, everywhere! With all the true I keep a hoping tryst; Eternal love is my eternal prayer.

1890.

_A FATHER TO A MOTHER_.

When God's own child came down to earth, High heaven was very glad; The angels sang for holy mirth; Not God himself was sad!

Shall we, when ours goes homeward, fret? Come, Hope, and wait on Sorrow! The little one will not forget; It's only till to-morrow!

_THE TEMPLE OF GOD_.

In the desert by the bush, Moses to his heart said _Hush_.

David on his bed did pray; God all night went not away.

From his heap of ashes foul Job to God did lift his soul,

God came down to see him there, And to answer all his prayer.

On a dark hill, in the wind, Jesus did his father find,

But while he on earth did fare, Every spot was place of prayer;

And where man is any day, God can not be far away.

But the place he loveth best, Place where he himself can rest,

Where alone he prayer doth seek, Is the spirit of the meek.

To the humble God doth come; In his heart he makes his home.

_GOING TO SLEEP_.

Little one, you must not fret That I take your clothes away; Better sleep you so will get, And at morning wake more gay-- Saith the children's mother.

You I must unclothe again, For you need a better dress; Too much worn are body and brain; You need everlastingness-- Saith the heavenly father.

I went down death's lonely stair; Laid my garments in the tomb; Dressed again one morning fair; Hastened up, and hied me home-- Saith the elder brother.

Then I will not be afraid Any ill can come to me; When 'tis time to go to bed, I will rise and go with thee-- Saith the little brother.

_TO-MORROW_.

My TO-MORROW is but a flitting Fancy of the brain; God's TO-MORROW an angel sitting, Ready for joy or pain.

My TO-MORROW has no soul, Dead as yesterdays; God's--a brimming silver bowl Of life that gleams and plays.

My TO-MORROW, I mock you away! Shadowless nothing, thou! God's TO-MORROW, come, dear day, For God is in thee now.

_FOOLISH CHILDREN_.

Waking in the night to pray, Sleeping when the answer comes, Foolish are we even at play-- Tearfully we beat our drums! Cast the good dry bread away, Weep, and gather up the crumbs!

"Evermore," while shines the day, "Lord," we cry, "thy will be done!" Soon as evening groweth gray, Thy fair will we fain would shun! "Take, oh, take thy hand away! See the horrid dark begun!"

"Thou hast conquered Death," we say, "Christ, whom Hades could not keep!" Then, "Ah, see the pallid clay! Death it is," we cry, "not sleep! Grave, take all. Shut out the Day. Sit we on the ground and weep!"

Gathering potsherds all the day, Truant children, Lord, we roam; Fret, and longer want to play, When at cool thy voice doth come!-- Elder Brother, lead the way; Make us good as we go home.

_LOVE IS HOME_.

Love is the part, and love is the whole; Love is the robe, and love is the pall; Ruler of heart and brain and soul, Love is the lord and the slave of all! I thank thee, Love, that thou lov'st me; I thank thee more that I love thee.

Love is the rain, and love is the air, Love is the earth that holdeth fast; Love is the root that is buried there, Love is the open flower at last! I thank thee, Love all round about, That the eyes of my love are looking out.

Love is the sun, and love is the sea; Love is the tide that comes and goes; Flowing and flowing it comes to me; Ebbing and ebbing to thee it flows! Oh my sun, and my wind, and tide! My sea, and my shore, and all beside!

Light, oh light that art by showing; Wind, oh wind that liv'st by motion; Thought, oh thought that art by knowing; Will, that art born in self-devotion! Love is you, though not all of you know it; Ye are not love, yet ye always show it!

Faithful creator, heart-longed-for father, Home of our heart-infolded brother, Home to thee all thy glories gather-- All are thy love, and there is no other! O Love-at-rest, we loves that roam-- Home unto thee, we are coming home!

_FAITH_.

"Earth, if aught should check thy race, Rushing through unfended space, Headlong, stayless, thou wilt fall Into yonder glowing ball!"

"Beggar of the universe, Faithless as an empty purse! Sent abroad to cool and tame, Think'st I fear my native flame?"

"If thou never on thy track Turn thee round and hie thee back, Thou wilt wander evermore, Outcast, cold--a comet hoar!"

"While I sweep my ring along In an air of joyous song, Thou art drifting, heart awry, From the sun of liberty!"

_WAITING_.

I waited for the Master In the darkness dumb; Light came fast and faster-- My light did not come!

I waited all the daylight, All through noon's hot flame: In the evening's gray light, Lo, the Master came!

_OUR SHIP_.

Had I a great ship coming home, With big plunge o'er the sea, What bright things, hid from star and foam, Lay in her heart for thee!

