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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6623.txt b/6623.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..04e4e9f --- /dev/null +++ b/6623.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4777 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems, by +Kate Seymour Maclean + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems + +Author: Kate Seymour Maclean + +Posting Date: September 3, 2012 [EBook #6623] +Release Date: October, 2004 +First Posted: January 5, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince, Charles +Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, from +images generously made available by the Canadian Institute +for Historical Microreproductions. + + + + + + + + + + + +THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS; AND OTHER POEMS. + +BY + +KATE SEYMOUR MACLEAN, KINGSTON, ONTARIO. + +AN INTRODUCTION, BY THE EDITOR OF "THE CANADIAN MONTHLY." + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +BY G MERCER ADAM. + +The request of the author that I should write a few words of +preface to this collection of poems must be my excuse for obtruding +myself upon the reader. Having frequently had the pleasure as +editor of _The Canadian Monthly_, of introducing many of Mrs. +MacLean's poems to lovers of verse in the Dominion it was thought +not unfitting that I should act as foster father to the collection +of them here made and to bespeak for the volume at the hands at +least of all Canadians the appreciative and kindly reception due to a + + Child of the first winds and suns of a nation. + +Accepting the task assigned to me the more readily as I discern the +high and sustained excellence of the collection as a whole let me +ask that the volume be received with interest as a further and most +meritorious contribution to the poetical literature of our young +country (the least that can be said of the work), and with sympathy +for the intellectual and moral aspirations that have called it into +being. + +There is truth, doubtless, in the remark, that we are enriched less +by what we have than by what we hope to have. As the poetic art in +Canada has had little of an appreciable past, it may therefore be +thought that the songs that are to catch and retain the ear of the +nation lie still in the future, and are as yet unsung. Doubtless +the chords have yet to be struck that are to give to Canada the +songs of her loftiest genius; but he would be an ill friend of the +country's literature who would slight the achievements of the +present in reaching solely after what, it is hoped, the coming time +will bring. + +But whatever of lyrical treasure the future may enshrine in +Canadian literature, and however deserving may be the claims of the +volumes of verse that have already appeared from the native press, +I am bold to claim for these productions of Mrs. MacLean's muse a +high place in the national collection and a warm corner in the +national heart. + +To discern the merit of a poem is proverbially easier than to say +how and in what manner it is manifested. In a collection the task +of appraisement is not so difficult. Lord Houghton has said: "There +is in truth no critic of poetry but the man who enjoys it, and the +amount of gratification felt is the only just measure of +criticism." By this test the present volume will, in the main, be +judged. Still, there are characteristics of the author's work which +I may be permitted to point out. In Mrs. MacLean's volume what +quickly strikes one is not only the fact that the poems are all of +a high order of merit, but that a large measure of art and instinct +enters into the composition of each of them. As readily will it be +recognized that they are the product of a cultivated intellect, a +bright fancy, and a feeling heart. A rich spiritual life breathes +throughout the work, and there are occasional manifestations of +fervid impulse and ardent feeling. Yet there is no straining of +expression in the poems nor is there any loose fluency of thought. +Throughout there is sustained elevation and lofty purpose. Her +least work, moreover, is worthy of her, because it is always honest +work. With a quiet simplicity of style there is at the same time a +fine command of language and an earnest beauty of thought. The +grace and melody of the versification, indeed, few readers will +fail to appreciate. Occasionally there are echoes of other +poets--Jean Ingelow and Mrs. Barrett Browning, in the more +subjective pieces, being oftenest suggested. But there is a voice +as well as an echo--the voice of a poet in her own right. In an age +so bustling and heedless as this, it were well sometimes to stop +and listen to the voice In its fine spiritualizations we shall at +least be soothed and may be bettered. + +But I need not dwell on the vocation of poetry or on the excellence +of the poems here introduced. The one is well known to the reader, +the other may soon be. Happily there is promise that Canada will +ere long be rich in her poets. They stand in the vanguard of the +country's benefactors, and so should be cherished and encouraged. +Of late our serial literature has given us more than blossomings. +The present volume enshrines some of the maturer fruit. May it be +its mission to nourish the poetic sentiment among us. May it do +more to nourish in some degree the "heart of the nation", and, in +the range of its influence, that of humanity. + + CANADIAN MONTHLY OFFICE, + Toronto, December, 1880 + + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + +The Coming of the Princess + +Bird Song + +An Idyl of the May + +The Burial of the Scout + +Questionings + +Pansies + +November Meteors + +Pictures in the Fire + +A Madrigal + +The Ploughboy + +The Voice of Many Waters + +The Death of Autumn + +A Farewell + +The News Boy's Dream of the New Year + +The Old Church on the Hill + +The Burning of Chicago + +The Legend of the New Year + +By the Sea-Shore at Night + +Resurgam + +Written in a Cemetery + +Marguerite + +The Watch-Light + +New Year, 1868 + +Thanksgiving + +Miserere + +Beyond + +The Sabbath of the Woods + +A Valentine + +Snow-Drops + +Easter Bells + +In the Sierra Nevada + +Summer Rain + +A Baby's Death + +Christmas + +My Garden + +River Song + +The Return + +Voices of Hope + +In the Country + +Science, the Iconoclast + +What the Owl said to me + +Our Volunteers + +Night: A Phantasy + +A Monody + +Minnie + +The Golden Wedding + +Verses Written in Mary's Album + +The Woods in June + +The Isle of Sleep + +The Battle Autumn of 1862 + +In War Time + +Christmas Hymn + +Te Deum Laudamus + +A November Wood-Walk + +Resignation + +Euthanasia + +Ballad of the Mad Ladye + +The Coming of the King + +With a Bunch of Spring Flowers + +The Higher Law + +May + +Two Windows + +The Meeting of Spirits + +George Brown + +Forgotten Songs + +To the Daughter of the Author of "Violet Keith" + +A Prelude, and a Bird's Song + +An April Dawn + + + +ENVOI + + + A little bird woke singing in the night, + Dreaming of coming day, + And piped, for very fulness of delight, + His little roundelay. + + Dreaming he heard the wood-lark's carol loud, + Down calling to his mate, + Like silver rain out of a golden cloud, + At morning's radiant gate. + + And all for joy of his embowering woods, + And dewy leaves he sung,-- + The summer sunshine, and the summer floods + By forest flowers o'erhung. + + Thou shalt not hear those wild and sylvan notes + When morn's full chorus pours + Rejoicing from a thousand feathered throats, + And the lark sings and soars, + + Oh poet of our glorious land so fair, + Whose foot is at the door; + Even so my song shall melt into the air, + And die and be no more. + + But thou shalt live, part of the nation's life; + The world shall hear thy voice + Singing above the noise of war and strife, + And therefore I rejoice! + + + + THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS + + I. + + + Break dull November skies, and make + Sunshine over wood and lake, + And fill your cells of frosty air + With thousand, thousand welcomes to the Princely pair! + The land and the sea are alight for them; + The wrinkled face of old Winter is bright for them; + The honour and pride of a race + Secure in their dwelling place, + Steadfast and stern as the rocks that guard her, + Tremble and thrill and leap in their veins, + As the blood of one man through the beacon-lit border! + Like a fire, like a flame, + At the sound of her name, + As the smoky-throated cannon mutter it, + As the smiling lips of a nation utter it, + And a hundred rock-lights write it in fire! + Daughter of Empires, the Lady of Lorne, + Back through the mists of dim centuries borne, + None nobler, none gentler that brave name have worn; + Shrilled by storm-bugles, and rolled by the seas, + Louise! + Our Princess, our Empress, our Lady of Lorne! + + II. + + + And the wild, white horses with flying manes + Wind-tost, the riderless steeds of the sea. + Neigh to her, call to her, dreadless and free, + "Fear not to follow us; these thy domains; + Welcome, welcome, our Lady and Queen! + O Princess, oh daughter of kingliest sire! + Under its frost girdle throbbing and keen, + A new realm awaits thee, loyal and true!" + And the round-cheeked Tritons, with fillets of blue + Binding their sea-green and scintillant hair, + Blow thee a welcome; their brawny arms bear + Thy keel through the waves like a bird through the air. + + III. + + + Shoreward the shoal of mighty shoulders lean + Through the long swell of waves, + Reaching beyond the sunset and the hollow caves, + And the ice-girdled peaks that hold serene + Each its own star, far out at sea to mark + Thy westward way, O Princess, through the dark. + The rose-red sunset dies into the dusk, + The silver dusk of the long twilight hour, + And opal lights come out, and fiery gleams + Of flame-red beacons, like the ash-gray husk + Torn from some tropic blossom bursting into flower, + Making the sea bloom red with ruddy beams. + + IV + + + Still nearer and nearer it comes, the swift sharp prow + Of the ship above and the shadow ship below, + With the mighty arms of the Titans under, + All bowed one way like a field of wind-blown ears, + Still nearer and nearer, and now + touches the strand, and, lo, + With the length of her bright hair backward flowing + Round her head like an aureole, + Like a candle flame in the wind's breath blowing, + Stands she fair and still as a disembodied soul, + With hands outstretched, and eyes that shine through tears + And tremulous smiles + When the trumpets, and the guns, and the great drums roll, + And the long fiords and the forelands shake with the thunder + Of the shout of welcome to the daughter of the Isles. + + V + + + Bring her, O people, on the shoulders of her vassals + Throned like a queen to her palace on the height, + Up the rocky steeps where the fir tree tassels + Nod to her, and touch her with a subtle, vague delight, + Like a whisper of home, like a greeting and a smile + From the fir-tree walks and gardens, the wood-embowered castles + In the north among the clansmen of Argyle. + Now the sullen plunge of waves for many a mile + Along the roaring Ottawa is heard, + And the cry of some wood bird, + Wild and sudden and sweet, + Scared from its perch by the rush and trample of feet, + And the red glare of the torches in the night. + And now the long facade gay with many a twinkling light + Reaches hands of welcome, and the bells peal, and the guns, + And the hoarse blare of the trumpets, and the throbbing + of the drums + Fill the air like shaken music, and the very waves rejoice + In the gladness, and the greeting, and the triumph of + their voice. + + VI. + + + Under triumphal arches, blazoned with banners and scrolls, + And the sound of a People's exulting, still gathering as it rolls, + Enter the gates of the city, and take the waiting throne, + And make the heart of a Nation, O Royal Pair, your own. + Sons of the old race, we, and heirs of the old and the new; + Our hands are bold and strong, and our hearts are faithful and true; + Saxon and Norman and Celt one race of the mingled blood + Who fought built cities and ships and stemmed the unknown flood + In the grand historic days that made our England great + When Britain's sons were steadfast to meet or to conquer fate + Our sires were the minster builders who wrought themselves unknown + The thought divine within them till it blossomed into stone + Forgers of swords and of ploughshares reapers of men and of grain, + Their bones and their names forgotten on many a battle plain + For faith and love and loyalty were living and sacred things + When our sires were those who wrought and yours were the leaders + and kings. + + + VII + + + For since the deeds that live in Arthur's rhyme + Who left the stainless flower of knighthood for all time + Down to our Blameless Prince wise gentle just + Whom the world mourns not by your English dust + More precious held more sacredly enshrined + Than in each loyal breast of all mankind, + Men bare the head in homage to the good, + And she who wears the crown of womanhood, + August, not less than that of Empress, reigns + The crowned Victoria of the world's domains + North, South, East, West, O Princess fair, behold + In this new world, the daughter of the old, + Where ribs of iron bar the Atlantic's breast, + Where sunset mountains slope into the west, + Unfathomed wildernesses, valleys sweet, + And tawny stubble lands of corn and wheat, + And all the hills and lakes and forests dun, + Between the rising and the setting sun; + Where rolling rivers run with sands of gold, + And the locked treasures of the mine unfold + Undreamed of riches, and the hearts of men, + Held close to nature, have grown pure again. + Like that exalted Pair, beloved, revered, + By princely grace, and truth and love endeared, + Here fix your empire in the growing West, + And build your throne in each Canadian breast, + Till West and East strike hands across the main, + Knit by a stronger, more enduring chain, + And our vast Empire become one again. + + + + BIRD SONG. + + + Art thou not sweet, + Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee! + All creatures rejoice + With one rapturous voice. + As I, with the passionate beat + Of my over-full heart feel thee sweet, + And all things that live, and are part of thee! + + Light, light as a cloud + Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me + I float in the deep + As a bird-dream in sleep, + And hear the wind murmuring loud, + Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,-- + And I see where the secret place of the thunders be + + Oh! the sky free and wide, + With all the cloud-banners flung out in it + Its singing wind blows + As a grand river flows, + And I swim down its rhythmical tide, + And still the horizon spreads wide, + With the birds' and the poets' songs like a shout in it! + + Oh life, thou art sweet + Sweet--sweet to the inmost heart of thee! + I drink with my eyes + Thy limitless skies, + And I feel with the rapturous beat + Of my wings thou art sweet-- + And I,--I am alive, and a part of thee! + + + + AN IDYL OF THE MAY. + + + In the beautiful May weather, + Lapsing soon into June; + On a golden, golden day + Of the green and golden May, + When our hearts were beating tune + To the coming feet of June, + Walked we in the woods together. + + Silver fine + Gleamed the ash buds through the darkness + of the pine, + And the waters of the stream + Glance and gleam, + Like a silver-footed dream-- + Beckoning, calling, + Flashing, falling, + Into shadows dun and brown + Slipping down, + Calling still--Oh hear! Oh follow! + Follow--follow! + Down through glen and ferny hollow, + Lit with patches of the sky, + Shining through the trees so high, + Hand in hand we went together, + In the golden, golden weather + Of the May; + While the fleet wing of the swallow + Flashing by, called--follow--follow! + And we followed through the day: + Speaking low-- + Speaking often not at all + To the brooklet's crystal call, + With our lingering feet and slow-- + Slow, and pausing here and there + For a flower, or a fern, + For the lovely maiden-hair; + Hearing voices in the air, + Calling faintly down the burn. + + Still the streamlet slid away, + Singing, smiling, dimpling down + To a mossy nook and brown, + Under bending boughs of May; + Where the nodding wind-flower grows, + And the coolwort's lovely pink, + Brooding o'er the brooklet's brink + Dips and blushes like a rose. + + And the faint smell of the mould. + Sweeter than the musky scent + Of the garden's manifold + Perfumes into perfect blent. + Lights and sounds and odours stole, + In the golden, golden weather-- + Heart and thought, and life and soul, + Stole away, + In that merry, merry May, + Wandering down the burn together. + + Ah Valentine--my Valentine! + Heard I, with my hand in thine, + Grave and low, and sweet and slow, + As the wood bird over head, + Brooding notes, half sung half said,-- + "In the world so bleak and wide, + Hearts make Edens of their own; + Wilt thou linger by my side,-- + Wilt thou live for me alone, + Making bright the winter weather, + Thou and I and love together?" + + "Yea," I said, "for thee alone,"-- + Shading eyes lest they confess + Too much their own happiness, + With the happy tears o'erflown. + + Gravely thou--"The world is not + Like this ferny hollow-- + Through a rougher, thornier lot + Wilt thou bravely follow?" + Still the brook, with softer flow, + Called, "Oh hear! Oh follow!" + "Aye," I said, with bated breath, + "Where thou goest, I will go; + Holding still thy stronger hand, + Through the dreariest desert land, + True, till death." + + Silence fell between us two, + Noiseless as the silver dew; + Hearts that had no need of speech + In the silence spoke to each; + And along the sapphire blue, + Shot with shafts of sunset through, + Fell a voice, a bodiless breath-- + "True, till death" + + Through a mist of smiles and tears, + Doubts and fears, and toils and dreams, + Oh! how long ago it seems, + Looking back across the year + Silver threads are in my hair + And the sunset shadows slope + Back along the hills of hope + That before us shone so fair. + + Ah! for us the merry May + Comes no more with golden weather; + Fields, and woods, and sunshine gay, + Purple skies, and purple heather. + We have had our holyday, + And I sit with folded hands, + In the twilight looking back + Over life's uneven track-- + Thorny wilds, and desert sands. + + Weary heart, unwearied faith, + In the twilight softly saith-- + "We have had our golden weather-- + We have walked through life together, + True, till death!" + + + + THE BURIAL OF THE SCOUT. + + + O not with arms reversed, + And the slow beating of the muffled drum, + And funeral marches, bring our hero home + These stormy woods where his young heart was nursed + Ring with a trumpet burst + Of jubilant music, as if he who lies + With shrouded face, and lips all white and dumb + Were a crowned conqueror entering paradise,-- + This is his welcome home! + + Along the reedy marge of the dim lake, + I hear the gathering horsemen of the North, + The cavalry of night and tempest wake,-- + Blowing keen bugles as they issue forth, + To guard his homeward march in frost and cold, + A thousand spearmen bold! + + And the deep-bosomed woods, + With their dishevelled locks all wildly spread, + Stretch ghostly arms to clasp the immortal dead, + Back to their solitudes + While through their rocking branches overhead, + And all their shuddering pulses underground + shiver runs, as if a voice had said-- + And every farthest leaf had felt the wound-- + He comes--but he is dead! + + The dainty-fingered May + with gentle hand shall fold and put away + The snow-white curtains of his winter tent, + and spread above him her green coverlet, + 'Broidered with daisies, sweet to sight and scent + and Summer, from her outposts in the hills, + Under the boughs with heavy night-dews wet, + shall place her gold and purple sentinels, + And in the populous woods sound reveille, + calling from field and fen her sweet deserters back-- + But he,--no long roll of the impatient drum, + for battle trumpet eager for the fray, + From the far shores of blue Lake Erie blown, + shall rouse the soldier's last long bivouac. + + + + QUESTIONINGS. + + + I touch but the things which are near; + The heavens are too high for my reach: + In shadow and symbol and creed, + I discern not the soul from the deed, + Nor the thought hidden under, from speech; + And the thing which I know not I fear. + + I dare not despair nor despond, + Though I grope in the dark for the dawn: + Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath, + And tears, and the blank void of death, + Round each its penumbra is drawn,-- + I touch them,--I see not beyond. + + What voice speaking solemn and slow, + Before the beginning for me, + From the mouth of the primal First Cause, + Shall teach me the thing that I was, + Shall point out the thing I shall be, + And show me the path that I go? + + Were there any that missed me, or sought, + In the cycles and centuries fled. + Ere my soul had a place among men?-- + Even so, unremembered again + I shall lie in the dust with the dead, + And my name shall be heard not, nor thought. + + Yea rather,--from out the abyss, + Where the stars sit in silence and light, + When the ashes and dust of our world + Are like leaves in their faces up-whirled,-- + What orb shall look down through the night, + And take note of the quenching of this? + + Yea, beyond--in the heavens of space + Where Jehovah sits, absolute Lord, + Who made out of nothing the whole + Round world, and man's sentient soul-- + Will He crush, like a creature abhorred, + What He fashioned with infinite grace + + In His own awful image, and made + Quick with the flame of His breath,-- + Which He saw and behold it was good?-- + Ah man! thou hast waded through blood + And crime down to darkness and death, + Since thou stood'st before Him unafraid. + + My life falls away like a flower + Day by day,--dispersed of the wind + Its vague perfume, nor taketh it root, + Ripening seeds for the sower, or fruit + To make me at one with my kind, + And give me my work, and my hour + + No creed for my hunger sufficed, + Though I clung to them, each after other, + They slipped from my passionate hold,-- + The prophets, the martyrs of old,-- + Thy pitying face, Mary Mother,-- + Thy thorn-circled forehead, O Christ! + + Pilgrim sandalled, the deserts have known + The track of my wandering feet, + Where dead saints and martyrs have trod, + To search for the pure faith of God, + Making life with its bitterness sweet, + And death the white gate to a throne. + + O Thou, who the wine-press hast trod, + O sorrowful--stricken--betrayed,-- + Thy cross o'er my spirit prevails; + In Thy hands with the print of the nails, + My life with its burdens is laid,-- + O Christ--Thou art sole--Thou art God! + + + + PANSIES. + + + When the earliest south winds softly blow + Over the brown earth, and the waning snow + In the last days of the discrowned March,-- + Before the silver tassels of the larch, + Or any tiniest bud or blade is seen; + Or in the woods the faintest kindling green, + And all the earth is veiled in azure mist, + Waiting the far-off kisses of the sun,-- + They lift their bright heads shyly one by one. + And offer each, in cups of amethyst, + Drops of the honey wine of fairy land,-- + A brimming beaker poised in either hand + Fit for the revels of King Oberon, + With all his royal gold and purple on: + Children of pensive thought and airy fancies, + Sweeter than any poet's sweetest stanzas, + Though to the sound of eloquent music told, + Or by the lips of beauty breathed or sung: + They thrill us with their backward-looking glances, + They bring us to the land that ne'er grows old,-- + They mind us of the days when life was young + Nor time had stolen the fire from youth's romances, + Dear English pansies! + + While still the hyacinth sleeps on securely, + And every lily leaf is folded purely, + Nor any purple crocus hath arisen; + Nor any tulip raised its slender stem, + And burst the earth-walls of its winter prison, + And donned its gold and jewelled diadem; + Nor by the brookside in the mossy hollow, + That calls to every truant foot to follow, + The cowslip yet hath hung its golden ball,-- + In the wild and treacherous March weather, + The pansy and the sunshine come together, + The sweetest flower of all! + The sweetest flower that blows; + Sweeter than any rose, + Or that shy blossom opening in the night, + Its waxen vase of aromatic light-- + A sleepy incense to the winking stars; + Nor yet in summer heats, + That crisp the city streets,-- + Where the spiked mullein grows beside the bars + In country places, and the ox-eyed daisy + Blooms in the meadow grass, and brooks are lazy, + And scarcely murmur in the twinkling heat; + When sound of babbling water is so sweet, + Blue asters, and the purple orchis tall, + Bend o'er the wimpling wave together;-- + The pansy blooms through all the summer weather, + The sweetest flower of all! + + The sweetest flower that blows! + When all the rest are scattered and departed, + The symbol of the brave and faithful-hearted, + Her bright corolla glows. + When leaves hang pendant on their withered stalks, + Through all the half-deserted garden walks; + And through long autumn nights, + The merry dancers scale the northern heights, + And tiny crystal points of frost-white fire + Make brightly scintillant each blade and spire, + Still under shade of shelt'ring wall, + Or under winter's shroud of snows, + Undimmed, the faithful pansy blows, + The sweetest flower of all! + + + + NOVEMBER METEORS. + + + Out of the dread eternities, + The vast abyss of night, + A glorious pageant rose and shone, + And passed from human sight. + We saw the glittering cavalcade, + And heard inwove through all, + Faint and afar from star to star, + The sliding music fall. + + With banners and with torches, + And hoofs of glancing flame, + With helm and sword and pennon bright + The long procession came. + And all the starry spaces, + Height above height outshone, + And the bickering clang of their armour rang + Down to the farthest zone. + + As if some grand cathedral, + With towers of malachite, + And walls of more than crystal clear, + Rose out of the solid light, + And under its frowning gateway, + Each morioned warrior stept, + And in radiant files down the ringing aisles, + The martial pageant swept. + + From out the oriel windows, + From vault, and spire, and dome, + And sparkling up from base to cope, + The light and glory clomb. + They knelt before the altar, + Each mailed and visored knight, + And the censers swung as a voice outrung,-- + 'Now God defend the right'! + + On casque, and brand, and corselet + Fell the red light of Mars, + As forth from the minster gates they passed + To the battle of the stars. + Across moon-lighted depths of space, + And breadths of purple seas, + Their flying squadrons sailed in fleets, + Of fiery argosies: + + Down lengths of shining rivers, + Past golden-sanded bars, + And nebulous isles of amethyst, + They dropt like falling stars: + Till on a scarped and wrinkled coast, + Washed by dark waves below, + They came upon the glittering tents-- + The city of the foe. + + Then rushed they to the battle; + Their bright hair blazed behind, + As deadlier than the bolt they fell, + And swifter than the wind. + And all the stellar continents, + With that fierce hail thick sown, + Recoiled with fear, from sphere to sphere + To Saturn's ancient throne. + + The blind old king, in ermine wrapt. + And immemorial cold, + Awoke, and raised his aged hands, + And shook his rings of gold. + Down toppled plume and pennon bright, + In endless ruin hurled, + Their blades of light struck fire from night-- + Their splendours lit the world! + + And rolling down the hollow spheres, + The mighty chords, the seven, + Clanged on from orb to orb, and smote + Orion in mid-heaven. + Along the ground the white tents lay; + And faint along the fields. + The foe's swart hosts, like glimmering ghosts, + Followed his chariot wheels. + + With banners and with torches, + And armour all aflame, + The victors and the vanquished went, + Departing as they came; + With here and there a rocket sent + Up from some lonely barque: + Into the vast abysm they passed,-- + Into the final dark. + + + + + PICTURES IN THE FIRE + + + The wind croons under the icicled eaves-- + Croons and mutters a wordless song, + And the old elm chafes its skeleton leaves + Against the windows all night long. + + Under the spectral garden wall, + The drifts creep steadily high and higher + And the lamp in the cottage lattice small + Twinkles and winks like an eye of fire. + + But I see a vision of summer skies + Growing out of the embers red, + Under the lids of my half-shut eyes, + With my arms crossed idly under my head. + + I see a stile, and a roadside lime, + With buttercups growing about its feet, + And a footpath winding a sinuous line + In and out of the billowy wheat. + + For long ago in the summer noons, + Under the shade of that trysting tree, + My love brought wheat ears and clover blooms, + And vows that were sweeter than both, to me. + + Reading the "Times" in his easy chair, + With his slippered feet on the fender bright, + Little, I wot, he dreams how fair + Are the pictures I see in the fire to night. + + Still the wind pipes under the serried spears + Of frozen boughs a desolate rhyme, + But I hear the rustle of golden ears, + And in my heart it is summer time. + + + + + A MADRIGAL + + + The lily-bells ring underground, + Their music small I hear + When globes of dew that shine pearl round + Hang in the cowslip's ear + And all the summer blooms and sprays + Are sheathed from the sun, + And yet I feel in many ways + Their living pulses run. + + The crowning rose of summer time + Lies folded on its stem, + Its bright urn holds no honey-wine, + Its brow no diadem, + And yet my soul is inly thrilled, + As if I stood anear + Some legal presence unrevealed, + The queen of all the year. + + Oh Rose, dear Rose! the mist and dew + Uprising from the lake, + And sunshine glancing warmly through, + Have kissed the flowers awake-- + The orchard blooms are dropping balm, + The tulip's gorgeous cup + More slender than a desert palm + It's chalice lifteth up. + + The birds are mated in the trees, + The wan stars burn and pale-- + Oh Rose, come forth!--upon the breeze + I hear the nightingale + Unfold the crimson waves that lie + In darkness rosy dim, + And swing thy fragrant censer high, + Oh royal Rose for him! + + The hyacinths are in the fields + With purple splendours pale + Their sweet bells ring responsive peals + To every passing gale + And violets bending in the grass + Do hide their glowing eyes, + When those enchanting voices pass, + Like airs from Paradise. + + We crowned our blushing Queen of May + Long since, with dance and tune, + But the merry world of yesterday + Is lapsing into June-- + Thou art not here,--we look in vain-- + Oh Rose arise, appear!-- + Resume thine emerald throne, and reign + The queen of all the year! + + + + THE PLOUGHBOY. + + + I wonder what he is thinking + In the ploughing field all day. + He watches the heads of his oxen, + And never looks this way. + + And the furrows grow longer and longer, + Around the base of the hill, + And the valley is bright with the sunset, + Yet he ploughs and whistles still. + + I am tired of counting the ridges, + Where the oxen come and go, + And of thinking of all the blossoms + That are trampled down below. + + I wonder if ever he guesses + That under the ragged brim + Of his torn straw hat I am peeping + To steal a look at him. + + The spire of the church and the windows + Are all ablaze in the sun. + He has left the plough in the furrow, + His summer day's work is done. + + And I hear him carolling softly + A sweet and simple lay, + That we often have sung together, + While he turns the oxen away. + + The buttercups in the pasture + Twinkle and gleam like stars. + He has gathered a golden handful, + A leaning over the bars. + + He has shaken the curls from his forehead, + And is looking up this way,-- + O where is my sun-bonnet, mother? + He was thinking of me all day,-- + + And I'm going down to the meadow, + For I know he is waiting there, + To wreathe the sunshiny blossoms + In the curls of my yellow hair. + + + + THE VOICE OF MANY WATERS. + + + Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning + Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,-- + Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning + Over thy fathomless depths, and treacherous island bars:-- + + Oh thou complaining sea, that fillest the wide void spaces + Of the blue nebulous air with thy perpetual moan, + Day and night, day and night, out of thy desolate places-- + Tell me thy terrible secret, oh Sea! what hast thou done. + + Sometimes in the merry mornings, with the sunshine's golden wonder + Glancing along thy cheek, unwrinkled of any wind, + Thou seemest to be at peace, stifling thy great heart under + A face of absolute calm,--with danger and death behind! + + But I hear thy voice at midnight, smiting the awful silence + With the long suspiration of thy pain suppressed; + And all the blue lagoons, and all the listening islands + Shuddering have heard, and locked thy secret in their breast! + + Oh Sea! thou art like my heart, full of infinite sadness and pity,-- + Of endless doubt and endeavour, of sorrowful question and strife, + Like some unlighted fortress within a beleagured city, + Holding within and hiding the mystery of life. + + + + THE DEATH OF AUTUMN. + + + Discrowned and desolate, + And wandering with dim eyes and faded hair, + Singing sad songs to comfort her despair, + Grey Autumn meets her fate. + + Forsaken and alone + She haunts the ruins of her queenly state, + Like banished Eve at Eden's flaming gate, + Making perpetual moan. + + Crazed with her grief she moves + Along the banks of the frost-charmed rills, + And all the hollows of the wooded hills, + Searching for her lost loves. + + From verdurous base to cope, + The sunny hill-sides, and sweet pasture lands, + Where bubbling brooks reach ever-dimpled hands + Along the amber slope,-- + + And valleys drowsed between, + In the rich purple of the vintage time, + When cups of gold that drop with fragrant wine, + From orchard branches lean;-- + + And far beyond them, spread + Broad fields thick set with sheaves of yellow wheat, + Where scarlet poppies, slumberously sweet, + Glow with a dusky red-- + + To the remotest zone + Of hazy woodland pencilled on the sky, + On whose far spires the clouds of sunset lie,-- + She held her regal throne! + + Queen of a princely race, + Whose ministers were all the elements; + Sunshine, and rain, and dew she did dispense + With a right royal grace. + + Now, not a breath of air, + Nor sunbeam, nor the voice of beast or bird, + Stirring the lonely woods, hath any word + To comfort her despair. + + Insidious, day by day + A smouldering flame, a lurid crimson creeps + Into the ashy whiteness of her cheeks, + And burns her life away. + + The cavernous woods are dumb! + Through their oracular depths and secret nooks, + To the mute supplication of her looks + No mystic voices come + + And through the still grey air + The night comes down, and hangs her lamp on high, + Like a wan lily blossomed on the sky, + Shining so ghostly fair, + + Or looming up the heights, + Those awful spectres of the frozen zone + Splinter the crystal of heaven's sapphire dome, + With arrowy-glancing lights. + + The while hoarse night winds rave, + The old year looking backward to his prime + With dim fond eyes, down the last steps of time + Goes maundering to his grave! + + + + A FAREWELL + + + Down the steep west unrolled, + I watch the river of the sunset flow, + With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold, + Into the dusk below. + + And even as I gaze, + The soft lights fade,-the pageant gay is o'er, + And all is grey and dark, like those lost days, + The days that are no more. + + No more through whispering pines, + I shall behold, in the else silent even, + The first faint star-watch set along the lines + Of the white tents of heaven. + + Before the earliest buds + Have softly opened, heralding the May + With tender light illuming the gray woods, + I shall be gone away. + + Ah! wood-walks winding sweet + Through all the valleys sloping to the west, + Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet, + In musical unrest,-- + + Ye will not miss me here + With all the bright things of the coming May, + And the rejoicing of the awakened year,-- + I shall be far away. + + Yet in your loneliest nooks, + I know where all the greenest mosses grow, + And where the violets lift their first sweet looks, + Out of the waning snow. + + And I have heard, unsought, + Under the musing shadows of the beech, + Wood-voices answering my unspoken thought, + In half-articulate speech. + + And oh! ye shadowy bands, + Rank above rank along yon rocky height, + That lift into the heavens your mailed hands, + And linked armour bright. + + What other eyes will trace + From this dear window haunted with the past, + Strange likeness to some well beloved face, + Among your profiles vast? + + What stranger hands will tend + The nameless treasures I must leave behind,-- + My flowers, my birds, and each inanimate friend, + Linked closer than my kind. + + These glorious landscapes old, + Framed in my cottage windows,--hill-sides dun, + With umber shadows lightened to pale gold + By touches of the sun,-- + + Valleys like emeralds set + Lonely and sweet in the dusk hills afar, + That half enclose them, like a carcanet + That holds a diamond star. + + Will any gentler face, + Weary and sad sometimes, like mine grow bright + Touched with your simple beauty-in my place, + My garden of delight?