Only A Year
One year ago,--a ringing voice,
A clear blue eye,
And clustering curls of sunny hair,
Too fair to die.
Only a year,--no voice, no smile,
No glance of eye,
No clustering curls of golden hair,
Fair but to die!
One year ago,--what loves, what schemes
Far into life!
What joyous hopes, what high resolves,
What generous strife!
The silent picture on the wall,
The burial-stone,
Of all that beauty, life, and joy,
Remain alone!
One year,--one year,--one little year,
And so much gone!
And yet the even flow of life
Moves calmly on.
The grave grows green, the flowers bloom fair,
Above that head;
No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray
Says he is dead.
No pause or hush of merry birds
That sing above
Tells us how coldly sleeps below
The form we love.
Where hast thou been this year, beloved?
What hast thou seen,--
What visions fair, what glorious life,
Where hast thou been?
The veil! the veil! so thin, so strong!
'Twixt us and thee;
The mystic veil! when shall it fall,
That we may see?
Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone,
But present still,
And waiting for the coming hour
Of God's sweet will.
Lord of the living and the dead,
Our Saviour dear!
We lay in silence at thy feet
This sad, sad year.
The Mystery Of Life
Life's mystery - deep, restless as the ocean -
Hath surged and wailed for ages to and fro;
Earth's generations watch its ceaseless motion,
As in and out its hollow moanings flow.
Shivering and yearning by that unknown sea,
Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in thee!
Life's sorrows, with inexorable power,
Sweep desolation o'er this mortal plain;
And human loves and hopes fly as the chaff
Borne by the whirlwind from the ripened grain.
Ah! when before that blast my hopes all flee,
Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in thee!
Between the mysteries of death and life
Thou standest, loving, guiding, not explaining;
We ask, and thou art silent; yet we gaze,
And our charmed hearts forget their drear complaining.
No crushing fate, no stony destiny,
O Lamb that hast been slain, we find in thee!
The many waves of thought, the mighty tides,
The ground-swell that rolls up from other lands,
From far-off worlds, from dim, eternal shores,
Whose echo dashes on life's wave-worn strands,
This vague, dark tumult of the inner sea
Grows calm, grows bright, O risen Lord, in thee!
Thy piercèd hand guides the mysterious wheels;
Thy thorn-crowned brow now wears the crown of power;
And when the dread enigma presseth sore,
Thy patient voice saith, 'Watch with me one hour.'
As sinks the moaning river in the sea
In silver peace, so sinks my soul in thee!