The stormy billows heave and dip, The wild winds veer and play; But, regnant all, God's stately ship Is steering home this way!

_MY HEART THY LARK_.

Why dost thou want to sing When thou hast no song, my heart? If there be in thee a hidden spring, Wherefore will no word start?

On its way thou hearest no song, Yet flutters thy unborn joy! The years of thy life are growing long-- Art still the heart of a boy?--

Father, I am thy child! My heart is in thy hand! Let it hear some echo, with gladness wild, Of a song in thy high land.

It will answer--but how, my God, Thou knowest; I cannot say: It will spring, I know, thy lark, from thy sod-- Thy lark to meet thy day!

_TWO IN ONE_.

Were thou and I the white pinions On some eager, heaven-born dove, Swift would we mount to the old dominions, To our rest of old, my love!

Were thou and I trembling strands In music's enchanted line, We would wait and wait for magic hands To untwist the magic twine.

Were we two sky-tints, thou and I, Thou the golden, I the red; We would quiver and glow and darken and die, And love until we were dead!

Nearer than wings of one dove, Than tones or colours in chord, We are one--and safe, and for ever, my love, Two thoughts in the heart of one Lord.

_BEDTIME_.

"Come, children, put away your toys; Roll up that kite's long line; The day is done for girls and boys-- Look, it is almost nine! Come, weary foot, and sleepy head, Get up, and come along to bed."

The children, loath, must yet obey; Up the long stair they creep; Lie down, and something sing or say Until they fall asleep, To steal through caverns of the night Into the morning's golden light.

We, elder ones, sit up more late, And tasks unfinished ply, But, gently busy, watch and wait-- Dear sister, you and I, To hear the Father, with soft tread, Coming to carry us to bed.

_A PRAYER_.

Thou who mad'st the mighty clock Of the great world go; Mad'st its pendulum swing and rock, Ceaseless to and fro; Thou whose will doth push and draw Every orb in heaven, Help me move by higher law In my spirit graven.

Like a planet let me swing-- With intention strong; In my orbit rushing sing Jubilant along; Help me answer in my course To my seasons due; Lord of every stayless force, Make my Willing true.

_A SONG PRAYER_.

Lord Jesus, Oh, ease us Of Self that oppresses, Annoys and distresses Body and brain With dull pain! Thou never, Since ever, Save one moment only, Wast left, or wast lonely: We are alone, And make moan.

Far parted, Dull-hearted, We wander, sleep-walking, Mere shadows, dim-stalking: Orphans we roam, Far from home.

Oh new man, Sole human, God's son, and our brother, Give each to the other-- No one left out In cold doubt!

High Father, Oh gather Thy sons and thy daughters, Through fires and through waters, Home to the nest Of thy breast!

There under The wonder Of great wings of healing, Of love and revealing, Teach us anew To sing true.

SONGS OF THE DAYS AND NIGHTS.

_SONGS OF THE SUMMER DAYS_.

I.

A glory on the chamber wall! A glory in the brain! Triumphant floods of glory fall On heath, and wold, and plain.

Earth lieth still in hopeless bliss; She has, and seeks no more; Forgets that days come after this, Forgets the days before.

Each ripple waves a flickering fire Of gladness, as it runs; They laugh and flash, and leap and spire, And toss ten thousand suns.

But hark! low, in the world within, One sad aeolian tone: "Ah! shall we ever, ever win A summer of our own?"

II.

A morn of winds and swaying trees-- Earth's jubilance rushing out! The birds are fighting with the breeze; The waters heave about.

White clouds are swept across the sky, Their shadows o'er the graves; Purpling the green, they float and fly Athwart the sunny waves.

The long grass--an earth-rooted sea-- Mimics the watery strife. To boat or horse? Wild motion we Shall find harmonious life.

But whither? Roll and sweep and bend Suffice for Nature's part; But motion to an endless end Is needful for our heart.

III.

The morn awakes like brooding dove, With outspread wings of gray; Her feathery clouds close in above, And roof a sober day.

No motion in the deeps of air! No trembling in the leaves! A still contentment everywhere, That neither laughs nor grieves!

A film of sheeted silver gray Shuts in the ocean's hue; White-winged feluccas cleave their way In paths of gorgeous blue.

Dream on, dream on, O dreamy day, Thy very clouds are dreams! Yon child is dreaming far away-- He is not where he seems.

IV.

The lark is up, his faith is strong, He mounts the morning air; Lone voice of all the creature throng, He sings the morning prayer.

Slow clouds from north and south appear, Black-based, with shining slope; In sullen forms their might they rear, And climb the vaulted cope.