-- + + I know not,--yet farewell + Sweet home of mine,--my parting song is o'er, + And stranger forms among your bowers shall dwell, + Where I return no more. + + + + + THE NEWS-BOY'S DREAM OF THE NEW YEAR + + + Under the bare brown rafters, + In his garret bed he lay, + And dreamed of the bright hereafters. + And the merry morns of May. + + The snow-flakes slowly sifted + In through each cranny and seam, + But only the sunshine drifted + Into the news-boy's dream. + + For he dreamed of the brave to-morrows, + His eager eyes should scan, + When battling with wants and sorrows, + He felt himself a Man. + + He felt his heart grow bolder + For the struggle and the strife, + When shoulder joined to shoulder, + In the battle-field of life. + + And instead of the bare brown rafters, + And the snowflakes sifting in, + He saw in the glad hereafters, + The home his hands should win. + + The flowers that grew in its shadow, + And the trees that drooped above; + The low of the kine in the meadow, + And the coo of the morning dove. + + And dearer and more tender, + He saw his mother there, + As she knelt in the sunset splendour, + To say the evening prayer. + + His face--the sun had burned it, + And his hands were rough and hard, + But home, he had fairly earned it, + And this was his reward! + + The morning star's faint glimmer + Stole into the garret forlorn, + And touched the face of the dreamer + With the light of a hope new-born. + + Oh, ring harmonious voices + Of New Year's welcoming bells! + For the very air rejoices. + Through all its sounding cells! + + I greet ye! oh friends and neighbours + The smith and the artizan; + I share in your honest labours, + A Canadian working-man. + + To wield the axe or the hammer, + To till the yielding soil, + Enroll me under your banner, + Oh Brotherhood of Toil! + + Ring, bells of the brave to-morrows! + And bring the time more near: + Ring out the wants and the sorrows, + Ring in the glad New Year! + + + + THE OLD CHURCH ON THE HILL. + + + Moss-grown, and venerable it stands, + From the way-side dust and noise aloof, + And the great elms stretch their sheltering hands + To bless its grey old roof. + + About it summer's greenery waves; + The birds build fearless overhead; + Its shadow falls among the graves; + Around it sleep the dead. + + The summer sunshine softly takes + The chancel window's pictured gloom; + The moonlight enters too, and makes + The shadow of a tomb. + + Along these aisles the bride hath passed, + And brightened, with her innocent grace. + The pensive twilight years have cast + About the holy place. + + They brought her here--a tiny maid, + Unweeting any gain or loss, + And on her baby forehead laid + The symbol of the Cross. + + And here they brought her once again, + White-robed, and smiling as she slept; + While lips, that trembled, breathed her name, + And eyes that saw her wept. + + And still, when sunset lights his fire + Along the gold and crimsoned west, + She sleeps beneath the shadowing spire, + The cross upon her breast. + + I watch it from my lonely cot, + When stars shine o'er the hallowed ground, + And think there is no sweeter spot, + The whole wide earth around. + + The Sabbath chimes there sink and swim + Along the consecrated air, + The benediction and the hymn, + The voice of praise and prayer: + + These mingle with the wind's free song, + The hum of bees, the notes of birds, + And make an anthem sweet and strong + Of inarticulate words. + + There let me rest, when I have found + The peace of God, the immortal calm, + Where still above my sleep profound, + Goes up the Sabbath psalm. + + + + + THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. + + + Out of the west a voice--a shudder of horror and pity; + Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;-- + Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city. + Out of the North a cry--lamentation and mourning and woe. + + Dust and ashes and darkness her splendour and brightness cover, + Like clouds above the glory of purple mountain peaks; + She sits with her proud head bowed, and a mantle of blackness over-- + She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. + + The city of gardens and palaces, stately and tall pavilions, + Roofs flashing back the sunlight, music and gladness and mirth, + Whose streets were full of the hum and roar of the toiling millions, + Whose merchantmen were princes, and the honourable of the earth: + + Whose traders came from the islands--from far off summer places, + Bringing spices and pearls, and the furs and skins of beasts. + Men from the frozen North, and men with fierce dark faces, + Full of the desert fire, and the untamed life of the East. + + Treasures of gems and gold, of statues and flowers and fountains, + Vases of onyx and jasper from Indian emperors sent; + Pictures out of the heart of tropical sunlit mountains, + Of rocks of porphyry piled at the gates of the Occident. + + Dusk-brown sons of the forest, hunters of deer and of bison, + And the almond-eyed child of the sun met in her busy streets, + With waifs from the banks of the Indus, and the ancient river Pison-- + Lands of the date and the palm, and the citron's hoarded sweets. + + The surging tide of the prairie rolled its billows of blossom + Against her mighty walls, and beat at her hundred gates; + The riches of all the world were poured into her bosom, + Kings were her mighty men, and lords, and potentates. + + She sat in her place by the sea, and the swift-sailing ships + obeyed her. + Full freighted with corn and wheat their purple sails unfurled, + Far-off in the morning land, and the isles beyond the equator; + Out of her heaped-up garners she scattered the bread of the world. + + As her pride and her beauty were perfect, so desolation and mourning, + Swift and sudden, and sure her utter destruction came, + The heavens above were dark with the smoke of her awful burning, + And the earth and the sea were lighted with the fierceness + of her flame. + + Behold oh, England! oh, Europe! and see is there any sorrow + Like hers who sits in silence among her children slain, + Oh, blackness of woe and ruin! can any future morrow + Bring back to the shrouded city her glory and crown again! + + Aye, subtle and wonderful links of human love and pity, + Ye have bridged the sea of ruin, and spanned it with a span! + She shall rise again from her ashes and build a fairer city, + With a larger faith in God, and the Brotherhood of Man, + + + + THE LEGEND OF THE NEW YEAR. + + + I dreamed, and lo, I saw in my dream a beautiful gateway, + Arched at the top, and crowned with turrets lance-windowed and olden, + And sculptured in arabesque, all knotted and woven and spangled; + A wonderful legend ran, in letters purple and golden + Written in leaves and blossoms, inextricably intertangled, + A legend I could not resolve, crowning the gate so stately. + + Like statues carven and niched in the front of some old cathedral, + Four angels stood each in his turret, immovable warders, + The first with reverend locks snow-white, and a silver volume + Of beard that twinkled with frost, and hung to the icicled borders + That fringed his girdle beneath: ancient his look was, and solemn, + Like a wrinkled and bearded saint blessing some worshipping bedral. + + As one in a vision wrapped, with his staff he silently pointed + To the golden legend written in glittering star-points under, + Shining in crystal ferns, and translucent berries of holly. + Yet as I pondered the words of ineffable awe and wonder, + A mist of rainbow brightness obscured them, and hid them wholly, + While wrapt in his vision he stood, like a prophet anointed. + + Divers, yet lovely the next, a white-armed, golden-haired maiden; + Blue were her eyes and sweet, and her garments were lily-bordered; + Her hands were full of flowers, and her eyes of innocent gladness, + As the ranks of buds and blossoms, of bees and buds she ordered, + Each in their several paths. Mine eyes were heavy with sadness, + For I read not yet the legend with beauty and mystery laden. + + Robed and crowned like an empress in some medieval palace, + Stood the third in her place, with glances of sun-lighted splendour; + Stately her height and tall as a queen in some antique story, + With sheaves about her feet, and the tribute which nations render + To her as the lady of Kingdoms, yet underneath the glory + Of that bright legend to hers was like a containing chalice. + + Last of the four, in her turret, serene and benignant, + Sat in the midst of her children and maidens, a household mother; + Want, and the sons of penury dwell not among her neighbours; + Full is her heart of love: her hands wipe the tears of another, + Yet brings she the gold and the pearls of her manifold labours, + To add to that shining legend the grace of her name and her signet. + + Fast closed were the gates, and mute in their places the wardens; + No voice in my longing ear whispered the mystical sentence, + And my heart was heavy, and chilled with the fruitless endeavour. + On this side lay the snow and the wind, like the wail of repentance, + Moaned in the branches forlorn but through the closed lattices ever + Drifted a stir and a fragrance of springtime over the borders. + + Then through the stillness of night struck the clash and the clangor + Of bells that told twelve from the towers of the neighbouring city; + And lo! the great gates were flung wide, and thronged with the + hurrying races-- + High and low, rich and poor--and the light of ineffable pity, + And infinite love shone down and illumined their faces, + Faces of dolor some, of hope, of sorrow, and anger. + + Loud clanged the bells from the towers in jubilant rudeness, + And like the voice of a multitude rising respondent, + The words of that marvellous legend made vocal the silence-- + The voice of all sentient creatures ascended triumphant, + And all the listening forests, and mountains, and islands + Heard it, and sang it, "He crowneth the Year with His goodness!" + + Praise Him, O sounding seas, and floods! praise Him, abounding rivers; + Praise Him, ye flowery months, and every fruitful season! + Praise Him, O stormy wind, and ice, and snow, and vapor, + Ye cattle that clothe the hills, and man with marvellous reason; + Who crowneth the year with goodness, who prospereth all thy labour, + Yea, let all flesh bless the Lord, and magnify Him forever! + + + + + BY THE SEA-SHORE AT NIGHT. + + + Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!-- + That rest not day nor night,-- + I hear ye when the light + Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.-- + + All day the winds were out, and rode + Their steeds, your tossing crest,-- + To-night the fierce winds rest, + And the moon walks above them her bright road. + + Yet none the less ye lift your hands, + And your despairing cry + Up to the midnight sky, + And clutch, and trample on the shuddering sands, + + That shrink and tremble even in sleep, + Out of your passionate reach, + Afraid of your dread speech, + And the more dreadful silence that ye keep + + Oh sapping waves!--oh mining waves!-- + Under the oak's gnarled feet, + And tower, and village street, + Scooping by stealth in darkness myriad graves;-- + + What secret strive ye thus to hide, + A thousand fathoms deep, + Which the sea will not keep, + And pours, and babbles forth upon her refluent tide?-- + + I see your torn and wind-blown hair, + Shewn far along the shore,-- + And lifted evermore + You white hands tossing in a fierce despair; + + And half I deem ye hold below, + In vast and wandering cell, + The primal spirits who fell, + Reserved in chains and immemorial woe. + + Keep ye, oh waves!--your mystery:-- + The time draws on apace, + When from before His face, + The heavens and the earth shall flee, + And evermore there shall be no more sea! + + + + + RESURGAM + + + Into the darkness and the deeps + My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells, + Where the old world encrypted sleeps,-- + Myriads of forms, in myriad cells, + Of dead and inorganic things, + That neither live, nor move, nor grow, + Nor any change of atoms know; + That have neither legs, nor arms, nor wings, + That have neither heads, nor mouths, nor stings, + That have neither roots, nor leaves, nor stems, + To hold up flowers like diadems, + Growing out of the ground below: + But which hold instead + The cycles dead, + And out of their stony and gloomy folds + Shape out new moulds + For a new race begun; + Shutting within dark pages, furled + As in a vast herbarium, + The flowers and balms, + The pines and palms, + The ferns and cones, + All turned to stones + Of all the unknown elder world, + As in a wonderful museum, + Ranged in its myriad mummy shelves. + Insects and worms,-- + All lower forms + Of fin and scale, + Of gnat and whale, + Fish, bird, and the monstrous mastodon, + The fabulous megatherium, + And men themselves. + + Ah, what life is here compressed, + Frozen into endless rest! + Down through springing blades and spires, + Down through mines, and crypts, and caves, + Still graves on graves, and graves on graves, + Down to earth's most central fires. + + The morning stars sang at their birth, + In the first beginnings of time. + What voice of dolour or of mirth + At their last funeral made moan,-- + Ashes to ashes--earth to earth, + And stone to stone,-- + Chanting the liturgy sublime. + + What matter,--in that doom's-day book + Their place is fixed--their names are writ, + Each in its individual nook,-- + God's eye beholds--remembers it. + + When the slow-moving centuries + Have lapsed in the former eternities,-- + When the day is come which we see not yet,-- + When the sea gives up its dead-- + And the thrones are set, + These books shall be opened and read! + + + + WRITTEN IN A CEMETERY. + + + Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses, + And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;-- + Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses + My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines. + + Stay yet awhile;--let not the chill October + Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed; + Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober, + Among the tuberoses above his head. + + I would have all things fair, and sweet, and tender,-- + The daisy's pearl, the cowslip's shield of snow, + And fragrant hyacinths in purple splendour, + About my darling's grassy couch to grow. + + Oh birds!--small pilgrims of the summer weather, + Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;-- + Here floats the thistle down for you to gather, + And bearded grasses ripen in the dell. + + Here pipe, and plume your wings, and chirp and flutter, + And swing, light-poised upon the pendant bough;-- + Fondly I deem he hears the calls ye utter, + And stirs in his light sleep to answer you. + + Oh wind!--that blows through hours of nights and lonely, + Oh rain!--that sobs against my window pane,-- + Ye beat upon my heart, which beats but only + To clasp and shelter my lost lamb again. + + Peace--peace, my soul:--I know that in another + And brighter land my darling walks and waits, + Where we shall surely meet and clasp each other, + Beyond the threshold of the shining gates. + + + + MARGUERITE + + + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + Thy sleep is sound, and still and sweet, + Framed in the pale gold of thy hair, + Thy face is like an angel's fair, + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + Tender curves of cheek and lips-- + Sweet eyes hid in long eclipse-- + Pale robes flowing to thy feet-- + Folded hands that lightly meet,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + Sleep'st thou still?--the world awakes,-- + Still the echo swells and breaks,-- + Over field, and wood, and street + Easter anthems throb and beat,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + Christ the Lord is risen again,-- + Hear'st thou not the glad refrain,-- + Have those gentle lips no breath, + Smiling in the trance of death?-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + In the grave from whence He rose, + Lay thee to thy long repose,-- + Sweet with myrrh and spices,--sweet + With the footprints of His feet,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + Where His sacred head hath lain, + Thine may rest, secure from pain. + While the circling years go round, + Without motion,--without sound,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + + + THE WATCH-LIGHT. + + + Above the roofs and chimney-tops, + And through the slow November rain, + A light from some far attic pane, + Shines twinkling through the water-drops. + + Some lonely watcher waits and weeps, + Like me, the step that comes not yet;-- + Her watch for weary hours is set, + While far below the city sleeps. + + The level lamp-rays lay the floors, + And bridge the dark that lies below, + O'er which my fancies come and go, + And peep, and listen at the doors; + + And bring me word how sweet and plain, + And quaint the lonely attic room, + Where she sits singing in the gloom, + Words sadder than the autumn rain. + + A thousand times by sea and shore, + In my wild dreams I see him lie, + With face upturned toward the sky, + Murdered, and stiffening in his gore;-- + + Or drowned, and floating with the tide, + Within some lonely midnight bay,-- + His arms stretched toward me where he lay, + And blue eyes staring, fixed and wide. + + Oh winds that rove o'er land and sea! + Oh waves that lap the yellow sands! + Oh hide your stealthy, treacherous hands, + And call no more his name to me.'-- + + Thus much I heard,--and unawares, + The sense of pity stole away + My loneliness and misery,-- + When lo, a light step on the stairs!-- + + Ah joy!--the step that brings my own, + Safe from all harms and dangers in;-- + My heart lifts up its thankful hymn, + And bids' good-night to night and moan. + + I sleep,--I rest,--and I forget + The bridge-the night-lamp's level beams, + Till waking out of happy dreams, + I see her watch-light shining yet. + + God comfort those that watch in vain,-- + I breathe to Him my voiceless prayer; + Pity their tears and their despair, + And bring the wanderers home again, + + + + NEW YEAR, 1868. + + + Cradled in ice, and swathed in snows, + And shining like a Christmas rose, + Wreathed round with white chrysanthemums; + Heaven in his innocent, brave blue eyes, + Straight from the primal paradise, + Behold the infant New Year comes! + + His looks a serious sweetness wear, + As if upon that unseen way, + Those baby hands that lightly bear + Garlands, and festive tokens gay, + For but a glance,--a touch sufficed,-- + Had met and touched the infant Christ! + + And lingering on the wing, had heard, + Sweeter than song of any bird, + Of cherub or of seraphim, + The notes of that divinest hymn,-- + Glory to God in highest strain, + And peace on earth, good will to men. + + Oh, diamond days, so royally set + In winter's stern and rugged breast, + Like jewels in an amulet,-- + Your light has cheered, and soothed, and blest, + The want and toil, the sighs and tears, + And sorrows-of a thousand years! + + The bells ring in the merry morn, + The poor forget their poverty, + The saddest face grows bright with glee, + And smiles for joy that he is born; + The fair round world shines out with cheer, + To welcome in the glad New Year. + + Oh ye, whose homes are warm and bright, + With plenty smiling at the board, + Remember those whose roofs to-night, + Nor warmth, nor light, nor food afford, + Still make those wants, and woes your care, + And let the poor your bounty share. + + For yet our hills and lakes along + Echoes the herald angels' song,-- + Peace and good will!--oh look abroad,-- + In every nation, tribe, and clan, + Behold the brotherhood of man,-- + Behold the Fatherhood of God! + + Peace to our mountains and our hills,-- + Peace to our rivers and our rills;-- + Our young Dominion takes her place + Among the nations west and east,-- + God send her length of happy days, + And years of plenty and of peace! + + + + + THANKSGIVING. + + + The Autumn hills are golden at the top, + And rounded as a poet's silver rhyme; + The mellow days are ruby ripe, that drop + One after one into the lap of time. + + Dead leaves are reddening in the woodland copse, + And forest boughs a fading glory wear; + No breath of wind stirs in their hazy tops, + Silence and peace are brooding everywhere. + + The long day of the year is almost done, + And nature in the sunset musing stands, + Gray-robed, and violet-hooded like a nun, + Looking abroad o'er yellow harvest lands: + + O'er tents of orchard boughs, and purple vines + With scarlet flecked, flung like broad banners out + Along the field paths where slow-pacing lines + Of meek-eyed kine obey the herdboy's shout; + + Where the tired ploughman his dun oxen turns, + Unyoked, afield, mid dewy grass to stray, + While over all the village church spire burns-- + A shaft of flame in the last beams of day. + + Empty and folded are her busy hands; + Her corn and wine and oil are safely stored, + As in the twilight of the year she stands, + And with her gladness seems to thank the Lord. + + Thus let us rest awhile from toil and care, + In the sweet sabbath of this autumn calm, + And lift our hearts to heaven in grateful prayer, + And sing with nature our thanksgiving psalm. + + + + + MISERERE + + + Be pitiful, oh God! the night is long, + My soul is faint with watching for the light, + And still the gloom and doubt of seven-fold night + Hangs heavy on my spirit: Thou art strong.-- + Pity me, oh my God! + + I stretch my hands through darkness up to Thee,-- + The stars are shrouded, and the night is dumb; + There is no earthly help,--to Thee I come + In all my helplessness and misery,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + + Be pitiful, oh God!--for I am weak, + And all my paths are rough, and hedged about,-- + Hold Thou my hand dear Lord, and lead me out, + And bring me to the city which I seek,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + + By the temptation which Thou didst endure, + And by Thy fasting and Thy midnight prayer, + Jesu! let me not utterly despair; + Oh! hide me in the Rock from ill secure,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + + Mine eyes run down with tears that do not cease; + Oh! when beyond the river dark and cold, + Shall I the white walls of my home behold,-- + The shining palaces--the streets of gold,-- + And enter through the gates the City of Peace,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + + + + + BEYOND + + + Cloudy argosies are drifting down into the purple dark, + And the long low amber reaches, lying on the horizon's mark, + Shape themselves into the gateways, dim and wonderful unfurled, + Gateways leading through' the sunset, out into the underworld. + + How my spirit vainly flutters, like a bird that beats the bars, + To be launched upon that ocean, with its tides of throbbing stars, + To be gone beyond the sunset, and the day's revolving zone, + Out into the primal darkness, and the world of the unknown! + + Hints and guesses of its grandeur, broken shadows, sudden gleams, + Like a falling star shoot past me, quenched within a sea of dreams,-- + But the unimagined glory lying in the dark beyond, + Is to these as morn to midnight, or as silence is to sound. + + Sweeter than the trees of Eden, dropping purple blooms, and balm, + Are the odors wafted toward me from its isles of windless calm,-- + And the gold of all our sunsets, with their sapphire all impearled, + Would not match the fused and glowing heaven of that under world. + + Pale sea-buds there weep forever, water lilies damp and cool, + And the mystic lotus shining through its white waves beautiful, + In those dusk and sunless valleys, where no steps of mortals tread, + Bind the white brows of the living, whom we blindly call the dead. + + Oh ye lost ones,--ye departed, who have passed that silent shore, + Though we call you through the sunset, ye return to us no more. + Have ye found those blessed islands where earth's toils and sorrows + cease? + Do ye wear the sacred lotus,--have ye entered into peace? + + Do ye hear us when we call you,--do ye heed the tears we shed,-- + Oh beloved!--oh immortal!--oh ye dead who are not dead! + Speak to us across the darkness,---wave to us a glimmering hand,-- + Tell us but that ye _remember_, dwellers in the silent land! + + But the sunset clouds have faded, arch and capital are gone, + And the regal night is glorious, with the starlight overblown;-- + Life is labor and not dreaming, and I have my work to do, + Ere within those happy valleys I shall wear the lilies too. + + + + + THE SABBATH OF THE WOODS + + + Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,-- + Night's benediction and release;-- + The tints of day die out and cease. + + This morn I heard the Sabbath bells + Across the breezy upland swells;-- + My path lay down the woodland dells. + + To-day, I said, the dust of creeds, + The wind of words reach not my needs;-- + I worship with the birds and weeds. + + From height to height the sunbeam sprung, + The wild vine, touched with vermeil, clung, + The mountain brooklet leapt and sung. + + The white lamp of the lily made + A tender light in deepest shade,-- + The solitary place was glad. + + The very air was tremulous,-- + I felt its deep and reverent hush,-- + God burned before me in the bush! + + And nature prayed with folded palm, + And looks that wear perpetual calm,-- + The while glad notes uplifted psalm. + + The wild rose swung her fragrant vase, + The daisy answered from her place,-- + Praise Him whose looks are full of grace. + + And violets murmured where the feet + Of brooks made hollows cool and deep; + He giveth His beloved sleep. + + Wide stood the great cathedral doors, + Arched o'er with heaven's radiant floors;-- + Nature, with lifted brow, adores. + + And wave, and wind, and rocking trees, + And voice of birds, and hum of bees, + Made anthem, like the roll of seas. + + The sunset vapors sail and swim;-- + All day uprose their mighty hymn,-- + I listened till the woods were dim. + + And through the beechen aisles there fell + A silver silence, like a spell. + The heifer's home returning bell, + + Faint and remote, as if it grew + A portion of that silence too, + Dissolved and ceased, like falling dew. + + Stars twinkled through the coming night,-- + A voice dropped down the purple height,-- + At even time it shall be light. + + Ah rest my soul, for God is good, + Though sometimes faintly understood, + His goodness fills the solitude. + + Fold up thy spirit,--trust the right, + As blossoms fold their leaves at night, + And trust the sun though out of sight. + + + + + A VALENTINE + + + At last, dear love, the day is gone, + The doors are barred--the lamps are lit, + The couch beside the fire is drawn, + The nook where thou wert wont to sit; + + The book is open at the place, + And half its leaves are still uncut, + And yet without thy listening face, + I cannot read, the book I shut, + + And muse, and dream:--it is the day + When lovers, silent all the year, + Find tongues in floral tokens gay, + To whisper all they long to hear. + + Ah, many a time, and many a time + I saw the question in thine eyes, + Where is the silver-sounding rhyme, + The simple household melodies, + + The harp that trembled to thy touch; + Hast thou forgot thine early lore? + And know'st not that I love so much, + That song contents my heart no more. + + For thou hast made my life so sweet, + With dainty gifts thy dear hands bring, + Rich with thine affluence, and complete, + I have no longing left to sing. + + And yet, I have such vast desires, + Such thirst for some great destiny, + That all the poet's weaker fires + Burn into prophecies for thee. + + The circle of our home could make + The boundaries of my world, but thine + So splendid is,--for thy dear sake, + I fain would push the bounds of mine. + + For this I study as I may + To walk with thee, the world of mind, + To follow where thou lead'st the way, + A step,--but just a step behind. + + Thy hand in mine, thine earnest eyes + Fixed ever on the radiant goal, + Together shall we climb the skies, + And mingle there, one perfect soul. + + + + SNOW-DROPS + + + Dimly and dumbly under the ground, + Groping the walls of their prison round, + The roots of the aged and garrulous trees + Are sending electrical messages + From the under-world to the world without + And quickening pulses that course in each + Fettered and bound and frozen thing, + Rootlets that tremble, and fibres that reach + Are pushing inanimate fingers out, + To ask further inarticulate speech + For tidings of Spring + + And the fine invisible sprite which dwells + In cups and discs, in blossoms and bells, + Fleeter than Ariel's wing hath flown + Beyond this cloudy and frozen zone, + To the summer land of the South, + Beyond those rugged sentinels + Which winter sets in the snow-capped hills, + From the breath of whose cruel mouth, + Sighing, the leaves in forest and wold, + Shivered and died in the nights a'cold, + Died and were buried under the snow, + Long moons ago. + + Now over the tropic's broad ellipse + The sprite hath passed, as fleet and fast + As the light of falling stars, that cast + A sudden radiance and eclipse; + And all the buds that are folded close + As the inner leaves of an unblown rose, + In bulb, or cone, or scale, or sheath, + And sealed with the odorous gums that breathe + Like the breath of the singing and sighing pine, + When the dews are falling at evening time, + Through cone, and sheath, and bulb, and scale-- + Tremble, and cry All hail! + + And look where a rosier beam hath cleft + The damp and fragrant-smelling earth, + A handful of snow-drops peeping forth; + As if King Winter had dropped and left-- + Stumbling and tripping the steep hills down-- + Had clutched his robe and dropped his crown: + Or as if the very snow had power, + Out of itself to fashion a flower; + So vase-like, slender, and exquisite, + Like an alabaster lamp alit,-- + + And shining with a sea-green light, + As if it had but newly come + Up from some subterranean palace, + The haunt of fairy or of gnome, + With its waxen taper still alight, + And beaming in its leafy chalice, + That lit the revellers down below, + When the nights were long, and the moon was low + You might have heard, far-off and sweet, + The sound of the elfin revelries, + Like a bugle strain blown over seas, + And the patter and beat of dancing feet,-- + If you had been like me awake, + What time the Great Bear seems to shake, + Down through the trackless realms of air, + Frost-lances from his shaggy hair; + And all around--beneath--across, + The round globe lies stabbed through with frost. + + Now the touches of the sun, + Like some potent alchemist, + In heat and dews, in rain and mist, + As in a subtle menstruum, + Hath dissolved the icy charm, + And laid on that cold breast of hers,-- + Nature's breast--that faintly stirs, + With his fragrant kisses warm, + Sweet as myrrh and cinnamon,-- + Snow-drops, spring's bright harbingers, + First-born children of the sun. + + Like a sudden burst of leaf and bloom, + The sun shines redly through the