Isabella Fyvie Mayo: Verses about Nature

Our graves lie closed this Easter day,
But from their rugged sod
The sweet spring grass comes softly up
With messages from God.

'But ah!' men wail, in dreary doubt,
'In autumn this will die;
All nature has no type to tell
Of immortality!'

Peace! she has types for ever fresh,
For griefs for ever new.
A type which lived from age to age,
Could be no type for you.

And, haply, in this rise and fall,
Which still in beauty grow,
There lurks a truth that men may guess,
And endless life may show.

We do not fear when winter comes,
We know the spring will wake;
We gladly rest when night draws on,
We know the dawn will break.

And what if in those cycles vast,
Whose limits none may scan,
Even death may hold a happy place,
Part of the life of man?

And still, as we sit sad and lone,
In Time's too narrow prison,
The angels' song goes ringing on,
Which says that Christ is risen.

Dumb mother nature makes her signs,
But from our Father's love
Comes forth the word of Him who died,
And lives again above.

The girl sat down 'mid the rustling corn,
And startled a nested bird,
And up it sprang with a burst of song;
But I do not think she heard.

She sat her down on the low stone wall,
And gazed at the sunset sky:
I cannot think that she saw its glow,
For why should it make her sigh?

What does she think about, sitting there?
What does her spirit see?
Is she thanking God for His golden sky,
And for river and hill and tree?

No: for her heart's in the city streets
Where the working day is done:
The crows are hurrying home, she knows
But she only thinks of one.

She sees a room in an old brown house,
With a window long and low,
Where above the hum and the dusty moil
Some country geraniums grow.

She dreams of the life the women have
Who live in such homely place:
Is it the light of the setting sun
That is glowing on her face?

What of the meadows that smile below,
Or the ruddy clouds above?
They are but the gold God gave to set
Round His priceless gem of love.

Let her sit and dream 'mid the rustling corn
Till the golden sky grow grey:
We scarcely notice God's earth is fair
Till something is gone away.

There's a tramp of feet in the silent street,
A cry on the midnight air;
And men wake from sleep as the dread flames creep,
And strange steps are on the stair;

And the miser old grasps his store of gold,
The maiden her lover's scroll;
And the mother flies where her baby lies,
Though the flames around her roll.

And the loves men mean on their brows are seen
In that sudden, awful light,
All written plain out, without blot or doubt,
As they are in God's searching sight.

And does not life bring on its wondrous wing
To each soul some wild surprise,
When the lurking fact beneath thought and act
Walks out to our shrinking eyes?

And the shame or pride, which the truth would hide,
Are startled off from their post;
And what each holds best is made manifest,
Whether angel, fiend, or ghost.

T'is in such surprise that God's furnace tries
The dross that is in the gold;
And the loss or gain that in years have lain
In one hour is manifold.

And the only way to stand fast that day,
Is to tread firm, hour by hour
(T'is the winter snow, and the springtide glow,
That ripen the summer flower).

God's heroes must march through the lowly
Of duty, reared sure and strong;
Let us build to-day, and swift as we may,
For our trial shall come ere long.

Beside the window I sit alone,
And I watch as the stars come out,
I catch the sweetness of Lucy's tone,
And the mirth of the chorus' shout:
I listen and look on the solemn night,
Whilst they stand singing beneath the light.

Lucy looks just like an early rose
(Somebody else is thinking so),
And every day more fair she grows
(Somebody will not say me no),
And she sings like a bird whose heart is bless'd
(And Somebody thinks of building a nest!)

And now she chooses another tune,
One that was often sung by me:
I do not think that these nights in June
Are half so fine as they used to be,
Or 'tis colder watching the solemn night,
Than standing singing beneath the light.

Lucy, you sing like a silver bell,
Your face is fresh as a morning flower—
Why should you think of the sobs which swell
When leaves fall fast in the autumn bower?
Rather gather your buds and sing your song,
Their perfume and echo will linger long.

