Dinah Maria Mulock Craik: Verses about Passion

SOFT of voice and light of hand
As the fairest in the land--
Who can rightly understand
My love Annie?

Simple in her thoughts and ways,
True in every word she says,--
Who shall even dare to praise
My love Annie?

Midst a naughty world and rude
Never in ungentle mood;
Never tired of being good--
My love Annie.

Hundreds of the wise and great
Might o'erlook her meek estate;
But on her good angels wait,
My love Annie.

Many or few of the loves that may
Shine upon her silent way,--
God will love her night and day,
My love Annie.

WERE I a boy, with a boy's heart-beat
At glimpse of her passing adown the street,
Of a room where she had entered and gone,
Or a page her hand had written on,--
Would all be with me as it was before?
O no, never! no, no, never!
Never any more.

Were I a man, with a man's pulse-throb,
Breath hard and fierce, held down like a sob,
Dumb, yet hearing her lightest word,
Blind, until only her garment stirred:
Would I pour my life like wine on her floor?
No, no, never: never, never!
Never any more.

Gray and withered, wrinkled and marred,
I have gone through the fire and come out unscarred,
With the image of manhood upon me yet,
No shame to remember, no wish to forget:
But could she rekindle the pangs I bore?--
O no, never! thank God, never!
Never any more.

Old and wrinkled, withered and gray,--
And yet if her light step passed to-day,
I should see her face all faces among,
And say,--'Heaven love thee, whom I loved long!
Thou hast lost the key of my heart's door,
Lost it ever, and forever,
Ay, forevermore.'

YEAR after year the cowslips fill the meadow,
Year after year the skylarks thrill the air,
Year after year, in sunshine or in shadow,
Rolls the world round, love, and finds us as we were.

Year after year, as sure as birds' returning,
Or field-flowers' blossoming above the wintry mould,
Year after year, in work, or mirth, or mourning,
Love we with love's own youth, that never can grow old.

Sweetheart and ladye-love, queen of boyish passion,
Strong hope of manhood, content of age began;
Loved in a hundred ways, each in a different fashion,
Yet loved supremely, solely, as we never love but one.

Dearest and bonniest! though blanched those curling tresses,
Though loose clings the wedding-ring to that thin hand of thine,--
Brightest of all eyes the eye that love expresses!
Sweetest of all lips the lips long since kissed mine!

So let the world go round with all its sighs and sinning,
Its mad shout o'er fancied bliss, its howl o'er pleasures past:
That which it calls love's end to us was love's beginning:--
I clasp my arms about thy neck and love thee to the last.

IF, coming from that unknown sphere
Where I believe thou art,--
The world unseen which girds our world
So close, yet so apart,--
Thy soul's soft call unto my soul
Electrical could reach,
And mortal and immortal blend
In one familiar speech,--

What wouldst thou say to me? wouldst ask
What, since did me befall?
Or close this chasm of cruel years
Between us--knowing all?
Wouldst love me--thy pure eyes seeing that
God only saw beside?
O, love me! 'T was so hard to live,
So easy to have died.

If, while this dizzy whirl of life
A moment pausing stayed,
I face to face with thee could stand,
I would not be afraid:
Not though from heaven to heaven thy feet
In glad ascent have trod,
While mine took through earth's miry ways
Their solitary road.

We could not lose each other. World
On world piled ever higher
Would part like banked clouds, lightning-cleft
By our two souls' desire.
Life ne'er divided us; death tried,
But could not; Love's voice fine
Called luring through the dark--then ceased,
And I am wholly thine.

METHOUGHT I saw thee yesternight
Sit by me in the olden guise,
The white robes and the pain foregone,
Weaving instead of amaranth crown
A web of mortal dyes.

I cried, 'Where hast thou been so long?'
(The mild eyes turned and mutely smiled
'Why dwellest thou in far-off lands?
What is that web within thy hands?'
--'I work for thee, my child.'

I clasped thee in my arms and wept;
I kissed thee oft with passion wild:
I poured fond questions, tender blame;
Still thy sole answer was the same,--
'I work for thee, my child.'

'Come and walk with me as of old.'
Then camest thou, silent as before;
We passed along that churchyard way
We used to tread each Sabbath day,
Till one trod earth no more.

I felt thy hand upon my arm,
Beside me thy meek face I saw,
Yet through the sweet familiar grace
A something spiritual could trace
That left a nameless awe.

Trembling I said, 'Long years have passed
Since thou wert from my side beguiled;
Now thou'rt returned and all shall be
As was before.'--Half-pensively
Thou answered'st--'Nay, my child.'