gloom, + And the wind with its many melodies + Hath a murmurous sound like the noise of bees, + Singing and humming,--blowing and growing, + Of springing blade, and of fountain flowing; + And night and silence under the ground + Listen--and thrill--and move to the sound, + And answer, Spring is coming! + + + + + EASTER BELLS + + + Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells, + Which fill the hollow cells + Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain, + Ye fill my heart with pain. + + For when, as from a thousand holy altar-fires, + A thousand resonant spires + Sent up the offering--the glad thanksgiving strain-- + "The Lord is risen again!" + + He went from us who shall return no more, no more! + I say the sad words o'er, + And they are mixed and blent with your triumphant psalm, + Like bitterness and balm, + + We stood with him beside the black and silent river, + Cold, cold and soundless ever; + But there our feet were stayed--unloosed our clasping fond, + And he has passed beyond. + + And still that solemn hymn, like smoke of sacrifice, + Clomb the blue April skies, + And on our anguish placed its sacramental chrism, + "Behold, the Lord is risen!" + + Oh, bells of Easter morn! your mighty voices reach + A deeper depth than speech; + We heard, "Because He liveth _they_ shall live with Him;" + This was our Easter hymn. + + And while the slow vibrations swell, and sink, and cease, + They bring divinest peace, + For we commit our best beloved to the dust, + In sure and certain trust. + + + + + IN THE SIERRA NEVADA + + + I lift my spirit to your cloudy thrones, + And feel it broaden to your vast expanse, + Oh! mountains, so immeasurably old, + Crowned with bald rocks and everlasting cold, + That melts not underneath the sun's fierce glance, + Peak above peak, fixed, dazzling, ice and stones. + + Down your steep sides quick torrents leap and roar, + And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk, + Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high-- + Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry + Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk, + And farthest twig and tassel evermore. + + Behold far down the mountain herdsman's ranche, + The rough road winding past his lonely door, + And in his ears, by day and night, the sound + Of mad waves plunging down the gulfs profound, + The tempest's gathering cry, the dull deep roar. + And the long thunder of the avalanche! + + Night broods along the vallies while your peaks + Are pink and purple with the rays of morn, + And filmy tints that swim the depths of space, + To reach, and kiss you first upon the face, + Before the world awakes, and day is born, + To flush with colder gleam your rugged cheeks. + + And last, and longest lingering, the light + Is on your mighty foreheads, when, the sun + Sets in the sea, and makes a palace fair + For his repose, of crystal wave and air,-- + Ye seem to stoop, and smile to look upon + The fallen monarch from your silent height. + + Vallies are green about your rocky feet, + And sweet with clambering vines, and waving corn, + And breath of flowers, and gold of ripening fruit; + Cities send up their smoke, and man and brute + Beneath your wide embrazure have been born + And died for ages, yet Ye hold your seat. + + I lift my spirit up to you, and seem + To feel your vastness penetrate my soul; + And faintly see, far-off, and looming broad + And dread, the grandeur of the world of God, + And thrill to be a part of the great whole, + Which towers above me, a stupendous dream. + + + + + SUMMER RAIN + + + O rain, Summer Rain! forever, + Out of the crystal spheres, + And cool from my brain the fever, + And wash from my eyes the tears + + Stir gently the blossoming clover, + In the hollows dewy and deep,-- + Somewhere they are blossoming over + The spot where I shall sleep. + + Asleep from this wearisome aching, + With my arms crossed under my head, + I shall hear without awaking, + The rain that blesses the dead. + + And the ocean of man's existence,-- + The surges of toil and care, + Shall break and die in the distance, + But never reach me there. + + And yet--I fancy it often-- + I should stir in my shrouded sleep, + And struggle to rise in my coffin, + If he came there to weep. + + Among the dead--or the angels-- + Though ever so faint and dim, + I should know that voice in a thousand, + And stretch my hands to him. + + But the trouble of life and living, + And the burden of daily care, + And the endless sin, and forgiving, + Are greater than I can bear. + + So rain, Summer Rain, and cover + The meadows dewy and deep, + And freshen the blossoming clover, + And sing me to dreamless sleep. + + + + A BABY'S DEATH + + + A little white soul went up to God, + Out of the mire of the city street; + It grew like a flower in the highway broad, + Close to the trample of heedless feet. + + It fell like a snow-flake over night, + Into the ways by vile ones trod; + It sparkled--dissolved in the morning light, + And the little white soul went up to God. + + Dainty, flower-soft, waxen thing, + Its clear eyes opened on this bad earth, + And the little shuddering soul took wing, + By the gate of death, from the gate of birth. + + Not for those innocent lips and eyes, + The words and the ways of sin and strife; + The pure flower opened in paradise, + Fast by the banks of the river of life. + + Yea, little victors, who never fought; + And crowned, though ye never ran the race, + His blood your innocent lives hath bought, + And ye stand before Him and see His face! + + For this, oh Father! we give Thee thanks, + By the little graves, and the tear-wet sod, + They stand before Thee in shining ranks, + And the little white souls are safe with God! + + + + + CHRISTMAS + + + The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow + Out of the opal east in rosy flame, + As if a luminous picture in its frame-- + A great cathedral window, toward the sun + Lifted a form divine, which still below + Stretched hands of benediction;--while the air + Swayed the bright aureole of the flowing hair + Which lit our upturned faces;--even so + Look on us from the heavens, divinest One + And let us hear through the slow moving years. + Long centuries of wrongs, and crimes, and tears,-- + The echo of the angel's song again, + Peace and good will, good will and peace to men, + A little space make silence,--that our ears, + Filled with the din of toil and moil and pain + May catch the jubilant rapture of the skies,-- + The glories of the choirs of paradise. + + The hills still tremble when the thunders cease + Of the loud diapason,--and again + Through the rapt stillness steals the hymn of peace; + Melodious and sweet its far refrain + Dying in distance, as the shadows die + Of white wings vanished up the morning sky, + As farther still--and thinner--more remote-- + A film of sound, the aerial voices float-- + Peace and good will, good will and peace to men! + + + + + MY GARDEN + + + Only the commonest flowers + Grow in my garden small, + Like buttercups, and bouncing-bets, + And hollyhocks by the wall, + And sunflowers nodding their stately heads, + Like grenadiers so tall. + But the purple pansy grows beneath-- + The sweetest flower of all-- + + And tiny feathery filmy ferns + You scarce can see at all, + Fleck the shady side of the stones, + So dainty, fine and small + + Only the commonest flowers + Grow in this garden of mine, + The larkspur flaunting her sky-blue cap, + And the twinkling celandine + Shakes her jewels of freckled gold, + And drinks her honey-wine, + Making a cup of her lucent stem, + So slender and so fine. + + You hear the waves that dimple and slide, + Slide and shimmer and shine, + Under her fairy-slippered feet-- + My golden celandine. + + The hands of the little children + Gather them without fear; + Wonders of beauty and gladness + To them my flowers appear. + I have seen them bend to listen, + With poised and patient ear, + The curfew chime of the fairies, + In the lily's bell to hear. + + Oh, blessed and innocent children, + With eyes so crystal clear, + That ye look with the dual vision + Of the baby and the seer. + + To you the stars and the angels, + And the heavens themselves are near, + And the amaranths of paradise, + That blossom all the year: + I would I could see what ye see, + And hear what ye can hear. + + + + + RIVER SONG + + + Swift and silent and strong + Under the low-browed arches, + Through culverts, and under bridges, + Sweeping with long forced marches + Down to the ultimate ridges,-- + The sand, and the reeds, and the midges, + And the down-dropping tassels of larches, + That border the ocean of song. + + Swift and silent and deep + Through the noisome and smoke-grimed city, + Turning the wheels and the spindles, + And the great looms that have no pity,-- + Weight, and pulley, and windlass, + And steel that flashes and kindles, + And hears no forest-learnt ditty, + Not even in dreams and sleep. + + Blithe and merry and sweet + Over its shallows singing,-- + I hear before I awaken + The Bound of the church-bells ringing, + And the sound of the leaves wind-shaken, + Complaining and sun-forsaken, + And the oriole warbling and singing, + And the swish of the wind in the wheat + + Sweet and tender and true! + From meadows of blossoming clover, + Where sleepy-eyed cows are lowing, + And bobolinks twittering over,-- + Ebbing and falling and flowing-- + Singing and gliding and going-- + The river--my silver-shod lover, + Down to the infinite blue. + + Deep, and tender, and strong! + With resonant voice and hole-- + To far away sunshiny places, + Haunts of the bee and the swallow, + Where the Sabbath is sweet with the praises + Of dumb things, of weeds and of daisies,-- + Oh river! I hear thee--I follow + To the ocean where I too belong. + + + + THE RETURN + + + I have been where the roses blow, + Where the orange ripens its gold, + And the mountains stand with their peaks of snow, + To fence away the cold, + Where the lime and the myrtle lent + Their fragrance to the air, + To make the land of my banishment + More exquisitely fair. + + And I heard the ring dove call + To his mate in the blossoming trees, + And I saw the white waves heave and fall. + Far away over southern seas. + I listened along the beach, + By the shore of the shifting sea, + To the waves, till I knew their murmured speech, + And the message they bore to me. + + And I watched the great sails furled. + Like the wings of some ocean bird, + That brought me, out of another world, + A warning, and a word; + For still beside my way, + By shore or sunlit wave, + There journeyed with me night and day, + The shadow of a grave. + + Oh, friends! my heart went forth + To you with a yearning cry, + To be taken back to my native North-- + To be taken home to die. + For sweeter than southern suns, + Or the blossoms of summer lands, + Are the faces of my little ones, + And the touch of their tender hands. + + Come closer to my side, + Your eyes are as clear and true + As if they were stars my way to guide, + My darlings, back to you. + Oh God! my heart is stirred + With thankfulness and rest, + To reach at last, like a wounded bird, + The shelter of its nest + + Oh, faint pulse, throbbing long! + And weary and fluttering breath, + Twas the mother-love that kept you strong, + Though face to face with death. + But now my eyes are dim, + And my breath comes weak and slow, + Sing to me softly the evening hymn, + And kiss me ere I go. + + Come close for the angel waits-- + The angel with gentle hand, + To open for me the shadowy gates, + Into the silent land. + Oh, voices sweet and clear + What light is in the skies? + Is it your glad voices that I hear-- + Or the hymns of paradise? + + Farewell your faces fade-- + Fade--fade--and disappear + In the light no earthly cloud may shade, + Heaven's morning dawning clear. + Oh, land of rest so fair + By angel footsteps trod, + I shall wait for you, beloved there, + In the paradise of God. + + + + + VOICES OF HOPE + + + It is the hither side, O Hope, + And afternoon; our shadows slope + Backward along the mountain cope. + + The early morning was so sweet, + We seemed to climb with winged feet, + Like moving vapors fine and fleet, + + Not more elastic poised and swung + Harebell or yellow adder's tongue, + Nor blither any bird that sung. + + Thy light foot bent not any stem + Of frailest plant, whose diadem + In passing kissed thy garment's hem. + + O Hope! so near me and so bright, + Thy foot above me on the height, + I might not touch thy garments white. + + Thy lifted face, so fair, so rapt, + Like sunshine rolled and overlapped + Cliff, slope, and tall peak thunder-capped. + + Thy voice to me like silver brooks + Down dropped from secret mountain nooks, + Still drew me, like thy radiant looks. + + Nor scorching sun, nor beating rain, + Nor soil, nor grime, nor travel-stain, + With thee, were weariness or pain. + + But now--it is the afternoon + Behind, the mountain summit's gloom: + Before, night's shadows gather soon. + + O Hope! where art thou?--rough and steep + The way has grown; I faint and weep, + Beside me torrents toss and leap, + + And far below, unseen for tears, + The river where life disappears, + Uplifts its thunder to my ears. + + Canst thou, with thy serener eyes, + Over the flood God's paradise, + Behold in awful beauty rise? + + Far off I seem to see thee stand, + Shading rapt eyes with radiant hand, + To scan that unknown glorious land. + + The glory of that unseen place, + Gathers and brightens o'er thy face, + And fills thy looks with tender grace. + + O, Hope divine '--_I_ would behold + Those shining spires, those streets of gold: + But ah! the waves are deadly cold! + + I hear the thunder and the sweep + Of waves; deep calleth unto deep; + The pathway ends, abrupt and steep. + + Yet, soft beside that solemn shore, + I hear thy voice above its roar: + "Life is a dream-and it is o'er; + + "The night is past--behold the day, + O new-born soul--O child of clay, + O bird uncaged and still astray; + + "Take through the universe thy road; + All paths lead up to His abode, + Converging at the Mount of God!" + + + + + IN THE COUNTRY. + + + Here the sunshine, filtering down, + Through leaves of emerald, dun and brown, + Is green instead of golden + And the hum and roar of the distant town + In an endless hush is holden. + + Twinkling bright through the shadowing limes. + The brook rains a sparkle of silver rhymes + On the dragon-fly, its neighbour; + It pays no duty in dollars and dimes, + For its work is all love-labour. + + Here are no spindles, nor wheels to be whirled, + No forges nor looms from the outside world, + Stunning the ear with clamour; + You hear but the whisper of leaves unfurled, + And the tap of the woodpecker's hammer + + Here are no books to be written or read, + But cushions of softest moss instead, + Without a care to cumber; + And fern-leaf fans for the weary head, + Soothing the soul to slumber + + Oh! come from the dusty haunts of trade, + From the desk, the ledger, the loom, the spade; + There is neither toil nor payment. + Forget for once, in this peaceful shade, + The sordid ways in which dollars are made, + And food and drink and raiment. + + Consider the lilies, arrayed so fair, + In robes that an eastern king might wear, + Though never an eye may heed them; + And the sparrows, of whom His hand takes care, + For our Father in Heaven feeds them. + + His rainbow spans the heavenly blue; + His eye takes note of the drops of dew, + And the sunset's golden arrows; + And shall He not take thought of you, + O man, as well as the sparrows? + + + + + SCIENCE, THE ICONOCLAST. + + + _"Oh! spare dual idols of the past, + Whose lips are dumb, whose eyes are dim; + Truth's diadem is not for him + Who comes, the fierce Iconoclast: + Who wakes the battle's stormy blast, + Hears not the angel's choral hymn" _ + THE IMAGE-BREAKER + + + Ah me! for we have fallen on evil days, + When science, with remorseless cold precision, + Puts out the flame of poetry, and lays + Her double-convex lens on fancy's vision. + When not a star has longer leave to shine, + Unweighed, unanalysed, reduced to gases,-- + Resolved to something in the chemist's line, + By those miraculously long-ranged glasses. + + The awful mysteries which Nature locks + Deep in her stony bosom, hid for ages,-- + The hieroglyphics of primeval rocks, + Are glibly written out on short-hand pages. + Within that rocky scroll, her palimpsest, + The hand of time still writes, and still effaces + Records in dolomite--and shale--and schist, + The pre-historic history of Races. + + Cave-dwellers, under nameless strata hid, + Vast bones of extinct monsters that were fossil, + Ere the first Pharaoh built the pyramid, + And shaped in stone his sepulchre colossal. + What undiscovered secret yet remains + Beneath the swirl and sway of billows tidal, + Since Art triumphant led the deep in chains, + And on the mane of ocean laid her bridle. + + Into those awful crypts of cycles dead, + Shrouded and mute, each in its mummy-chamber, + Her daring step intrudes without more dread + Than to behold a fly embalmed in amber. + Stars--motes--worlds--molecules, and microcosms, + Her level gaze sweeps down the page recorded, + And withers all its myths, and fairy blossoms, + Condemned to explanations dull and sordid. + + Alike the sculptures of the graceful Greeks, + Grey with the moss of eld and venerable, + The fauns, the nymphs, the half-defaced antiques, + The gods and men of mythologic fable, + And legends of steel-casqued and mailed men, + The old heroic tales of love and glory, + Of knight, and palmer, and the Saracen, + And the crusaders of enchanted story; + + Grim ghosts and goblins, and more harmless sprites + That peopled once our juvenile romances, + And made us shiver in our beds o'nights, + Science has banished those bewitching fancies; + And given us the merest husks instead, + The very bones and skeleton of nature, + Filling those peaceful hours with shapes of dread, + And horrid ranks of Latin nomenclature. + + Blest is the Indian on his native plains, + And blest the wandering Tartar, happy nomad, + Fire-worshippers, whose twinkling altar-fanes + Still gleam on lonely peaks beyond Allahbad. + Shadows yet linger round their ruined towers, + And whisper from the caverns and the islands, + Their Memnon still is eloquent, but ours + Stares on with shut lips in an age-long silence. + + Not so! The age still ripens for her needs + The flower, the man. Behold her slow still finger + Points where He comes, beneath whose feet the weeds + Bloom out immortal flowers, the immortal Singer! + Forward, not backward all the ages press; + New stars arise, of whose bright occultation + No glory of the dying past could guess: + Still grows the unfinished miracle, Creation. + + Oh! Poet of the years that are to come, + Singing at dawn thy idyls sweet and tender-- + The preludes of the great millenium + Of song, to drown the world in light and splendour + Awake, arise! thou youngest born of time! + Through flaming sunsets with red banners furled, + The nations call thee to thy task sublime, + To sing the new songs of a newer world! + + + + + WHAT THE OWL SAID TO ME. + + + The moon went under a ragged cloud, + The owl cried out of the ruined wall, + Slow and solemn, distinct and loud, + His melancholy call: + Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo! + Like a creature in a shroud. + + Across the night in a silver chain, + While a lonesome wind arose and died, + Slow stepped the ghostly feet of the rain; + The owl from the wall replied: + Tu-whit, tu-whoo, hoo-hoo' + With a peal of goblin laughter, + And silence fell thereafter. + + Weird fingers of the wandering rain, + Reaching out of the hollow dark, + Paused and tapped at my window-pane,-- + A muffled voice cried, Hark! + Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo! + The moon is drowned in the dark, + And the world belongs to me and you! + + + + + OUR VOLUNTEERS. + + + Where shall we write your names, ye brave! + Where build for you a monument, + Who lie in many a sylvan grave, + Stretched half across the continent! + Young, bright and brave, the very flower + And choice of all we had to give, + With you what glory ceased to live,-- + Or lives again in hearts of men. + An inspiration and a power! + + For when one sunny day in June, + A sudden war-cry shook the land, + As if from out clear skies at noon + Had dropped the lightning's deadly brand-- + Ah then, while rang our British cheers, + And pealed the bugle, rolled the drum, + We saw the Nation rise like one! + Swift formed the files,--a thousand miles + Of them, our gallant Volunteers! + + Deep clanged the bells, the drums did beat, + And still from east and west they came; + Echoed the street with martial feet, + From north, from south, with hearts aflame: + Ah, still the tires of freedom burn,-- + Be witness, Ridgway's silent shade, + No foe shall dare our land invade, + While hearts like those that met the foes, + Still beat like theirs,--the undismayed, + The brave, who never will return. + + Our Country holds them in her heart, + Shrined with her mountains and her rivers; + And still for them her proud lip quivers, + And tears to her great eyelids start: + But they are tears of love and pride, + And she shall tell to coming years + The story of her Volunteers, + For all their names are hers and fame's-- + The brave who live, the brave who died. + + + + + NIGHT,--A PHANTASY + + + Night! the horrible wizard Night! + The dumb and terrible Night + Hath drawn his circle of magic, round + Over the sky, and over the ground, + Without a sound. + Ah me, what woeful phantoms rise, + With ice-cold hands and pitiless eyes, + As stars grow out of the summer skies, + Tangible things to mortal sight, + Under the hands of the wizard Night! + + Night! the mystical prophet, Night! + The haunted and awful Night! + With the trail of his garment's shadowy fall, + Soundless and black as a funeral pall, + Now enters his dread laboratory. + A wan, and faint, and wavering glory + Shines from a veiled lamp somewhere hidden. + Like a lily in a grave: + And things unholy, and things forbidden,-- + Hands that have long been the earth-worm's prey, + And shrouded faces out of the clay. + Rise and fill the enchanted cave + With a pale and deathly light,-- + The haunted and awful Night! + + Night! the abhorred magician Night! + The black astrologer Night! + Night is the world!--I shiver with fright:-- + The air is full of evil things, + The coil and glitter of snaky rings, + And, the tremor of vast invisible wings, + That are not heard but felt: + They touch my hair, my hand, my cheek, + They mope and mouth, but they never speak + To utter their awful history. + Oh, when will the darkness break and melt, + Like blocks of ice on a golden reef, + And little by little, as leaf by leaf, + In light and color and form increased, + The rose of morning blooms in the east,-- + The old yet ever new mystery! + And I fall on my knees to worship the light + That casts out the evil demon of Night, + And hallows with blossoms, like prayers, the way + Of another new day. + + + + A MONODY + + + On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, + brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the + autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed + lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were + not divided. + + + Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn-- + One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column; + Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears + Will not reach the deaf ears. + + Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches, + Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches; + Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay, + And so light, yesterday. + + Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them, + Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,-- + So near are the confines of hither, and yonder,-- + So world-wide asunder! + + Oh, lovers and friends! ye were youth and glad weather, + And beauty and strength, and all bright things together, + With the smile on your lips, and the flower at your breast + Have ye gone to your rest. + + The dull lives of others move on, while the splendid + Beginnings of yours are all broken and ended, + The high hopes, the bright dreams, and youth's confident + trust, + Gone down to the dust. + + Step slowly, black steeds, at the head of the column, + Breathe softly, dead marches, so mournfully solemn; + Ye bear from our sight what no morn shall restore + Nevermore, nevermore. + + Oh, beloved--oh, wept for!--beyond the dark river + Are the lives incomplete, there made perfect forever? + Oh, wave but a hand through the darkness, to tell + It is well with ye--well. + + Profound is the darkness--the silence unbroken-- + No glimmer of pale hands comes back as a token: + Yet still in our hearts we have heard the words spoken:-- + "He hath overcome death--He hath passed through the grave-- + He is able to save." + + + + + MINNIE + + "_And Jesu called a little child unto him_." + MATT. xviii. 2. + + + Oh, my blossom, my darling, whose dimpled hands are cold! + Oh, my baby, my treasure, laid under the green mould! + Earth pressed on thy closed eyelids, and on thy sunny hair, + And folded hands, and smiling lips, so exquisitely fair. + + Cold and dark are the night dews around thy grassy bed, + Instead of warm and loving arms beneath thy sunny head; + Oh, my blossom, my darling, the long nights through, awake, + I stretch my empty arms for thee,--my heart--my heart will break. + + The autumn leaves are falling ungathered on the hill, + The soft October sun is bright, but the little hands are still; + And the little feet that chased them as frolicksome and light, + Have lain beneath them--can it be?--a whole day and a night. + + The autumn winds will sigh and moan; the dreary, dreary rain + Will drench thy lowly pillow, sweet, with tears like mine in vain; + And weary, weary months drag on, and long years stretch before, + Whilst thou to me, my beautiful, returnest nevermore. + + Beyond our earthly vision--beyond the burial sod, + Where the palm trees and the amaranths grow on the hills of God, + Oh, golden gates, that stand within the holy, heavenly place, + Open for me but a little, that I may behold her face. + + Open for me but a little, that I may touch her hand, + And hear her sing the hymn she loved about "The Promised Land." + Oh, my blossom! Oh, my darling! though it be but in a dream, + Speak to me,--I watch--I listen,--speak to me across the stream. + + Kneeling--praying at the threshold--day and night, and night and day, + When I rise with heavy eyelids--when I kneel at night to pray-- + Still I wait to catch the far-off music of the starry hymn, + Till I hear the voice that called thee bid me rise and enter in. + + + + THE GOLDEN WEDDING. + + Inscribed to OUR FATHER AND MOTHER, and read on that Anniversary, + FEBRUARY 15TH, 1876. + + + A half a century of time, + The mingled pain and bliss + That make the history of life + Between that day and this; + Two lives that in that morning light, + Together were made one, + Now standing where the shadows fall + Athwart the setting sun. + + How long it seems!--the devious way. + And full of toil and pain,-- + Yet love and peace kept house with them, + And love and peace remain. + Though youth and strength and youthful friends + Were left upon the road + Long since, an honest man is still + The noblest work of God. + + No famous deeds, no acts achieved + In battle or in state + Make memorable this festal day, + The day we celebrate: + Divided from the common lot + By neither fame nor pelf, + Our hearts revere the man who loves + His neighbour as himself. + + The fragrance of the Christian's life, + Though humble and unknown, + Is a more precious heritage + Than heirship to a throne. + That lowly roof--what memories + Of blessings cluster there, + Around the hearthstone consecrate + By fifty years of prayer! + + The shaded lamp, the cheerful fire, + Our Mother's patient look, + The firelight on her silver hair, + And on the Holy Book;-- + Where e'er our erring feet may stray, + The welcome waits the same,-- + That light, that look will follow still, + And soften and reclaim. + + Type of the Fatherhood of God, + Whose love has kept us still, + In all the changeful scenes of life + Secure from every ill, + And brought our long-divided band, + Not one of us astray, + Around our Father's board to keep + This Golden Wedding Day. + + Oh ye beloved and revered! + Our hearts make thankful prayer, + That still around our household hearth + There is no vacant chair. + God grant that we may be of those + Who sing the heavenly psalm, + And sit together at the feast, + The marriage of the Lamb! + + + + VERSES WRITTEN IN MARY'S ALBUM. + + + In your beautiful book, dear Mary, + With pages so white and fair, + I pause ere I trace the first sentence, + And thoughtfully breathe a prayer:-- + + That in the dew of the morning, + Ere the shadows begin to fall, + You may turn with a child's devotion + To the Book that is best of all:-- + + And learn with the gentle Mary, + At the Saviour's feet to stay, + And to choose that better portion + Which shall never be taken away. + + Ah! lovely and thrice beloved, + Sitting at Jesus' feet, + In the shady walks of Bethany, + And the summer twilight sweet,-- + + With the thrilling palms and the olives, + Listening overhead, + To that wonderful voice whose music + Had power to waken the dead! + + Even thus through life's grave-shadowed valleys, + We may walk with that Heavenly Friend, + With a child's loving faith in His promise + To be with us unto the end. + + So I ask for my Mary, not grandeur, + Nor the wealth, nor the fame of the day, + But that which the world cannot give her, + The peace which it takes not away. + + + + + THE WOODS IN JUNE. + + + In the sleep-haunted gloom + Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades, + These vast and venerable collonades, + I welcome thee, dear June! + + And while with head reclined, + And limbs aweary with my woodland walk, + I listen to the low melodious talk + Of leaves and singing wind, + + The merry roundelay + Of the swart ploughman, sowing summer grain, + And tinkling sheep-bell on the distant plain, + And pastures far away, + + Come with a soft refrain, + Like a faint echo from the outer world, + While Peace sits by me with her white wings furled, + Within my green domain. + + This is my palace, where + Great trunks are amber pillars to support + The blue roof of the vast and silent court, + In clustered columns fair: + + And underneath, the bloom + Of water-lilies through the fragrant night + Of these dim arches spreads a perfumed light, + Even at highest noon. + + Down dropping all day long, + With a most musical cadence in the hall, + A wandering stream lets its slow waters fall + In twinkling rhythmic song. + + Hither the vagrant bee, + From the broad fields and sunshine all astray, + Loiters the idle hours of noon away, + In golden dreams like me. + + And from my window frame, + This oriel window opening on the sky, + I see the white barques of the clouds drift by, + With prows of rosy flame. + + Fantastical and strange, + Their purple sails go floating o'er the deep, + Like shadows through the summer land of sleep, + In never ending change. + + The wild shy things which roam + The woods, and live in bough and tree and grot, + Flutter and chirp unscared, they fear me not, + For I too am at home. + + And feel my heart in tune + With the great heart of Nature, and the voice + Of all the glad bright creatures that rejoice + In the green woods of June. + + + + + THE ISLE OF SLEEP. + + + In those dark mornings, deep in June, + When brooding birds stir in the nest, + And heavy dews slip down the leaves, + And drop into the rose's breast, + I woke and looked into the east, + And saw no sign of coming day, + The pale cold morning rolled in mist, + Slept on the hill-tops far away. + + My window looked into the dawn, + The slumbering dawn that was so nigh, + The shadow of the hills was drawn + In waving lines against the sky. + But warmer hues began to tip + The edges of the mountain cloud + And morning's rosy cheek and lip + Glowed softly through her snow-pale shroud. + + I turned and gazed into the west, + The river murmured in my ear + 'Gone night, and silence, dreams and rest, + Another day of toil is here.' + + I would I had a fairy boat, + With every swift bright sail unfurled, + To fly beyond the west, and float + With night into the under world. + + My head sank lower on my arm, + My eyes re-closed in sleepy bliss, + While fancy wove her subtle charm, + My dream did shape itself to this:-- + Upon a shore whose sands of gold + Sloped down into a silver sea, + Her radiant pinions all unrolled, + A fairy boat did wait for me. + + And Night with all her splendours pale + Did walk before me on the deep, + The stars looked through her azure veil, + And hand in hand with her went Sleep. + Beyond the hills, into the night + My boat went drifting like the wind, + The stars paled round us, and the light + Died on our pathway far behind. + + And cloudy shapes with rippling hair + That shaded eyes of dreamy calm, + Formed and dissolved into the air + Which laved my brow with waves of balm. + + Dusk arms upreaching from the sea, + And shadow-faces, seen and gone, + Toward an isle did beckon me, + Beyond the farthest gates of dawn. + + We drew towards that lonely shore, + With still and measured motion slow, + I saw the hills lift evermore + Their massive foreheads crowned with snow, + And underneath, like moonlight fair, + I saw a hundred fathoms deep, + The crystal columns light as air + That undergird the Isle of Sleep. + + And spire and dome and architrave, + And pictured window's rainbow gleams + Upshone from out the charmed wave, + Afloat upon a sea of dreams. + The sea-moss wove her braided locks + Along the beach in chains afar, + And lilies smiled among the rocks, + Peerless and perfect as a star. + + A wood of asphodel below + Uprose as still and sweet as death, + And gliding shapes moved to and fro,-- + I watched them with suspended breath. + + Lost loved ones met and clasped me here; + I looked into their eyes serene, + They spake to me, and I did hear + As I were walking in a dream. + + But even then a wind arose + That swept the morning mists away, + And showed, unfolding like a rose, + The bright flower of the perfect day: + And fading--faded like a cloud, + The hands I clasped, like wreaths of smoke, + While chanticleer crowed shrill and loud, + And wan and 'wildered I awoke. + + + + + THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. + + + Under the orchard boughs, + That drop red leaves like coals into the grass. + The golden arrows of the sunset fall; + And on the vine-hung wall + Great purple clusters in delicious drowse, + Beakers of chrysolite and amethyst, + Yet by the sun unkissed, + Lean down to all the wooing lips that pass, + Brimful of red, red wine + Sweet as brown peasants glean along the castled Rhine + + All sights and sounds are of the Autumn weather; + The urchin rocking in the trees + Shakes silver laughter with the apples down,-- + And wading to the knees + Among the stubble and the husks so brown, + The oxen keeping every patient step together, + Bring in the creaking wain, + High-piled with yellow maize and sheaves of rustling grain. + + While in the mill, with ceaseless whirr and drone, + With moss and lichens to the roof o'ergrown + An undertone to every other sound, + The blind old horse goes round + + Gathered along the farm-house eaves + In noisy congress, see the swallows sit, + Or whirling in mid air like autumn leaves, + In airy wheels they flit. + Bright rovers of all summer skies, + I follow them with wistful eyes + To-morrow's sunset they will be + A thousand leagues by land and sea + Beyond this wintry hemisphere + Heaven gathers round their joyous wings + The sunlight of perpetual springs, + Soft airs and fragrant blossomings + Through all the glad round year. + + I hear as though I did not hear, + Along the upland fields remote, + The plough-boy's whistle, silver clear: + For hark the herds-man's graver note, + Who hums beneath the orchard boughs, + The ballad of that grand old man, + Who marshalled freedom's battle van, + And fell,--no laurel round his brows. + + To-day the hero-martyr's grave + Is shaken by the armed tread + Of patriotic soldiers o'er his head + Not by the footsteps of one slave! + + So grows the work that he began, + Wrought out in slow and toilsome ways, + Yet ever building through the days, + A grander heritage for man. + + Oh! harvest years, foretold so long! + Through seas of blood, through years of wrong, + A people patient brave and strong, + In camp and field, and battle clang, + 'Mid cannon's roar and trumpet's peal, + And shock of war, and clash of steel, + For you each steadfast blade out-sprang! + In you each loyal heart kept faith + As strong as life, as stern as death; + Though human lives like summer grain + Were sown on every battle-plain; + Blood of our bravest and our best, + The red, red wine of life was pressed, + And lost like summer rain. + In dust and smoke of carnage whirled, + Before those dying eyes still swam + Those coming years so grand and calm, + The golden Autumns of the world! + + Through frost and snow and wintry rains, + Speed, silent hours!