I'm grey and grave,—and 'tis quite time too,—
I go at leisure along my ways;
But I know how life appears to you,
I know the words that Somebody says:
As old songs are sweet, and old words true,
So there's one old story that's always new!

There is a grave that you do not know,
A drawer in my desk that you've never seen,
A page in my life that I never show,
A love in my heart that is always green:
Sing out the old song! I fear not the pain,
I sang it once—Lucy, sing it again!

The stormy afternoon was past,
And in the dim grey sky,
Between great hoary clouds, the sun
Looked out with lurid eye:
And we, two strangers from the town, the sea breeze yearning for,
Walked down between the fishers' cots, and went toward the shore.

The beach was still enough, but yet
The tempest left its track,
And almost fearfully we passed
Torn nets and heaps of wrack:
There is a mystic mockery about the wind and storm,
They make such rude and simple things so like a human form!

My sister's face was strangely pale,
A thrill was in her tone,
Her brown eyes looked like those who watch
To have some mystery shown:
I only thought, 'Hope wears the heart,—ay, even more than Fear,
And Bessie waits for one she loves,—I would that he were here!'

The lurid sun sank in the sea,
But left a glare behind;
And the slow tide those treasures left
Which loiterers love to find;
My sister turned aside to pick what seemed a glittering shell;
And from some church I could not see, there tolled a solemn knell.

I turned and saw that Bessie knelt
Upon the crunching sand;
'O God, Thy help! ' she said, and kissed
That something in her hand,
And then she held it out to me—a grievous sight to bear—
A locket I had seen before, filled with her own bright hair.

The waves had left it at her feet,
To bid her hope no more;
He whom she waited, watched for her
Upon a calmer shore:
And very soon she went to him: our youngest and our best
Sleeps sweetly by the moaning sea, with its message on her breast.

I'm sitting in a shady room,
A dainty scent pervades its gloom,
The perfume from a withered flower
Gathered—who knows in what sweet hour?
Or pressed by what fair lips which must
Have mingled long ere this with dust?
The relic of a grandsire's love
Stored with a letter and a glove!

And all about the room are spread
The handiworks of ladies dead:
A great aunt's miracles in lace,
A Dian coming from the chase
Worked by great-grandmothers of mine
While great-grandfathers sipped their wine;
And here's a valentine so torn
I think it was received in scorn.

And from the wall the pictured face
Of one, the glory of our race,
Looks down at me with earnest gaze,
As if he wondered at the ways
By which the old world rumbles on,
Though all he counted best is gone,
And that old fealty is dead
For which he bravely fought and bled.

And in yon ancient chest there hide
Charters of farms and acres wide,
Traces of what we once possessed.
Well, perchance poverty is best,
And we can still afford to keep
(Since harmless pride is always cheap)
Our boast that those lost lands were due
For packs of wolves our forbears slew.

And have they left no more behind,
These soldiers brave, those ladies kind?
Of beings vanished like a dream
How little do such relics seem!
And what of those who strayed and fell,
Records of sad defeat to swell?
Or those who only loved and prayed,
'Mid homely duties on them laid?

There seems a whisper in the air,
'We're there, and here, and everywhere!
Why need you wish that you had more
Of these poor shadows which you store,
When all the life in which you move
Is outgrowth of our life and love?
The very thoughts you call your own,
But flowers from seeds which we have sown!

'And none have left a stronger trace
Than some who lived in silent grace;
The maid who faded in her bloom
Brightened the pathway to the tomb,
With hopes from soul to soul which flow
Like streams whose sources none may know,
And he who perished at his post
Inspired the leader of a host!

'The dead are nearer than some say
(Stars shine on through the sunshine day!),
Nor must we chain the Present fast
About the ankles of the Past,
For both are living, and most move
In step to God's great march of Love.
We need not fear that any soul
Can leave but rose leaves in a bowl!'