I pleaded sore: 'Hadst thou forgot
The love wherewith we loved of old,--
The long sweet days of converse blest,
The nights of slumber on thy breast,--
Wert thou to me grown cold?'

There beamed on me those eyes of heaven
That wept no more, but ever smiled;
'Love only is love in that Home
Where I abide--where, till thou come,
I work for thee, my child.'

If from my sight thou passedst then,
Or if my sobs the dream exiled,
I know not: but in memory clear
I seem these strange words still to hear,
'I work for thee, my child.'

HOLMAN HUNT'S PICTURE OF 'CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE.'

O CHRIST-CHILD, Everlasting, Holy One,
Sufferer of all the sorrow of this world,
Redeemer of the sin of all this world,
Who by Thy death brought'st life into this world,--
O Christ, hear us!

This, this is Thou. No idle painter's dream
Of aureoled, imaginary Christ,
Laden with attributes that make not God;
But Jesus, son of Mary; lowly, wise,
Obedient, subject unto parents, mild,
Meek--as the meek that shall inherit earth,
Pure--as the pure in heart that shall see God.

O infinitely human, yet divine!
Half clinging childlike to the mother found,
Yet half repelling--as the soft eyes say,
'How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not
That I must be about my Father's business?'
As in the Temple's splendors mystical,
Earth's wisdom hearkening to the all-wise One,
Earth's closest love clasping the all-loving One,
He sees far off the vision of the cross,
The Christ-like glory and the Christ-like doom.

Messiah! Elder Brother, Priest and King,
The Son of God, and yet the woman's seed;
Enterer within the veil; Victor of death,
And made to us first fruits of them that sleep;
Saviour and Intercessor, Judge and Lord,--
All that we know of Thee, or knowing not
Love only, waiting till the perfect time
When we shall know even as we are known--
O Thou Child Jesus, Thou dost seem to say
By the soft silence of these heavenly eyes
(That rose out of the depths of nothingness
Upon this limner's reverent soul and hand)
We too should be about our father's business--
O Christ, hear us!

Have mercy on us, Jesus Christ, our Lord!
The cross Thou borest still is hard to bear;
And awful even to humblest follower
The little that Thou givest each to do

Of this Thy Father's business; whether it be
Temptation by the devil of the flesh,
Or long-linked years of lingering toil obscure,
Uncomforted, save by the solemn rests
On mountain-tops of solitary prayer;
Oft ending in the supreme sacrifice,
The putting off all garments of delight,
And taking sorrow's kingly crown of thorn,
In crucifixion of all self to Thee,
Who offeredst up Thyself for all the world.
O Christ, hear us!

Our Father's business:--unto us, as Thee,
The whole which this earth-life, this hand-breadth span
Out of our everlasting life that lies
Hidden with Thee in God, can ask or need.
Outweighing all that heap of petty woes--
To us a measure huge--which angels blow
Out of the balance of our total lot,
As zephyrs blow the winged dust away.

O Thou who wert the Child of Nazareth,
Make us see only this, and only Thee,
Who camest but to do thy Father's will,
And didst delight to do it. Take Thou then
Our bitterness of loss,--aspirings vain,
And anguishes of unfulfilled desire,

Our joys imperfect, our sublimed despairs,
Our hopes, our dreams, our wills, our loves, our all,
And cast them into the great crucible
In which the whole earth, slowly purified,
Runs molten, and shall run--the Will of God.
O Christ, hear us!
:;;;
An Autumn Psalm For 1860
NO shadow o'er the silver sea,
That as in slumber heaves,
No cloud on the September sky,
No blight on any leaves,
As the reaper comes rejoicing,
Bringing in his sheaves.

Long, long and late the spring delayed,
And summer, dank with rain,
Hung trembling o'er her sunless fruit,
And her unripened grain;
And, like a weary, hopeless life,
Sobbed herself out in pain.

So the year laid her child to sleep,
Her beauty half expressed;
Then slowly, slowly cleared the skies,
And smoothed the seas to rest,
And raised the fields of yellowing corn
O'er Summer's buried breast;

Till Autumn counterfeited Spring,
With such a flush of flowers,
His fiery-tinctured garlands more
Than mocked the April bowers,
And airs as sweet as airs of June
Brought on the twilight hours.

O holy twilight, tender, calm!
O star above the sea!
O golden harvest, gathered in
With late solemnity,
And thankful joy for gifts nigh lost
Which yet so plenteous be;--

Although the rain-cloud wraps the hill,
And sudden swoop the leaves,
And the year nears his sacred end,
No eye weeps--no heart grieves:
For the reaper came rejoicing,
Bringing in his sheaves.