--the Nation waits, + While at her feet the slave in chains, + Kneels, listening for the coming fates; + And round him droops in soil and dust, + The bright flag of her stripes and stars: + Speed, Autumn hours!--we wait in trust + No tale of traitor lips can dim, + Till Liberty's white hand unbars + The broad gates of the glad New Year, + Unfurls our banner free and clear, + And ushers Peace and Freedom in! + + [Footnote: President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation + took effect on the first day of the New Year, 1863.] + + + + + IN WAR TIME. + + + Into the west the day goes down, + Smiling and fading into the night, + Is it a cross, or is it a crown + I have worn through all these hours of light! + + Bending over my milk-white curds, + In my dairy under the beech, + Still the thought of my heart took words, + And murmured itself in musical speech. + + And all my pans of golden cream, + Set in a silver shining row, + Swam in my eyes like the shimmer and sheen + Of arms and banners, and martial show. + + The bee in his gold laced uniform, + Drilled the ranks of clover blooms, + And carried my very heart by storm, + Mocking the roll of the distant drums. + + But something choked my singing down, + Deeper than any song expressed.-- + Is it a cross, or is it a crown + On my brow invisibly pressed! + + Out of the east the star-watch shines, + Lighting their camp-fires in the gray; + I count their white tents' lengthening lines, + And think of those who are far away. + + Where the yellow globes of the orange grow + In the southern fields-that slope to the sun,-- + Oh say, have my brothers met the foe,-- + Has another Shiloh been lost or won? + + For when the moonlight falls across + The threshold of our cottage door. + My heart is full of a sense of loss, + As if they would return no more. + + Last year when the April days were fair, + And the harvest fields were ploughed and sown, + Two stalwart boys took each his share, + But now our father toils alone. + + And often at our evening prayers, + With an absence I can understand, + I see him look at the vacant chairs, + And wipe his brow with his wrinkled hand. + + And therefore at the fireside nook, + Kneeling sadly at night to pray, + All the light of the holy book + Seems to fall and point one way. + + And therefore tending my milk-white curds, + Still the song that my fancy hums, + Catches the glitter of martial words, + And sets itself to the beat of drums. + + + + + CHRISTMAS HYMN. + + + Break over the waiting hill-tops, + White dawn of the Christmas morn! + For the angels have sung through the midnight, + That the wonderful Babe is born. + + And still in the slumbering valleys, + The night's black tents are up, + And the young moon stands on the mountains, + Clear and fair as a silver cup. + + Under the cottage rafters, + Silent and soft and deep, + On the swart low brow of the toiler, + Settles the dew of sleep. + + And some that watch and waken, + Are dreaming of eyes whose ray + Was long ago quenched and hidden + Under the shroud away. + + Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem + Over the frozen mould, + And tell that wonderful story + Again, that never grows old! + + For under the year's broad shadow, + Along the upward way, + Our footsteps often falter, + And often wander astray. + + Weary and weak and erring, + In sorrow and doubt and tears, + Shine through the mist and the darkness + Star of a thousand years! + + Awhile from the dusty marches + Of life let us find release, + And pitch our tents in the shadow + Of the white-walled City of Peace, + + Let us hear through the blessed starlight. + The angels of Bethlehem, + Singing Glory to God in the highest, + On earth good will to men. + + White dawn of the Christmas morning, + Through the snow-wreaths shining pale. + Let the joy-bells ring through the valleys, + Hail to thy coming--hail! + + + + + TE DEUM LAUDAMUS + + + Along the floors of heaven the music rolls, + Fills the vast dome, and lifts our fainting souls: + Praise God! Oh praise Him all created things, + Praise Him, the Lord of lords, the King of kings + + Slow pulses coursing darkly underground, + Leap up in leaf and blossom at the sound, + Shake out glad pennons in remotest ways, + And with a thousand voices utter praise. + + Along the southern hills the verdure creeps, + And faint green foliage clothes the craggy steeps, + Where in the sunshine lie reposing herds. + Whose gladness has no need of spoken words. + + In the deep woods there is a voice, which saith + "The Lord is risen--there shall be no more death! + Listen, Oh Man! and thy dull ears shall hear + The Easter Anthem of the awakened year." + + Past isles of emerald moss the brooklet flows + Melodious, and rejoicing as it goes; + Past drooping ferns, and through the mazy whir + Of insect wings of gold and gossamer. + + Praise God!--they whisper softly each to each; + Waves have a voice, and trees and stones a speech; + Day unto day the chant of birds and breeze, + And man alone is dumb, nor hears, nor sees. + + + + + A NOVEMBER WOOD-WALK. + + + Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks; + Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet, + Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet; + And whereso'er thy musing foot is set, + The fragrant cool-wort lifts its emerald stalks. + + How kindly nature wraps secure and warm, + In the fallen mantle of her summer pride, + These lovely tender things that peep and hide, + Whom unawares thy curious eye hath spied, + For the long night of winter's frost and storm. + + Still keeps the deer-berry its vivid green, + Set in its glowing calyx like a gem; + While hung above, a marvellous diadem + Of tawny gold, the bittersweet's gray stem, + Strung with its globes of murky flame is seen. + + The foot sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss, + The shroud of some dead giant of his race; + Dun gold and green and brown thick interlace, + Their tiny exquisite leaves in cunning trace, + Weaving their beaded filaments across. + + Here mayest thou lie, and looking up, behold + Far up the stately trees sway to and fro + In the deep sunny air, with motion slow, + And whispering to each other weird and low, + The secrets of the haunted cloud-land old + + Heaven seems not half so far as in the town,-- + Looking through smoke and dust and tears to gain + Some heavenly comfort for thy human pain, + Heaven seems far off, but here the dews and rain + Come like a benediction from the Father down. + + Nor will He who forgets not any weed + That blooms its little life in forest shade, + And dies when it hath cast its ripened seed, + Forget the human creatures He has made, + Frail as they are, and full of infinite need. + + Now like a sheaf of golden arrows fall + The last rays of the Indian Summer sun; + And hark along the hollow hills they run, + Invisible messengers, the battle-call + Of coming storms, in pipings faint and small + They bring:--the pageant of the year is done. + + + + + RESIGNATION. + + + If Thou who seest this heart of mine + To earthly idols prone, + Should'st all those clinging cords untwine, + And take again Thy own,-- + Help me to lay my hands in thine, + And say Thy will be done! + + But Oh, when Thou dost claim the gift + Which Thou did'st only lend, + And leav'st my life of love bereft, + And lonely to the end,-- + Oh Saviour! be Thyself but left, + My best beloved Friend! + + And still the chastening hand I bless, + Which doth my steps uphold + Along earth's thorny wilderness, + Back to the Father's fold, + Where I Thy face in righteousness + Shall evermore behold. + + + + + EUTHANASIA + + + "O Life, O Beyond, + Thou art strange, thou art sweet!" + --_Mrs. Browning._ + + + Dread phantom, with pale finger on thy lips, + Who dost unclose the awful doors for each, + That ope but once, and are unclosed no more, + Turn the key gently in the mystic ward, + And silently unloose the silver cord; + Lay thy chill seal of silence upon speech, + And mutely beckon through the soundless door + To endless night, and silence and eclipse. + + Even now the soul unfettered may explore + On its swift wing beyond the gates of morn, + (Unravelled all the weary round of years) + And stand, unfenced of time and crowding space, + With love's fond instinct in that primal place, + The distant northern isle where she was born; + She sees the bay, the waves' deep voice she hears, + And babbles of the forms that are no more. + + They are the dead, long laid in foreign graves, + One with his sword upon his loyal breast, + And one in tropic lands beneath the palm; + The sea rolls dark between those hemispheres, + And all the long procession of the years, + Since last those warm young hands she fondly pressed, + And heard through mute farewells the funeral psalm, + The "nevermore" of the dividing waves. + + The record of a life is writ between; + The new world's story supplements the old; + The heathery hills, the rapture of the morn, + The fishers' huts, the chieftain's castle gray, + And the smooth crescent of the land-locked bay,-- + These, the long hunger of the heart outworn, + New scenes replace, and the once strange and cold, + Become like those kept in the memory green. + + But thou hast found already that dread place, + And thy lost loved ones in that unknown goal, + Ere thou hast quite put off the scrip and shell, + And gathered up thy feet into the bed, + And closed thine eyes, the last prayers being said, + Thy lips move dumbly, thy delaying soul + Passes in salutation, not farewell, + To join the heroes of thine ancient race. + + Unoutlined shadow, angel of release, + Whose cool hand stills the fever in the veins, + And all the tumult of life's crowding cares-- + Ambition, envy, love and fear and hate, + Hope's eager prophecies fulfilled too late, + And fierce desires, and sorrows, and despairs-- + Thou wav'st thy mystic wand, and there remain + Sleep and forgetfulness, and utter peace. + + Why should we fear thy shadow at the door, + Oh thou mysterious Death?--art thou not sweet + To the worn pilgrim of life's toilsome day, + Who com'st at evening time, and show'st instead + Of pilgrim tent, and pilgrim pallet spread, + The doors of that vast caravansera + Where all the pilgrims of the ages meet, + And rest together, and return no more? + + + + + BALLAD OF THE MAD LADYE. + + + The rowan tree grows by the tower foot, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + Can the dead feel joy or pain?_) + And the owls in the ivy blink and hoot, + And the sea-waves bubble around its root, + Where kelp and tangle and sea-shells be, + When the bat in the dark flies silently. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + The ladye sits in the turret alone, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + The dead--can they complain?_) + And her long hair down to her knee has grown, + And her hand is cold as a hand of stone, + And wan as a band of flesh may be, + While the bird in the bower sings merrily. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + Sadly she leans by her casement side + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + Can the dead arise again?_) + And watcheth the ebbing and flowing tide, + But her eye is dim, and the sea is wide; + The fisherman's sail and the cloud flies free + And the bird is mute in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + The moon shone in on the turret stair + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + The dead are bound with a chain._) + And touched her cheek and brightened her hair, + And found naught else in the world so fair, + So ghostly fair as the mad ladye, + While the bird in the bower sang lonesomely. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + The weary days and the months crept on, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + The words of the dead are vain_) + At last the summer was over and gone, + And still she sat in her turret alone, + Her white hands clasping about her knee, + And the bird was mute in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + Wild was the sound of the wind and the sleet, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea. + The dead--do they walk again?_) + Wilder the roar of the surf that beat; + Whose was the form that it bore to her feet + Swayed with the swell of the unquiet sea, + While the raven croaked in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + Oh Lady, strange is the silent guest-- + (_Flotsam and jetsam cast up by the sea, + Can the dead feel sorrow or pain?_) + With the sea-drenched locks and the pulseless breast + And the close-shut lips which thine have pressed + And the wide sad eyes that heed not thee, + While the raven croaks in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + The tower is dark, and the doors are wide, + (_Flotsam and jetsam cast up by the sea, + The dead are at peace again._) + Into the harbour the fisher boats ride, + But two went out with the ebbing tide, + Without sail, without oar, full fast and free, + And the raven croaks in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + + + + THE COMING OF THE KING. + + + "O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, + I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations + with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy + gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And + all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be + the peace of thy children." Isaiah, liv. 11-13. + + + As the sand of the desert is smitten + By hoof-beats that strike out a light, + A flash by which dumb things are litten, + The children of night; + So Thou who of old did'st create us, + Among the high gods the Most High, + Strike us with Thy brightness, and let us + Behold Thee, and die. + + Grown old in blind anguish and travail, + Thy world thou mad'st sinless and free + Gropes on, with no power to unravel + The clue back to Thee: + Since his feet from Thy ways torn and bleeding + The long march of ages began, + And the gates of Thy sword-guarded Eden + Were closed upon man. + + Fates thicken, and prophecies darken, + Grown up into blossom and fruit; + And we lean in these last days to hearken + The sound of Thy foot. + Not now as a star-fallen stranger, + By shepherds, and pilgrims adored, + As couched among kine in a manger, + An undeclared lord: + + Not now in waste wilderness places, + And mountains, and wind-shaken seas, + Proclaiming to strange alien races + The gospel of peace; + Who rended'st the prey from the leopard, + With sorrowful wounding and strife, + The Priest--the Lamb slain--the Good Shepherd, + The way and the life. + + Not the face that wept over the city + Nor that with its anguish of pain + In the garden, enlightened by pity + Of angels or men; + Nor the suffering form, unreplying. + With the chrysm of death at its lips; + Cross-uplifted, and nail-pierced, and dying + In fateful eclipse: + + But with all heaven's glory and splendour + Through the gates of the morning come down, + And with thrones and dominions to render + Him sceptre and crown! + With the Face beyond all men's thinking, + Beholden of all men's eyes; + And the earth in its gladness drinking + The light of the skies. + + With the rapture of angels, the singing + Of radiant choirs unknown, + And the shouting of glad hosts bringing + Our King to His throne! + O City of David, the Golden, + That sittest in darkness so long, + No longer in chains thou art holden, + Break forth into song! + + Arise, and upbuild thy waste places, + Take helmet and buckler and sword, + And gather from far-scattered races + The tribes of the Lord! + Thy Prince shall ride onward victorious; + Full strong are his arrows and fleet; + And high shall His throne be, and glorious + The place of His feet! + + Set thy lips to the trumpet, awaken + The isles of the South and the North, + As the trees of the forest are shaken + When whirlwinds go forth: + Like the waves of the sea, like the thunder + Of armies, with jubilant voice, + A multitude no man can number + Shall sing and rejoice. + + The kingdoms beyond the great river, + The uttermost isles of the sea, + And peoples and tribes shall deliver + Thy children to thee. + Once more shall thine ensign, the Lion + Of Judah, be o'er thee unfurled; + Once more shall thy gates be, O Zion, + Set wide to the world! + + With hands stretched in mute supplication, + With longing, and weeping, and prayer, + We have waited for this, thy salvation, + In grief--not despair; + Till thy Lord to His temple descended, + Shall comfort thee, sorrowful one, + And the days of thy mourning be ended, + Thy triumph begun. + + Till the mountains about thee assemble + Lost lights of the sun-dawn, rose-red, + White splendours, that point as they tremble + The path for His tread: + Through the hate of our foes, and their scorning + And dumb in the darkness we wake, + For the night is far spent--and the morning + In glory shall break. + + + + + WITH A BUNCH OF SPRING FLOWERS. + + (In an Album.) + + + In the spring-time, out of the dew, + From my garden, sweet friend, I gather, + A garland of verses, or rather + A poem of blossoms for you. + + There are pansies, purple and white, + That hold in their velvet splendour, + Sweet thoughts as fragrant and tender, + And rarer than poets can write. + + The Iris her pennon unfurls, + My unspoken message to carry, + A flower-poem writ by a fairy, + And Buttercups rounder than pearls. + + And Snowdrops starry and sweet, + Turn toward thee their pale pure faces + And Crocus, and Cowslips, and Daisies + The song of the spring-time repeat. + + So merry and full of cheer, + With the warble of birds overflowing, + The wind through the fresh grass blowing + And the blackbirds whistle so dear. + + These songs without words are true, + All sung in the April weather-- + Music and blossoms together-- + I gather and weave them for you. + + + + + THE HIGHER LAW. + + + Love and Obedience--these the Higher Law + From which Thy worlds have swerved not, singing still + Their primal hymn rejoicing, as at first + The morning stars together. Hast thou heard, + In vast and silent spaces of the sky, + What time the bead-roll of the universe + God calls in heaven, every tiniest star-- + From myriad twinkling points--from plummet depths + Of dark too vast for eye and sense to guess, + Send up a little silver answer "I am here." + Even so, the humblest of thy little ones, dear Lord, + May through the darkness hear Thy still small voice, + And answer with quick gladness "Here am I,-- + I love Thee,--I obey Thee,--use me too!" + + + + + MAY. + + + Thou comest to the year, + And bringest all things beautiful and sweet; + Thy lovely miracles themselves repeat + In the green glory of the grass, + And peeping flowers that stay our lingering feet + With their soft eyes, blue like the sky and clear; + Thou bringest not, alas, + Our lily, our May-blossom, O New Year! + + Thou bringest all things fair, + And bright, and gentle, but thou bring'st not her: + The May-birds warble, and May breezes stir + In the sweet-scented lilac boughs; + But our one May--our gentlest minister + Of gladness, with the beauty of her hair. + Her place in our still house + Is empty,--and the world is bleak and bare. + + + + + TWO WINDOWS. + + I. + + + One looks into the sun lawn, and the steep + Curved slopes of hills, set sharp against the sky, + With tufted woods encinctured, waving high + O'er vales below, where broken shadows sleep. + Here, looking forth before the first faint cry + Of mother-bird, fluttering a drowsy wing + Above her brood, awakes the full-voiced choir, + Ere yet the morning tips the hills with fire, + And turns the drapery of the east to gold, + My wondering eyes the opening heavens behold, + Where far within deep calleth unto deep, + And the whole world stands hushed and worshipping. + Even thus,--I muse,--shall heaven's gates unfold, + When earth beholds the coming of her King. + + + II. + + + This opens on the sunset, and the sea + From its high casement: never twice the same + Grand picture rises in its sea-girt frame + Islets of pearl, and rocks of porphyry + And cliffs of jasper, touched with sunset flame, + And island-trees--that look like Eden's--grow + Palm-like and slender, in gradations fine, + That fade and die along the horizon line, + And the wide heavens become--above--below-- + A luminous sea without a boundary + + Nay wistful heart,--at day-dawn, or at noon-- + Or midnight watch--the Bridegroom cometh soon; + By yonder shining path--or pearly gate; + The word is sure,--thou therefore, watch and wait. + + + + + THE MEETING OF SPIRITS. + + + From out the dark of death, before the gates + Flung wide, that open into paradise-- + More radiant than the white gates of the morn-- + A human soul, new-born, + Stood with glad wonder in its luminous eyes, + For all the glory of that blessed place + Flowed thence, and made a halo round the face-- + gentle, and strong with the rapt faith that waits + And faints not: sweet with hallowing pain + The face was, as a sunset after rain, + with a grave tender brightness. Now it turned + From the white splendours where God's glory burned, + And the long ranks of quiring cherubim-- + Each with wing-shaded eyelids, near the throne, + Who sang--and ceased not--the adoring hymn + Of Holy, Holy! And the cloud of smoke + Went up from the waved censers, with the prayers + Of saints, that wafted outward blessing-freighted broke + Around him standing at the gate alone. + All down the radiant slope of golden stairs, + By which he climbed so late from earth to heaven, + It rolled impalpable--a fragrant cloud; + And still, turned from the Alleluias loud, + Beyond the portal-guarding angels seven, + He listened earthward, for a voice--a sound + Out of the dark that spread beneath profound. + + No wind of God stirred in that cloudy land + That bordered all the River's thither side; + To his that called no voice responsive cried, + Or cleft the dark with flash of answering hand. + And soft the while, sheathed, as it were, within + The noise of heaven's rejoicing, to him stole + Beloved voices, long to earth a sole + Remembered sweetness only; sacred kept + As reliquaries are that guard from sin, + And wake the holy aim which else had slept. + How yearned his heart to those long parted ones + The amaranth, and the sacred flower which grew + A saintly lily by the jasper wall, + Making light shadows on those wondrous stones, + As the wind touched its slender stems and tall, + Turned not to sunward more divinely true, + Than his most worshipping soul to that which made + The light of heaven. + + But now the nether shade + Grew luminous with white ascending wings, + And radiant arms of angels, who upbore + With tender hands another soul new-born, + Fairer than that last star whose bearing flings + Another beauty on the brow of morn. + Nearer the lovely vision rose, and more + Aerial clear each moment to his eyes, + Who stood in ecstacy of glad surprise, + And looks of joyous welcome, while the air was stirred + With the swift winnowing plumes approaching. + + This I heard, + And only this,--"Oh! haste thee, spirit blest, + For thee and me remains at length the rest, + The welcome end of life's long toilsome road, + That leads us to our Father and our God." + And--"Oh beloved, is it thou indeed, + Hast reached before me these fair heavenly lands, + Who taught thine infant lips, with reverent heed + To say Our Father with small upraised hands: + How lovely are thine eyes, that have no pain, + And thy worn cheek, that keeps no travel-stain, + From mid-noon labour called to thy reward; + While I, at evening, a forgotten sheaf + Still left afield, in mingled trust and grief, + Waited the footsteps of our harvest Lord." + + I heard no more--for wave succeeding wave-- + A sea of intermittent music swelled and grew, + And filled the dome of heaven, all sharply cut + With spires of glittering crystal: all the land + Throbbed with the pulse of music keen, which clave + A shining path before them: hand in hand-- + With their rapt faces toward the throne--the two + Went in together--and the gates were shut. + + + + + GEORGE BROWN. + + + O Leader fallen by the wayside prone,-- + O strong great soul gone forth + For thee the wide inhospitable north, + And east and west, from sea to sea make moan: + And thy loved land, whose stalwart limbs and brain, + Beneath thy fostering care have thriven and grown + To stately stature, and erect proud head, + Freedom and Right and Justice to maintain + Here in her place inviolate. Without stain + The name and fame which stood for thee in stead + Of titles and dominions: all men's praise, + And some men's hate thou had'st, yet all shall weep thee dead; + O Leader, fallen mid-march in the ways, + Who shall fill up the measure of thy days! + + + + + TIDE-WATER. + + + Through many-winding valleys far inland, + A maze among the convoluted hills, + Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand, + And meadows ribbanded with silver rills, + Faint, mingled-up, composite sweetnesses + Of scented grass and clover, and the blue + Wild-violet hid in muffling moss and fern, + Keen and diverse another breath cleaves through, + Familiar as the taste of tears to me, + As on my lips, insistent, I discern + The salt and bitter kisses of the sea. + + The tide sets up the river; mimic fleetnesses + Of little wavelets, fretted by the shells + And shingle of the beach, circle and eddy round, + And smooth themselves perpetually: there dwells + A spirit of peace in their low murmuring noise + Subsiding into quiet, as if life were such + A struggle with inexorable bound, + Brief, bright, despairing, never over-lept, + Dying in such wise, with a sighing voice + Breathed out, and after silence absolute. + + Faith, eager hope, toil, tears, despair,--so much + The common lot,--together over-swept + Into the pitiless unreturning sea, + The vast immitigable sea. + + I walk beside the river, and am mute + Under the burden of its mystery. + The cricket pipes among the meadow grass + His shrill small trumpet, of long summer nights + Sole minstrel: and the lonely heron makes + Voyaging slow toward her reedy nest + A moving shadow among sunset lights + Upon the river's darkening wave, which breaks. + Into a thousand circling shapes that pass + Into the one black shadow of the shore. + + O tranquil spirit of the pervading test + Brooding along the valleys with shut wings + That fold all sentient and inanimate things + In their entrenched calm for evermore, + Save only the unquiet human soul; + Hear'st thou the far-off sound of waves that roll + In sighing cadence, like a soul in pain, + Hopeless of heaven or peace, beating in vain + The shores implacable for some replies + To the dumb anguish of eternal doubt, + (As I, for the sad thoughts that rise in me): + Feel'st thou upon thy heavy-lidded eyes + The salt and bitter kisses of the sea; + And dost thou draw, like me, a shuddering breath + Among dusk shadows brooding silently? + + Ah me, thou hear'st me not: I walk alone. + The doubt within me, and the dark without, + In my sad ears, the waves' recurrent moan, + Sounds like the surges of the sea of death, + Beating for evermore the shores of time + With muttered prophecies, which sorrow saith + Over and over, like a set slow chime + Of funeral bells, tolling remote, forlorn, + Dirge-like the burden--"Man was made to mourn." + + + + FORGOTTEN SONGS. + + + There is a splendid tropic flower which flings + Its fiery disc wide open to the core-- + One pulse of subtlest fragrance--once a life + That rounds a century of blossoming things + And dies, a flower's apotheosis: nevermore + To send up in the sunshine, in sweet strife + With all the winds, a fountain of live flame, + A winged censer in the starlight swung + Once only, flinging all its wealth abroad + To the wide deserts without shore or name + And dying, like a lovely song, once sung + By some dead poet, music's wandering ghost, + Aeons ago blown out of life and lost, + Remembered only in the heart of God. + + + + + TO THE DAUGHTER OF THE AUTHOR OF "VIOLET KEITH." + + + I never looked upon thy face; + I never saw thy dwelling-place; + My home is by Lake Erie's shore, + Beyond Niagara's distant roar; + And thine where ships at anchor ride, + By fair St. Lawrence's rolling tide, + With half a continent between + Its seas of blue, and isles of green, + And many a mountain's nodding crest, + And many a valley's jewelled breast. + Thou in the east, I in the west; + Yet in this book thou hast to me + An individuality; + Something more tangible and fair + Than any dream or shape of air, + With more than an ideal grace, + And sweeter than a pictured face: + For in this book my thought recalls + The garden quaint, the convent walls. + And thou beneath their shadow set, + A blue-eyed fragrant violet. + So for the maiden of the tale, + Whose brave true heart might break, not fail, + Thyself, my Violet I make, + And love thee for thy mother's sake. + + + + + A PRELUDE, AND A BIRD'S SONG. + + + The poet's song, and the bird's, + And the waters' that chant as they run + And the waves' that kiss the beach, + And the wind's--they are but one. + He who may read their words, + And the secret hid in each, + May know the solemn monochords + That breathe in vast still places; + And the voices of myriad races, + Shy, and far-off from man, + That hide in shadow and sun, + And are seen but of him who can + To him the awful face is shown + Swathed in a cloud wind-blown + Of Him, who from His secret throne, + In some void, shadowy, and unknown land + Comes forth to lay His mighty hand + On the sounding organ keys, + That play deep thunder-marches, + Like the rush and the roar of seas, + And fill the cavernous arches + Of antique wildernesses hoary, + With a long-resounding roll, + As they fill man's listening soul + With a shuddering sense of might and glory. + + These he shall hear, and more than these + In bird's song, and in poet's scroll; + Something underneath the whole, + A music yet unbreathed.--unsung-- + Unwritten--incommunicable; + Whispered from no mortal tongue: + What seer nor prophet may rehearse + In oracle, or Delphic fable, + Since the old dead gods were young, + And made with man their dwelling-place; + But he shall hear, of all his race, + The dread wherefore of life and death; + He shall behold the ultimates + Of fears and doubts, and scores and hates, + And the sure final crown of faith. + And in his ear the rhythmic verse + Shall sound the steps of that beyond, + Serene, that hastens not, nor waits, + But holds within its depths profound + The mystery of all lives--all fates-- + The secret of the universe. + + + + + AN APRIL DAWN. + + + All night a slow soft rain, + A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land, + Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand + Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again, + And fled like some wild startled thing pursued + By demons of the night and solitude, + Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain-- + The intermittent rain. + + And still the sad hours crept + Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears + Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears + That fell in silence, as she waked or slept, + Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore + Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore, + And still the rain was as a pulse that kept + Time as the slow hours crept. + + The plummet of the night + Sank through the hollow dark that closed us round, + A lamp lit globe of space; outside, the sound + Of rain-drops falling from abysmal height + To vast mysterious depths rose faint and far, + Like a dull muffled echo from some star + Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light + In the unheeding night. + + But when the April dawn + Touched the closed lattice softly, and a bird, + Too early wakened from its sleep, was stirred, + And trilled a sudden note broke off, withdrawn, + She heard and woke. All silently she laid + Her gentle hands in ours, with such a look as made + A rainbow of tears it fell upon, + Caught from another and a heavenlier dawn, + Fixed--trembled--and was gone. + Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light + In the unheeding night. