A GIRL, who has so many wilful ways
She would have caused Job's patience to forsake him;
Yet is so rich in all that's girlhood's praise,
Did Job himself upon her goodness gaze,
A little better she would surely make him.

Yet is this girl I sing in naught uncommon,
And very far from angel yet, I trow.
Her faults, her sweetnesses, are purely human;
Yet she's more lovable as simple woman
Than any one diviner that I know.

Therefore I wish that she may safely keep
This womanhede, and change not, only grow;
From maid to matron, youth to age, may creep,
And in perennial blessedness, still reap
On every hand of that which she doth sow.

A GIRL, who has so many wilful ways
She would have caused Job's patience to forsake him;
Yet is so rich in all that's girlhood's praise,
Did Job himself upon her goodness gaze,
A little better she would surely make him.

Yet is this girl I sing in naught uncommon,
And very far from angel yet, I trow.
Her faults, her sweetnesses, are purely human;
Yet she's more lovable as simple woman
Than any one diviner that I know.

Therefore I wish that she may safely keep
This womanhede, and change not, only grow;
From maid to matron, youth to age, may creep,
And in perennial blessedness, still reap
On every hand of that which she doth sow.

STREAM of my life, dull, placid river, flow!
I have no fear of the ingulfing seas:
Neither I look before me nor behind,
But, lying mute with wave-dipped hand, float on.

It was not always so. My brethren, see
This oar-stained, trembling palm. It keeps the sign
Of youth's mad wrestling with the waves that drift
Immutably, eternally along.

I would have had them flow through fields and flowers,
Giving and taking freshness, perfume, joy;
It winds through--here. Be silent, O my soul!
--The finger of God's wisdom drew its line.

So I lean back and look up to the stars,
And count the ripples circling to the shore,
And watch the solemn river rolling on
Until it widen to the open seas.

Winter Moonlight

LOUD-VOICED night, with the wild wind blowing
Many a tune;
Stormy night, with white rain-clouds going
Over the moon;
Mystic night, that each minute changes,
Now as blue as the mountain-ranges
Far, far away;
Now as black as a heart where strange is
Joy, night or day.

Wondrous moonlight, unlike all moonlights
Since I was born;
That on a hundred, bright as noonlights,
Looks in slow scorn,--
Moonlights where the old vine-leaves quiver,
Moonlights shining on vale and river,
Where old paths lie;
Moonlights--Night, blot their like forever
Out of the sky!

Hail, new moonlight, fierce, wild, and stormy,
Wintry and bold!
Hail, sharp wind, that can strengthen, warm me,
If ne'er so cold!
Not chance-driven this deluge rages,
ONE doth pour out and ONE assuages;
Under His hand
Drifting, Noah-like, into the ages
Shall touch land.

IT is no joy to me to sit
On dreamy summer eves,
When silently the timid moon
Kisses the sleeping leaves,
And all things through the fair hushed earth
Love, rest--but nothing grieves.
Better I like old Autumn
With his hair tossed to and fro,
Firm striding o'er the stubble fields
When the equinoctials blow.

When shrinkingly the sun creeps up
Through misty mornings cold,
And Robin on the orchard hedge
Sings cheerily and bold,
While the frosted plum
Drops downward on the mould;--
And as he passes, Autumn
Into earth's lap does throw
Brown apples gay in a game of play,
As the equinoctials blow.

When the spent year its carol sinks
Into a humble psalm,
Asks no more for the pleasure draught,
But for the cup of balm,
And all its storms and sunshine bursts
Controls to one brave calm,--
Then step by step walks Autumn,
With steady eyes that show
Nor grief nor fear, to the death of the year,
While the equinoctials blow.

An Aurora Borealis

O STRANGE soft gleam, o ghostly dawn
That never brightens unto day;
Ere earth's mirk pale once more be drawn
Let us look out beyond the gray.

It is just midnight by the clock--
There is no sound on glen or hill,
The moaning linn adown its rock
Leaps, but the woods lie dark and still.

Austere against the kindling sky
Yon broken turret blacker grows;
Harsh light, to show remorselessly
Ruins night hid in kind repose!

Nay, beauteous light, nay, light that fills
The whole heaven like a dream of morn,
As waking upon northern hills
She smiles to find herself new-born,--

Strange light, I know thou wilt not stay,
That many an hour must come and go
Before the pale November day
Break in the east, forlorn and slow.

Yet blest one gleam--one gleam like this,
When all heaven brightens in our sight,
And the long night that was and is
And shall be, vanishes in light:

O blest one hour like this! to rise
And see grief's shadows backward roll;
While bursts on unaccustomed eyes
The glad Aurora of the soul.

Year After Year: A Love Song.

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.

The Wren’s Nest

I TOOK the wren's nest;--
Heaven forgive me!
Its merry architects so small
Had scarcely finished their wee hall,
That, empty still, and neat and fair,
Hung idly in the summer air.
The mossy walls, the dainty door,
Where Love should enter and explore,
And Love sit carolling outside,
And Love within chirp multiplied;--
I took the wren's nest;--
Heaven forgive me!

How many hours of happy pains
Through early frosts and April rains,
How many songs at eve and morn
O'er springing grass and greening corn,
Before the pretty house was made!
One little minute, only one,
And she'll fly back, and find it--gone!
I took the wren's nest:
Bird, forgive me!

Thou and thy mate, sans let, sans fear,
Ye have before you all the year,
And every wood holds nooks for you,
In which to sing and build and woo;
One piteous cry of birdish pain--
And ye'll begin your life again,
And quite forget the lost, lost home
In many a busy home to come.--
But I?--Your wee house keep I must
Until it crumble into dust.
I took the wren's nest:
God forgive me!

I.

RICHARD the Lion-hearted, crowned serene
With the true royalty of perfect man;
Seated in stone above the praise or ban
Of these mixed crowds who come gaping lean
As if to see what the word 'king' might mean
In those old times. Behold! what need that rim
Of crown 'gainst this blue sky, to signal him
A monarch, of the monarchs that have been,
And, perhaps, are not?--Read his destinies
In the full brow o'er-arching kingly eyes,
In the strong hands, grasping both rein and sword,
In the close mouth, so sternly beautiful:--
Surely, a man who his own spirit can rule;
Lord of himself, therefore his brethren's lord.

II.

'O Richard, O mon roi.' So minstrels sighed.
The many-centuried voice dies fast away
Amidst the turmoil of our modern day.
How know we but these green-wreathed legends hide
An ugly truth that never could abide
In this our living world's far purer air?--
Nevertheless, O statue, rest thou there,
Our Richard, of all chivalry the pride;
Or if not the true Richard, still a type
Of the old regal glory, fallen, o'er-ripe,
And giving place to better blossoming:
Stand--imaging the grand heroic days;
And let our little children come and gaze,
Whispering with innocent awe--'This was a King.'

We should not sit us down and sigh,
My girl, whose brow a fane appears,
Whose steadfast eyes look royally
Backwards and forwards o'er the years--

The long, long years of conquered time,
The possible years unwon, that slope
Before us in the pale sublime
Of lives that have more faith than hope.

We dare not sit us down and dream
Fond dreams, as idle children do:
My forehead owns too many a seam,
And tears have worn their channels through

Your poor thin cheeks, which now I take
Twixt my two hands, caressing. Dear,
A little sunshine for my sake!
Although we're far on in the year.

Though all our violets, sweet! are dead,
The primrose lost from fields we knew,
Who knows that harvests may be spread
For reapers brave like me and you?

Who knows what bright October suns
May light up distant valleys mild,
Where as our pathway downward runs
We see Joy meet us, like a child

Who, sudden, by the roadside stands,
To kiss the travellers' weary brows,
And lead them through the twilight lands
Safely unto their Father's house.

