Ina D. Coolbrith: Verses about Soul

God rest thy soul!
O, kind and pure,
Tender of heart, yet strong to wield control,
And to endure!

Close the clear eyes!
No greater woe
Earth’s patient heart, than when a good man dies,
Can ever know.

With us is night-
Toil without rest;
But where thy gentle spirit walks in light,
The ways are blest.

God’s peace be thine!
God’s perfect peace!
Thy meed of faithful service, until time
And death shall cease.

Awake, beloved! my heart awakes, -
Though still in slumber lies
The world; the pearl of morning breaks
Along the eastern skies.
The moon, the stars, that rule the night,
And look on land and sea,
A pathway are of luring light
My spirit walks to thee.

‘Wake! ere between again shall lift
The day his lance of flame;
From the still shores of dreamland drift
One hour to love’s dear claim.
O love! My love! the shadows part, -
Thine eager arms I see, -
“As for the water-brook the hart, ”
So is my soul for thee!

God rest thy soul!
O kind and pure,
Tender of heart, yet strong to wield control,
And to endure

Close the clear eyes:
No greater woe
Earth’s patient heart, than when a good man dies,
The ways are blest.

With us is night,
Toil without rest, -
But where thy gentle spirit walks in light,
The ways are blest.

God’s peace be thine!
God’s perfect peace!
Thy meed of faithful service, until time
And death shall cease.

“What gift hast thou got for Me,
The Crucified for thee? ”
No worthy thing:
Nor song, nor praise, nor tears,
From all these many years,
Jesus, my King.

“In ways thy feet have sought,
In all thy hands have wrought,
Whatso for Me? ”
Ah, in those dreary walks,
Behold the flowerless stalks,
The fruitless tree!

“Thy heart hath love, at least-
I crave thy love.” O Priest,
It were not meet
From bitter wells to slake
Thy thirst. Touch Thou, and make
Its waters sweet.

“Thy soul- that I may live! ”
Is it then mine to give?
O Saviour, cease!
Like to a troubled sea,
My spirit is it me:
Lord, speak it peace.

“Unto thy Friend, thy King,
Hast then no offering,
No gift to give? ”
For all Thy love, Thy care,
Only one little prayer:
Saviour, forgive!

O foolish wisdom sought in books!
O aimless fret of household tasks!
O chains that bind the hand and mind-
A fuller life my spirit asks.

For there the grand hills, summer-crown’d,
Slope greenly downward to the seas:
One hour of rest upon their breast
Were worth a year of days like these.

Their cool, soft green to ease the pain
Of eyes that ache o’er printed words;
This weary noise—the city’s voice,
Lulled in the sound of bees and birds.

For Eden’s life within me stirs,
And scorns the shackles that I wear.
The man-life grand: pure soul, strong hand,
The limb of steel, the heart of air!

And I could kiss, with longing wild,
Earth’s dear brown bosom, loved so much,
A grass-blade fanned across my hand,
Would thrill me like a lover’s touch.

The trees would talk with me; the flowers
Their hidden meanings each make known—
The olden lore revived once more,
When man’s and nature’s heart were one.

And as the pardoned pair might come
Back to the garden God first framed,
And hear Him call at even-fall,
And answer, “ Here am I, ” unashamed-

So I, from out these toils, wherein
The Eden-faith growns stained and dim,
Would walk, a child, through Nature’s wild,
And hear His voice and answer Him.

J.F.B. Died April 29,1882

Forth from this low estate,
Fetterless now of fate,
Pass, spirit blest!
Out of the cark and care,
Out of the griefs that were,
Into thy rest.

Done with the weary round
Daily thy soul that bound
From its true aim, -
Little can matter now
Fame’s wreath upon the brow,
Earth-praise or blame.

God! is there of despair
Keener than this to bear,
Under the sun:
Tasked, like a slave in chains,
While our true work remains
Waiting, undone?

Feeling, as life sweeps by,
All the pure majesty
Of that we miss?
Fettered and tortured so,
Christ, pity all who know
Sorrow like this!

Not here was given his wage:
Of his best heritage
Barred and denied.
Man of the silver tongue,
Poet of songs unsung,
Dreamer, clear-eyed;

Slave not to gain or greed;
Bound by no narrow creed
By priestcraft taught:
In God’s fair universe
Seeing nor hate, nor curse
Of Him that wrought;

Trusting the love divine, -
Carless of church or shrine,
Blessing or ban;
His prayer the common good,
His faith the brotherhood
Of man with man.

And if unto his eyes
Veiled were the mysteries
Of the far shore,
Who of us all may be
Wiser, in truth, than he?
Who knoweth more?

Never the kindly wit
Lighter, because of it,
Sad hearts shall make;
No more the earnest thought,
With its deep lesson fraught,
Souls shall awake.

Eloquent eye and lip,
Peerless companionship,
Passed from the earth.
Friend of the many years,
Well for thee fall my tears,
Knowing thy worth.

Flowers on the gentle breast,
Lay the frail form to rest
Under the sod.
Passed from earth’s low estate,
Fetterless now of fate,
Leave him with God.

In Memory of Celia Thaxter.

There is a shadow on the sea!
And a murmur, and a moan,
In its muffed monotone,
Like a solemn threnody;
And the sea-gulls, on their white
Pinions, moving to and fro,

Are like phantoms, in their flight;
As they sweep from off the gray,
Misty headlands, far away,
And about the Beacon Light,
Wheel in circles, low and slow,
Wheel and circle, peer and cry,
As though seeling, restlessly,
Something vanished from their sight.
As though listening for the clear
Tones they never more may hear, -
Music missing from the day,
Music, missing from the night, -
Through the years, that wax and wane,
That may never sound again.

She, who ever loved the sea,
Loved and voiced its minstrelsy, -
Sang its white-caps, tossing free,
Sang the ceasless breaker-shocks,
Dashing, crashing, on the rocks,
Sang itsmoon-drawn tides, its speech,
Silver-soft, upon the beach,
Walks the margin’s golden floor, -
Floats upon its breast no more,

Nay! how know we this to be?
That the forms we may not see,
Passed from mortal touch and ken,

Never come to earth again?
When the brittle house of clay
From the spirit breaks away,
Does the mind forego its will?
Is the voice’s music still?
Do the hands forget their skill?
From the harp-great homer’s heart, -
Do not mighty numbers come?
Lost, divinest Raphael’s art,
And the lips of Shakespeare dumb?
All the years of joy and pain
That are lived, but lived in vain;
Memory’s graven page a blot,
Unrecorded and forgot!

Oh, believe, believe it not!
Man is God’s incarnate thought:
Life, with all the gifts He gave,
All the wondrous powers He wrought,
Finds not ending at the grave.
Part, himself, of Deity,
Man, the spirit, can not die.
“In my Father’s house are
Many mansions.” Did Christ say
Whether near, or whether far?
It may be beside us still
Bide these forms invisible;
Or, if passed to realms away,
Beyond sight’s remotest star,

Does that bind the soul to stay, -
Never, never, to retrace
The golden passage-ways of space? -
As a parted child might yearn
For the mothers arms, and turn,
Fain to look on Earth’s dear face.
‘Twixt the heart that loves and her
Space could place no barrier:
Thought, that swifter is than light,
Leaps a universe in flight.

So I love to think, indeed,
That this singing spirit, free
From her lesser, lower height-

Soaring to the Infinite, -
Turns with loving eyes, and a smile,
Still Sees the tower’s beacon-light,
Shining safely through the night;
Sees the white surf as it rolls
Round her treasured Isle of Shoals, -
Looking from that vaster sea,
Which we name Eternity.