I.

SOUL, spirit, genius--which thou art--that whence
I know not, rose upon this mortal frame
Like the sun o'er the mountains, all aflame,
Seen large through mists of childish innocence,
And year by year with me uptravelling thence,
As hour by hour the day-star, madest aspire
My nature, interpenetrate with fire
It felt but understood not--strong, intense,
Wisdom with folly mixed, and gold with clay;--
Soul, thou hast journeyed with me all this way.
Oft hidden and o'erclouded, oft arrayed
In scorching splendors that my earth-life burned,
Yet ever unto thee my true life turned,
For, dim, or clear, 't was thou my daylight made.

II.

SOUL, dwelling oft in God's infinitude,
And sometimes seeming no more part of me--
This me, worms' heritage--than that sun can be
Part of the earth he has with warmth imbued,--
Whence camest thou? whither goest thou? I, subdued
With awe of mine own being--thus sit still,
Dumb, on the summit of this lonely hill,
Whose dry November-grasses dew-bestrewed
Mirror a million suns--That sun, so bright,
Passes, as thou must pass, Soul, into night:
Art thou afraid, who solitary hast trod
A path I know not, from a source to a bourne,
Both which I know not? fear'st thou to return
Alone, even as thou camest, alone, to God?

Over The Hillside

FAREWELL. In dimmer distance
I watch your figures glide,
Across the sunny moorland,
The brown hillside;

Each momently up rising
Large, dark against the sky,
Then--in the vacant moorland,
Alone sit I.

Within the unknown country
Where your lost footsteps pass,
What beauty decks the heavens
And clothes the grass!

Over the mountains shoulder
What glories may unfold!
Though I see but the mountain
Bleak, bare and cold,--

And the white road, slow winding
To where, each after each,
You slipped away--ah, wither?
I cannot reach.

And if I call, what answers?
Only 'twixt earth and sky,
Like wail of parting spirit,
The curlew's cry.

* * * *

Yet, sunny is the moorland,
And soft the pleasant air,
And little flowers like blessings,
Grow everywhere.

While, over all, the mountain
Stands sombre, calm, and still,
Immutable and steadfast,
As the One Will.

Which, done on earth, in heaven
Eternally confessed
By men and saints and angels,
Be ever blest!

Under its infinite shadow
(Safer than light of ours!)
I'll sit me down a little,
And gather flowers.

Then I will rise and follow
After the setting day,
Without one wish to linger,--
The appointed way.

Living: After A Death

O LIVE!
(Thus seems it we should say to our beloved,--
Each held by such slight links, so oft removed
And I can let thee go to the world's end,
All precious names, companion, love, spouse, friend,
Seal up in an eternal silence gray,
Like a closed grave till resurrection-day:
All sweet remembrances, hopes, dreams, desires,
Heap, as one heaps up sarificial fires:
Then, turning, consecrate by loss, and proud
Of penury--go back into the loud
Tumultuous world again with never a moan--
Save that which whispers still, 'My own, my own,'
Unto the same broad sky whose arch immense
Enfolds us both like the arm of Providence:
And thus, contended, I could live or die,
With never clasp of hand or meeting eye
On this side Paradise.--While thee I see
Living to God, thou art alive to me.

O live!
And I, methinks, can let all dear rights go,
Fond duties melt away like April snow,
And sweet, sweet hopes, that took a life to weave,
Vanish like gossamers of autumn eve.
Nay, sometimes seems it I could even bear
To lay down humbly this love-crown I wear,
Steal from my palace, helpless, hopeless, poor,
And see another queen it at the door,--
If only that the king had done no wrong,
If this my palace, where I dwelt so long,
Were not defiled by falsehood entering in:--
There is no loss but change, no death but sin,
No parting, save the slow corrupting pain
Of murdered faith that never lives again.

O live!
(So endeth faint the low pathetic cry
Of love, whom death has taught love cannot die,)
And I can stand above the daisy bed,
The only pillow for thy dearest head,
There cover up forever from my sight
My own, my earthly all of earth delight;
And enter the sea-cave of widowed years,
Where far, far off the trembling gleam appears
Through which thy heavenly image slipped away,
And waits to meet me at the open day.

Only to me, my love, only to me.
This cavern underneath the moaning sea;
This long, long life that I alone must tread,
To whom the living seem most like the dead,--
Thou wilt be safe out on the happy shore:
He who in God lives, liveth evermore.