So, we'll not dream, nor look back, dear!
But march right on, content and bold,
To where our life sets, heavenly clear,
Westward, behind the hills of gold.

I.

I SHALL not paint them. God them sees, and I:
No other can, nor need. They have no form,
I may not close with human kisses warm
Their eyes which shine afar or from on high,
But never will shine nearer till I die.
How long, how long! See, I am growing old;
I have quite ceased to note in my hair's fold
The silver threads that there in ambush lie;
Some angel faces bent from heaven would pine
To trace the sharp lines graven upon mine;
What matter? in the wrinkles ploughed by care
Let age tread after, sowing immortal seeds;
All this life's harvest yielded, wheat or weeds,
Is reaped, methinks: at my little field lies bare.

II.

BUT in the night time, 'twixt it and the stars,
The angel faces still come glimmering by;
No death-pale shadow, no averted eye
Marking the inevitable doom that bars
Me from them. Not a cloud their aspect mars;
And my sick spirit walks with them hand in hand
By the cool waters of a pleasant land:
Sings with them o'er again, without its jars,
The psalm of life, that ceased, as one by one
Their voices, dropping off, left mine alone
With dull monotonous wail to grieve the air.
O solitary love, that art so strong,
I think God will have pity on thee erelong,
And take thee where thou'lt find those angel faces fair.

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?

The Canary In His Cage

SING away, ay, sing away,
Merry little bird,
Always gayest of the gay,
Though a woodland roundelay
You ne'er sung nor heard;
Though your life from youth to age
Passes in a narrow cage.

Near the window wild birds fly,
Trees are waving round:
Fair things everywhere you spy
Through the glass pane's mystery,
Your small life's small bound:
Nothing hinders your desire
But a little gilded wire.

Like a human soul you seem
Shut in golden bars:
Placed amidst earth's sunshine-stream,
Singing to the morning beam,
Dreaming 'neath the stars:
Seeing all life's pleasures clear,--
But they never can come near.

Never! Sing, bird-poet mine,
As most poets do;--
Guessing by an instinct fine
At some happiness divine
Which they never knew.
Lonely in a prison bright
Hymning for the world's delight.

Yet, my birdie, you're content
In your tiny cage:
Not a carol thence is sent
But for happiness is meant--
Wisdom pure as sage:
Teaching, the true poet's part
Is to sing with merry heart.

So, lie down thou peevish pen,
Eyes, shake off all tears;
And my wee bird, sing again:
I'll translate your song to men
In these future years.
'Howsoe'er thy lot's assigned,
Bear it with a cheerful mind.'

A Rejected Lover

You 'never loved me,' Ada. These slow words
Dropped softly from your gentle woman-tongue
Out of your true and kindly woman-heart,
Fell, piercing into mine like very swords
The sharper for their kindness. Yet no wrong
Lies to your charge, nor cruelty, nor art,--
Ev'n when you spoke, I saw the tender tear-drop start.

You 'never loved me.' No, you never knew,
You, with youth's morning fresh upon your soul,
What 't is to love: slow, drop by drop, to pour
Our life's whole essence, perfumed through and through
With all the best we have or can control
For the libation--cast it down before
Your feet--then lift the goblet, dry for evermore.

I shall not die as foolish lovers do:
A man's heart beats beneath thid breast of mine,
The breast where--Curse on that fiend-whispering
'It might have been!'--Ada, I will be true
Unto myself--the self that so loved thine:
May all life's pain, like these few tears that spring
For me, glance off as rain-drops from my white dove's wing!

May you live long, some good man's bosom flower,
And gather chldren round your matron knees:
So, when all this is past, and you and I
Remember each our youth-days as an hour
Of joy--or anguish, one, serene, at ease,
May come to meet the other's steadfast eye,
Thinking, 'He loved me well!' clasp hands, and so pass by.

The Garden-Chair

TWO PORTRAITS.

A PLEASANT picture, full of meanings deep,
Old age, calm sitting in the July sun,
On withered hands half-leaning--feeble hands,
That after their life-labors, light or hard,
Their girlish broideries, their marriage-ringed
Domestic duties, their sweet cradle cares,
Have dropped into the quiet-folded ease
Of fourscore years. How peacefully the eyes
Face us! Contented, unregretful eyes,
That carry in them the whole tale of life
With its one moral--'Thus all was--thus best.'
Eyes now so near unto their closing mild
They seem to pierce direct through all that maze,
As eyes immortal do.

Here--Youth. She stands
Under the roses, with elastic foot
Poised to step forward; eager-eyed, yet grave
Beneath the mystery of the unknown To-come,
Though longing for its coming. Firm prepared
(So say the lifted head and close, sweet mouth)
For any future: though the dreamy hope
Throned on her girlish forehead, whispers fond,
'Surely they err who say that life is hard;
Surely it shall not be with me as these.'

God knows: He only. And so best, dear child,
Thou woman-statured, sixteen-year-old child,
Meet bravely the impenetrable Dark
Under thy roses. Bud and blossom thou
Fearless as they--if thou art planted safe,
Whether for gathering or for withering, safe
In the King's garden.

WE never had believed, I wis,
At primrose time when west winds stole
Like thoughts of youth across the soul,
In such an altered time as this,

When if one little flower did peep
Up through the brown and sullen grass,
We should just look on it, and pass
As if we saw it in our sleep.

Feeling as sure as that this ray
Which cottage children call the sun,
Colors the pale clouds one by one,--
Our touch would make it drop to clay.

We never could have looked, in prime
Of April, or when July trees
Shook full-leaved in the evening bree
Upon the face of this pale time,

Still, soft, familiar; shining bleak
On naked branches, sodden ground,
Yet shining--as if one had found
A smile upon a dead friend's cheek,

Or old friend, lost for years, had strange
In altered mien come sudden back,
Confronting us with our great lack--
Till loss seemed far less sad than change.

Yet though, alas! Hope did not see
This winter skeleton through full leaves,
Out of all bareness Faith perceives
Possible life in field and tree.

In bough and trunk the sap will move,
And the mould break o'er springing flowers;
Nature revives with all her powers,
But only nature;--never love.

So, listlessly with linkèd hands
Both Faith and Hope glide soft away;
While in long shadows, cool and gray,
The sun sets o'er the barren lands.

O SOLITARY shining sea
That ripples in the sun,
O gray and melancholy sea,
O'er which the shadows run;

O many-voiced and angry sea,
Breaking with moan and strain,--
I, like a humble, chastened child,
Come back to thee again;

And build child-castles and dig moats
Upon the quiet sands,
And twist the cliff-convolvulus
Once more, round idle hands;

And look across that ocean line,
As o'er life's summer sea,
Where many a hope went sailing once,
Full set, with canvas free.

Strange, strange to think how some of them
Their silver sails have furled,
And some have whitely glided down
Into the under world;

And some, dismasted, tossed and torn,
Put back in port once more,
Thankful to ride, with freight still safe,
At anchor near the shore.

Stranger it is to lie at ease
As now, with thoughts that fly
More light and wandering than sea-birds
Between the waves and sky:

To play child's play with shells and weeds,
And view the ocean grand
Sunk to one wave that may submerge
A baby-house of sand;

And not once look, or look by chance,
With old dreams quite supprest,
Across that mystic wild sea-world
Of infinite unrest.

O ever solitary sea,
Of which we all have found
Somewhat to dream or say,--the type
Of things without a bound--

Love, long as life, and strong as death;
Faith, humble as sublime;
Eternity, whose large depths hold
The wrecks of this small Time;--

Unchanging, everlasting sea!
To spirits soothed and calm
Thy restless moan of other years
Becomes an endless psalm.