A lightning flash, a thunder boom!-- Nor sun nor clouds are there; A single, all-pervading gloom Hangs in the heavy air.

A weeping, wasting afternoon Weighs down the aspiring corn; Amber and red, the sunset soon Leads back to golden morn.

_SONGS OF THE SUMMER NIGHTS_.

I.

The dreary wind of night is out, Homeless and wandering slow; O'er pale seas moaning like a doubt, It breathes, but will not blow.

It sighs from out the helpless past, Where doleful things abide; Gray ghosts of dead thought sail aghast Across its ebbing tide.

O'er marshy pools it faints and flows, All deaf and dumb and blind; O'er moor and mountain aimless goes-- The listless woesome wind!

Nay, nay!--breathe on, sweet wind of night! The sigh is all in me; Flow, fan, and blow, with gentle might, Until I wake and see.

II.

The west is broken into bars Of orange, gold, and gray; Gone is the sun, fast come the stars, And night infolds the day.

My boat glides with the gliding stream, Following adown its breast One flowing mirrored amber gleam, The death-smile of the west.

The river moves; the sky is still, No ceaseless quest it knows: Thy bosom swells, thy fair eyes fill At sight of its repose.

The ripples run; all patient sit The stars above the night. In shade and gleam the waters flit: The heavens are changeless bright!

III.

Alone I lie, buried amid The long luxurious grass; The bats flit round me, born and hid In twilight's wavering mass.

The fir-top floats, an airy isle, High o'er the mossy ground; Harmonious silence breathes the while In scent instead of sound.

The flaming rose glooms swarthy red; The borage gleams more blue; Dim-starred with white, a flowery bed Glimmers the rich dusk through.

Hid in the summer grass I lie, Lost in the great blue cave; My body gazes at the sky, And measures out its grave.

IV.

What art thou, gathering dusky cool, In slow gradation fine? Death's lovely shadow, flickering full Of eyes about to shine.

When weary Day goes down below, Thou leanest o'er his grave, Revolving all the vanished show The gracious splendour gave.

Or art thou not she rather--say-- Dark-browed, with luminous eyes, Of whom is born the mighty Day, That fights and saves and dies?

For action sleeps with sleeping light; Calm thought awakes with thee: The soul is then a summer night, With stars that shine and see.

_SONGS OF THE AUTUMN DAYS_.

I.

We bore him through the golden land, One early harvest morn; The corn stood ripe on either hand-- He knew all about the corn.

How shall the harvest gathered be Without him standing by? Without him walking on the lea, The sky is scarce a sky.

The year's glad work is almost done; The land is rich in fruit; Yellow it floats in air and sun-- Earth holds it by the root.

Why should earth hold it for a day When harvest-time is come? Death is triumphant o'er decay, And leads the ripened home.

II.

And though the sun be not so warm, His shining is not lost; Both corn and hope, of heart and farm, Lie hid from coming frost.

The sombre woods are richly sad, Their leaves are red and gold: Are thoughts in solemn splendour clad Signs that we men grow old?

Strange odours haunt the doubtful brain From fields and days gone by; And mournful memories again Are born, are loved, and die.

The mornings clear, the evenings cool Foretell no wintry wars; The day of dying leaves is full, The night of glowing stars.

III.

'Tis late before the sun will rise, And early he will go; Gray fringes hang from the gray skies, And wet the ground below.

Red fruit has followed golden corn; The leaves are few and sere; My thoughts are old as soon as born, And chill with coming fear.

The winds lie sick; no softest breath Floats through the branches bare; A silence as of coming death Is growing in the air.

But what must fade can bear to fade-- Was born to meet the ill: Creep on, old Winter, deathly shade! We sorrow, and are still.

IV.

There is no longer any heaven To glorify our clouds; The rising vapours downward driven Come home in palls and shrouds.

The sun himself is ill bested A heavenly sign to show; His radiance, dimmed to glowing red, Can hardly further go.

An earthy damp, a churchyard gloom, Pervade the moveless air; The year is sinking to its tomb, And death is everywhere.

But while sad thoughts together creep, Like bees too cold to sting, God's children, in their beds asleep, Are dreaming of the spring.

_SONGS OF THE AUTUMN NIGHTS_.

I.

O night, send up the harvest moon To walk about the fields, And make of midnight magic noon On lonely tarns and wealds.

In golden ranks, with golden crowns, All in the yellow land, Old solemn kings in rustling gowns, The shocks moon-charmed stand.

Sky-mirror she, afloat in space, Beholds our coming morn: Her heavenly joy hath such a grace, It ripens earthly corn;

Like some lone saint with upward eyes, Lost in the deeps of prayer: The people still their prayers and sighs, And gazing ripen there.