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming of the Princess and Other +Poems, by Kate Seymour Maclean + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS *** + +***** This file should be named 6623.txt or 6623.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/6/6/2/6623/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince, Charles +Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team, from +images generously made available by the Canadian Institute +for Historical Microreproductions. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems + +Author: Kate Seymour Maclean + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6623] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. +This file was produced from images generously made available by the +Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions. + + + + + +THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS; AND OTHER POEMS. + +BY + +KATE SEYMOUR MACLEAN, KINGSTON, ONTARIO. + +AN INTRODUCTION, BY THE EDITOR OF "THE CANADIAN MONTHLY." + + + +INTRODUCTION. + +BY G MERCER ADAM. + +The request of the author that I should write a few words of +preface to this collection of poems must be my excuse for obtruding +myself upon the reader. Having frequently had the pleasure as +editor of _The Canadian Monthly_, of introducing many of Mrs. +MacLean's poems to lovers of verse in the Dominion it was thought +not unfitting that I should act as foster father to the collection +of them here made and to bespeak for the volume at the hands at +least of all Canadians the appreciative and kindly reception due to a + + Child of the first winds and suns of a nation. + +Accepting the task assigned to me the more readily as I discern the +high and sustained excellence of the collection as a whole let me +ask that the volume be received with interest as a further and most +meritorious contribution to the poetical literature of our young +country (the least that can be said of the work), and with sympathy +for the intellectual and moral aspirations that have called it into +being. + +There is truth, doubtless, in the remark, that we are enriched less +by what we have than by what we hope to have. As the poetic art in +Canada has had little of an appreciable past, it may therefore be +thought that the songs that are to catch and retain the ear of the +nation lie still in the future, and are as yet unsung. Doubtless +the chords have yet to be struck that are to give to Canada the +songs of her loftiest genius; but he would be an ill friend of the +country's literature who would slight the achievements of the +present in reaching solely after what, it is hoped, the coming time +will bring. + +But whatever of lyrical treasure the future may enshrine in +Canadian literature, and however deserving may be the claims of the +volumes of verse that have already appeared from the native press, +I am bold to claim for these productions of Mrs. MacLean's muse a +high place in the national collection and a warm corner in the +national heart. + +To discern the merit of a poem is proverbially easier than to say +how and in what manner it is manifested. In a collection the task +of appraisement is not so difficult. Lord Houghton has said: "There +is in truth no critic of poetry but the man who enjoys it, and the +amount of gratification felt is the only just measure of +criticism." By this test the present volume will, in the main, be +judged. Still, there are characteristics of the author's work which +I may be permitted to point out. In Mrs. MacLean's volume what +quickly strikes one is not only the fact that the poems are all of +a high order of merit, but that a large measure of art and instinct +enters into the composition of each of them. As readily will it be +recognized that they are the product of a cultivated intellect, a +bright fancy, and a feeling heart. A rich spiritual life breathes +throughout the work, and there are occasional manifestations of +fervid impulse and ardent feeling. Yet there is no straining of +expression in the poems nor is there any loose fluency of thought. +Throughout there is sustained elevation and lofty purpose. Her +least work, moreover, is worthy of her, because it is always honest +work. With a quiet simplicity of style there is at the same time a +fine command of language and an earnest beauty of thought. The +grace and melody of the versification, indeed, few readers will +fail to appreciate. Occasionally there are echoes of other +poets--Jean Ingelow and Mrs. Barrett Browning, in the more +subjective pieces, being oftenest suggested. But there is a voice +as well as an echo--the voice of a poet in her own right. In an age +so bustling and heedless as this, it were well sometimes to stop +and listen to the voice In its fine spiritualizations we shall at +least be soothed and may be bettered. + +But I need not dwell on the vocation of poetry or on the excellence +of the poems here introduced. The one is well known to the reader, +the other may soon be. Happily there is promise that Canada will +ere long be rich in her poets. They stand in the vanguard of the +country's benefactors, and so should be cherished and encouraged. +Of late our serial literature has given us more than blossomings. +The present volume enshrines some of the maturer fruit. May it be +its mission to nourish the poetic sentiment among us. May it do +more to nourish in some degree the "heart of the nation", and, in +the range of its influence, that of humanity. + + CANADIAN MONTHLY OFFICE, + Toronto, December, 1880 + + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + + +The Coming of the Princess + +Bird Song + +An Idyl of the May + +The Burial of the Scout + +Questionings + +Pansies + +November Meteors + +Pictures in the Fire + +A Madrigal + +The Ploughboy + +The Voice of Many Waters + +The Death of Autumn + +A Farewell + +The News Boy's Dream of the New Year + +The Old Church on the Hill + +The Burning of Chicago + +The Legend of the New Year + +By the Sea-Shore at Night + +Resurgam + +Written in a Cemetery + +Marguerite + +The Watch-Light + +New Year, 1868 + +Thanksgiving + +Miserere + +Beyond + +The Sabbath of the Woods + +A Valentine + +Snow-Drops + +Easter Bells + +In the Sierra Nevada + +Summer Rain + +A Baby's Death + +Christmas + +My Garden + +River Song + +The Return + +Voices of Hope + +In the Country + +Science, the Iconoclast + +What the Owl said to me + +Our Volunteers + +Night: A Phantasy + +A Monody + +Minnie + +The Golden Wedding + +Verses Written in Mary's Album + +The Woods in June + +The Isle of Sleep + +The Battle Autumn of 1862 + +In War Time + +Christmas Hymn + +Te Deum Laudamus + +A November Wood-Walk + +Resignation + +Euthanasia + +Ballad of the Mad Ladye + +The Coming of the King + +With a Bunch of Spring Flowers + +The Higher Law + +May + +Two Windows + +The Meeting of Spirits + +George Brown + +Forgotten Songs + +To the Daughter of the Author of "Violet Keith" + +A Prelude, and a Bird's Song + +An April Dawn + + + +ENVOI + + +A little bird woke singing in the night, + Dreaming of coming day, +And piped, for very fulness of delight, + His little roundelay. + +Dreaming he heard the wood-lark's carol loud, + Down calling to his mate, +Like silver rain out of a golden cloud, + At morning's radiant gate. + +And all for joy of his embowering woods, + And dewy leaves he sung,-- +The summer sunshine, and the summer floods + By forest flowers o'erhung. + +Thou shalt not hear those wild and sylvan notes + When morn's full chorus pours +Rejoicing from a thousand feathered throats, + And the lark sings and soars, + +Oh poet of our glorious land so fair, + Whose foot is at the door; +Even so my song shall melt into the air, + And die and be no more. + +But thou shalt live, part of the nation's life; + The world shall hear thy voice +Singing above the noise of war and strife, + And therefore I rejoice! + + + +THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS + +I. + + +Break dull November skies, and make +Sunshine over wood and lake, +And fill your cells of frosty air +With thousand, thousand welcomes to the Princely pair! +The land and the sea are alight for them; +The wrinkled face of old Winter is bright for them; +The honour and pride of a race +Secure in their dwelling place, +Steadfast and stern as the rocks that guard her, +Tremble and thrill and leap in their veins, +As the blood of one man through the beacon-lit border! +Like a fire, like a flame, +At the sound of her name, +As the smoky-throated cannon mutter it, +As the smiling lips of a nation utter it, +And a hundred rock-lights write it in fire! +Daughter of Empires, the Lady of Lome, +Back through the mists of dim centuries borne, +None nobler, none gentler that brave name have worn; +Shrilled by storm-bugles, and rolled by the seas, + Louise! +Our Princess, our Empress, our Lady of Lorne! + +II. + + +And the wild, white horses with flying manes +Wind-tost, the riderless steeds of the sea. +Neigh to her, call to her, dreadless and free, +"Fear not to follow us; these thy domains; +Welcome, welcome, our Lady and Queen! +O Princess, oh daughter of kingliest sire! +Under its frost girdle throbbing and keen, +A new realm awaits thee, loyal and true!" +And the round-cheeked Tritons, with fillets of blue +Binding their sea-green and scintillant hair, +Blow thee a welcome; their brawny arms bear +Thy keel through the waves like a bird through the air. + +II. + + +Shoreward the shoal of mighty shoulders lean +Through the long swell of waves, +Reaching beyond the sunset and the hollow caves, +And the ice-girdled peaks that hold serene +Each its own star, far out at sea to mark +Thy westward way, O Princess, through the dark. +The rose-red sunset dies into the dusk, +The silver dusk of the long twilight hour, +And opal lights come out, and fiery gleams +Of flame-red beacons, like the ash-gray husk +Torn from some tropic blossom bursting into flower, +Making the sea bloom red with ruddy beams. + +IV + + +Still nearer and nearer it comes, the swift sharp prow +Of the ship above and the shadow ship below, +With the mighty arms of the Titans under, +All bowed one way like a field of wind-blown ears, +Still nearer and nearer, and now +touches the strand, and, lo, +With the length of her bright hair backward flowing +Round her head like an aureole, +Like a candle flame in the wind's breath blowing, +Stands she fair and still as a disembodied soul, +With hands outstretched, and eyes that shine through tears +And tremulous smiles +When the trumpets, and the guns, and the great drums roll, +And the long fiords and the forelands shake with the thunder +Of the shout of welcome to the daughter of the Isles. + +V + + +Bring her, O people, on the shoulders of her vassals +Throned like a queen to her palace on the height, +Up the rocky steeps where the fir tree tassels +Nod to her, and touch her with a subtle, vague delight, +Like a whisper of home, like a greeting and a smile +From the fir-tree walks and gardens, the wood-embowered castles +In the north among the clansmen of Argyle. +Now the sullen plunge of waves for many a mile +Along the roaring Ottawa is heard, +And the cry of some wood bird, +Wild and sudden and sweet, +Scared from its perch by the rush and trample of feet, +And the red glare of the torches in the night. +And now the long facade gay with many a twinkling light +Reaches hands of welcome, and the bells peal, and the guns, +And the hoarse blare of the trumpets, and the throbbing + of the drums +Fill the air like shaken music, and the very waves rejoice +In the gladness, and the greeting, and the triumph of + their voice. + +VI. + + +Under triumphal arches, blazoned with banners and scrolls, +And the sound of a People's exulting, still gathering as it rolls, +Enter the gates of the city, and take the waiting throne, +And make the heart of a Nation, O Royal Pair, your own. +Sons of the old race, we, and heirs of the old and the new; +Our hands are bold and strong, and our hearts are faithful and true; +Saxon and Norman and Celt one race of the mingled blood +Who fought built cities and ships and stemmed the unknown flood +In the grand historic days that made our England great +When Britain's sons were steadfast to meet or to conquer fate +Our sires were the minster builders who wrought themselves unknown +The thought divine within them till it blossomed into stone +Forgers of swords and of ploughshares reapers of men and of grain, +Their bones and their names forgotten on many a battle plain +For faith and love and loyalty were living and sacred things +When our sires were those who wrought and yours were the leaders + and kings. + + +VII + + +For since the deeds that live in Arthur's rhyme +Who left the stainless flower of knighthood for all time +Down to our Blameless Prince wise gentle just +Whom the world mourns not by your English dust +More precious held more sacredly enshrined +Than in each loyal breast of all mankind, +Men bare the head in homage to the good, +And she who wears the crown of womanhood, +August, not less than that of Empress, reigns +The crowned Victoria of the world's domains +North, South, East, West, O Princess fair, behold +In this new world, the daughter of the old, +Where ribs of iron bar the Atlantic's breast, +Where sunset mountains slope into the west, +Unfathomed wildernesses, valleys sweet, +And tawny stubble lands of corn and wheat, +And all the hills and lakes and forests dun, +Between the rising and the setting sun; +Where rolling rivers run with sands of gold, +And the locked treasures of the mine unfold +Undreamed of riches, and the hearts of men, +Held close to nature, have grown pure again. +Like that exalted Pair, beloved, revered, +By princely grace, and truth and love endeared, +Here fix your empire in the growing West, +And build your throne in each Canadian breast, +Till West and East strike hands across the main, +Knit by a stronger, more enduring chain, +And our vast Empire become one again. + + + +BIRD SONG. + + + Art thou not sweet, +Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee! + All creatures rejoice + With one rapturous voice. + As I, with the passionate beat + Of my over-full heart feel thee sweet, +And all things that live, and are part of thee! + + Light, light as a cloud +Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me + I float in the deep + As a bird-dream in sleep, + And hear the wind murmuring loud, + Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,-- +And I see where the secret place of the thunders be + + Oh! the sky free and wide, +With all the cloud-banners flung out in it + Its singing wind blows + As a grand river flows, + And I swim down its rhythmical tide, + And still the horizon spreads wide, +With the birds' and the poets' songs like a shout in it! + + Oh life, thou art sweet +Sweet--sweet to the inmost heart of thee! + I drink with my eyes + Thy limitless skies, + And I feel with the rapturous beat + Of my wings thou art sweet-- +And I,--I am alive, and a part of thee! + + + +AN IDYL OF THE MAY. + + +In the beautiful May weather, + Lapsing soon into June; + On a golden, golden day + Of the green and golden May, + When our hearts were beating tune + To the coming feet of June, +Walked we in the woods together. + + Silver fine + Gleamed the ash buds through the darkness + of the pine, +And the waters of the stream +Glance and gleam, +Like a silver-footed dream-- + Beckoning, calling, + Flashing, falling, +Into shadows dun and brown + Slipping down, +Calling still--Oh hear! Oh follow! + Follow--follow! +Down through glen and ferny hollow, +Lit with patches of the sky, +Shining through the trees so high, +Hand in hand we went together, +In the golden, golden weather + Of the May; +While the fleet wing of the swallow +Flashing by, called--follow--follow! + And we followed through the day: + Speaking low-- +Speaking often not at all +To the brooklet's crystal call, + With our lingering feet and slow-- +Slow, and pausing here and there + For a flower, or a fern, +For the lovely maiden-hair; +Hearing voices in the air, + Calling faintly down the burn. + +Still the streamlet slid away, + Singing, smiling, dimpling down + To a mossy nook and brown, +Under bending boughs of May; +Where the nodding wind-flower grows, + And the coolwort's lovely pink, + Brooding o'er the brooklet's brink +Dips and blushes like a rose. + +And the faint smell of the mould. + Sweeter than the musky scent +Of the garden's manifold + Perfumes into perfect blent. +Lights and sounds and odours stole, + In the golden, golden weather-- +Heart and thought, and life and soul, + Stole away, + In that merry, merry May, +Wandering down the burn together. + +Ah Valentine--my Valentine! +Heard I, with my hand in thine, +Grave and low, and sweet and slow, +As the wood bird over head, +Brooding notes, half sung half said,-- +"In the world so bleak and wide, + Hearts make Edens of their own; +Wilt thou linger by my side,-- + Wilt thou live for me alone, +Making bright the winter weather, + Thou and I and love together?" + +"Yea," I said, "for thee alone,"-- + Shading eyes lest they confess + Too much their own happiness, +With the happy tears o'erflown. + +Gravely thou--"The world is not + Like this ferny hollow-- +Through a rougher, thornier lot + Wilt thou bravely follow?" +Still the brook, with softer flow, + Called, "Oh hear! Oh follow!" +"Aye," I said, with bated breath, +"Where thou goest, I will go; + Holding still thy stronger hand, + Through the dreariest desert land, + True, till death." + +Silence fell between us two, +Noiseless as the silver dew; +Hearts that had no need of speech +In the silence spoke to each; +And along the sapphire blue, +Shot with shafts of sunset through, +Fell a voice, a bodiless breath-- + "True, till death" + +Through a mist of smiles and tears, + Doubts and fears, and toils and dreams, + Oh! how long ago it seems, +Looking back across the year +Silver threads are in my hair + And the sunset shadows slope + Back along the hills of hope +That before us shone so fair. + +Ah! for us the merry May + Comes no more with golden weather; +Fields, and woods, and sunshine gay, + Purple skies, and purple heather. +We have had our holyday, +And I sit with folded hands, + In the twilight looking back + Over life's uneven track-- +Thorny wilds, and desert sands. + +Weary heart, unwearied faith, +In the twilight softly saith-- +"We have had our golden weather-- + We have walked through life together, + True, till death!" + + + +THE BURIAL OF THE SCOUT. + + + O not with arms reversed, + And the slow beating of the muffled drum, + And funeral marches, bring our hero home +These stormy woods where his young heart was nursed + Ring with a trumpet burst +Of jubilant music, as if he who lies + With shrouded face, and lips all white and dumb +Were a crowned conqueror entering paradise,-- + This is his welcome home! + +Along the reedy marge of the dim lake, + I hear the gathering horsemen of the North, +The cavalry of night and tempest wake,-- + Blowing keen bugles as they issue forth, +To guard his homeward march in frost and cold, + A thousand spearmen bold! + + And the deep-bosomed woods, +With their dishevelled locks all wildly spread, +Stretch ghostly arms to clasp the immortal dead, + Back to their solitudes +While through their rocking branches overhead, + And all their shuddering pulses underground +shiver runs, as if a voice had said-- + And every farthest leaf had felt the wound-- + He comes--but he is dead! + + The dainty-fingered May +with gentle hand shall fold and put away + The snow-white curtains of his winter tent, +and spread above him her green coverlet, + 'Broidered with daisies, sweet to sight and scent +and Summer, from her outposts in the hills, + Under the boughs with heavy night-dews wet, +shall place her gold and purple sentinels, + And in the populous woods sound reveille, +falling from field and fen her sweet deserters back-- + But he,--no long roll of the impatient drum, +for battle trumpet eager for the fray, + From the far shores of blue Lake Erie blown, +shall rouse the soldier's last long bivouac. + + + +QUESTIONINGS. + + +I touch but the things which are near; + The heavens are too high for my reach: + In shadow and symbol and creed, + I discern not the soul from the deed, + Nor the thought hidden under, from speech; +And the thing which I know not I fear. + +I dare not despair nor despond, + Though I grope in the dark for the dawn: + Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath, + And tears, and the blank void of death, + Round each its penumbra is drawn,-- +I touch them,--I see not beyond. + +What voice speaking solemn and slow, + Before the beginning for me, + From the mouth of the primal First Cause, + Shall teach me the thing that I was, + Shall point out the thing I shall be, +And show me the path that I go? + +Were there any that missed me, or sought, + In the cycles and centuries fled. + Ere my soul had a place among men?-- + Even so, unremembered again + I shall lie in the dust with the dead, +And my name shall be heard not, nor thought. + +Yea rather,--from out the abyss, + Where the stars sit in silence and light, + When the ashes and dust of our world + Are like leaves in their faces up-whirled,-- + What orb shall look down through the night, +And take note of the quenching of this? + +Yea, beyond--in the heavens of space + Where Jehovah sits, absolute Lord, + Who made out of nothing the whole + Round world, and man's sentient soul-- + Will He crush, like a creature abhorred, +What He fashioned with infinite grace + +In His own awful image, and made + Quick with the flame of His breath,-- + Which He saw and behold it was good?-- + Ah man! thou hast waded through blood + And crime down to darkness and death, +Since thou stood'st before Him unafraid. + +My life falls away like a flower + Day by day,--dispersed of the wind + Its vague perfume, nor taketh it root, + Ripening seeds for the sower, or fruit + To make me at one with my kind, +And give me my work, and my hour + +No creed for my hunger sufficed, + Though I clung to them, each after other, + They slipped from my passionate hold,-- + The prophets, the martyrs of old,-- + Thy pitying face, Mary Mother,-- +Thy thorn-circled forehead, O Christ! + +Pilgrim sandalled, the deserts have known + The track of my wandering feet, + Where dead saints and martyrs have trod, + To search for the pure faith of God, + Making life with its bitterness sweet, +And death the white gate to a throne. + +O Thou, who the wine-press hast trod, + O sorrowful--stricken--betrayed,-- + Thy cross o'er my spirit prevails; + In Thy hands with the print of the nails, + My life with its burdens is laid,-- +O Christ--Thou art sole--Thou art God! + + + +PANSIES. + + +When the earliest south winds softly blow +Over the brown earth, and the waning snow +In the last days of the discrowned March,-- +Before the silver tassels of the larch, +Or any tiniest bud or blade is seen; +Or in the woods the faintest kindling green, + And all the earth is veiled in azure mist, +Waiting the far-off kisses of the sun,-- +They lift their bright heads shyly one by one. + And offer each, in cups of amethyst, +Drops of the honey wine of fairy land,-- +A brimming beaker poised in either hand +Fit for the revels of King Oberon, +With all his royal gold and purple on: +Children of pensive thought and airy fancies, +Sweeter than any poet's sweetest stanzas, + Though to the sound of eloquent music told, + Or by the lips of beauty breathed or sung: +They thrill us with their backward-looking glances, + They bring us to the land that ne'er grows old,-- + They mind us of the days when life was young +Nor time had stolen the fire from youth's romances, + Dear English pansies! + +While still the hyacinth sleeps on securely, +And every lily leaf is folded purely, + Nor any purple crocus hath arisen; +Nor any tulip raised its slender stem, + And burst the earth-walls of its winter prison, +And donned its gold and jewelled diadem; +Nor by the brookside in the mossy hollow, +That calls to every truant foot to follow, + The cowslip yet hath hung its golden ball,-- +In the wild and treacherous March weather, +The pansy and the sunshine come together, + The sweetest flower of all! + The sweetest flower that blows; + Sweeter than any rose, +Or that shy blossom opening in the night, +Its waxen vase of aromatic light-- +A sleepy incense to the winking stars; + Nor yet in summer heats, + That crisp the city streets,-- +Where the spiked mullein grows beside the bars +In country places, and the ox-eyed daisy +Blooms in the meadow grass, and brooks are lazy, +And scarcely murmur in the twinkling heat; +When sound of babbling water is so sweet, + Blue asters, and the purple orchis tall, +Bend o'er the wimpling wave together;-- +The pansy blooms through all the summer weather, + The sweetest flower of all! + + The sweetest flower that blows! +When all the rest are scattered and departed, +The symbol of the brave and faithful-hearted, + Her bright corolla glows. +When leaves hang pendant on their withered stalks, +Through all the half-deserted garden walks; +And through long autumn nights, +The merry dancers scale the northern heights, +And tiny crystal points of frost-white fire +Make brightly scintillant each blade and spire, + Still under shade of shelt'ring wall, +Or under winter's shroud of snows, +Undimmed, the faithful pansy blows, + The sweetest flower of all! + + + +NOVEMBER METEORS. + + +Out of the dread eternities, + The vast abyss of night, +A glorious pageant rose and shone, + And passed from human sight. +We saw the glittering cavalcade, + And heard inwove through all, +Faint and afar from star to star, + The sliding music fall. + +With banners and with torches, + And hoofs of glancing flame, +With helm and sword and pennon bright + The long procession came. +And all the starry spaces, + Height above height outshone, +And the bickering clang of their armour rang + Down to the farthest zone. + +As if some grand cathedral, + With towers of malachite, +And walls of more than crystal clear, + Rose out of the solid light, +And under its frowning gateway, + Each morioned warrior stept, +And in radiant files down the ringing aisles, + The martial pageant swept. + +From out the oriel windows, + From vault, and spire, and dome, +And sparkling up from base to cope, + The light and glory clomb. +They knelt before the altar, + Each mailed and visored knight, +And the censers swung as a voice outrung,-- + 'Now God defend the right'! + +On casque, and brand, and corselet + Fell the red light of Mars, +As forth from the minster gates they passed + To the battle of the stars. +Across moon-lighted depths of space, + And breadths of purple seas, +Their flying squadrons sailed in fleets, + Of fiery argosies: + +Down lengths of shining rivers, + Past golded-sanded bars, +And nebulous isles of amethyst, + They dropt like falling stars: +Till on a scarped and wrinkled coast, + Washed by dark waves below, +They came upon the glittering tents-- + The city of the foe. + +Then rushed they to the battle; + Their bright hair blazed behind, +As deadlier than the bolt they fell, + And swifter than the wind. +And all the stellar continents, + With that fierce hail thick sown, +Recoiled with fear, from sphere to sphere + To Saturn's ancient throne. + +The blind old king, in ermine wrapt. + And immemorial cold, +Awoke, and raised his aged hands, + And shook his rings of gold. +Down toppled plume and pennon bright, + In endless ruin hurled, +Their blades of light struck fire from night-- + Their splendours lit the world! + +And rolling down the hollow spheres, + The mighty chords, the seven, +Clanged on from orb to orb, and smote + Orion in mid-heaven. +Along the ground the white tents lay; + And faint along the fields. +The foe's swart hosts, like glimmering ghosts, + Followed his chariot wheels. + +With banners and with torches, + And armour all aflame, +The victors and the vanquished went, + Departing as they came; +With here and there a rocket sent + Up from some lonely barque: +Into the vast abysm they passed,-- + Into the final dark. + + + + +PICTURES IN THE FIRE + + +The wind croons under the icicled eaves-- + Croons and mutters a wordless song, +And the old elm chafes its skeleton leaves + Against the windows all night long. + +Under the spectral garden wall, + The drifts creep steadily high and higher +And the lamp in the cottage lattice small + Twinkles and winks like an eye of fire. + +But I see a vision of summer skies + Growing out of the embers red, +Under the lids of my half-shut eyes, + With my arms crossed idly under my head. + +I see a stile, and a roadside lime, + With buttercups growing about its feet, +And a footpath winding a sinuous line + In and out of the billowy wheat. + +For long ago in the summer noons, + Under the shade of that trysting tree, +My love brought wheat ears and clover blooms, + And vows that were sweeter than both, to me. + +Reading the "Times" in his easy chair, + With his slippered feet on the fender bright, +Little, I wot, he dreams how fair + Are the pictures I see in the fire to night. + +Still the wind pipes under the serried spears + Of frozen boughs a desolate rhyme, +But I hear the rustle of golden ears, + And in my heart it is summer time. + + + + +A MADRIGAL + + +The lily-bells ring underground, + Their music small I hear +When globes of dew that shine pearl round + Hang in the cowslip's ear +And all the summer blooms and sprays + Are sheathed from the sun, +And yet I feel in many ways + Their living pulses run. + +The crowning rose of summer time + Lies folded on its stem, +Its bright urn holds no honey-wine, + Its brow no diadem, +And yet my soul is inly thrilled, + As if I stood anear +Some legal presence unrevealed, + The queen of all the year. + +Oh Rose, dear Rose! the mist and dew + Uprising from the lake, +And sunshine glancing warmly through, + Have kissed the flowers awake-- +The orchard blooms are dropping balm, + The tulip's gorgeous cup +More slender than a desert palm + It's chalice lifteth up. + +The birds are mated in the trees, + The wan stars burn and pale-- +Oh Rose, come forth!--upon the breeze + I hear the nightingale +Unfold the crimson waves that lie + In darkness rosy dim, +And swing thy fragrant censer high, + Oh royal Rose for him! + +The hyacinths are in the fields + With purple splendours pale +Their sweet bells ring responsive peals + To every passing gale +And violets bending in the grass + Do hide their glowing eyes, +When those enchanting voices pass, + Like airs from Paradise. + +We crowned our blushing Queen of May + Long since, with dance and tune, +But the merry world of yesterday + Is lapsing into June-- +Thou art not here,--we look in vain-- + Oh Rose arise, appear!