A Psalm For New Year’s Eve

A FRIEND stands at the door;
In either tight-closed hand
Hiding rich gifts, three hundred and three score:
Waiting to strew them daily o'er the land
Even as seed the sower.
Each drops he, treads it in and passes by:
It cannot be made fruitful till it die.

O good New Year, we clasp
This warm shut hand of thine,
Loosing forever, with half sigh, half gasp,
That which from ours falls like dead fingers' twine:
Ay, whether fierce its grasp
Has been, or gentle, having been, we know
That it was blessed: let the Old Year go.

O New Year, teach us faith!
The road of life is hard:
When our feet bleed and scourging winds us scathe,
Point thou to Him whose visage was more marred
Than any man's: who saith
'Make straight paths for your feet'--and to the opprest--
'Come ye to Me, and I will give you rest.'

Yet hang some lamp-like hope
Above this unknown way,
Kind year, to give our spirits freer scope
And our hands strength to work while it is day.
But if that way must slope
Tombward, O bring before our fading eyes
The lamp of life, the Hope that never dies.

Comfort our souls with love,--
Love of all human kind;
Love special, close--in which like sheltered dove
Each weary heart its own safe nest may find;
And love that turns above
Adoringly; contented to resign
All loves, if need be, for the Love Divine.

Friend, come thou like a friend,
And whether bright thy face,
Or dim with clouds we cannot comprehend,--
We'll hold out patient hands, each in his place,
And trust thee to the end.
Knowing thou leadest onwards to those spheres
Where there are neither days nor months nor years.

Mary’s Wedding

February 25th, 1851.

YOU are to be married, Mary;
This hour as I wakeful lie
In the dreamy dawn of the morning,
Your wedding hour draws nigh;
Miles off, you are rising, dressing,
Your bridemaidens gay among,
In the same old house we played in,--
You and I, when we were young.

Your bridemaids--they were our playmates:
Those known rooms, every wall,
Could speak of our childish frolics,
Loves, jealousies, great and small:
Do you mind how pansies changed we
And smiled at the word 'forget'?--
'T was a girl's romance: yet somehow
I have kept my pansy yet.

Do you mind our poems written
Together? our dreams of fame--
And of love--how we'd share all secrets
When that sweet mystery came?
It is no mystery now, Mary;
It was unveiled, year by year,
Till--this is your marriage morning;
And I rest quiet here.

I cannot call up your face, Mary,
The face of the bride to-day:
You have outgrown my knowledge,
The years have so slipped away.
I see but your girlish likeness,
Brown eyes and brown falling hair;--
God knows, I did love you dearly,
And was proud that you were fair.

Many speak my name, Mary,
While yours in home's silence lies:

The future I read in toil's guerdon,
You will read in your children's eyes:
The past--the same past with either--
Is to you a delightsome scene,
But I cannot trace it clearly
For the graves that rise between.

I am glad you are happy, Mary!
These tears, could you see them fall,
Would show, though you have forgotten,
I have remembered all.
And though my cup may be empty
While yours is all running o'er,
Heaven keep you its sweetness, Mary,
Brimming for evermore.

A Ghost At The Dancing

A WIND-SWEPT tulip-bed--a colored cloud
Of butterflies careering in the air--
A many-figured arras stirred to life,
And merry unto midnight music dumb--
So the dance whirls. Do any think of thee,
Amiel, Amiel?
Friends greet each other--countless rills of talk
Meander round, scattering a spray of smiles.
Surely--the news was false. One minute more
And thou wilt stand here, tall and quiet-eyed,
Shakespearian beauty in they pensive face,
Amiel, Amiel.

Many here knew and loved thee--I nor loved,
Scarce knew--yet in thy place a shadow glides,
And a face shapes itself from empty air,
Watching the dancers, grave and quiet-eyed--
Eyes that now see the angels evermore,
Amiel, Amiel.

On just such night as this, 'midst dance and song,
I bade thee carelessly a light good by--
'Good by'--saidst thou; 'A happy journey home!'
Was the unseen death-angel at thy side,
Mocking those words--('A happy journey home,'
Amiel, Amiel?

Ay, we play fool's play still; thou hast gone home.
While these dance here, a mile hence o'er thy grave
Drifts the deep New Year snow. The wondrous gate
We spoke of, thou hast entered; I without
Grope ignorant still--thou dost its secrets know,
Amiel, Amiel.

What if, thus sitting where we sat last year,
Thou camest, took'st up our broken thread of talk,
And told'st of that new Home, which far I view,
As children, wandering on through wintry fields,
Mark on the hill the father's window shine,
Amiel, Amiel?

No. We shall see thy pleasant face no more;
Thy words on earth are ended. Yet thou livest;
'T is we who die.--I too, one day shall come,
And, unseen, watch these shadows, quiet-eyed--
Then flit back to thy land, the living land,
Amiel, Amiel.

To A Beautiful Woman

SURELY, dame Nature made you in some dream
Of old-world women--Chriemhild, or bright
Aslauga, or Boadicea fierce and fair,
Or Berengaria as she rose, her lips
Yet ruddy from the poison that anoints
Her memory still, the queen of queenly wives.

I marvel, who will crown you wife, you grand
And goodly creature! who will mount supreme
The empty chariot of your maiden heart,
Curb the strong will that leaps and foams and chafes
Still masterless, and guide you safely home
Unto the golden gate, where quiet sits
Grave Matronhood, with gracious, loving eyes.

What eyes you have, you wild gazelle o' the plain,
You fierce hind of the forest! now they flash,
Now glow, now in their own dark down-dropt shade
Conceal themselves a moment, as some thought,
Too brief to be a feeling, flits across
The April cloudland of your careless soul--
There--that light laugh--and 't is full sun--full day.

Would I could paint you, line by line, ere Time
Touches the gorgeous picture! your ripe mouth,
Your white arched throat, your stature like to Saul's
Among his brethren, yet so fitly framed
In such harmonious symmetry, we say
As of a cedar among common trees
Never 'How tall!' but only 'O how fair!'

Who made you fair? moulded you in the shape
That poets dream of; sent you forth to men
His caligraph inscribed on every curve
Of your brave form?

Is it written on your soul?
--I know not.
Woman, upon whom is laid
Heaven's own sign-manual, Beauty, mock heaven not!
Reverence thy loveliness--the outward type
Of things we understand not, nor behold
But as in a glass, darkly; wear it thou
With awful gladness, grave humility,
That not contemns, nor boasts, nor is ashamed,
But lifts its face up prayerfully to heaven,--
'Thou who hast made me, make me worthy Thee!'

SMALL wren, mute pecking at the last red plum
Or twittering idly at the yellowing boughs
Fruit-emptied, over thy forsaken house,--
Birdie, that seems to come
Telling, we too have spent our little store,
Our summer's o'er:

Poor robin, driven in by rain-storms wild
To lie submissive under household hands
With beating heart that no love understands,
And scarèd eye, like a child
Who only knows that he is all alone
And summer's gone;

Pale leaves, sent flying wide, a frightened flock
On which the wolfish wind bursts out, and tears
Those tender forms that lived in summer airs
Till, taken at this shock,
They, like weak hearts when sudden grief sweeps by,
Whirl, drop, and die:--

All these things, earthy, of the earth--do tell
This earth's perpetual story; we belong
Unto another country, and our song
Shall be no mortal knell;
Though all the year's tale, as our years run fast,
Mourns, 'summer's past.'