II.

So, like the corn moon-ripened last, Would I, weary and gray, On golden memories ripen fast, And ripening pass away.

In an old night so let me die; A slow wind out of doors; A waning moon low in the sky; A vapour on the moors;

A fire just dying in the gloom; Earth haunted all with dreams; A sound of waters in the room; A mirror's moony gleams;

And near me, in the sinking night, More thoughts than move in me-- Forgiving wrong, and loving right, And waiting till I see.

III.

Across the stubble glooms the wind; High sails the lated crow; The west with pallid green is lined; Fog tracks the river's flow.

My heart is cold and sad; I moan, Yet care not for my grief; The summer fervours all are gone; The roses are but leaf.

Old age is coming, frosty, hoar; The snows of time will fall; My jubilance, dream-like, no more Returns for any call!

O lapsing heart! thy feeble strain Sends up the blood so spare, That my poor withering autumn brain Sees autumn everywhere!

IV.

Lord of my life! if I am blind, I reck not--thou canst see; I well may wait my summer mind, When I am sure of thee!

_I_ made no brave bright suns arise, Veiled up no sweet gray eves; _I_ hung no rose-lamps, lit no eyes, Sent out no windy leaves!

I said not "I will cast a charm These gracious forms around;" My heart with unwilled love grew warm; I took but what I found!

When cold winds range my winter-night, Be thou my summer-door; Keep for me all my young delight, Till I am old no more.

_SONGS OF THE WINTER DAYS_.

I.

The sky has turned its heart away, The earth its sorrow found; The daisies turn from childhood's play, And creep into the ground.

The earth is black and cold and hard; Thin films of dry white ice, Across the rugged wheel-tracks barred, The children's feet entice.

Dark flows the stream, as if it mourned The winter in the land; With idle icicles adorned, That mill-wheel soon will stand.

But, friends, to say 'tis cold, and part, Is to let in the cold; We'll make a summer of the heart, And laugh at winter old.

II.

With vague dead gleam the morning white Comes through the window-panes; The clouds have fallen all the night, Without the noise of rains.

As of departing, unseen ghost, Footprints go from the door; The man himself must long be lost Who left those footprints hoar!

Yet follow thou; tread down the snow; Leave all the road behind; Heed not the winds that steely blow, Heed not the sky unkind;

For though the glittering air grow dark, The snow will shine till morn; And long ere then one dear home-spark Will winter laugh to scorn.

III.

Oh wildly wild the roaring blast Torments the fallen snow! The wintry storms are up at last, And care not how they go!

In foam-like wreaths the water hoar, Rapt whistling in the air, Gleams through the dismal twilight frore; A region in despair,

A spectral ocean lies outside, Torn by a tempest dark; Its ghostly billows, dim descried, Leap on my stranded bark.

Death-sheeted figures, long and white, Rave driving through the spray; Or, bosomed in the ghastly night, Shriek doom-cries far away.

IV.

A morning clear, with frosty light From sunbeams late and low; They shine upon the snow so white, And shine back from the snow.

Down tusks of ice one drop will go, Nor fall: at sunny noon 'Twill hang a diamond--fade, and grow An opal for the moon.

And when the bright sad sun is low Behind the mountain-dome, A twilight wind will come and blow Around the children's home,

And puff and waft the powdery snow, As feet unseen did pass; While, waiting in its bed below, Green lies the summer grass.

_SONGS OF THE WINTER NIGHTS_.

I.

Back shining from the pane, the fire Seems outside in the snow: So love set free from love's desire Lights grief of long ago.

The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine, The earth bedecked with moon; Out on the worlds we surely shine More radiant than in June!

In the white garden lies a heap As brown as deep-dug mould: A hundred partridges that keep Each other from the cold.

My father gives them sheaves of corn, For shelter both and food: High hope in me was early born, My father was so good.

II.

The frost weaves ferns and sultry palms Across my clouded pane; Weaves melodies of ancient psalms All through my passive brain.

Quiet ecstasy fills heart and head: My father is in the room; The very curtains of my bed Are from Love's sheltering loom!

The lovely vision melts away; I am a child no more; Work rises from the floor of play; Duty is at the door.

But if I face with courage stout The labour and the din, Thou, Lord, wilt let my mind go out My heart with thee stay in.

III.

Up to my ear my soul doth run-- Her other door is dark; There she can see without the sun, And there she sits to mark.

I hear the dull unheeding wind Mumble o'er heath and wold; My fancy leaves my brain behind, And floats into the cold.

