In The Library
Who say these walls are lonely-these-
They may not see the motley throng
That people it, as thick as bees
The scented clover beds among.
They may no hear, when footfalls cease,
And living voices, for awhile,
The speech, in many tongues and keys,
Adown each shadowy aisle.
Here are the friends that ne’er betray;
Companionship that never tires;
Here voices call from voiceless clay,
And ashes dead renew there fires.
For death can touch the flesh alone;
Immortal thought, from age to age
Lives on, and here, in varied tone,
It speaks from many a page.
Here searching History waits- the deeds
Of man and nation to rehearse:
Here clear-eyed Science walk and reads
The secrets of the universe.
Here lands and seas, from pole to pole,
The traveler spreads before the eye;
Here Faith unfolds her mystic scroll
The soul to satisfy.
Here Homer chants heroic Troy,
Here Dante strikes the harp in pain,
Here Shakespeare sounds the grief, the joy,
Of all human life and strain.
Alone and silent? Why, ‘tis rife
With form and sound! The hosts of thought
Are dwellers here; and thought is life.
Without it earth and man are not.
To war and statecraft leave the bay-
A greater crown to these belongs;
The rulers of the world are they
Who make its books and songs.
Crucifixion, Still, The
Still, still upon the cross!
Yet is it writ that Thou,
With thorn-pierc’d brow,
Amid the jeer of mocking lips, the toss
Of mocking heads, a thief on either side,
Wert crucified;
Nailed to the awful tree-
Thy Throne of agony-
Thou, Son of God! Thy blood, thy life didst give
That we might live.
Nay, Lord, can this be so
And earth not know?
Thy star, whose fields Thy feet divine once trod
Fresh from the fields of God;
Thy natal star, whose skies
Have quickened to Thine eyes,
While thrilled through boundless space
The worlds to greet Thy face
From this, dear Lord- one of the least thereof,
Great only in Thy love.
In Thy love, only, great!
O Christ compassionate,
Pity us, deaf and blind,
Frail humankind!
Pity us, loving still-
Though all in vain
Seemeth Thy price is pain;
Pity us, loving still-
Though still with sin, and shame, and strife, and hate,
We thwart Thy will.
Still, still upon the cross!
For lo! our every evil is a thorn
Wherewith our hands adorn
Thy bleeding brow; each brother-help denied
A spear-thrust in Thy side,
Daily betray we Thee for gold dross:
Through the long centuries
Unheeding, and still heeding not Thy cries,
So hold we Thee, O Savour, crucified-
Still, still on the cross.
From Living Waters
Commencement poem, written for the
University of California, June,1876.
“Into the balm of the clover,
Into the dawn and the dew,
Come, O my poet, my lover,
Single of spirit and true!
“ Sweeter the song of the throstle
Shall ring from its nest in the vine,
And the lark, my beloved apostle,
Shall chant thee a gospel divine.
“Ah! not to the dullard, the schemer,
I of my fullness may give,
But thou, whom the world calleth dreamer,
Drink of my fountains and live! ”
O, and golden in the sun did the river waters run,
O, and golden in its shinning all the mellow land-
scape lay;
And the poet’s simple rhyme blended softly with
the chime
Of the bells that rang the noontide, in the city,
far away.
And the gold and amethyst of the thin. Trans-
parent mist,
Lifted, drifted from the ocean to the far hori-
zon’s rim,
Where the white, transfigured ghost of some ves-
sel, long since lost,
Half in cloud and half in billow, trembled on
its utmost brim.
And I said, “Most beautiful, in the noontide
dream and lull,
Art thou, Nature, sweetest mother, in thy sum-
mer raiment drest;
Aye, in all thy moods and phases, lovingly I
name thy praises,
Yet through all my love and longing chafeth
still the old unrest.”
“Art thou a-worn and a-weary,
Sick with the doubts that perplex,
Come from thy wisdom most dreary,
Less fair than the faith which it wrecks.”
“Not in the tomes of the sages
Lieth the word to thy need;
Truer my blossomy pages,
Sweeter their lessons to read.”
“Aye, ” I said, “but con it duly, who may read
the lesson truly;
Who may grasp the mighty meaning, hidden
past our finding out?
From the weary search unsleeping, what is yielded
to our keeping?
All our knowledge, peradventure; all our wisdom
merely doubt!
“O my earth, to know thee fully! I that love
thee, singly, wholly!
In the beauty thou art veiled; in thy melody
art dumb.
Once, unto my perfect seeing give this mystery
of being;
Once, thy silence breaking, tell me, whither go
we? whence we come? ”
And I heard the rustling leaves, and the sheaves
against the sheaves
Clashing lightly, clashing brightly, as they rip-
ened in the sun;
And the gracious air astir with the insect hum
and whirr,
And the merry plash and ripple where the river
waters run:
Heard the anthem of the sea-that most mighty
melody-
Only these; yet something deeper than to own
my spirit willed.
Like a holy calm descending, with my inmost
being blending-
Like the “Peace” to troubled waters, that are
pacified and stilled.
And I said: “Ah, what are we? Children at the
Master’s knee-
Little higher than these grasses glancing upward
from the sods!
Just the few first pages turning in His mighty
book of learning-
We, mere atoms of beginning, that would wres-
tle with the gods! ”
“In the least one of my daisies
Deeper a meaning is set,
Than the seers ye crown with your praises,
Have wrung from the centuries yet.
“Leave them their doubt and derision;
Lo, to the knowledge I bring,
Clingeth no dimness of vision!
Come, O my chosen, my king!
“Out from the clouds that cover,
The night that would blind and betray,
Come, O my poet, my lover,
Into the golden day! ”
O, and deeper through the calm rolled the cease-
less ocean psalm;
O, and brighter in the sunshine all the meadows
stretched away;
And a little lark sang clear from the willow
branches near,
And the glory and the gladness closed about me
where I lay.
And I said: “Aye, verily, waiteth yet the mas-
ter key,
All these mysteries that shall open, though to
surer hand than mine;
All these doubts of our discerning, to the peace
of knowledge turning,
All our darkness, which is human, to the light,
Which is devine! ”