O love immortal, O perpetual youth,
Whether in budding nooks it sits and sings
As hundred poets in a hundred springs,
Or, slaking passion's drouth,
In wine-press of affliction, ever goes
Heavenward, through woes:

O youth immortal--O undying love!
With these by winter fireside we'll sit down
Wearing our snows of honor like a crown;
And sing as in a grove,
Where the full nests ring out with happy cheer,
'Summer is here.'

Roll round, strange years; swift seasons, come and go;
Ye leave upon us but an outward sign;
Ye cannot touch the inward and divine,
While God alone does know;
There sealed till summers, winters, all shall cease
In His deep peace.

Therefore uprouse ye winds and howl your will;
Beat, beat, ye sobbing rains on pane and door;
Enter, slow-footed age, and thou, obscure,
Grand Angel--not of ill;
Healer of every wound, where'er thou come,
Glad, we'll go home.

Fallen In The Night!

IT dressed itself in green leaves all the summer long,
Was full of chattering starlings, loud with throstles' song.
Children played beneath it, lovers sat and talked,
Solitary strollers looked up as they walked.
O, so fresh its branches! and the its old trunk gray
Was so stately rooted, who forbode decay?
Even when winds had blown it yellow and almost bare,
Softly dropped its chestnuts through the misty air;
Still its few leaves rustled with a faint delight,
And their tender colors charmed the sense of sight,
Filled the soul with beauty, and the heart with peace,
Like sweet sounds departing--sweetest when they cease.

Pelting, undermining, loosening, came the rain;
Through its topmost branches roared the hurricane;
Oft it strained and shivered till the night wore past;
But in dusky daylight there the tree stood fast,
Though its birds had left it, and its leaves were dead,
And its blossoms faded, and its fruit all shed.

Ay, and when last sunset came a wanderer by,
Watched it as aforetime with a musing eye,
Still it wore its scant robes so pathetic gay,
Caught the sun's last glimmer, the new moon's first ray;
And majestic, patient, stood amidst its peers
Waiting for the spring-times of uncounted years.

But the worm was busy, and the days were run;
Of its hundred sunsets this was the last one:
So in the quiet midnight, with no eye to see,
None to harm in falling, fell the noble tree!

Says the early laborer, starting at the sight
With a sleepy wonder, 'Fallen in the night!'
Says a schoolboy, leaping in a wild delight
Over trunk and branches, 'Fallen in the night!'

O thou Tree, thou glory of His hand who made
Nothing ever vainly, thou hast Him obeyed!
Lived thy life, and perished when and how He willed;--
Be all lamentation and all murmurs stilled.
To our last hour live we--fruitful, brave, upright,
'T will be a good ending, 'Fallen in the night!'

The Cathedral Tombs

THEY lie, with upraised hands, and feet
Stretched like dead feet that walk no more,
And stony masks oft human sweet,
As if the olden look each wore,
Familiar curves of lip and eye,
Were wrought by some fond memory.

All waiting: the new-coffined dead,
The handful of mere dust that lies
Sarcophagused in stone and lead
Under the weight of centuries:
Knight, cardinal, bishop, abbess mild,
With last week's buried year-old child.

After the tempest cometh peace,
After long travail sweet repose;
These folded palms, these feet that cease
From any motion, are but shows
Of--what? What rest? How rest they? Where?
The generations naught declare.

Dark grave, unto whose brink we come,
Drawn nearer by all nights and days;
Each after each, thy solemn gloom
We pierce with momentary gaze,
Then go, unwilling or content,
The way that all our fathers went.

Is there no voice or guiding hand
Arising from the awful void,
To say, 'Fear not the silent land;
Would He make aught to be destroyed?
Would He? or can He? What know we
Of Him who is Infinity?

Strong Love, which taught us human love,
Helped us to follow through all spheres
Some soul that did sweet dead lips move,
Lived in dear eyes in smiles and tears,
Love--once so near our flesh allied,
That 'Jesus wept' when Lazarus died;--

Eagle-eyed Faith that can see God,
In worlds without and heart within;
In sorrow by the smart o' the rod,
In guilt by the anguish of the sin;
In everything pure, holy, fair,
God saying to man's soul, 'I am there';--

These only, twin-archangels, stand
Above the abyss of common doom,
These only stretch the tender hand
To us descending to the tomb,
Thus making it a bed of rest
With spices and with odors drest.

So, like one weary and worn, who sinks
To sleep beneath long faithful eyes,
Who asks no word of love, but drinks
The silence which is paradise--
We only cry--'Keep angelward,
And give us good rest, O good Lord!'

A Living Picture

No, I'll not say your name. I have said it now,
As you mine, first in childish treble, then
Up through a score and more familiar years
Till baby-voices mock us. Time may come
When your tall sons look down on our white hair,
Amused to hear us call each other thus,
And question us about the old, old days,
The far-off days, the days when we were young.

How distant do they seem, and yet how near!
Now, as I lie and watch you come and go,
With garden basket in your hand; in gown
Just girdled, and brown curls that girl-like fall,
And straw hat flapping in the April breeze,
I could forget this lapse of years--start up
Laughing--'Come, let's go play!'
Well-a-day, friend,
Our play-days are all done.
Still, let us smile:
For as you flit about your garden here
You look like this spring morning: on your lips
An unseen bird sings snatches of gay tunes,
While, an embodied music, moves your step,
Your free, wild, springy step, like Atala's,
Or Pocahontas, careless child o' the sun--
Those Indian beauties I compare you to--
I, still your praiser,--
Nay, nay, I'll not praise,
Fair seemeth fairest, ignorant 't is fair:
That light incredulous laugh is worth a world!
That laugh, with childish echoes.
So then, fade,
Mere dream. Come, true and sweet reality:
Come, dawn of happy wifehood, motherhood,
Ripening to perfect noon! Come, peaceful round
Of simple joys, fond duties, gladsome cares,
When each full hour drops bliss with liberal hand,
Yet leaves to-morrow richer than to-day.

Will you sit here? the grass is summer-warm.
Look at those children making daisy-chains,
So did we too, do you mind? That eldest lad,
He has your very mouth. Yet, you will have 't
His eyes are like his father's? Perhaps so:
They could not be more dark and deep and kind.
Do you know, this hour I have been fancying you
A poet's dream, and almost sighed to think
There was no poet to praise you--
Why, you're flown
After those mad elves in the flower-beds there,
Ha--ha--you're no dream now.
Well, well--so best!
My eyelids droop content o'er moistened eyes:
I would not have you other than you are.

AUTUMN to winter, winter into spring,
Spring into summer, summer into fall,--
So rolls the changing year, and so we change;
Motion so swift, we know not that we move.
Till at the gate of some memorial hour
We pause--look in its sepulchre to find
The cast-off shape that years since we called 'I'--
And start, amazed. Yet on! We may not stay
To weep or laugh. All which is past, is past
Even while we gaze the simulated form
Drops into dust, like many-centuried corpse
At opening of a tomb.
Alack, this world
Is full of change, change, change,--nothing but change!
Is there not one straw in life's whirling flood
To hold by, as the torrent sweeps us down,
Us, scattered leaves; eddied and broken; torn
Roughly asunder; or in smooth mid-stream
Divided each from other without pain;
Collected in what looks like union,
Yet is but stagnant chance,--stopping to rot
By the same pebble till the tide shall turn;
Then on, to find no shelter and no rest,
Forever rootless and forever lone.
O God, we are but leaves upon Thy stream,
Clouds on Thy sky. We do but move across
The silent breast of Thy infinitude
Which bears us all. We pour out day by day
Our long, brief moan of mutability
To Thine immutable--and cease.
Yet still
Our change yearns after Thine unchangedness;
Our mortal craves Thine immortality;
Our manifold and multiform and weak
Imperfectness, requires the perfect ONE.
For Thou art ONE, and we are all of Thee;
Dropped from Thy bosom, as Thy sky drops down
Its morning dews, which glitter for a space,
Uncertain whence they fell, or whither tend,
Till the great Sun arising on his fields
Upcalls them all, and they rejoicing go.