Like a forgotten face that lies One of the speechless crowd, The earth lies spent, with frozen eyes, White-folded in her shroud.

O'er leafless woods and cornless farms, Dead rivers, fireless thorps, I brood, the heart still throbbing warm In Nature's wintered corpse.

IV.

To all the world mine eyes are blind: Their drop serene is--night, With stores of snow piled up the wind An awful airy height.

And yet 'tis but a mote in the eye: The simple faithful stars Beyond are shining, careless high, Nor heed our storms and jars.

And when o'er storm and jar I climb-- Beyond life's atmosphere, I shall behold the lord of time And space--of world and year.

Oh vain, far quest!--not thus my heart Shall ever find its goal! I turn me home--and there thou art, My Father, in my soul!

_SONGS OF THE SPRING DAYS_.

I.

A gentle wind, of western birth On some far summer sea, Wakes daisies in the wintry earth, Wakes hopes in wintry me.

The sun is low; the paths are wet, And dance with frolic hail; The trees--their spring-time is not yet-- Swing sighing in the gale.

Young gleams of sunshine peep and play; Clouds shoulder in between; I scarce believe one coming day The earth will all be green.

The north wind blows, and blasts, and raves, And flaps his snowy wing: Back! toss thy bergs on arctic waves; Thou canst not bar our spring.

II.

Up comes the primrose, wondering; The snowdrop droopeth by; The holy spirit of the spring Is working silently.

Soft-breathing breezes woo and wile The later children out; O'er woods and farms a sunny smile Is flickering about.

The earth was cold, hard-hearted, dull; To death almost she slept: Over her, heaven grew beautiful, And forth her beauty crept.

Showers yet must fall, and waters grow Dark-wan with furrowing blast; But suns will shine, and soft winds blow, Till the year flowers at last.

III.

The sky is smiling over me, Hath smiled away the frost; White daisies star the sky-like lea, With buds the wood's embossed.

Troops of wild flowers gaze at the sky Up through the latticed boughs; Till comes the green cloud by and by, It is not time to house.

Yours is the day, sweet bird--sing on; The winter is forgot; Like an ill dream 'tis over and gone: Pain that is past, is not.

Joy that was past is yet the same: If care the summer brings, 'Twill only be another name For love that broods, not sings.

IV.

Blow on me, wind, from west and south; Sweet summer-spirit, blow! Come like a kiss from dear child's mouth, Who knows not what I know.

The earth's perfection dawneth soon; Ours lingereth alway; We have a morning, not a noon; Spring, but no summer gay.

Rose-blotted eve, gold-branded morn Crown soon the swift year's life: In us a higher hope is born, And claims a longer strife.

Will heaven be an eternal spring With summer at the door? Or shall we one day tell its king That we desire no more?

_SONGS OF THE SPRING NIGHTS_.

I.

The flush of green that dyed the day Hath vanished in the moon; Flower-scents float stronger out, and play An unborn, coming tune.

One southern eve like this, the dew Had cooled and left the ground; The moon hung half-way from the blue, No disc, but conglobed round;

Light-leaved acacias, by the door, Bathed in the balmy air, Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore, And breathed a perfume rare;

Great gold-flakes from the starry sky Fell flashing on the deep: One scent of moist earth floating by, Almost it made me weep.

II.

Those gorgeous stars were not my own, They made me alien go! The mother o'er her head had thrown A veil I did not know!

The moon-blanched fields that seaward went, The palm-flung, dusky shades, Bore flowering grasses, knotted, bent, No slender, spear-like blades.

I longed to see the starry host Afar in fainter blue; But plenteous grass I missed the most, With daisies glimmering through.

The common things were not the same! I longed across the foam: From dew-damp earth that odour came-- I knew the world my home.

III.

The stars are glad in gulfy space-- Friendly the dark to them! From day's deep mine, their hiding-place, Night wooeth every gem.

A thing for faith 'mid labour's jar, When up the day is furled, Shines in the sky a light afar, Mayhap a home-filled world.

Sometimes upon the inner sky We catch a doubtful shine: A mote or star? A flash in the eye Or jewel of God's mine?

A star to us, all glimmer and glance, May teem with seraphim: A fancy to our ignorance May be a truth to Him.

IV.

The night is damp and warm and still, And soft with summer dreams; The buds are bursting at their will, And shy the half moon gleams.

My soul is cool, as bathed within By dews that silent weep-- Like child that has confessed his sin, And now will go to sleep.

My body ages, form and hue; But when the spring winds blow, My spirit stirs and buds anew, Younger than long ago.

Lord, make me more a child, and more, Till Time his own end bring, And out of every winter sore I pass into thy spring.

A BOOK OF DREAMS.