-- +Resume thine emerald throne, and reign + The queen of all the year! + + + +THE PLOUGHBOY. + + +I wonder what he is thinking + In the ploughing field all day. +He watches the heads of his oxen, + And never looks this way. + +And the furrows grow longer and longer, + Around the base of the hill, +And the valley is bright with the sunset, + Yet he ploughs and whistles still. + +I am tired of counting the ridges, + Where the oxen come and go, +And of thinking of all the blossoms + That are trampled down below. + +I wonder if ever he guesses + That under the ragged brim +Of his torn straw hat I am peeping + To steal a look at him. + +The spire of the church and the windows + Are all ablaze in the sun. +He has left the plough in the furrow, + His summer day's work is done. + +And I hear him carolling softly + A sweet and simple lay, +That we often have sung together, + While he turns the oxen away. + +The buttercups in the pasture + Twinkle and gleam like stars. +He has gathered a golden handful, + A leaning over the bars. + +He has shaken the curls from his forehead, + And is looking up this way,-- +O where is my sun-bonnet, mother? + He was thinking of me all day,-- + +And I'm going down to the meadow, + For I know he is waiting there, +To wreathe the sunshiny blossoms + In the curls of my yellow hair. + + + +THE VOICE OF MANY WATERS. + + +Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning +Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,-- +Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning +Over thy fathomless depths, and treacherous island bars:-- + +Oh thou complaining sea, that fillest the wide void spaces +Of the blue nebulous air with thy perpetual moan, +Day and night, day and night, out of thy desolate places-- +Tell me thy terrible secret, oh Sea! what hast thou done. + +Sometimes in the merry mornings, with the sunshine's golden wonder +Glancing along thy cheek, unwrinkled of any wind, +Thou seemest to be at peace, stifling thy great heart under +A face of absolute calm,--with danger and death behind! + +But I hear thy voice at midnight, smiting the awful silence +With the long suspiration of thy pain suppressed; +And all the blue lagoons, and all the listening islands +Shuddering have heard, and locked thy secret in their breast! + +Oh Sea! thou art like my heart, full of infinite sadness and pity,-- +Of endless doubt and endeavour, of sorrowful question and strife, +Like some unlighted fortress within a beleagured city, +Holding within and hiding the mystery of life. + + + +THE DEATH OF AUTUMN. + + + Discrowned and desolate, +And wandering with dim eyes and faded hair, +Singing sad songs to comfort her despair, + Grey Autumn meets her fate. + + Forsaken and alone +She haunts the ruins of her queenly state, +Like banished Eve at Eden's flaming gate, + Making perpetual moan. + + Crazed with her grief she moves +Along the banks of the frost-charmed rills, +And all the hollows of the wooded hills, + Searching for her lost loves. + + From verdurous base to cope, +The sunny hill-sides, and sweet pasture lands, +Where bubbling brooks reach ever-dimpled hands + Along the amber slope,-- + + And valleys drowsed between, +In the rich purple of the vintage time, +When cups of gold that drop with fragrant wine, + From orchard branches lean;-- + + And far beyond them, spread +Broad fields thick set with sheaves of yellow wheat, +Where scarlet poppies, slumberously sweet, + Glow with a dusky red-- + + To the remotest zone +Of hazy woodland pencilled on the sky, +On whose far spires the clouds of sunset lie,-- + She held her regal throne! + + Queen of a princely race, +Whose ministers were all the elements; +Sunshine, and rain, and dew she did dispense + With a right royal grace. + + Now, not a breath of air, +Nor sunbeam, nor the voice of beast or bird, +Stirring the lonely woods, hath any word + To comfort her despair. + + Insidious, day by day +A smouldering flame, a lurid crimson creeps +Into the ashy whiteness of her cheeks, + And burns her life away. + + The cavernous woods are dumb! +Through their oracular depths and secret nooks, +To the mute supplication of her looks + No mystic voices come + + And through the still grey air +The night comes down, and hangs her lamp on high, +Like a wan lily blossomed on the sky, + Shining so ghostly fair, + + Or looming up the heights, +Those awful spectres of the frozen zone +Splinter the crystal of heaven's sapphire dome, + With arrowy-glancing lights. + + The while hoarse night winds rave, +The old year looking backward to his prime +With dim fond eyes, down the last steps of time + Goes maundering to his grave! + + + +A FAREWELL + + +Down the steep west unrolled, + I watch the river of the sunset flow, +With all its crimson lights, and gleaming gold, + Into the dusk below. + +And even as I gaze, + The soft lights fade,-the pageant gay is o'er, +And all is grey and dark, like those lost days, + The days that are no more. + +No more through whispering pines, + I shall behold, in the else silent even, +The first faint star-watch set along the lines + Of the white tents of heaven. + +Before the earliest buds + Have softly opened, heralding the May +With tender light illuming the gray woods, + I shall be gone away. + +Ah! wood-walks winding sweet + Through all the valleys sloping to the west, +Where glad brooks wander with melodious feet, + In musical unrest,-- + +Ye will not miss me here + With all the bright things of the coming May, +And the rejoicing of the awakened year,-- + I shall be far away. + +Yet in your loneliest nooks, + I know where all the greenest mosses grow, +And where the violets lift their first sweet looks, + Out of the waning snow. + +And I have heard, unsought, + Under the musing shadows of the beech, +Wood-voices answering my unspoken thought, + In half-articulate speech. + +And oh! ye shadowy bands, + Rank above rank along yon rocky height, +That lift into the heavens your mailed hands, + And linked armour bright. + +What other eyes will trace + From this dear window haunted with the past, +Strange likeness to some well beloved face, + Among your profiles vast? + +What stranger hands will tend + The nameless treasures I must leave behind,-- +My flowers, my birds, and each inanimate friend, + Linked closer than my kind. + +These glorious landscapes old, + Framed in my cottage windows,--hill-sides dun, +With umber shadows lightened to pale gold + By touches of the sun,-- + +Valleys like emeralds set + Lonely and sweet in the dusk hills afar, +That half enclose them, like a carcanet + That holds a diamond star. + +Will any gentler face, + Weary and sad sometimes, like mine grow bright +Touched with your simple beauty-in my place, + My garden of delight?-- + +I know not,--yet farewell + Sweet home of mine,--my parting song is o'er, +And stranger forms among your bowers shall dwell, + Where I return no more. + + + + +THE NEWS-BOY'S DREAM OF THE NEW YEAR + + +Under the bare brown rafters, + In his garret bed he lay, +And dreamed of the bright hereafters. + And the merry morns of May. + +The snow-flakes slowly sifted + In through each cranny and seam, +But only the sunshine drifted + Into the news-boy's dream. + +For he dreamed of the brave to-morrows, + His eager eyes should scan, +When battling with wants and sorrows, + He felt himself a Man. + +He felt his heart grow bolder + For the struggle and the strife, +When shoulder joined to shoulder, + In the battle-field of life. + +And instead of the bare brown rafters, + And the snowflakes sifting in, +He saw in the glad hereafters, + The home his hands should win. + +The flowers that grew in its shadow, + And the trees that drooped above; +The low of the kine in the meadow, + And the coo of the morning dove. + +And dearer and more tender, + He saw his mother there, +As she knelt in the sunset splendour, + To say the evening prayer. + +His face--the sun had burned it, + And his hands were rough and hard, +But home, he had fairly earned it, + And this was his reward! + +The morning star's faint glimmer + Stole into the garret forlorn, +And touched the face of the dreamer + With the light of a hope new-born. + +Oh, ring harmonious voices + Of New Year's welcoming bells! +For the very air rejoices. + Through all its sounding cells! + +I greet ye! oh friends and neighbours + The smith and the artizan; +I share in your honest labours, + A Canadian working-man. + +To wield the axe or the hammer, + To till the yielding soil, +Enroll me under your banner, + Oh Brotherhood of Toil! + +Ring, bells of the brave to-morrows! + And bring the time more near: +Ring out the wants and the sorrows, + Ring in the glad New Year! + + + +THE OLD CHURCH ON THE HILL. + + +Moss-grown, and venerable it stands, + From the way-side dust and noise aloof, +And the great elms stretch their sheltering hands + To bless its grey old roof. + +About it summer's greenery waves; + The birds build fearless overhead; +Its shadow falls among the graves; + Around it sleep the dead. + +The summer sunshine softly takes + The chancel window's pictured gloom; +The moonlight enters too, and makes + The shadow of a tomb. + +Along these aisles the bride hath passed, + And brightened, with her innocent grace. +The pensive twilight years have cast + About the holy place. + +They brought her here--a tiny maid, + Unweeting any gain or loss, +And on her baby forehead laid + The symbol of the Cross. + +And here they brought her once again, + White-robed, and smiling as she slept; +While lips, that trembled, breathed her name, + And eyes that saw her wept. + +And still, when sunset lights his fire + Along the gold and crimsoned west, +She sleeps beneath the shadowing spire, + The cross upon her breast. + +I watch it from my lonely cot, + When stars shine o'er the hallowed ground, +And think there is no sweeter spot, + The whole wide earth around. + +The Sabbath chimes there sink and swim + Along the consecrated air, +The benediction and the hymn, + The voice of praise and prayer: + +These mingle with the wind's free song, + The hum of bees, the notes of birds, +And make an anthem sweet and strong + Of inarticulate words. + +There let me rest, when I have found + The peace of God, the immortal calm, +Where still above my sleep profound, + Goes up the Sabbath psalm. + + + + +THE BURNING OF CHICAGO. + + +Out of the west a voice--a shudder of horror and pity; + Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;-- +Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city. + Out of the North a cry--lamentation and mourning and woe. + +Dust and ashes and darkness her splendour and brightness cover, + Like clouds above the glory of purple mountain peaks; +She sits with her proud head bowed, and a mantle of blackness over-- + She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. + +The city of gardens and palaces, stately and tall pavilions, + Roofs flashing back the sunlight, music and gladness and mirth, +Whose streets were full of the hum and roar of the toiling millions, + Whose merchantmen were princes, and the honourable of the earth: + +Whose traders came from the islands--from far off summer places, + Bringing spices and pearls, and the furs and skins of beasts. +Men from the frozen North, and men with fierce dark faces, + Full of the desert fire, and the untamed life of the East. + +Treasures of gems and gold, of statues and flowers and fountains, + Vases of onyx and jasper from Indian emperors sent; +Pictures out of the heart of tropical sunlit mountains, + Of rocks of porphyry piled at the gates of the Occident. + +Dusk-brown sons of the forest, hunters of deer and of bison, + And the almond-eyed child of the sun met in her busy streets, +With waifs from the banks of the Indus, and the ancient river Pison-- + Lands of the date and the palm, and the citron's hoarded sweets. + +The surging tide of the prairie rolled its billows of blossom + Against her mighty walls, and beat at her hundred gates; +The riches of all the world were poured into her bosom, + Kings were her mighty men, and lords, and potentates. + +She sat in her place by the sea, and the swift-sailing ships + obeyed her. + Full freighted with corn and wheat their purple sails unfurled, +Far-off in the morning land, and the isles beyond the equator; + Out of her heaped-up garners she scattered the bread of the world. + +As her pride and her beauty were perfect, so desolation and mourning, + Swift and sudden, and sure her utter destruction came, +The heavens above were dark with the smoke of her awful burning, + And the earth and the sea were lighted with the fierceness + of her flame. + +Behold oh, England! oh, Europe! and see is there any sorrow +Like hers who sits in silence among her children slain, +Oh, blackness of woe and ruin! can any future morrow + Bring back to the shrouded city her glory and crown again! + +Aye, subtle and wonderful links of human love and pity, + Ye have bridged the sea of ruin, and spanned it with a span! +She shall rise again from her ashes and build a fairer city, + With a larger faith in God, and the Brotherhood of Man, + + + +THE LEGEND OF THE NEW YEAR. + + +I dreamed, and lo, I saw in my dream a beautiful gateway, + Arched at the top, and crowned with turrets lance-windowed and olden, + And sculptured in arabesque, all knotted and woven and spangled; + A wonderful legend ran, in letters purple and golden + Written in leaves and blossoms, inextricably intertangled, +A legend I could not resolve, crowning the gate so stately. + +Like statues carven and niched in the front of some old cathedral, + Four angels stood each in his turret, immovable warders, + The first with reverend locks snow-white, and a silver volume + Of beard that twinkled with frost, and hung to the icicled borders + That fringed his girdle beneath: ancient his look was, and solemn, +Like a wrinkled and bearded saint blessing some worshipping bedral. + +As one in a vision wrapped, with his staff he silently pointed + To the golden legend written in glittering star-points under, + Shining in crystal ferns, and translucent berries of holly. + Yet as I pondered the words of ineffable awe and wonder, + A mist of rainbow brightness obscured them, and hid them wholly, +While wrapt in his vision he stood, like a prophet anointed. + +Divers, yet lovely the next, a white-armed, golden-haired maiden; + Blue were her eyes and sweet, and her garments were lily-bordered; + Her hands were full of flowers, and her eyes of innocent gladness, + As the ranks of buds and blossoms, of bees and buds she ordered, + Each in their several paths. Mine eyes were heavy with sadness, +For I read not yet the legend with beauty and mystery laden. + +Robed and crowned like an empress in some medieval palace, + Stood the third in her place, with glances of sun-lighted splendour; + Stately her height and tall as a queen in some antique story, + With sheaves about her feet, and the tribute which nations render + To her as the lady of Kingdoms, yet underneath the glory +Of that bright legend to hers was like a containing chalice. + +Last of the four, in her turret, serene and benignant, + Sat in the midst of her children and maidens, a household mother; + Want, and the sons of penury dwell not among her neighbours; + Full is her heart of love: her hands wipe the tears of another, + Yet brings she the gold and the pearls of her manifold labours, +To add to that shining legend the grace of her name and her signet. + +Fast closed were the gates, and mute in their places the wardens; + No voice in my longing ear whispered the mystical sentence, + And my heart was heavy, and chilled with the fruitless endeavour. + On this side lay the snow and the wind, like the wail of repentance, + Moaned in the branches forlorn but through the closed lattices ever +Drifted a stir and a fragrance of springtime over the borders. + +Then through the stillness of night struck the clash and the clangor + Of bells that told twelve from the towers of the neighbouring city; + And lo! the great gates were flung wide, and thronged with the + hurrying races-- + High and low, rich and poor--and the light of ineffable pity, + And infinite love shone down and illumined their faces, +Faces of dolor some, of hope, of sorrow, and anger. + +Loud clanged the hells from the towers in jubilant rudeness, + And like the voice of a multitude rising respondent, + The words of that marvellous legend made vocal the silence-- + The voice of all sentient creatures ascended triumphant, + And all the listening forests, and mountains, and islands +Heard it, and sang it, "He crowneth the Year with His goodness!" + +Praise Him, O sounding seas, and floods! praise Him, abounding rivers; + Praise Him, ye flowery months, and every fruitful season! + Praise Him, O stormy wind, and ice, and snow, and vapor, + Ye cattle that clothe the hills, and man with marvellous reason; + Who crowneth the year with goodness, who prospereth all thy labour, +Yea, let all flesh bless the Lord, and magnify Him forever! + + + + +BY THE SEA-SHORE AT NIGHT. + + +Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!-- + That rest not day nor night,-- + I hear ye when the light +Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.-- + +All day the winds were out, and rode + Their steeds, your tossing crest,-- + To-night the fierce winds rest, +And the moon walks above them her bright road. + +Yet none the less ye lift your hands, + And your despairing cry + Up to the midnight sky, +And clutch, and trample on the shuddering sands, + +That shrink and tremble even in sleep, + Out of your passionate reach, + Afraid of your dread speech, +And the more dreadful silence that ye keep + +Oh sapping waves!--oh mining waves!-- + Under the oak's gnarled feet, + And tower, and village street, +Scooping by stealth in darkness myriad graves;-- + +What secret strive ye thus to hide, + A thousand fathoms deep, + Which the sea will not keep, +And pours, and babbles forth upon her refluent tide?-- + +I see your torn and wind-blown hair, + Shewn far along the shore,-- + And lifted evermore +You white hands tossing in a fierce despair; + +And half I deem ye hold below, + In vast and wandering cell, + The primal spirits who fell, +Reserved in chains and immemorial woe. + +Keep ye, oh waves!--your mystery:-- + The time draws on apace, + When from before His face, +The heavens and the earth shall flee, +And evermore there shall be no more sea! + + + + +RESURGAM + + +Into the darkness and the deeps + My thoughts have strayed, where silence dwells, +Where the old world encrypted sleeps,-- + Myriads of forms, in myriad cells, +Of dead and inorganic things, + That neither live, nor move, nor grow, + Nor any change of atoms know; +That have neither legs, nor arms, nor wings, +That have neither heads, nor mouths, nor stings, +That have neither roots, nor leaves, nor stems, +To hold up flowers like diadems, + Growing out of the ground below: + But which hold instead + The cycles dead, +And out of their stony and gloomy folds +Shape out new moulds + For a new race begun; +Shutting within dark pages, furled + As in a vast herbarium, + The flowers and balms, + The pines and palms, + The ferns and cones, + All turned to stones +Of all the unknown elder world, + As in a wonderful museum, +Ranged in its myriad mummy shelves. + Insects and worms,-- + All lower forms + Of fin and scale, + Of gnat and whale, +Fish, bird, and the monstrous mastodon, +The fabulous megatherium, +And men themselves. + +Ah, what life is here compressed, +Frozen into endless rest! +Down through springing blades and spires, + Down through mines, and crypts, and caves, + Still graves on graves, and graves on graves, +Down to earth's most central fires. + +The morning stars sang at their birth, + In the first beginnings of time. +What voice of dolour or of mirth + At their last funeral made moan,-- +Ashes to ashes--earth to earth, + And stone to stone,-- + Chanting the liturgy sublime. + +What matter,--in that doom's-day book + Their place is fixed--their names are writ, +Each in its individual nook,-- + God's eye beholds--remembers it. + +When the slow-moving centuries +Have lapsed in the former eternities,-- + When the day is come which we see not yet,-- +When the sea gives up its dead-- + And the thrones are set, +These books shall be opened and read! + + + +WRITTEN IN A CEMETERY. + + +Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses, + And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;-- +Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses + My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines. + +Stay yet awhile;--let not the chill October + Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed; +Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober, + Among the tuberoses above his head. + +I would have all things fair, and sweet, and tender,-- + The daisy's pearl, the cowslip's shield of snow, +And fragrant hyacinths in purple splendour, + About my darling's grassy couch to grow. + +Oh birds!--small pilgrims of the summer weather, + Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;-- +Here floats the thistle down for you to gather, + And bearded grasses ripen in the dell. + +Here pipe, and plume your wings, and chirp and flutter, + And swing, light-poised upon the pendant bough;-- +Fondly I deem he hears the calls ye utter, + And stirs in his light sleep to answer you. + +Oh wind!--that blows through hours of nights and lonely, + Oh rain!--that sobs against my window pane,-- +Ye beat upon my heart, which beats but only + To clasp and shelter my lost lamb again. + +Peace--peace, my soul:--I know that in another + And brighter land my darling walks and waits, +Where we shall surely meet and clasp each other, + Beyond the threshold of the shining gates. + + + +MARGUERITE + + +Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! +Thy sleep is sound, and still and sweet, +Framed in the pale gold of thy hair, +Thy face is like an angel's fair, + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + +Tender curves of cheek and lips-- +Sweet eyes hid in long eclipse-- +Pale robes flowing to thy feet-- +Folded hands that lightly meet,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + +Sleep'st thou still?--the world awakes,-- +Still the echo swells and breaks,-- +Over field, and wood, and street +Easter anthems throb and beat,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + +Christ the Lord is risen again,-- +Hear'st thou not the glad refrain,-- +Have those gentle lips no breath, +Smiling in the trance of death?-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + +In the grave from whence He rose, +Lay thee to thy long repose,-- +Sweet with myrrh and spices,--sweet +With the footprints of His feet,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + +Where His sacred head hath lain, +Thine may rest, secure from pain. +While the circling years go round, +Without motion,--without sound,-- + Marguerite,--oh Marguerite! + + + +THE WATCH-LIGHT. + + +Above the roofs and chimney-tops, + And through the slow November rain, + A light from some far attic pane, +Shines twinkling through the water-drops. + +Some lonely watcher waits and weeps, + Like me, the step that comes not yet;-- + Her watch for weary hours is set, +While far below the city sleeps. + +The level lamp-rays lay the floors, + And bridge the dark that lies below, + O'er which my fancies come and go, +And peep, and listen at the doors; + +And bring me word how sweet and plain, + And quaint the lonely attic room, + Where she sits singing in the gloom, +Words sadder than the autumn rain. + +A thousand times by sea and shore, + In my wild dreams I see him lie, + With face upturned toward the sky, +Murdered, and stiffening in his gore;-- + +Or drowned, and floating with the tide, + Within some lonely midnight bay,-- + His arms stretched toward me where he lay, +And blue eyes staring, fixed and wide. + +Oh winds that rove o'er land and sea! + Oh waves that lap the yellow sands! + Oh hide your stealthy, treacherous hands, +And call no more his name to me.'-- + +Thus much I heard,--and unawares, + The sense of pity stole away + My loneliness and misery,-- +When lo, a light step on the stairs!-- + +Ah joy!--the step that brings my own, + Safe from all harms and dangers in;-- + My heart lifts up its thankful hymn, +And bids' good-night to night and moan. + +I sleep,--I rest,--and I forget + The bridge-the night-lamp's level beams, + Till waiting out of happy dreams, +I see her watch-light shining yet. + +God comfort those that watch in vain,-- + I breathe to Him my voiceless prayer; + Pity their tears and their despair, +And bring the wanderers home again, + + + +NEW YEAR, 1868. + + +Cradled in ice, and swathed in snows, + And shining like a Christmas rose, +Wreathed round with white chrysanthemums; + Heaven in his innocent, brave blue eyes, + Straight from the primal paradise, +Behold the infant New Year comes! + +His looks a serious sweetness wear, + As if upon that unseen way, +Those baby hands that lightly bear + Garlands, and festive tokens gay, + For but a glance,--a touch sufficed,-- +Had met and touched the infant Christ! + +And lingering on the wing, had heard, + Sweeter than song of any bird, +Of cherub or of seraphim, + The notes of that divinest hymn,-- + Glory to God in highest strain, +And peace on earth, good will to men. + +Oh, diamond days, so royally set + In winter's stern and rugged breast, +Like jewels in an amulet,-- + Your light has cheered, and soothed, and blest, + The want and toil, the sighs and tears, +And sorrows-of a thousand years! + +The bells ring in the merry morn, + The poor forget their poverty, +The saddest face grows bright with glee, + And smiles for joy that he is born; + The fair round world shines out with cheer, +To welcome in the glad New Year. + +Oh ye, whose homes are warm and bright, + With plenty smiling at the board, +Remember those whose roofs to-night, + Nor warmth, nor light, nor food afford, + Still make those wants, and woes your care, +And let the poor your bounty share. + +For yet our hills and lakes along + Echoes the herald angels' song,-- +Peace and good will!--oh look abroad,-- + In every nation, tribe, and clan, + Behold the brotherhood of man,-- +Behold the Fatherhood of God! + +Peace to our mountains and our hills,-- + Peace to our rivers and our rills;-- +Our young Dominion takes her place + Among the nations west and east,-- + God send her length of happy days, +And years of plenty and of peace! + + + + +THANKSGIVING. + + +The Autumn hills are golden at the top, + And rounded as a poet's silver rhyme; +The mellow days are ruby ripe, that drop + One after one into the lap of time. + +Dead leaves are reddening in the woodland copse, + And forest boughs a fading glory wear; +No breath of wind stirs in their hazy tops, + Silence and peace are brooding everywhere. + +The long day of the year is almost done, + And nature in the sunset musing stands, +Gray-robed, and violet-hooded like a nun, + Looking abroad o'er yellow harvest lands: + +O'er tents of orchard boughs, and purple vines + With scarlet flecked, flung like broad banners out +Along the field paths where slow-pacing lines + Of meek-eyed kine obey the herdboy's shout; + +Where the tired ploughman his dun oxen turns, + Unyoked, afield, mid dewy grass to stray, +While over all the village church spire burns-- + A shaft of flame in the last beams of day. + +Empty and folded are her busy hands; + Her corn and wine and oil are safely stored, +As in the twilight of the year she stands, + And with her gladness seems to thank the Lord. + +Thus let us rest awhile from toil and care, + In the sweet sabbath of this autumn calm, +And lift our hearts to heaven in grateful prayer, + And sing with nature our thanksgiving psalm. + + + + +MISERERE + + +Be pitiful, oh God! the night is long, + My soul is faint with watching for the light, + And still the gloom and doubt of seven-fold night +Hangs heavy on my spirit: Thou art strong.-- + Pity me, oh my God! + +I stretch my hands through darkness up to Thee,-- + The stars are shrouded, and the night is dumb; + There is no earthly help,--to Thee I come +In all my helplessness and misery,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + +Be pitiful, oh God!--for I am weak, + And all my paths are rough, and hedged about,-- + Hold Thou my hand dear Lord, and lead me out, +And bring me to the city which I seek,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + +By the temptation which Thou didst endure, + And by Thy fasting and Thy midnight prayer, + Jesu! let me not utterly despair; +Oh! hide me in the Rock from ill secure,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + +Mine eyes run down with tears that do not cease; + Oh! when beyond the river dark and cold, + Shall I the white walls of my home behold,-- +The shining palaces--the streets of gold,-- +And enter through the gates the City of Peace,-- + Pity me, oh my God! + + + + +BEYOND + + +Cloudy argosies are drifting down into the purple dark, +And the long low amber reaches, lying on the horizon's mark, +Shape themselves into the gateways, dim and wonderful unfurled, +Gateways leading through' the sunset, out into the underworld. + +How my spirit vainly flutters, like a bird that beats the bars, +To be launched upon that ocean, with its tides of throbbing stars, +To be gone beyond the sunset, and the day's revolving zone, +Out into the primal darkness, and the world of the unknown! + +Hints and guesses of its grandeur, broken shadows, sudden gleams, +Like a falling star shoot past me, quenched within a sea of dreams,-- +But the unimagined glory lying in the dark beyond, +Is to these as morn to midnight, or as silence is to sound. + +Sweeter than the trees of Eden, dropping purple blooms, and balm, +Are the odors wafted toward me from its isles of windless calm,-- +And the gold of all our sunsets, with their sapphire all impearled, +Would not match the fused and glowing heaven of that under world. + +Pale sea-buds there weep forever, water lilies damp and cool, +And the mystic lotus shining through its white waves beautiful, +In those dusk and sunless valleys, where no steps of mortals tread, +Bind the white brows of the living, whom we blindly call the dead. + +Oh ye lost ones,--ye departed, who have passed that silent shore, +Though we call you through the sunset, ye return to us no more. +Have ye found those blessed islands where earth's toils and sorrows + cease? +Do ye wear the sacred lotus,--have ye entered into peace? + +Do ye hear us when we call you,--do ye heed the tears we shed,-- +Oh beloved!--oh immortal!--oh ye dead who are not dead! +Speak to us across the darkness,---wave to us a glimmering hand,-- +Tell us but that ye _remember_, dwellers in the silent land! + +But the sunset clouds have faded, arch and capital are gone, +And the regal night is glorious, with the starlight overblown;-- +Life is labor and not dreaming, and I have my work to do, +Ere within those happy valleys I shall wear the lilies too. + + + + +THE SABBATH OF THE WOODS + + +Sundown--and silence--and deep peace,-- +Night's benediction and release;-- +The tints of day die out and cease. + +This morn I heard the Sabbath bells +Across the breezy upland swells;-- +My path lay down the woodland dells. + +To-day, I said, the dust of creeds, +The wind of words reach not my needs;-- +I worship with the birds and weeds. + +From height to height the sunbeam sprung, +The wild vine, touched with vermeil, clung, +The mountain brooklet leapt and sung. + +The white lamp of the lily made +A tender light in deepest shade,-- +The solitary place was glad. + +The very air was tremulous,-- +I felt its deep and reverent hush,-- +God burned before me in the bush! + +And nature prayed with folded palm, +And looks that wear perpetual calm,-- +The while glad notes uplifted psalm. + +The wild rose swung her fragrant vase, +The daisy answered from her place,-- +Praise Him whose looks are full of grace. + +And violets murmured where the feet +Of brooks made hollows cool and deep; +He giveth His beloved sleep. + +Wide stood the great cathedral doors, +Arched o'er with heaven's radiant floors;-- +Nature, with lifted brow, adores. + +And wave, and wind, and rocking trees, +And voice of birds, and hum of bees, +Made anthem, like the roll of seas. + +The sunset vapors sail and swim;-- +All day uprose their mighty hymn,-- +I listened till the woods were dim. + +And through the beechen aisles there fell +A silver silence, like a spell. +The heifer's home returning bell, + +Faint and remote, as if it grew +A portion of that silence too, +Dissolved and ceased, like falling dew. + +Stars twinkled through the coming night,-- +A voice dropped down the purple height,-- +At even time it shall he light. + +Ah rest my soul, for God is good, +Though sometimes faintly understood, +His goodness fills the solitude. + +Fold up thy spirit,--trust the right, +As blossoms fold their leaves at night, +And trust the sun though out of sight. + + + + +A VALENTINE + + +At last, dear love, the day is gone, + The doors are barred--the lamps are lit, +The couch beside the fire is drawn, + The nook whore thou wert wont to sit; + +The book is open at the place, + And half its leaves are still uncut, +And yet without thy listening face, + I cannot read, the book I shut, + +And muse, and dream:--it is the day + When lovers, silent all the year, +Find tongues in floral tokens gay, + To whisper all they long to hear. + +Ah, many a time, and many a time + I saw the question in thine eyes, +Where is the silver-sounding rhyme, + The simple household melodies, + +The harp that trembled to thy touch; + Hast thou forgot thine early lore? +And know'st not that I love so much, + That song contents my heart no more. + +For thou hast made my life so sweet, + With dainty gifts thy dear hands bring, +Rich with thine affluence, and complete, + I have no longing left to sing. + +And yet, I have such vast desires, + Such thirst for some great destiny, +That all the poet's weaker fires + Burn into prophecies for thee. + +The circle of our home could make + The boundaries of my world, but thine +So splendid is,--for thy dear sake, + I fain would push the bounds of mine. + +For this I study as I may + To walk with thee, the world of mind, +To follow where thou lead'st the way, + A step,--but just a step behind. + +Thy hand in mine, thine earnest eyes + Fixed ever on the radiant goal, +Together shall we climb the skies, + And mingle there, one perfect soul. + + + +SNOW-DROPS + + +Dimly and dumbly under the ground, +Groping the walls of their prison round, +The roots of the aged and garrulous trees +Are sending electrical messages + From the under-world to the world without +And quickening pulses that course in each + Fettered and bound and frozen thing, +Rootlets that tremble, and fibres that reach + Are pushing inanimate fingers out, +To ask further inarticulate speech + For tidings of Spring + +And the fine invisible sprite which dwells +In cups and discs, in blossoms and bells, +Fleeter than Ariel's wing hath flown +Beyond this cloudy and frozen zone, + To the summer land of the South, +Beyond those rugged sentinels +Which winter seta in the snow-capped hills, + From the breath of whose cruel mouth, +Sighing, the leaves in forest and wold, +Shivered and died in the nights a'cold, +Died and were buried under the snow, + Long moons ago. + +Now over the tropic's broad ellipse + The sprite hath passed, as fleet and fast + As the light of falling stars, that cast +A sudden radiance and eclipse; + And all the buds that are folded close + As the inner leaves of an unblown rose, +In bulb, or cone, or scale, or sheath, +And sealed with the odorous gums that breathe +Like the breath of the singing and sighing pine, +When the dews are falling at evening time, +Through cone, and sheath, and bulb, and scale-- + Tremble, and cry All hail! + +And look where a rosier beam hath cleft + The damp and fragrant-smelling earth, + A handful of snow-drops peeping forth; +As if King Winter had dropped and left-- +Stumbling and tripping the steep hills down-- +Had clutched his robe and dropped his crown: +Or as if the very snow had power, +Out of itself to fashion a flower; +So vase-like, slender, and exquisite, +Like an alabaster lamp alit,-- + +And shining with a sea-green light, + As if it had but newly come +Up from some subterranean palace, + The haunt of fairy or of gnome, +With its waxen taper still alight, + And beaming in its leafy chalice, +That lit the revellers down below, +When the nights were long, and the moon was low +You might have heard, far-off and sweet, + The sound of the elfin revelries, + Like a bugle strain blown over seas, +And the patter and beat of dancing feet,-- + If you had been like me awake, + What time the Great Bear seems to shake, +Down through the trackless realms of air, +Frost-lances from his shaggy hair; +And all around--beneath--across, +The round globe lies stabbed through with frost. + + Now the touches of the sun, +Like some potent alchemist, +In heat and dews, in rain and mist, + As in a subtle menstruum, +Hath dissolved the icy charm, + And laid on that cold breast of hers,-- + Nature's breast--that faintly stirs, +With his fragrant kisses warm, +Sweet as myrrh and cinnamon,-- + Snow-drops, spring's bright harbingers, + First-born children of the sun. + +Like a sudden burst of leaf and bloom, +The sun shines redly through the gloom, +And the wind with its many melodies +Hath a murmurous sound like the noise of bees, +Singing and humming,--blowing and growing, +Of springing blade, and of fountain flowing; +And night and silence under the ground +Listen--and thrill--and move to the sound, + And answer, Spring is coming! + + + + +EASTER BELLS + + +Oh bells of