So, with like joy, O Light Eterne, we spring
Thee-ward, and leave the pleasant fields of earth,
Forgetting equally its blossomed green
And its dry dusty paths which drank us up
Remorseless,--we, poor humble drops of dew,
That only wish to freshen a flower's breast,
And be exhaled to heaven.
O Thou supreme
All-satisfying and immutable One,
It is enough to be absorbed in Thee
And vanish,--though 't were only to a voice
That through all ages with perpetual joy
Goes evermore loud crying, 'God! God! God!'

The Aurora On The Clyde

AH me, how heavily the night comes down,
Heavily, heavily:
Fade the curved shores, the blue hills' serried throng,
The darkening waves we oared in light and song:
Joy melts from us as sunshine from the sky;
And Patience with sad eye
Takes up her staff and drops her withered crown.
Our small boat heaves upon the heaving river,
Wearily, wearily;
The flickering shore-lights come and go by fits;
Towering 'twixt earth and heaven dusk silence sits,
Death at her feet; above, infinity;
Between, slow drifting by,
Our tiny boat, like life, floats onward ever.

Pale, mournful hour,--too early night that falls
Drearily, drearily,
Come not too soon! Return, return, bright day,
Kind voices, smiles, blue mountains, sunny bay!
In vain! Life's dial cannot backward fly:
The dark time comes. Low lie,
And listen, soul. Oft in the night, God calls.
* * * * * *

Light, light on the black river! How it gleams,
Solemnly, solemnly!
Like troops of pale ghosts on their pensive march,
Treading the far heavens in a luminous arch,
Each after each: phantasms serene and high
From that eternity
Where all earth's sharpest woes grow dim as dreams.

Let us drink in the glory, full and whole,
Silently, silently:
Gaze, till it lulls all pain, all vain desires:--
See now, that radiant bow of pillared fires
Spanning the hills like dawn, until they lie
In soft tranquillity,
And all night's ghastly glooms asunder roll.

Look, look again! the vision changes fast,
Gloriously, gloriously:
That was heaven's gate with its illumined road,
But this is heaven; the very throne of God
Hung with flame curtains of celestial dye
Waving perpetually,
While to and fro innumerous angels haste.

I see no more the stream, the boat that moves
Mournfully, mournfully:
And we who sit, poor prisoners of clay:
It is not night, it is immortal day,
Where the One Presence fills eternity,
And each, His servant high,
Forever praises and forever loves.

O soul, forget the weight that drags thee down
Deathfully, deathfully:
Know thyself. As this glory wraps thee round,
Let it melt off the chains that long have bound
Thy strength. Stand free before thy God and cry--
'My Father, here am I:
Give to me as thou wilt--first cross, then crown.'

An Honest Valentine

Returned from the Dead-Letter Office

THANK you for your kindness,
Lady fair and wise,
Though love's famed for blindness,
Lovers--hem! for lies.
Courtship's mighty pretty,
Wedlock a sweet sight;--
Should I (from the city,
A plain man, Miss--) write,
Ere we spouse-and-wive it,
Just one honest line,
Could you e'er forgive it,
Pretty Valentine?

Honey-moon quite over,
If I less should scan
You with eye of lover
Than of mortal man?
Seeing my fair charmer
Curl hair spire on spire,
All in paper armor,
By the parlor fire;
Gown that wants a stitch in
Hid by apron fine,
Scolding in her kitchen,--
O fie, Valentine!

Should I come home surly
Vexed with fortune's frown,
Find a hurly-burly,
House turned upside down,
Servants all a-snarl, or
Cleaning steps or stair:
Breakfast still in parlor,
Dinner--anywhere:
Shall I to cold bacon
Meekly fall and dine?
No,--or I'm mistaken
Much, my Valentine.
What if we should quarrel?
--Bless you, all folks do:--
Will you take the war ill
Yet half like it too?
When I storm and jangle,
Obstinate, absurd,
Will you sit and wrangle
Just for the last word,--
Or, while poor Love, crying,
Upon tiptoe stands,
Ready plumed for flying,--
Will you smile, shake hands,
And the truth beholding,
With a kiss divine
Stop my rough mouth's scolding?--
Bless you, Valentine!

If, should times grow harder,
We have lack of pelf,
Little in the larder,
Less upon the shelf;
Will you, never tearful,
Make your old gowns do,
Mend my stockings, cheerful,
And pay visits few?
Crave nor gift nor donor,
Old days ne'er regret,
Seek no friend save Honor,
Dread no foe but Debt;
Meet ill-fortune steady,
Hand to hand with mine,
Like a gallant lady,--
Will you, Valentine?

Then, whatever weather
Come, or shine, or shade,
We'll set out together,
Not a whit afraid.
Age is ne'er alarming,--
I shall find, I ween,
You at sixty charming
As at sweet sixteen:
Let's pray, nothing loath, dear,
That our funeral may
Make one date serve both, dear,
As our marriage day.
Then, come joy or sorrow,
Thou art mine,--I thine.
So we'll wed to-morrow,
Dearest Valentine.

O COUSIN Robert, far away
Among the lands of gold,
How many years since we two met?--
You would not like it told.

O cousin Robert, buried deep
Amid your bags of gold--
I thought I saw you yesternight
Just as you were of old.

You own whole leagues--I half a rood
Behind my cottage door;
You have your lacs of gold rupees,
And I my children four;

Your tall barques dot the dangerous seas,
My 'ship's come home'--to rest
Safe anchored from the storms of life
Upon one faithful breast.

And it would cause no start or sigh,
Nor thought of doubt or blame,
If I should teach our little son
His cousin Robert's name.--

That name, however wide it rings,
I oft think, when alone,
I rather would have seen it graved
Upon a churchyard stone--

Upon the white sunshining stone
Where cousin Alick lies:
Ah, sometimes, woe to him that lives!
Happy is he that dies!

O Robert, Robert, many a tear--
Though not the tears of old--
Drops, thinking of your face last night
Your hand's remembered fold;

A young man's face, so like, so like
Our mothers' faces fair:
A young man's hand, so firm to clasp,
So resolute to dare.

I thought you good--I wished you great;
You were my hope, my pride:
To know you good, to make you great
I once had happy died.

To tear the plague-spot from your heart,
Place honor on your brow,
See old age come in crownèd peace--
I almost would die now!

Would give--all that's now mine to give--
To have you sitting there,
The cousin Robert of my youth--
Though beggar'd, with gray hair.

O Robert, Robert, some that live
Are dead, long ere they are old;
Better the pure heart of our youth
Than palaces of gold;

Better the blind faith of our youth
Than doubt, which all truth braves;
Better to mourn, God's children dear,
Than laugh, the Devil's slaves.

O Robert, Robert, life is sweet,
And love is boundless gain:
Yet if I mind of you, my heart
Is stabbed with sudden pain:

And as in peace this Christmas eve
I close our quiet doors,
And kiss 'good-night' on sleeping heads--
Such bonnie curls,--like yours:

I fall upon my bended knees
With sobs that choke each word;--
'On those who err and are deceived
Have mercy, O good Lord!'

Constancy In Inconstancy

An Old Man’s Confession

SHE has a large still heart--this lady of mine,
(Not mine, i'faith! nor would I that she were
She walks this world of ours like Grecian nymph,
Pure with a marble pureness, moving on
Among the herd of men, environed round
With native airs of deep Olympian calm.
I have a great love for that lady of mine:
I like to watch her motions, trick of face,
And turn of thought, when speaking high and wise
The tongue of gods, not men. Ay, every day,
And twenty times a day, I start to catch
Some look or gesture of familiar mould,
And then my panting soul leans forth to her
Like some sick traveller who astonied sees
Gliding across the distant twilight fields--
His lovely, lost, beloved memory-fields--
The shadowy people of an earlier world.
I have a friend, how dearly liked, heart-warm,
Did I confess, sure she and all would smile:
I watch her as she steals in some dull room
That brightens at her entrance--slow lets fall
A word or two of wise simplicity,
Then goes, and at her going all seems dark.
Little she knows this: little thinks each brow
Lightens, each heart grows purer with her eyes,
Good, honest eyes--clear, upward, righteous eyes,
That look as if they saw the dim unseen,
And learnt from thence their deep compassionate calm.
Why do I precious hold this friend of mine?
Why in our talks, our quiet fireside talks,
When we, two earnest travellers through the dark,
Grasp at the guiding threads that homeward lead,
Seems it another soul than hers looks out
From these her eyes?--until I ofttimes start
And quiver, as when some soft ignorant hand
Touches the barb hid in a long-healed wound/
Yet still no blame, but thanks to thee, dear friend,
Ay, even when we wander back at eve,
They careless arm loose linked within my own--
The same height as I gaze down--nay, the hair
Her very color--fluttering 'neath the stars--
The same large stars which lit that earlier world.
I have another love--whose dewy looks
Are fresh with life's young dawn. I prophesy
The streak of light now trembling on the hills
Will broaden out into a glorious day.
Thou sweet one, meek as good, and good as fair,
Wise as a woman, harmless as a child,
I love thee well! And yet not thee, not thee,
God knows--they know who sit among the stars.
As one whose sun was darkened before noon,
Creeps patiently along the twilight lands,
Sees glow-worms, meteors, or tapers kind
Of an hour's burning, stops awhile to mark,
Thanks heaven for them, but never calls them day--
So love I these, and more. Yet thou, my sun,
Who rose, leaped to thy zenith, sat there throned,
And made the whole earth day--look, if thou canst,
Out of thy veilèd glory, and behold
How all these lesser lights but come and go,
Mere reflexes of thee. Be it so! I keep
My face unto the eastward, where thou stand'st--
I know thou stand'st--behind the purpling hills,
And I shall wake and find morn in the world.

Lost In The Mist

THE thin white snow-streaks pencilling
That mountain's shoulder gray,
While in the west the pale green sky
Smiled back the dawning day,
Till from the misty east the sun
Was of a sudden born
Like a new soul in Paradise--
How long it seems since morn!

One little hour, O round red sun,
And thou and I shall come
Unto the golden gate of rest,
The open door of home:
One little hour, O weary sun,
Delay the threatened eve
Till my tired feet that pleasant door
Enter and never leave.

Ye rooks that fly in slender file
Into the thick'ning gloom,
Ye'll scarce have reached your grim gray tower
Ere I have reached my home;
Plover, that thrills the solitude
With such an eerie cry,
Seek you your nest ere night-fall comes,
As my heart's nest seek I.

O light, light heart and heavy feet,
Patience a little while!
Keep the warm love-light in these eyes,
And on these lips the smile:
Out-speed the mist, the gathering mist
That follows o'er the moor!--
The darker grows the world without
The brighter seems that door.
O door, so close yet so far off;
O mist that nears and nears!
What, shall I faint in sight of home?
Blinded--but not with tears--
'T is but the mist, the cruel mist,
Which chills this heart of mine:
These eyes, too weak to see that light--
It has not ceased to shine.

A little further, further yet:
The white mist crawls and crawls;
It hems me around, it shuts me in
Its great sepulchral walls:
No earth--no sky--no path--no light--
A silence like the tomb:
O me, it is too soon to die--
And I was going home!

A little further, further yet:
My limbs are young,--my heart--
O heart, it is not only life
That feels it hard to part:
Poor lips, slow freezing into calm,
Numbed hands that helpless fall,
And, a mile off, warm lips, fond hands,
Waiting to welcome all!

I see the pictures in the room,
The figures moving round,
The very flicker of the fire
Upon the patterned ground:
O that I were the shepherd-dog
That guards their happy door!
Or even the silly household cat
That basks upon the floor!

O that I sat one minute's space
Where I have sat so long!
O that I heard one little word
Sweeter than angel's song!
A pause--and then the table fills,
The harmless mirth brims o'er;
While I--O can it be God's will?--
I die, outside the door.

My body fails--my desperate soul
Struggles before it go:
The bleak air's full of voices wild,
But not the voice I know;
Dim shapes come wandering through the dark:
With mocking, curious stares,
Faces long strange peer glimmering by--
But not one face of theirs.

Lost, lost, and such a little way
From that dear sheltering door!
Lost, lost, out of the loving arms
Left empty evermore!
His will be done. O, gate of heaven,
Fairer than earthly door,
Receive me! Everlasting arms,
Enfold me evermore!

And so, farewell * * * * *
What is this touch
Upon my closing eyes?
My name too, that I thought to hear
Next time in Paradise?
Warm arms--close lips--O, saved, saved, saved!
Across the deathly moor
Sought, found--and yonder through the night
Shineth the blessed door.

"She loves with love that cannot tire:
And if, ah, woe! she loves alone,
Through passionate duty love flames higher,
As grass grows taller round a stone."
Coventry Patmore.
SO, the truth's out. I 'll grasp it like a snake, --
It will not slay me. My heart shall not break
Awhile, if only for the children's sake.
For his too, somewhat. Let him stand unblamed;
None say, he gave me less than honor claimed,
Except -- one trifle scarcely worth being named --
The heart. That 's gone. The corrupt dead might be
As easily raised up, breathing -- fair to see,
As he could bring his whole heart back to me.
I never sought him in coquettish sport,
Or courted him as silly maidens court,
And wonder when the longed-for prize falls short.
I only loved him -- any woman would:
But shut my love up till he came and sued,
Then poured it o'er his dry life like a flood.
I was so happy I could make him blest!
So happy that I was his first and best,
As he mine -- when he took me to his breast.

Ah me! If only then he had been true!
If for one little year, a month or two,
He had given me love for love, as was my due!
Or had he told me, ere the deed was done,
He only raised me to his heart's dear throne --
Poor substitute -- because his queen was gone!
O, had he whispered, when his sweetest kiss
Was warm upon my mouth in fancied bliss,
He had kissed another woman even as this, --
It were less bitter! Sometimes I could weep
To be thus cheated, like a child asleep: --
Were not my anguish far too dry and deep.
So I built my house upon another's ground;
Mocked with a heart just caught at the rebound --
A cankered thing that looked so firm and sound.
And when that heart grew colder -- colder still,
I, ignorant, tried all duties to fulfil,
Blaming my foolish pain, exacting will,
All -- anything but him. It was to be:
The full draught others drink up carelessly
Was made this bitter Tantalus-cup for me.
I say again -- he gives me all I claimed,
I and my children never shall be shamed:
He is a just man -- he will live unblamed.
Only -- O God, O God, to cry for bread,
And get a stone! Daily to lay my head
Upon a bosom where the old love's dead!
Dead? -- Fool! It never lived. It only stirred
Galvanic, like an hour-cold corpse. None heard:
So let me bury it without a word.
He 'll keep that other woman from my sight.
I know not if her face be foul or bright;
I only know that it was his delight --
As his was mine: I only know he stands
Pale, at the touch of their long-severed hands,
Then to a flickering smile his lips commands,
Lest I should grieve, or jealous anger show.
He need not. When the ship 's gone down, I trow,
We little reck whatever wind may blow.
And so my silent moan begins and ends.
No world's laugh or world's taunt, not pity of friends
Or sneer of foes with this my torment blends.
None knows -- none heeds. I have a little pride;
Enough to stand up, wife-like, by his side,
With the same smile as when I was a bride.
And I shall take his children to my arms;
They will not miss these fading, worthless charms;
Their kiss -- ah! unlike his -- all pain disarms.
And haply, as the solemn years go by,
He will think sometimes with regretful sigh,
The other woman was less true than I.