Easter morn, oh solemn sounding bells, + Which fill the hollow cells +Of the blue April air with a most sweet refrain, + Ye fill my heart with pain. + +For when, as from a thousand holy altar-fires, + A thousand resonant spires +Sent up the offering--the glad thanksgiving strain-- + "The Lord is risen again!" + +He went from us who shall return no more, no more! + I say the sad words o'er, +And they are mixed and blent with your triumphant psalm, + Like bitterness and balm, + +We stood with him beside the black and silent river, + Cold, cold and soundless ever; +But there our feet were stayed--unloosed our clasping fond, + And he has passed beyond. + +And still that solemn hymn, like smoke of sacrifice, + Clomb the blue April skies, +And on our anguish placed its sacramental chrism, + "Behold, the Lord is risen!" + +Oh, bells of Easter morn! your mighty voices reach + A deeper depth than speech; +We heard, "Because He liveth _they_ shall live with Him;" + This was our Easter hymn. + +And while the slow vibrations swell, and sink, and cease, + They bring divinest peace, +For we commit our best beloved to the dust, + In sure and certain trust. + + + + +IN THE SIERRA NEVADA + + +I lift my spirit to your cloudy thrones, + And feel it broaden to your vast expanse, + Oh! mountains, so immeasurably old, + Crowned with bald rocks and everlasting cold, + That melts not underneath the sun's fierce glance, +Peak above peak, fixed, dazzling, ice and stones. + +Down your steep sides quick torrents leap and roar, + And disappear, in gloomy gorges sunk, + Fringed with black pines on dizzy verges high-- + Poised, trembling to the thunder and the cry + Of the lost waters, through each giant trunk, +And farthest twig and tassel evermore. + +Behold far down the mountain herdsman's ranche, + The rough road winding past his lonely door, + And in his ears, by day and night, the sound + Of mad waves plunging down the gulfs profound, + The tempest's gathering cry, the dull deep roar. +And the long thunder of the avalanche! + +Night broods along the vallies while your peaks + Are pink and purple with the rays of morn, + And filmy tints that swim the depths of space, + To reach, and kiss you first upon the face, + Before the world awakes, and day is born, +To flush with colder gleam your rugged cheeks. + +And last, and longest lingering, the light + Is on your mighty foreheads, when, the sun + Sets in the sea, and makes a palace fair + For his repose, of crystal wave and air,-- + Ye seem to stoop, and smile to look upon +The fallen monarch from your silent height. + +Vallies are green about your rocky feet, + And sweet with clambering vines, and waving corn, + And breath of flowers, and gold of ripening fruit; + Cities send up their smoke, and man and brute + Beneath your wide embrazure have been born +And died for ages, yet Ye hold your seat. + +I lift my spirit up to you, and seem + To feel your vastness penetrate my soul; + And faintly see, far-off, and looming broad + And dread, the grandeur of the world of God, + And thrill to be a part of the great whole, +Which towers above me, a stupendous dream. + + + + +SUMMER RAIN + + +O rain, Summer Rain! forever, + Out of the crystal spheres, +And cool from my brain the fever, + And wash from my eyes the tears + +Stir gently the blossoming clover, + In the hollows dewy and deep,-- +Somewhere they are blossoming over + The spot where I shall sleep. + +Asleep from this wearisome aching, + With my arms crossed under my head, +I shall hear without awaking, + The rain that blesses the dead. + +And the ocean of man's existence,-- + The surges of toil and care, +Shall break and die in the distance, + But never reach me there. + +And yet--I fancy it often-- + I should stir in my shrouded sleep, +And struggle to rise in my coffin, + If he came there to weep. + +Among the dead--or the angels-- + Though ever so faint and dim, +I should know that voice in a thousand, + And stretch my hands to him. + +But the trouble of life and living, + And the burden of daily care, +And the endless sin, and forgiving, + Are greater than I can bear. + +So rain, Summer Rain, and cover + The meadows dewy and deep, +And freshen the blossoming clover, + And sing me to dreamless sleep. + + + +A BABY'S DEATH + + +A little white soul went up to God, + Out of the mire of the city street; +It grew like a flower in the highway broad, + Close to the trample of heedless feet. + +It fell like a snow-flake over night, + Into the ways by vile ones trod; +It sparkled--dissolved in the morning light, + And the little white soul went up to God. + +Dainty, flower-soft, waxen thing, + Its clear eyes opened on this bad earth, +And the little shuddering soul took wing, + By the gate of death, from the gate of birth. + +Not for those innocent lips and eyes, + The words and the ways of sin and strife; +The pure flower opened in paradise, + Fast by the banks of the river of life. + +Yea, little victors, who never fought; + And crowned, though ye never ran the race, +His blood your innocent lives hath bought, + And ye stand before Him and see His face! + +For this, oh Father! we give Thee thanks, + By the little graves, and the tear-wet sod, +They stand before Thee in shining ranks, + And the little white souls are safe with God! + + + + +CHRISTMAS + + +The birth day of the Christ child dawneth slow + Out of the opal east in rosy flame, + As if a luminous picture in its frame-- + A great cathedral window, toward the sun +Lifted a form divine, which still below + Stretched hands of benediction;--while the air + Swayed the bright aureole of the flowing hair +Which lit our upturned faces;--even so + Look on us from the heavens, divinest One +And let us hear through the slow moving years. +Long centuries of wrongs, and crimes, and tears,-- + The echo of the angel's song again, + Peace and good will, good will and peace to men, +A little space make silence,--that our ears, + Filled with the din of toil and moil and pain +May catch the jubilant rapture of the skies,-- +The glories of the choirs of paradise. + +The hills still tremble when the thunders cease + Of the loud diapason,--and again +Through the rapt stillness steals the hymn of peace; + Melodious and sweet its far refrain +Dying in distance, as the shadows die +Of white wings vanished up the morning sky, + As farther still--and thinner--more remote-- + A film of sound, the aerial voices float-- +Peace and good will, good will and peace to men! + + + + +MY GARDEN + + +Only the commonest flowers + Grow in my garden small, +Like buttercups, and bouncing-bets, + And hollyhocks by the wall, +And sunflowers nodding their stately heads, + Like grenadiers so tall. +But the purple pansy grows beneath-- + The sweetest flower of all-- + +And tiny feathery filmy ferns + You scarce can see at all, +Fleck the shady side of the stones, + So dainty, fine and small + +Only the commonest flowers + Grow in this garden of mine, +The larkspur flaunting her sky-blue cap, + And the twinkling celandine +Shakes her jewels of freckled gold, + And drinks her honey-wine, +Making a cup of her lucent stem, + So slender and so fine. + +You hear the waves that dimple and slide, + Slide and shimmer and shine, +Under her fairy-slippered feet-- + My golden celandine. + +The hands of the little children + Gather them without fear; +Wonders of beauty and gladness + To them my flowers appear. +I have seen them bend to listen, + With poised and patient ear, +The curfew chime of the fairies, + In the lily's bell to hear. + +Oh, blessed and innocent children, + With eyes so crystal clear, +That ye look with the dual vision + Of the baby and the seer. + +To you the stars and the angels, + And the heavens themselves are near, +And the amaranths of paradise, + That blossom all the year: +I would I could see what ye see, + And hear what ye can hear. + + + + +RIVER SONG + + +Swift and silent and strong + Under the low-browed arches, +Through culverts, and under bridges, +Sweeping with long forced marches +Down to the ultimate ridges,-- + The sand, and the reeds, and the midges, +And the down-dropping tassels of larches, + That border the ocean of song. + +Swift and silent and deep + Through the noisome and smoke-grimed city, +Turning the wheels and the spindles, + And the great looms that have no pity,-- +Weight, and pulley, and windlass, + And steel that flashes and kindles, +And hears no forest-learnt ditty, + Not even in dreams and sleep. + +Blithe and merry and sweet + Over its shallows singing,-- +I hear before I awaken + The Bound of the church-bells ringing, +And the sound of the leaves wind-shaken, + Complaining and sun-forsaken, +And the oriole warbling and singing, + And the swish of the wind in the wheat + +Sweet and tender and true! + From meadows of blossoming clover, +Where sleepy-eyed cows are lowing, + And bobolinks twittering over,-- +Ebbing and falling and flowing-- + Singing and gliding and going-- +The river--my silver-shod lover, + Down to the infinite blue. + +Deep, and tender, and strong! + With resonant voice and hole-- +To far away sunshiny places, + Haunts of the bee and the swallow, +Where the Sabbath is sweet with the praises + Of dumb things, of weeds and of daisies,-- +Oh river! I hear thee--I follow + To the ocean where I too belong. + + + +THE RETURN + + +I have been where the roses blow, + Where the orange ripens its gold, +And the mountains stand with their peaks of snow, + To fence away the cold, +Where the lime and the myrtle lent + Their fragrance to the air, +To make the land of my banishment + More exquisitely fair. + +And I heard the ring dove call + To his mate in the blossoming trees, +And I saw the white waves heave and fall. + Far away over southern seas. +I listened along the beach, + By the shore of the shifting sea, +To the waves, till I knew their murmured speech, + And the message they bore to me. + +And I watched the great sails furled. + Like the wings of some ocean bird, +That brought me, out of another world, + A warning, and a word; +For still beside my way, + By shore or sunlit wave, +There journeyed with me night and day, + The shadow of a grave. + +Oh, friends! my heart went forth + To you with a yearning cry, +To be taken back to my native North-- + To be taken home to die. +For sweeter than southern suns, + Or the blossoms of summer lands, +Are the faces of my little ones, + And the touch of their tender hands. + +Come closer to my side, + Your eyes are as clear and true +As if they were stars my way to guide, + My darlings, back to you. +Oh God! my heart is stirred + With thankfulness and rest, +To reach at last, like a wounded bird, + The shelter of its nest + +Oh, faint pulse, throbbing long! + And weary and fluttering breath, +Twas the mother-love that kept you strong, + Though face to face with death. +But now my eyes are dim, + And my breath comes weak and slow, +Sing to me softly the evening hymn, + And kiss me ere I go. + +Come close for the angel waits-- + The angel with gentle hand, +To open for me the shadowy gates, + Into the silent land. +Oh, voices sweet and clear + What light is in the skies? +Is it your glad voices that I hear-- + Or the hymns of paradise? + +Farewell your faces fade-- + Fade--fade--and disappear +In the light no earthly cloud may shade, + Heaven's morning dawning clear. +Oh, land of rest so fair + By angel footsteps trod, +I shall wait for you, beloved there, + In the paradise of God. + + + + +VOICES OF HOPE + + +It is the hither side, O Hope, +And afternoon; our shadows slope +Backward along the mountain cope. + +The early morning was so sweet, +We seemed to climb with winged feet, +Like moving vapors fine and fleet, + +Not more elastic poised and swung +Harebell or yellow adder's tongue, +Nor blither any bird that sung. + +Thy light foot bent not any stem +Of frailest plant, whose diadem +In passing kissed thy garment's hem. + +O Hope! so near me and so bright, +Thy foot above me on the height, +I might not touch thy garments white. + +Thy lifted face, so fair, so rapt, +Like sunshine rolled and overlapped +Cliff, slope, and tall peak thunder-capped. + +Thy voice to me like silver brooks +Down dropped from secret mountain nooks, +Still drew me, like thy radiant looks. + +Nor scorching sun, nor beating rain, +Nor soil, nor grime, nor travel-stain, +With thee, were weariness or pain. + +But now--it is the afternoon +Behind, the mountain summit's gloom: +Before, night's shadows gather soon. + +O Hope! where art thou?--rough and steep +The way has grown; I faint and weep, +Beside me torrents toss and leap, + +And far below, unseen for tears, +The river where life disappears, +Uplifts its thunder to my ears. + +Canst thou, with thy serener eyes, +Over the flood God's paradise, +Behold in awful beauty rise? + +Far off I seem to see thee stand, +Shading rapt eyes with radiant hand, +To scan that unknown glorious land. + +The glory of that unseen place, +Gathers and brightens o'er thy face, +And fills thy looks with tender grace. + +O, Hope divine '--_I_ would behold +Those shining spires, those streets of gold: +But ah! the waves are deadly cold! + +I hear the thunder and the sweep +Of waves; deep calleth unto deep; +The pathway ends, abrupt and steep. + +Yet, soft beside that solemn shore, +I hear thy voice above its roar: +"Life is a dream-and it is o'er; + +"The night is past--behold the day, +O new-born soul--O child of clay, +O bird uncaged and still astray; + +"Take through the universe thy road; +All paths lead up to His abode, +Converging at the Mount of God!" + + + + +IN THE COUNTRY. + + +Here the sunshine, filtering down, +Through leaves of emerald, dun and brown, + Is green instead of golden +And the hum and roar of the distant town + In an endless hush is holden. + +Twinkling bright through the shadowing limes. +The brook rains a sparkle of silver rhymes + On the dragon-fly, its neighbour; +It pays no duty in dollars and dimes, + For its work is all love-labour. + +Here are no spindles, nor wheels to be whirled, +No forges nor looms from the outside world, + Stunning the ear with clamour; +You hear but the whisper of leaves unfurled, + And the tap of the woodpecker's hammer + +Here are no books to be written or read, +But cushions of softest moss instead, + Without a care to cumber; +And fern-leaf fans for the weary head, + Soothing the soul to slumber + +Oh! come from the dusty haunts of trade, +From the desk, the ledger, the loom, the spade; + There is neither toil nor payment. +Forget for once, in this peaceful shade, +The sordid ways in which dollars are made, + And food and drink and raiment. + +Consider the lilies, arrayed so fair, +In robes that an eastern king might wear, + Though never an eye may heed them; +And the sparrows, of whom His hand takes care, + For our Father in Heaven feeds them. + +His rainbow spans the heavenly blue; +His eye takes note of the drops of dew, + And the sunset's golden arrows; +And shall He not take thought of you, + O man, as well as the sparrows? + + + + +SCIENCE, THE ICONOCLAST. + + +_"Oh! spare dual idols of the past, + Whose lips are dumb, whose eyes are dim; + Truth's diadem is not for him +Who comes, the fierce Iconoclast: +Who wakes the battle's stormy blast, + Hears not the angel's choral hymn" _ + THE IMAGE-BREAKER + + +Ah me! for we have fallen on evil days, + When science, with remorseless cold precision, +Puts out the flame of poetry, and lays + Her double-convex lens on fancy's vision. +When not a star has longer leave to shine, + Unweighed, unanalysed, reduced to gases,-- +Resolved to something in the chemist's line, + By those miraculously long-ranged glasses. + +The awful mysteries which Nature locks + Deep in her stony bosom, hid for ages,-- +The hieroglyphics of primeval rocks, + Are glibly written out on short-hand pages. +Within that rocky scroll, her palimpsest, + The hand of time still writes, and still effaces +Records in dolomite--and shale--and schist, + The pre-historic history of Races. + +Cave-dwellers, under nameless strata hid, + Vast bones of extinct monsters that were fossil, +Ere the first Pharaoh built the pyramid, + And shaped in stone his sepulchre colossal. +What undiscovered secret yet remains + Beneath the swirl and sway of billows tidal, +Since Art triumphant led the deep in chains, + And on the mane of ocean laid her bridle. + +Into those awful crypts of cycles dead, + Shrouded and mute, each in its mummy-chamber, +Her daring step intrudes without more dread + Than to behold a fly embalmed in amber. +Stars--motes--worlds--molecules, and microcosms, + Her level gaze sweeps down the page recorded, +And withers all its myths, and fairy blossoms, + Condemned to explanations dull and sordid. + +Alike the sculptures of the graceful Greeks, + Grey with the moss of eld and venerable, +The fauns, the nymphs, the half-defaced antiques, + The gods and men of mythologic fable, +And legends of steel-casqued and mailed men, + The old heroic tales of love and glory, +Of knight, and palmer, and the Saracen, + And the crusaders of enchanted story; + +Grim ghosts and goblins, and more harmless sprites + That peopled once our juvenile romances, +And made us shiver in our beds o'nights, + Science has banished those bewitching fancies; +And given us the merest husks instead, + The very bones and skeleton of nature, +Filling those peaceful hours with shapes of dread, + And horrid ranks of Latin nomenclature. + +Blest is the Indian on his native plains, + And blest the wandering Tartar, happy nomad, +Fire-worshippers, whose twinkling altar-fanes + Still gleam on lonely peaks beyond Allahbad. +Shadows yet linger round their ruined towers, + And whisper from the caverns and the islands, +Their Memnon still is eloquent, but ours + Stares on with shut lips in an age-long silence. + +Not so! The age still ripens for her needs + The flower, the man. Behold her slow still finger +Points where He comes, beneath whose feet the weeds + Bloom out immortal flowers, the immortal Singer! +Forward, not backward all the ages press; + New stars arise, of whose bright occultation +No glory of the dying past could guess: + Still grows the unfinished miracle, Creation. + +Oh! Poet of the years that are to come, + Singing at dawn thy idyls sweet and tender-- +The preludes of the great millenium + Of song, to drown the world in light and splendour +Awake, arise! thou youngest born of time! + Through flaming sunsets with red banners furled, +The nations call thee to thy task sublime, + To sing the new songs of a newer world! + + + + +WHAT THE OWL SAID TO ME. + + +The moon went under a ragged cloud, + The owl cried out of the ruined wall, +Slow and solemn, distinct and loud, + His melancholy call: +Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo! +Like a creature in a shroud. + +Across the night in a silver chain, + While a lonesome wind arose and died, +Slow stepped the ghostly feet of the rain; + The owl from the wall replied: +Tu-whit, tu-whoo, hoo-hoo' + With a peal of goblin laughter, + And silence fell thereafter. + +Weird fingers of the wandering rain, + Reaching out of the hollow dark, +Paused and tapped at my window-pane,-- + A muffled voice cried, Hark! +Tu-whit, tu-whit, tu-whoo! + The moon is drowned in the dark, +And the world belongs to me and you! + + + + +OUR VOLUNTEERS. + + +Where shall we write your names, ye brave! + Where build for you a monument, +Who lie in many a sylvan grave, + Stretched half across the continent! +Young, bright and brave, the very flower + And choice of all we had to give, + With you what glory ceased to live,-- + Or lives again in hearts of men. +An inspiration and a power! + +For when one sunny day in June, + A sudden war-cry shook the land, +As if from out clear skies at noon + Had dropped the lightning's deadly brand-- +Ah then, while rang our British cheers, + And pealed the bugle, rolled the drum, + We saw the Nation rise like one! + Swift formed the files,--a thousand miles +Of them, our gallant Volunteers! + +Deep clanged the bells, the drums did beat, + And still from east and west they came; +Echoed the street with martial feet, + From north, from south, with hearts aflame: +Ah, still the tires of freedom burn,-- + Be witness, Ridgway's silent shade, + No foe shall dare our land invade, + While hearts like those that met the foes, + Still beat like theirs,--the undismayed, +The brave, who never will return. + +Our Country holds them in her heart, + Shrined with her mountains and her rivers; + And still for them her proud lip quivers, +And tears to her great eyelids start: +But they are tears of love and pride, + And she shall tell to coming years + The story of her Volunteers, + For all their names are hers and fame's-- +The brave who live, the brave who died. + + + + +NIGHT,--A PHANTASY + + +Night! the horrible wizard Night! + The dumb and terrible Night +Hath drawn his circle of magic, round +Over the sky, and over the ground, + Without a sound. +Ah me, what woeful phantoms rise, +With ice-cold hands and pitiless eyes, +As stars grow out of the summer skies, +Tangible things to mortal sight, +Under the hands of the wizard Night! + +Night! the mystical prophet, Night! + The haunted and awful Night! +With the trail of his garment's shadowy fall, +Soundless and black as a funeral pall, +Now enters his dread laboratory. +A wan, and faint, and wavering glory +Shines from a veiled lamp somewhere hidden. + Like a lily in a grave: +And things unholy, and things forbidden,-- +Hands that have long been the earth-worm's prey, +And shrouded faces out of the clay. + Rise and fill the enchanted cave + With a pale and deathly light,-- + The haunted and awful Night! + +Night! the abhorred magician Night! + The black astrologer Night! +Night is the world!--I shiver with fright:-- +The air is full of evil things, +The coil and glitter of snaky rings, +And, the tremor of vast invisible wings, + That are not heard but felt: +They touch my hair, my hand, my cheek, +They mope and mouth, but they never speak + To utter their awful history. + Oh, when will the darkness break and melt, +Like blocks of ice on a golden reef, +And little by little, as leaf by leaf, +In light and color and form increased, +The rose of morning blooms in the east,-- + The old yet ever new mystery! +And I fall on my knees to worship the light +That casts out the evil demon of Night, +And hallows with blossoms, like prayers, the way + Of another new day. + + + +A MONODY + + +On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, +brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the +autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed +lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were +not divided. + + +Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn-- +One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column; +Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears + Will not reach the deaf ears. + +Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches, +Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches; +Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay, + And so light, yesterday. + +Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them, +Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,-- +So near are the confines of hither, and yonder,-- + So world-wide asunder! + +Oh, lovers and friends! ye were youth and glad weather, +And beauty and strength, and all bright things together, +With the smile on your lips, and the flower at your breast + Have ye gone to your rest. + +The dull lives of others move on, while the splendid +Beginnings of yours are all broken and ended, +The high hopes, the bright dreams, and youth's confident + trust, +Gone down to the dust. + +Step slowly, black steeds, at the head of the column, +Breathe softly, dead marches, so mournfully solemn; +Ye bear from our sight what no morn shall restore + Nevermore, nevermore. + +Oh, beloved--oh, wept for!--beyond the dark river +Are the lives incomplete, there made perfect forever? +Oh, wave but a hand through the darkness, to tell + It is well with ye--well. + +Profound is the darkness--the silence unbroken-- +No glimmer of pale hatreds comes back as a token: +Yet still in our hearts we have heard the words spoken:-- +"He hath overcome death--He hath passed through the grave-- + He is able to save." + + + + +MINNIE + + "_And Jesu called a little child unto him_." + MATT. xviii. 2. + + +Oh, my blossom, my darling, whose dimpled hands are cold! +Oh, my baby, my treasure, laid under the green mould! +Earth pressed on thy closed eyelids, and on thy sunny hair, +And folded hands, and smiling lips, so exquisitely fair. + +Cold and dark are the night dews around thy grassy bed, +Instead of warm and loving arms beneath thy sunny head; +Oh, my blossom, my darling, the long nights through, awake, +I stretch my empty arms for thee,--my heart--my heart will break. + +The autumn leaves are falling ungathered on the hill, +The soft October sun is bright, but the little hands are still; +And the little feet that chased them as frolicksome and light, +Have lain beneath them--can it be?--a whole day and a night. + +The autumn winds will sigh and moan; the dreary, dreary rain +Will drench thy lowly pillow, sweet, with tears like mine in vain; +And weary, weary months drag on, and long years stretch before, +Whilst thou to me, my beautiful, returnest nevermore. + +Beyond our earthly vision--beyond the burial sod, +Where the palm trees and the amaranths grow on the hills of God, +Oh, golden gates, that stand within the holy, heavenly place, +Open for me but a little, that I may behold her face. + +Open for me but a little, that I may touch her hand, +And hear her sing the hymn she loved about "The Promised Land." +Oh, my blossom! Oh, my darling! though it be but in a dream, +Speak to me,--I watch--I listen,--speak to me across the stream. + +Kneeling--praying at the threshold--day and night, and night and day, +When I rise with heavy eyelids--when I kneel at night to pray-- +Still I wait to catch the far-off music of they starry hymn, +Till I hear the voice that called thee bid me rise and enter in. + + + +THE GOLDEN WEDDING. + +Inscribed to OUR FATHER AND MOTHER, and read on that Anniversary, +FEBRUARY 15TH, 1876. + + +A half a century of time, + The mingled pain and bliss +That make the history of life + Between that day and this; +Two lives that in that morning light, + Together were made one, +Now standing where the shadows fall + Athwart the setting sun. + +How long it seems!--the devious way. + And full of toil and pain,-- +Yet love and peace kept house with them, + And love and peace remain. +Though youth and strength and youthful friends + Were left upon the road +Long since, an honest man is still + The noblest work of God. + +No famous deeds, no acts achieved + In battle or in state +Make memorable this festal day, + The day we celebrate: +Divided from the common lot + By neither tame nor pelf, +Our hearts revere the man who loves + His neighbour as himself. + +The fragrance of the Christian's life, + Though humble and unknown, +Is a more precious heritage + Than heirship to a throne. +That lowly roof--what memories + Of blessings cluster there, +Around the hearthstone consecrate + By fifty years of prayer! + +The shaded lamp, the cheerful fire, + Our Mother's patient look, +The firelight on her silver hair, + And on the Holy Book;-- +Where e'er our erring feet may stray, + The welcome waits the same,-- +That light, that look will follow still, +And soften and reclaim. + +Type of the Fatherhood of God, + Whose love has kept us still, +In all the changeful scenes of life + Secure from every ill, +And brought our long-divided band, + Not one of us astray, +Around our Father's board to keep + This Golden Wedding Day. + +Oh ye beloved and revered! + Our hearts make thankful prayer, +That still around our household hearth + There is no vacant chair. +God grant that we may be of those + Who sing the heavenly psalm, +And sit together at the feast, + The marriage of the Lamb! + + + +VERSES WRITTEN IN MARY'S ALBUM. + + +In your beautiful book, dear Mary, + With pages so white and fair, +I pause ere I trace the first sentence, + And thoughtfully breathe a prayer:-- + +That in the dew of the morning, + Ere the shadows begin to fall, +You may turn with a child's devotion + To the Book that is best of all:-- + +And learn with the gentle Mary, + At the Saviour's feet to stay, +And to choose that better portion + Which shall never be taken away. + +Ah! lovely and thrice beloved, + Sitting at Jesus' feet, +In the shady walks of Bethany, + And the summer twilight sweet,-- + +With the thrilling palms and the olives, + Listening overhead, +To that wonderful voice whose music + Had power to waken the dead! + +Even thus through life's grave-shadowed valleys, + We may walk with that Heavenly Friend, +With a child's loving faith in His promise + To be with us unto the end. + +So I ask for my Mary, not grandeur, + Nor the wealth, nor the fame of the day, +But that which the world cannot give her, + The peace which it takes not away. + + + + +THE WOODS IN JUNE. + + + In the sleep-haunted gloom +Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades, +These vast and venerable collonades, + I welcome thee, dear June! + + And while with head reclined, +And limbs aweary with my woodland walk, +I listen to the low melodious talk + Of leaves and singing wind, + + The merry roundelay +Of the swart ploughman, sowing summer grain, +And tinkling sheep-bell on the distant plain, + And pastures far away, + + Come with a soft refrain, +Like a faint echo from the outer world, +While Peace sits by me with her white wings furled, + Within my green domain. + + This is my palace, where +Great trunks are amber pillars to support +The blue roof of the vast and silent court, + In clustered columns fair: + + And underneath, the bloom +Of water-lilies through the fragrant night +Of these dim arches spreads a perfumed light, + Even at highest noon. + + Down dropping all day long, +With a most musical cadence in the hall, +A wandering stream lets its slow waters fall + In twinkling rhythmic song. + + Hither the vagrant bee, +From the broad fields and sunshine all astray, +Loiters the idle hours of noon away, + In golden dreams like me. + + And from my window frame, +This oriel window opening on the sky, +I see the white barques of the clouds drift by, + With prows of rosy flame. + + Fantastical and strange, +Their purple sails go floating o'er the deep, +Like shadows through the summer land of sleep, + In never ending change. + + The wild shy things which roam +The woods, and live in bough and tree and grot, +Flutter and chirp unscared, they fear me not, + For I too am at home. + + And feel my heart in tune +With the great heart of Nature, and the voice +Of all the glad bright creatures that rejoice + In the green woods of June. + + + + +THE ISLE OF SLEEP. + + +In those dark mornings, deep in June, + When brooding birds stir in the nest, +And heavy dews slip down the leaves, + And drop into the rose's breast, +I woke and looked into the east, + And saw no sign of coming day, +The pale cold morning rolled in mist, + Slept on the hill-tops far away. + +My window looked into the dawn, + The slumbering dawn that was so nigh, +The shadow of the hills was drawn + In waving lines against the sky. +But warmer hues began to tip + The edges of the mountain cloud +And morning's rosy cheek and lip + Glowed softly through her snow-pale shroud. + +I turned and gazed into the west, + The river murmured in my ear +'Gone night, and silence, dreams and rest, + Another day of toil is here.' + +I would I had a fairy boat, + With every swift bright sail unfurled, +To fly beyond the west, and float + With night into the under world. + +My head sank lower on my arm, + My eyes re-closed in sleepy bliss, +While fancy wove her subtle charm, + My dream did shape itself to this:-- +Upon a shore whose sands of gold + Sloped down into a silver sea, +Her radiant pinions all unrolled, + A fairy boat did wait for me. + +And Night with all her splendours pale + Did walk before me on the deep, +The stars looked through her azure veil, + And hand in hand with her went Sleep. +Beyond the hills, into the night + My boat went drifting like the wind, +The stars paled round us, and the light + Died on our pathway far behind. + +And cloudy shapes with rippling hair + That shaded eyes of dreamy calm, +Formed and dissolved into the air + Which laved my brow with waves of balm. + +Dusk arms upreaching from the sea, + And shadow-faces, seen and gone, +Toward an isle did beckon me, + Beyond the farthest gates of dawn. + +We drew towards that lonely shore, + With still and measured motion slow, +I saw the hills lift evermore + Their massive foreheads crowned with snow, +And underneath, like moonlight fair, + I saw a hundred fathoms deep, +The crystal columns light as air + That undergird the Isle of Sleep. + +And spire and dome and architrave, + And pictured window's rainbow gleams +Upshone from out the charmed wave, + Afloat upon a sea of dreams. +The sea-moss wove her braided locks + Along the beach in chains afar, +And lilies smiled among the rocks, + Peerless and perfect as a star. + +A wood of asphodel below + Uprose as still and sweet as death, +And gliding shapes moved to and fro,-- + I watched them with suspended breath. + +Lost loved ones met and clasped me here; + I looked into their eyes serene, +They spake to me, and I did hear + As I were walking in a dream. + +But even then a wind arose + That swept the morning mists away, +And showed, unfolding like a rose, + The bright flower of the perfect day: +And fading--faded like a cloud, + The hands I clasped, like wreaths of smoke, +While chanticleer crowed shrill and loud, + And wan and 'wildered I awoke. + + + + +THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862. + + +Under the orchard boughs, + That drop red leaves like coals into the grass. + The golden arrows of the sunset fall; + And on the vine-hung wall +Great purple clusters in delicious drowse, +Beakers of chrysolite and amethyst, +Yet by the sun unkissed, + Lean down to all the wooing lips that pass, +Brimful of red, red wine +Sweet as brown peasants glean along the castled Rhine + +All sights and sounds are of the Autumn weather; + The urchin rock'ng in the trees + Shakes silver laughter with the apples down,-- + And wading to the knees + Among the stubble and the husks so brown, +The oxen keeping every patient step together, +Bring in the creaking wain, +High-piled with yellow maize and sheaves of rustling grain. + +While in the mill, with ceaseless whirr and drone, +With moss and lichens to the roof o'ergrown +An undertone to every other sound, +The blind old horse goes round + +Gathered along the farm-house eaves + In noisy congress, see the swallows sit, +Or whirling in mid air like autumn leaves, + In airy wheels they flit. +Bright rovers of all summer skies, +I follow them with wistful eyes +To-morrow's sunset they will be +A thousand leagues by land and sea + Beyond this wintry hemisphere +Heaven gathers round their joyous wings +The sunlight of perpetual springs, +Soft airs and fragrant blossomings + Through all the glad round year. + +I hear as though I did not hear, + Along the upland fields remote, +The plough-boy's whistle, silver clear: + For hark' the herds-man's graver note, +Who hums beneath the orchard boughs, + The ballad of that grand old man, + Who marshalled freedom's battle van, +And fell,--no laurel round his brows. + +To-day the hero-martyr's grave + Is shaken by the armed tread + Of patriotic soldiers o'er his head +Not by the footsteps of one slave! + +So grows the work that he began, + Wrought out in slow and toilsome ways, + Yet ever building through the days, +A grander heritage for man. + +Oh! harvest years, foretold so long! +Through seas of blood, through years of wrong, +A people patient brave and strong, + In camp and field, and battle clang, +'Mid cannon's roar and trumpet's peal, +And shock of war, and clash of steel, + For you each steadfast blade out-sprang! +In you each loyal heart kept faith +As strong as life, as stern as death; +Though human lives like summer grain +Were sown on every battle-plain; + Blood of our bravest and our best, + The red, red wine of life was pressed, +And lost like summer rain. +In dust and smoke of carnage whirled, + Before those dying eyes still swam + Those coming years so grand and calm, +The golden Autumns of the world! + +Through frost and snow and wintry rains, + Speed, silent hours!--the Nation waits, +While at her feet the slave in chains, + Kneels, listening for the coming fates; +And round him droops in soil and dust, + The bright flag of her stripes and stars: +Speed, Autumn hours!--we wait in trust +No tale of traitor lips can dim, + Till Liberty's white hand unbars +The broad gates of the glad New Year, +Unfurls our banner free and clear, + And ushers Peace and Freedom in! + +[Footnote: President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation +took effect on the first day of the New Year, 1863.] + + + + +IN WAR TIME. + + +Into the west the day goes down, + Smiling and fading into the night, +Is it a cross, or is it a crown + I have worn through all these hours of light! + +Bending over my milk-white curds, + In my dairy under the beech, +Still the thought of my heart took words, + And murmured itself in musical speech. + +And all my pans of golden cream, + Set in a silver shining row, +Swam in my eyes like the shimmer and sheen + Of arms and banners, and martial show. + +The bee in his gold laced uniform, + Drilled the ranks of clover blooms, +And carried my very heart by storm, + Mocking the roll of the distant drums. + +But something choked my singing down, + Deeper than any song expressed.-- +Is it a cross, or is it a crown + On my brow invisibly pressed! + +Out of the east the star-watch shines, + Lighting their camp-fires in the gray; +I count their white tents' lengthening lines, + And think of those who are far away. + +Where the yellow globes of the orange grow + In the southern fields-that slope to the sun,-- +Oh say, have my brothers met the foe,-- + Has another Shiloh been lost or won? + +For when the moonlight falls across + The threshold of our cottage door. +My heart is full of a sense of loss, + As if they would return no more. + +Last year when the April days were fair, + And the harvest fields were ploughed and sown, +Two stalwart boys took each his share, + But now our father toils alone. + +And often at our evening prayers, + With an absence I can understand, +I see him look at the vacant chairs, + And wipe his brow with his wrinkled hand. + +And therefore at the fireside nook, + Kneeling sadly at night to pray, +All the light of the holy book + Seems to fall and point one way. + +And therefore tending my milk-white curds, + Still the song that my fancy hums, +Catches the glitter of martial words, + And sets itself to the beat of drums. + + + + +CHRISTMAS HYMN. + + +Break over the waiting hill-tops, + White dawn of the Christmas morn! +For the angels have sung through the midnight, + That the wonderful Babe is born. + +And still in the slumbering valleys, + The night's black tents are up, +And the young moon stands on the mountains, + Clear and fair as a silver cup. + +Under the cottage rafters, + Silent and soft and deep, +On the swart low brow of the toiler, + Settles the dew of sleep. + +And some that watch and waken, + Are dreaming of eyes whose ray +Was long ago quenched and hidden + Under the shroud away. + +Oh, sing thy jubilant anthem + Over the frozen mould, +And tell that wonderful story + Again, that never grows old! + +For under the year's broad shadow, + Along the upward way, +Our footsteps often falter, + And oftea wander astray. + +Weary and weak and erring, + In sorrow and doubt and tears, +Shine through the mist and the darkness + Star of a thousand years! + +Awhile from the dusty marches + Of life let us find release, +And pitch our tents in the shadow + Of the white-walled City of Peace, + +Let us hear through the blessed starlight. + The angels of Bethlehem, +Singing Glory to God in the highest, + On earth good will to men. + +White dawn of the Christmas morning, + Through the snow-wreaths shining pale. +Let the joy-bells ring through the valleys, + Hail to thy coming--hail! + + + + +TE DEUM LAUDAMUS + + +Along the floors of heaven the music rolls, +Fills the vast dome, and lifts our fainting souls: +Praise God! Oh praise Him all created things, +Praise Him, the Lord of lords, the King of kings + +Slow pulses coursing darkly underground, +Leap up in leaf and blossom at the sound, +Shake out glad pennons in remotest ways, +And with a thousand voices utter praise. + +Along the southern hills the verdure creeps, +And faint green foliage clothes the craggy steeps, +Where in the sunshine lie reposing herds. +Whose gladness has no need of spoken words. + +In the deep woods there is a voice, which saith +"The Lord is risen--there shall be no more death! +Listen, Oh Man! and thy dull ears shall hear +The Easter Anthem of the awakened year." + +Past isles of emerald moss the brooklet flows +Melodious, and rejoicing as it goes; +Past drooping ferns, and through the mazy whir +Of insect wings of gold and gossamer. + +Praise God!--they whisper softly each to each; +Waves have a voice, and trees and stones a speech; +Day unto day the chant of birds and breeze, +And man alone is dumb, nor hears, nor sees. + + + + +A NOVEMBER WOOD-WALK. + + +Dead leaves are deep in all our forest walks; + Their brightest tints not all extinguished yet, + Shine redly glimmering through the dewy wet; + And whereso'er thy musing foot is set, +The fragrant cool-wort lifts its emerald stalks. + +How kindly nature wraps secure and warm, + In the fallen mantle of her summer pride, + These lovely tender things that peep and hide, + Whom unawares thy curious eye hath spied, +For the long night of winter's frost and storm. + +Still keeps the deer-berry its vivid green, + Set in its glowing calyx like a gem; + While hung above, a marvellous diadem + Of tawny gold, the bittersweet's gray stem, +Strung with its globes of murky flame is seen. + +The foot sinks ankle-deep in velvet moss, + The shroud of some dead giant of his race; + Dun gold and green and brown thick interlace, + Their tiny exquisite leaves in cunning trace, +Weaving their beaded filaments across. + +Here mayest thou lie, and looking up, behold + Far up the stately trees sway to and fro + In the deep sunny air, with motion slow, + And whispering to each other weird and low, +The secrets of the haunted cloud-land old + +Heaven seems not half so far as in the town,-- + Looking through smoke and dust and tears to gam + Some heavenly comfort for thy human pain, + Heaven seems far off, but here the dews and ram +Come like a benediction from the Father down. + +Nor will He who forgets not any weed + That blooms its little life in forest shade, + And dies when it hath cast its ripened seed, + Forget the human creatures He has made, +Frail as they are, and full of infinite need. + +Now like a sheaf of golden arrows fall + The last rays of the Indian Summer sun; + And hark along the hollow hills they run, +Invisible messengers, the battle-call +Of coming storms, in pipings faint and small + They bring:--the pageant of the year is done. + + + + +RESIGNATION. + + +If Thou who seest this heart of mine + To earthly idols prone, +Should'st all those clinging cords untwine, + And take again Thy own,-- +Help me to lay my hands in thine, + And say Thy will be done! + +But Oh, when Thou dost claim the gift + Which Thou did'st only lend, +And leav'st my life of love bereft, + And lonely to the end,-- +Oh Saviour! be Thyself but left, + My best beloved Friend! + +And still the chastening hand I bless, + Which doth my steps uphold +Along earth's thorny wilderness, + Back to the Father's fold, +Where I Thy face in righteousness + Shall evermore behold. + + + + +EUTHANASIA + + +"O Life, O Beyond, + Thou art strange, thou art sweet!" +--_Mrs. Browning._ + + +Dread phantom, with pale finger on thy lips, + Who dost unclose the awful doors for each, + That ope but once, and are unclosed no more, + Turn the key gently in the mystic ward, + And silently unloose the silver cord; + Lay thy chill seal of silence upon speech, + And mutely beckon through the soundless door +To endless night, and silence and eclipse. + +Even now the soul unfettered may explore + On its swift wing beyond the gates of morn, + (Unravelled all the weary round of years) + And stand, unfenced of time and crowding space, + With love's fond instinct in that primal place, + The distant northern isle where she was born; + She sees the bay, the waves' deep voice she hears, +And babbles of the forms that are no more. + +They are the dead, long laid in foreign graves, + One with his sword upon his loyal breast, + And one in tropic lands beneath the palm; + The sea rolls dark between those hemispheres, + And all the long procession of the years, + Since last those warm young hands she fondly pressed, + And heard through mute farewells the funeral psalm, +The "nevermore" of the dividing waves. + +The record of a life is writ between; + The new world's story supplements the old; + The heathery hills, the rapture of the morn, + The fishers' huts, the chieftain's castle gray, + And the smooth crescent of the land-locked bay,-- + These, the long hunger of the heart outworn, + New scenes replace, and the once strange and cold, +Become like those kept in the memory green. + +But thou hast found already that dread place, + And thy lost loved ones in that unknown goal, + Ere thou hast quite put off the scrip and shell, + And gathered up thy feet into the bed, + And closed thine eyes, the last prayers being said, + Thy lips move dumbly, thy delaying soul + Passes in salutation, not farewell, +To join the heroes of thine ancient race. + +Unoutlined shadow, angel of release, + Whose cool hand stills the fever in the veins, + And all the tumult of life's crowding cares-- + Ambition, envy, love and fear and hate, + Hope's eager prophecies fulfilled too late, + And fierce desires, and sorrows, and despairs-- + Thou wav'st thy mystic wand, and there remain +Sleep and forgetfulness, and utter peace. + +Why should we fear thy shadow at the door, + Oh thou mysterious Death?--art thou not sweet + To the worn pilgrim of life's toilsome day, + Who com'st at evening time, and show'st instead + Of pilgrim tent, and pilgrim pallet spread, + The doors of that vast caravansera + Where all the pilgrims of the ages meet, +And rest together, and return no more? + + + + +BALLAD OF THE MAD LADYE. + + +The rowan tree grows by the tower foot, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + Can the dead feel joy or pain?_) +And the owls in the ivy blink and hoot, +And the sea-waves bubble around its root, + Where kelp and tangle and sea-shells be, + When the bat in the dark flies silently. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +The ladye sits in the turret alone, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + The dead--can they complain?_) +And her long hair down to her knee has grown, +And her hand is cold as a hand of stone, + And wan as a band of flesh may be, + While the bird in the bower sings merrily. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +Sadly she leans by her casement side + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + Can the dead arise again?_) +And watcheth the ebbing and flowing tide, +But her eye is dim, and the sea is wide; + The fisherman's sail and the cloud flies free + And the bird is mute in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +The moon shone in on the turret stair + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + The dead are bound with a chain._) +And touched her cheek and brightened her hair, +And found naught else in the world so fair, + So ghostly fair as the mad ladye, + While the bird in the bower sang lonesomely. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +The weary days and the months crept on, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea, + The words of the dead are vain_) +At last the summer was over and gone, +And still she sat in her turret alone, + Her white hands clasping about her knee, + And the bird was mute in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +Wild was the sound of the wind and the sleet, + (_Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea. + The dead--do they walk again?_) +Wilder the roar of the surf that beat; +Whose was the form that it bore to her feet + Swayed with the swell of the unquiet sea, + While the raven croaked in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +Oh Lady, strange is the silent guest-- + (_Flotsam and jetsam cast up by the sea, + Can the dead feel sorrow or pain?_) +With the sea-drenched locks and the pulseless breast +And the close-shut lips which thine have pressed + And the wide sad eyes that heed not thee, + While the raven croaks in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + +The tower is dark, and the doors are wide, + (_Flotsam and jetsam cast up by the sea, + The dead are at peace again._) +Into the harbour the fisher boats ride, +But two went out with the ebbing tide, + Without sail, without oar, full fast and free, + And the raven croaks in the rowan tree. + (_Hark to the wind and the rain._) + + + + +THE COMING OF THE KING. + + +"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, +I will lay thy atones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations +with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy +gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And +all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be +the peace of thy children." Isaiah, liv. 11-13. + + +As the sand of the desert is smitten + By hoof-beats that strike out a light, +A flash by which dumb things are litten, + The children of night; +So Thou who of old did'st create us, + Among the high gods the Most High, +Strike us with Thy brightness, and let us + Behold Thee, and die. + +Grown old in blind anguish and travail, + Thy world thou mad'st sinless and free +Gropes on, with no power to unravel + The clue back to Thee: +Since his feet from Thy ways torn and bleeding + The long march of ages began, +And the gates of Thy sword-guarded Eden + Were closed upon man. + +Fates thicken, and prophecies darken, + Grown up into blossom and fruit; +And we lean in these last days to hearken + The sound of Thy foot. +Not now as a star-fallen stranger, + By shepherds, and pilgrims adored, +As couched among kine in a manger, + An undeclared lord: + +Not now in waste wilderness places, + And mountains, and wind-shaken seas, +Proclaiming to strange alien races + The gospel of peace; +Who rended'st the prey from the leopard, + With sorrowful wounding and strife, +The Priest--the Lamb slain--the Good Shepherd, + The way and the life. + +Not the face that wept over the city + Nor that with its anguish of pain +In the garden, nnlightened by pity + Of angels or men; +Nor the suffering form, unreplying. + With the chrysm of death at its lips; +Cross-uplifted, and nail-pierced, and dying + In fateful eclipse: + +But with all heaven's glory and splendour + Through the gates of the morning come down, +And with thrones and dominions to render + Him sceptre and crown! +With the Face beyond all men's thinking, + Beholden of all men's eyes; +And the earth in its gladness drinking + The light of the skies. + +With the rapture of angels, the singing + Of radiant choirs unknown, +And the shouting of glad hosts bringing + Our King to His throne! +O City of David, the Golden, + That sittest in darkness so long, +No longer in chains thou art holden, + Break forth into song! + +Arise, and upbuild thy waste places, + Take helmet and buckler and sword, +And gather from far-scattered races + The tribes of the Lord! +Thy Prince shall ride onward victorious; + Full strong are his arrows and fleet; +And high shall His throne he, and glorious + The place of His feet! + +Set thy lips to the trumpet, awaken + The isles of the South and the North, +As the trees of the forest are shaken + When whirlwinds go forth: +Like the waves of the sea, like the thunder + Of armies, with jubilant voice, +A multitude no man can number + Shall sing and rejoice. + +The kingdoms beyond the great river, + The uttermost isles of the sea, +And peoples and tribes shall deliver + Thy children to thee. +Once more shall thine ensign, the Lion + Of Judah, be o'er thee unfurled; +Once more shall thy gates be, O Zion, + Set wide to the world! + +With hands stretched in mute supplication, + With longing, and weeping, and prayer, +We have waited for this, thy salvation, + In grief--not despair; +Till thy Lord to His temple descended, + Shall comfort thee, sorrowful one, +And the days of thy mourning be ended, + Thy triumph begun. + +Till the mountains about thee assemble + Lost lights of the sun-dawn, rose-red, +White splendours, that point as they tremble + The path for His tread: +Through the hate of our foes, and their scorning + And dumb in the darkness we wake, +For the night is far spent--and the morning + In glory shall break. + + + + +WITH A BUNCH OF SPRING FLOWERS. + +(In an Album.) + + +In the spring-time, out of the dew, + From my garden, sweet friend, I gather, + A garland of verses, or rather +A poem of blossoms for you. + +There are pansies, purple and white, + That hold in their velvet splendour, + Sweet thoughts as fragrant and tender, +And rarer than poets can write. + +The Iris her pennon unfurls, + My unspoken message to carry, + A flower-poem writ by a fairy, +And Buttercups rounder than pearls. + +And Snowdrops starry and sweet, + Turn toward thee their pale pure faces + And Crocus, and Cowslips, and Daisies +The song of the spring-time repeat. + +So merry and full of cheer, + With the warble of birds overflowing, + The wind through the fresh grass blowing +And the blackbirds whistle so dear. + +These songs without words are true, + All sung in the April weather-- + Music and blossoms together-- +I gather and weave them for you. + + + + +THE HIGHER LAW. + + +Love and Obedience--these the Higher Law +From which Thy worlds have swerved not, singing still +Their primal hymn rejoicing, as at first +The morning stars together. Hast thou heard, +In vast and silent spaces of the sky, +What time the bead-roll of the universe +God calls in heaven, every tiniest star-- +From myriad twinkling points--from plummet depths +Of dark too vast for eye and sense to guess, +Send up a little silver answer "I am here." +Even so, the humblest of thy little ones, dear Lord, +May through the darkness hear Thy still small voice, +And answer with quick gladness "Here am I,-- +I love Thee,--I obey Thee,--use me too!" + + + + +MAY. + + + Thou comest to the year, +And bringest all things beautiful and sweet; +Thy lovely miracles themselves repeat + In the green glory of the grass, +And peeping flowers that stay our lingering feet + With their soft eyes, blue like the sky and clear; + Thou bringest not, alas, + Our lily, our May-blossom, O New Year! + + Thou bringest all things fair, +And bright, and gentle, but thou bring'st not her: +The May-birds warble, and May breezes stir + In the sweet-scented lilac boughs; +But our one May--our gentlest minister + Of gladness, with the beauty of her hair. + Her place in our still house +Is empty,--and the world is bleak and bare. + + + + +TWO WINDOWS. + +I. + + +One looks into the sun lawn, and the steep + Curved slopes of hills, set sharp against the sky, + With tufted woods encinctured, waving high +O'er vales below, where broken shadows sleep. + Here, looking forth before the first faint cry + Of mother-bird, fluttering a drowsy wing +Above her brood, awakes the full-voiced choir, +Ere yet the morning tips the hills with fire, + And turns the drapery of the east to gold, + My wondering eyes the opening heavens behold, +Where far within deep calleth unto deep, + And the whole world stands hushed and worshipping. +Even thus,--I muse,--shall heaven's gates unfold, + When earth beholds the coming of her King. + + +II. + + +This opens on the sunset, and the sea + From its high casement: never twice the same + Grand picture rises in its sea-girt frame +Islets of pearl, and rocks of porphyry + And cliffs of jasper, touched with sunset flame, + And island-trees--that look like Eden's--grow +Palm-like and slender, in gradations fine, +That fade and die along the horizon line, + And the wide heavens become--above--below-- +A luminous sea without a boundary + +Nay wistful heart,--at day-dawn, or at noon-- +Or midnight watch--the Bridegroom cometh soon; +By yonder shining path--or pearly gate; +The word is sure,--thou therefore, watch and wait. + + + + +THE MEETING OF SPIRITS. + + +From out the dark of death, before the gates +Flung wide, that open into paradise-- +More radiant than the white gates of the morn-- +A human soul, new-born, +Stood with glad wonder in its luminous eyes, +For all the glory of that blessed place +Flowed thence, and made a halo round the face-- +gentle, and strong with the rapt faith that waits +And faints not: sweet with hallowing pain +The face was, as a sunset after rain, +with a grave tender brightness. Now it turned +From the white splendours where God's glory burned, +And the long ranks of quiring cherubim-- +Each with wing-shaded eyelids, near the throne, +Who sang--and ceased not--the adoring hymn +Of Holy, Holy! And the cloud of smoke +Went up from the waved censers, with the prayers +Of saints, that wafted outward blessing-freighted broke +Around him standing at the gate alone. +All down the radiant slope of golden stairs, +By which he climbed so late from earth to heaven, +It rolled impalpable--a fragrant cloud; +And still, turned from the Alleluias loud, +Beyond the portal-guarding angels seven, +He listened earthward, for a voice--a sound +Out of the dark that spread heneath profound. + +No wind of God stirred in that cloudy land +That bordered all the River's thither side; +To his that called no voice responsive cried, +Or cleft the dark with flash of answering hand. +And soft the while, sheathed, as it were, within +The noise of heaven's rejoicing, to him stole +Beloved voices, long to earth a sole +Remembered sweetness only; sacred kept +As reliquaries are that guard from sin, +And wake the holy aim which else had slept. +How yearned his heart to those long parted ones +The amaranth, and the sacred flower which grew +A saintly lily by the jasper wall, +Making light shadows on those wondrous stones, +As the wind touched its slender stems and tall, +Turned not to sunward more divinely true, +Than his most worshipping soul to that which made +The light of heaven. + + But now the nether shade +Grew luminous with white ascending wings, +And radiant arms of angels, who upbore +With tender hands another soul new-born, +Fairer than that last star whose bearing flings +Another beauty on the brow of morn. +Nearer the lovely vision rose, and more +Aerial clear each moment to his eyes, +Who stood in ecstacy of glad surprise, +And looks of joyous welcome, while the air was stirred +With the swift winnowing plumes approaching. + + This I heard, +And only this,--"Oh! haste thee, spirit blest, +For thee and me remains at length the rest, +The welcome end of life's long toilsome road, +That leads us to our Father and our God." +And--"Oh beloved, is it thou indeed, +Hast reached before me these fair heavenly lands, +Who taught thine infant lips, with reverent heed +To say Our Father with small upraised hands: +How lovely are thine eyes, that have no pain, +And thy worn cheek, that keeps no travel-stain, +From mid-noon labour called to thy reward; +While I, at evening, a forgotten sheaf +Still left afield, in mingled trust and grief, +Waited the footsteps of our harvest Lord." + +I heard no more--for wave succeeding wave-- +A sea of intermittent music swelled and grew, +And filled the dome of heaven, all sharply cut +With spires of glittering crystal: all the land +Throbbed with the pulse of music keen, which clave +A shining path before them: hand in hand-- +With their rapt faces toward the throne--the two +Went in together--and the gates were shut. + + + + +GEORGE BROWN. + + +O Leader fallen by the wayside prone,-- + O strong great soul gone forth + For thee the wide inhospitable north, +And east and west, from sea to sea make moan: + And thy loved land, whose stalwart limbs and brain, +Beneath thy fostering care have thriven and grown +To stately stature, and erect proud head, + Freedom and Right and Justice to maintain + Here in her place inviolate. Without stain +The name and fame which stood for thee in stead + Of titles and dominions: all men's praise, +And some men's hate thou had'st, yet all shall weep thee dead; + O Leader, fallen mid-march in the ways, + Who shall fill up the measure of thy days! + + + + +TIDE-WATER. + + +Through many-winding valleys far inland, +A maze among the convoluted hills, +Of rocks up-piled, and pines on either hand, +And meadows ribbanded with silver rills, +Faint, mingled-up, composite sweetnesses +Of scented grass and clover, and the blue +Wild-violet hid in muffling moss and fern, +Keen and diverse another breath cleaves through, +Familiar as the taste of tears to me, +As on my lips, insistent, I discern +The salt and bitter kisses of the sea. + +The tide sets up the river; mimic fleetnesses +Of little wavelets, fretted by the shells +And shingle of the beach, circle and eddy round, +And smooth themselves perpetually: there dwells +A spirit of peace in their low murmuring noise +Subsiding into quiet, as if life were such +A struggle with inexorable bound, +Brief, bright, despairing, never over-lept, +Dying in such wise, with a sighing voice +Breathed out, and after silence absolute. + +Faith, eager hope, toil, tears, despair,--so much +The common lot,--together over-swept +Into the pitiless unreturning sea, +The vast immitigable sea. + +I walk beside the river, and am mute +Under the burden o fits mystery. +The cricket pipes among the meadow grass +His shrill small trumpet, of long summer nights +Sole minstrel: and the lonely heron makes +Voyaging slow toward her reedy nest +A moving shadow among sunset lights +Upon the river's darkening wave, which breaks. +Into a thousand circling shapes that pass +Into the one black shadow of the shore. + +O tranquil spirit of the pervading test +Brooding along the valleys with shut wings +That fold all sentient and inanimate things +In their entrenched calm for evermore, +Save only the unquiet human soul; +Hear'st thou the far-off sound of waves that roll +In sighing cadence, like a soul in pain, +Hopeless of heaven or peace, beating in vain +The shores implacable for some replies +To the dumb anguish of eternal doubt, +(As I, for the sad thoughts that rise in me): +Feel'st thou upon thy heavy-lidded eyes +The salt and bitter kisses of the sea; +And dost thou draw, like me, a shuddering breath +Among dusk shadows brooding silently? + +Ah me, thou hear'st me not: I walk alone. +The doubt within me, and the dark without, +In my sad ears, the waves' recurrent moan, +Sounds like the surges of the sea of death, +Beating for evermore the shores of time +With muttered prophecies, which sorrow saith +Over and over, like a set slow chime +Of funeral bells, tolling remote, forlorn, +Dirge-like the burden--"Man was made to mourn." + + + +FORGOTTEN SONGS. + + +There is a splendid tropic flower which flings + Its fiery disc wide open to the core-- + One pulse of subtlest fragrance--once a life +That rounds a century of blossoming things + And dies, a flower's apotheosis: nevermore + To send up in the sunshine, in sweet strife +With all the winds, a fountain of live flame, + A winged censer in the starlight swung + Once only, flinging all its wealth abroad +To the wide deserts without shore or name + And dying, like a lovely song, once sung + By some dead poet, music's wandering ghost, + Aeons ago blown oat of life and lost, + Remembered only in the heart of God. + + + + +TO THE DAUGHTER OF THE AUTHOR OF "VIOLET KEITH." + + +I never looked upon thy face; +I never saw thy dwelling-place; +My home is by Lake Erie's shore, +Beyond Niagara's distant roar; +And thine where ships at anchor ride, +By fair St. Lawrence's rolling tide, +With half a continent between +Its seas of blue, and isles of green, +And many a mountain's nodding crest, +And many a valley's jewelled breast. +Thou in the east, I in the west; +Yet in this book thou hast to me +An individuality; +Something more tangible and fair +Than any dream or shape of air, +With more than an ideal grace, +And sweeter than a pictured face: +For in this book my thought recalls +The garden quaint, the convent walls. +And thou beneath their shadow set, +A blue-eyed fragrant violet. +So for the maiden of the tale, +Whose brave true heart might break, not fail, +Thyself, my Violet I make, +And love thee for thy mother's sake. + + + + +A PRELUDE, AND A BIRD'S SONG. + + +The poet's song, and the bird's, + And the waters' that chant as they run +And the waves' that kiss the beach, + And the wind's--they are but one. +He who may read their words, +And the secret hid in each, +May know the solemn monochords +That breathe in vast still places; +And the voices of myriad races, + Shy, and far-off from man, +That hide in shadow and sun, + And are seen but of him who can +To him the awful face is shown +Swathed in a cloud wind-blown +Of Him, who from His secret throne, +In some void, shadowy, and unknown land +Comes forth to lay His mighty hand +On the sounding organ keys, + That play deep thunder-marches, +Like the rush and the roar of seas, + And fill the cavernous arches +Of antique wildernesses hoary, + With a long-resounding roll, + As they fill man's listening soul +With a shuddering sense of might and glory. + +These he shall hear, and more than these + In bird's song, and in poet's scroll; + Something underneath the whole, +A music yet unbreathed.--unsung-- + Unwritten--incommunicable; +Whispered from no mortal tongue: +What seer nor prophet may rehearse + In oracle, or Delphic fable, +Since the old dead gods were young, +And made with man their dwelling-place; +But he shall hear, of all his race, + The dread wherefore of life and death; +He shall behold the ultimates +Of fears and doubts, and scores and hates, + And the sure final crown of faith. +And in his ear the rhythmic verse +Shall sound the steps of that beyond, + Serene, that hastens not, nor waits, +But holds within its depths profound + The mystery of all lives--all fates-- +The secret of the universe. + + + + +AN APRIL DAWN. + + + All night a slow soft rain, +A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land, +Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand + Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again, +And fled like some wild startled thing pursued +By demons of the night and solitude, + Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain-- + The intermittent rain. + + And still the sad hours crept +Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears +Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears + That fell in silence, as she waked or slept, +Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore +Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore, + And still the rain was as a pulse that kept + Time as the slow hours crept. + + The plummet of the night +Sank through the hollow dark that closed us round, +A lamp lit globe of space; outside, the sound + Of rain-drops falling from abysmal height +To vast mysterious depths rose faint and far, +Like a dull muffled echo from some star +Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light + In the unheeding night. + + But when the April dawn +Touched the closed lattice softly, and a bird, +Too early wakened from its sleep, was stirred, + And trilled a sudden note broke off, withdrawn, +She heard and woke. All silently she laid +Her gentle hands in ours, with such a look as made + A rainbow of tears it fell upon, + Caught from another and a heavenlier dawn, + Fixed--trembled--and was gone. + Swung, like our own, an orb of tears and light + In the unheeding night. + + But when the April dawn +Touched the closed lattice softly, and a bird, +Too early wakened from its sleep, was stirred, + And trilled a sudden note broke off, withdrawn, +She heard and woke. All silently she laid +Her gentle hands in ours, with such a look as made + A rainbow of tears it fell upon, + Caught from another and a heavenlier dawn, + Fixed--trembled--and was gone. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming of the Princess and Other +Poems, by Kate Seymour Maclean + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS *** + +This file should be named cmprc10.txt or cmprc10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, cmprc11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cmprc10a.txt + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Robert Prince, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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