A Man’s Wooing

YOU said, last night, you did not think
In all the world of men
Was one true lover--true alike
In deed and word and pen;--

One knightly lover, constant as
The old knights, who sleep sound:
Some women, said you, there might be--
Not one man faithful found:

Not one man, resolute to win,
Or, winning, firm to hold
The woman, among women--sought
With steadfast love and bold.

Not one whose noble life and pure
Had power so to control
To tender hublest loyalty
Her free, but reverent soul,

That she beside him gladly moved
As sovereign and slave;
In faith unfettered, homage true,
Each claiming what each gave.

And then you dropped your eyelids white,
And stood in maiden bloom
Proud, calm:--unloving and unloved
Descending to the tomb.

I let you speak and ne'er replied;
I watched you for a space,
Until that passionate glow, like youth,
Had faded from your face.

No anger showed I--nor complaint:
My heart's beats shook no breath,
Although I knew that I had found
Her, who brings life or death;

The woman, true as life or death;
The love, strong as these twain,
Against which seas of mortal fate
Beat harmlessly in vain.

'Not one true man': I hear it still,
Your voice's clear cold sound,
Upholding all your constant swains
And good knights underground.

'Not one true lover':--Woman, turn;
I love you. Words are small;
'T is life speaks plain: In twenty years
Perhaps you may know all.

I seek you. You alone I seek:
All other women, fair,
Or wise, or good, may go their way,
Without my thought or care.

But you I follow day by day,
And night by night I keep
My heart's chaste mansion lighted, where
Your image lies asleep.

Asleep! If e'er to wake, He knows
Who Eve to Adam brought,
As you to me: the embodiment
Of boyhood's dear sweet thought,

And youth's fond dream, and manhood's hope,
That still half hopeless shone;
Till every rootless vain ideal
Commingled into one,--

You; who are so diverse from me,
And yet as much my own
As this my soul, which, formed apart,
Dwells in its bodily throne;--

Or rather for that perishes,
As these our two lives are
So strangely, marvellously drawn
Together from afar;

Till week by week and month by month
We closer seem to grow,
As two hill streams, flushed with rich rain,
Each into the other flow.

I swear no oaths, I tell no lies,
Nor boast I never knew
A love-dream--we all dream in youth--
But waking, I found you,

The real woman, whose first touch
Aroused to highest life
My real manhood. Crown it then,
Good angel, friend, love, wife!

Imperfect as I am, and you,
Perchance, not all you seem,
We two together shall bind up
Our past's bright, broken dream.

We two together shall dare look
Upon the years to come,
As travellers, met in far countrie,
Together look towards home.

Come home! The old tales were not false,
Yet the new faith is true;
Those saintly souls who made men knights
Were women such as you.

For the great love that teaches love
Deceived not, ne'er deceives:
And she who most believes in man
Makes him what she believes.

Come! If you come not, I can wait;
My faith, like life, is long;
My will--not little; my hope much:
The patient are the strong.

Yet come, ah come! The years run fast,
And hearths grow swiftly cold--
Hearts too: but while blood beats in mine
It holds you and will hold.

And so before you it lies bare,--
Take it or let it lie,
It is an honest heart; and yours
To all eternity.

Looking Death In The Face

AY, in thy face, old fellow! Now's the time.
The Black Sea wind flaps my tent-roof, nor wakes
These lads of mine, who take of sleep their fill,
As if they thought they'd never sleep again,
Instead of--
Pitiless Crimean blast,
How many a howling lullaby thou'lt raise
To-morrow night, all nights till the world's end,
Over some sleepers here!
Some?--who? Dumb Fate
Whispers in no man's ear his coming doom;
Each thinks--'not I--not I.'
But thou, grim Death,
I hear thee on the night-wind flying abroad,
I feel thee here, squatted at our tent-door,
Invisible and incommunicable,
Pointing:
'Hurrah!'
Why yell so in your sleep,
Comrade? Did you see aught?
Well--let him dream:
Who knows, to-morrow such a shout as this

He'll die with. A brave lad, and very like
His sister.
* * * * * *

So! just two hours have I lain
Freezing. That pale white star, which came and peered
Through the tent-opening, has passed on, to smile
Elsewhere, or lost herself i' the dark,--God knows.
Two hours nearer to dawn. The very hour,
The very hour and day, a year ago,
When we light-hearted and light-footed fools
Went jingling idle swords in waltz and reel,
And smiling in fair faces. How they'd start,
Those dainty red ad white soft faces kind,
If they could but behold my visage now,
Or his--or his--o some poor faces cold
We covered up with earth last noon.
--There sits
The laidly Thing I felt on our tent-door
Two hours back. It has sat and never stirred.
I cannot challenge it, or shoot it down,
Or grapple with it, as with that young Russ
Whom I killed yesterday. (What eyes he had!--
Great limpid eyes, and curling dark-red hair,--
A woman's picture hidden in his breast,--
I never liked this fighting hand to hand.)
No, it will not be met like flesh and blood,
This shapeless, voiceless, immaterial Thing,
Yet I will meet it. Here I sit alone,--
Show me thy face, O Death!
There, there. I think
I did not tremble.
I am a young man;
Have done full many an ill deed, left undone
Many a good one: lived unto the flesh,
Not to the spirit: I would rather live
A few years more, and try if things might change.
Yet, yet I hope I do not tremble, Death;
And that thy finger pointed at my heart
But calms the tumult there.
What small account
The All-living seems to take of this thin flame
Which we call life. He sends a moment's blast
Out of war's nostrils, and a myriad
Of these our puny tapers are blown out
Forever. Yet we shrink not,--we, such frail
Poor knaves, whom a spent ball can instant strike
Into eternity,--we helpless fools,
Whom a serf's clumsy hand and clumsier sword
Smiting--shall sudden into nothingness
Let out that something rare which could conceive
A universe and its God.
Free, open-eyed,
We rush like bridegrooms to Death's grisly arms:
Surely the very longing for that clasp
Proves us immortal. Immortality
Alone could teach this mortal how to die.
Perhaps, war is but Heaven's great ploughshare, driven
Over the barren, fallow earthly fields,
Preparing them for harvest; rooting up
Grass, weeds, and flowers, which necessary fall,
That in these furrows the wise Husbandman
May drop celestial seed.
So let us die;
Yield up our little lives, as the flowers do;
Believing He'll not lose one single soul,--
One germ of His immortal. Naught of His
Or Him can perish; therefore let us die.

I half remember, something like to this
She says in her dear letters. So--let us die.
What, dawn? The faint hum in the trenches fails.
Is that a bell i' the mist? My faith, they go
Early to matins in Sebastopol!--
A gun!--Lads, stand to your arms; the Russ is here.
Agnes.
Kind Heaven, I have looked Death in the face,
Help me to die.

IT is a moor
Barren and treeless; lying high and bare
Beneath the archèd sky. The rushing winds
Fly over it, each with his strong bow bent
And quiver full of whistling arrows keen.

I am a woman, lonely, old, and poor.
If there be any one who watches me
(But there is none) adown the long blank wold,
My figure painted on the level sky
Would startle him as if it were a ghost,--
And like a ghost, a weary wandering ghost,
I roam and roam, and shiver through the dark
That will not hide me. O but for one hour,
One blessed hour of warm and dewy night,
To wrap me like a pall--with not an eye
In earth or heaven to pierce the black serene.
Night, call yet this? No night; no dark--no rest--
A moon-ray sweeps down sudden from the sky,
And smites the moor--
Is't thou, accursèd Thing,
Broad, pallid, like a great woe looming out--
Out of its long-sealed grave, to fill all earth
With its dead, ghastly smile? Art there again,
Round, perfect, large, as when we buried thee,
I and the kindly clouds that heard my prayers?
I'll sit me down and meet thee face to face,
Mine enemy!--Why didst thou rise upon
My world--my innocent world, to make me mad?
Wherefore shine forth, a tiny tremulous curve
Hung out in the gray sunset beauteously,
To tempt mine eyes--then nightly to increase
Slow orbing, till thy full, blank, pitiless stare
Hunts me across the world?
No rest--no dark.
Hour after hour that passionless bright face
Climbs up the desolate blue. I will press down
The lids on my tired eyeballs--crouch in dust,
And pray.
--Thank God, thank God!--a cloud has hid
My torturer. The night at last is free:
Forth peep in crowds the merry twinkling stars.
Ah, we'll shine out, the little silly stars
And I; we'll dance together across the moor,
They up aloft--I here. At last, at last
We are avengèd of our adversary!

The freshening of the night air feels like dawn.
Who said that I was mad? I will arise,
Throw off my burthen, march across the wold
Airily--Ha! what, stumbling? Nay, no fear--
I am used unto the dark, for many a year
Steering compassionless athwart the waste
To where, deep hid in valleys of white mist,
The pleasant home-lights shine. I will but pause,
Turn round and gaze--
O me! O miserable me!
The cloud-bank overflows: sudden outpour
The bright white moon-rays--ah! I drown, I drown,
And o'er the flood, with steady motion, slow
It walketh--my inexorable Doom.

No more: I shall not struggle any more:
I will lie down as quiet as a child,--
I can but die.

There, I have hid my face:
Stray travellers passing o'er the silent wold
Would only say, 'She sleeps.'
Glare on, my Doom;
I will not look at thee: and if at times
I shiver, still I neither weep nor moan:
Angels may see, I neither weep nor moan.

Was that sharp whistling wind the morning breeze
That calls the stars back to the obscure of heaven?
I am very cold.--And yet there is a change.
Less fiercely the sharp moonbeams smite my brain,
My heart beats slower, duller: soothing rest
Like a soft garment binds my shuddering limbs.--
If I looked up now, should I see it still
Gibbeted ghastly in the hopeless sky?--
No!
It is very strange: all things seem strange:
Pale spectral face, I do not fear thee now:
Was't this mere shadow which did haunt me once
Like an avenging fiend?--Well, we fade out
Together: I'll nor dread nor curse thee more.

How calm the earth seems! and I know the moor
Glistens with dew-stars. I will try and turn
My poor face eastward. Close not, eyes! That light
Fringing the far hills, all so fair--so fair,
Is it not dawn? I am dying, but 't is dawn.

'Upon the mountains I behold the feet
Of my Beloved: let us forth to meet'--
Death.
This is death. I see the light no more;
I sleep.
But like a morning bird my soul
Springs singing upward, into the deeps of heaven
Through world on world to follow Infinite Day.

Our Father’s Business:

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.

Benedetta Minelli

I.

THE NOVICE.

IT is near morning. Ere the next night fall
I shall be made the bride of heaven. Then home
To my still marriage chamber I shall come,
And spouseless, childless, watch the slow years crawl.

These lips will never meet a softer touch
Than the stone crucifix I kiss; no child
Will clasp this neck. Ah, virgin-mother mild,
Thy painted bliss will mock me overmuch.

This is the last time I shall twist the hair
My mother's hand wreathed, till in dust she lay:
The name, her name, given on my baptism-day,
This is the last time I shall ever bear.

O weary world, O heavy life, farewell!
Like a tired child that creeps into the dark
To sob itself asleep, where none will mark,--
So creep I to my silent convent cell.

Friends, lovers whom I loved not, kindly hearts
Who grieve that I should enter this still door,
Grieve not. Closing behind me evermore,
Me from all anguish, as all joy, it parts.

Love, whom alone I loved; who stand'st far off,
Lifting compassionate eyes that could not save,
Remember, this my spirit's quiet grave
Hides me from worldly pity, worldly scoff.

'T was less thy hand than Heaven's which came between,
And dashed my cup down. See, I shed no tears:
And if I think at all of vanished years,
'T is but to bless thee, dear, for what has been.

My soul continually does cry to thee;
In the night-watches ghost-like stealing out
From its flesh tomb, and hovering thee about;
So live that I in heaven thy face may see!

Live, noble heart, of whom this heart of mine
Was half unworthy. Build up actions great,
That I down looking from the crystal gate
Smile o'er our dead hopes urned in such a shrine.

Live, keeping aye they spirit undefiled,
That, when we stand before our Master's feet,
I with an angel's love may crown complete
The woman's faith, the worship of the child.

Dawn, solemn bridal morn; ope, bridal door;
I enter. My vowed soul may Heaven take;
My heart its virgin spousal for thy sake;
O love, keeps sacred thus forevermore.


II.

THE SISTER OF MERCY.

IS it then so?--Good friends, who sit and sigh
While I lie smiling, are my life's sands run?
Will my next matins, hymned beyond the sun,
Mingle with those of saints and martyrs high?

Shall I with these my gray hairs turned to gold,
My aged limbs new clad in garments white,
Stand all transfigured in the angels' sight,
Singing triumphantly that moan of old,--

Thy will be done? It was done. O my God,
Thou know'st, when over grief's tempestuous sea
My broken-wingèd soul fled home to Thee,
I writhed, but never murmured at Thy rod.

It fell upon me, stern at first, then soft
As parent's kisses, till the wound was healed;
And I went forth a laborer in Thy field:--
They best can bind who have been bruisèd oft.

And Thou wert pitiful. I came heart-sore,
And drank Thy cup because earth's cups ran dry:
Thou slew'st me not for that impiety,
But madest the draught so sweet, I thirst no more.

I came for silence, heavy rest, or death:
Thou gavest instead life, peace, and holy toil:
My sighing lips from sorrow didst assoil,
And fill with righteous thankfulness each breath.

Therefore I praise Thee that Thou shuttest Thine ears
Unto my misery: didst Thy will, not mine:
That to this length of days Thy hand divine,
My feet from falling kept, mine eyes from tears.

Sisters, draw near. Hear my last words serene:
When I was young I walked in mine own ways,
Worshipped--not God: sought not alone His praise;
So he cut down my gourd while it was green.

And then He o'er me threw His holy shade,
That though no other mortal plants might grow,
Mocking the beauty that was long laid low,
I dwelt in peace, and His commands obeyed.

I thank Him for all joy and for all pain:
For healèd pangs, for years of calm content:
For blessedness of spending and being spent
In His high service where all loss is gain.

I bless Him for my life and for my death;
But most, that in my death my life is crowned,
Since I see there, with angels gathering round,
My angel. Ay, love, thou hast kept thy faith,

I mine. The golden portals will not close
Like those of earth, between us. Reach thy hand!
No miserere, sisters. Chant out grand
Te Deum laudamus. Now,--'t is all repose.