Martha Lavinia Hoffman: Verses about Love

Butterfly, butterfly, where are you going?
Do you dine today with the regal rose
Or nectar sip with the lilies blowing
In the golden noontide's sweet repose?
Away, away, on silken pinions,
Gay guest of Flora's proudest minions.

Or will you pause midst the fragrant clover
And their humbler viands not despise,
While the proud tuberoses wait their lover
And the pansies smile from their velvet eyes?
Away, away, on dainty pinions
Gay guest in Flora's fair dominions.

Butterfly, butterfly, praised and petted
Welcomed and feasted and loved by all,
Say have you ever yet regretted
That an humble worm you learned to crawl
You who soar on sun-dyed pinions
With bees and blossoms for companions?

O, like the worm we must aspire
To a higher flight and a lovelier guise,
If on unseen wings we mount up higher
And from a worm of the dust arise,
A full-fledged wonderful new creation
On the pinions of noble aspiration!

O, like the worm we must repair
From the coarse low things of the worm's delight
And wind our souls in the shreds of prayer
And fashion us wings for an endless flight;
Then bursting forth from our chrysalis
Taste the sweets of the highest happiness!

Old Ocean, none knoweth thy story;
Man cannot thy secrets unfold,
Thy blue waves sing songs of thy glory
But where are thy treasures untold?

Are they hidden away in the mosses
And sea-weed that covers thy bed?
O tell us, where are all our losses,
Our gold and our gems and our dead?

O where are the loved ones who perished,
Who found in thy bosom their grave?
O where are the fond hopes so cherished
That sank 'neath thy cold, cruel wave?

Ships loaded with jewels unnumbered
Have sunk in thy waters from sight,
While passengers, e'en while they slumbered,
Were lost in thy cold cheerless night.

Down deep in thy depths they are buried,
NO more on the earth will they shine.
Far, far, from our reach they are carried
To rest in the Ocean's vast mine.

Thou hast them, old Ocean, and mortals
Can never take from thee thy prey;
In thee did they find the tomb's portals,
And none knew the spot where they lay.

None knoweth? One sees where they slumber,
And greater than thine is His will;
He seeth thy gems without number,
He speaks and thy breakers are still.

There is One who hath had in all ages,
Dominion o'er sea and o'er land;
He ruleth the sea when it rageth,
He holdeth the deep in his hand.

Roll on, chilly wave and fierce breaker,
And guard the vast stores of thy bed;
'Till at the command of their Maker,
The waters shall give up their dead.

O, can I be happy in Heaven,
Though free from earth's trouble and care;
Though glories undreamed of be given,
If one whom I love is not there?
Could I walk the bright streets in my gladness,
Secure from all darkness and doubt;
And feel not a shadow of sadness
For one lost in midnight without?

O, could I be happy in Heaven?
Could the joys of that beautiful place,
Soothe to calmness my soul, anguish-riven
O'er the memory of one absent face?
And to know that forever and ever,
My pleadings and prayers are too late;
That to find them and save them I never
May pass through the beautiful gate!

O, should I be happy in Heaven,
If one whom I love is not there?
Would not the bright heritage given
Be a burden too dreadful to bear?
The crown and the harp, and the mansion
In that sunlight that never shall set;
Will the soul in its glorious expansion,
Thrilled with rapture, its sorrow forget?

O, would I be happy in Heaven
I ask? Could that other world's bliss
Make up to the soul that has striven
For the hopes that are blighted in this?
Could we walk by the beautiful river,
Could we tread the bright pavements of gold;
Forgetting, forgetting forever
The friends and affections of old?

O, shall we be happy in Heaven,
When the tears are all wiped from our eyes?
Will our hearts never ache- anguish-riven-
For a soul that eternally dies?
If one thing could soothe the sad spirit,
'Twere His love, who before us hath trod;
Could we think of one loved one and bear it,
Shut out from the presence of God?

O, this is so little of living,
And that is so endlessly more;
Shall the strongest of ties Time is weaving
Be rent at the portal before?
To one, endless happiness given,
To one, an eternal despair;
O, can we be happy in Heaven,
If one whom we love is not there?

O Thou, who in agony's garden,
Wept teardrops of sorrow and blood;
Who paid on the cross for our pardon,
Redeemed us from sin unto God,
May one priceless answer be given
The longing that burdens my prayer;
That when I am with Thee in Heaven,
All, all whom I love may be there!

Backward across the lapse of years,
With its ebbing tide of smiles and tears,
Memory turns her wistful gaze
And sighs for the pleasures of by-gone days,
Yearns for one glimpse through the crested foam
And pauses to whisper: 'Home, sweet Home.'

Not for a palace does she sigh
With rare old painting and tapestry,
Nor an humble cottage with lowly wall,
Nor the haughty pride of a stately hall;
For the loving, tender grace of home
Is more than the palace, cot or dome.

O bare were the walls, though decked with care
If affection never flourished there!
And lonely each richly furnished room
If love came not to light their gloom,
Powerless the sweetest spot on earth
If crumbling walls were its only worth;

But the threshold is worn by hurrying feet
Whose pathways perhaps no more shall meet,
And loving voices still perfume the air
Like ghosts of dead roses hovering there;
And smiles still blend with the sun-beams bright,
And tears distill with the dews of night;

And the vines o'er the moss-grown portals wound
Have thrilled to the touch of a loving hand.
And each tree and shrub in the garden's bowers
Bears some time-worn record of childhood hours;
And crowned over all in its undimmed grace
The gentle light of a mother's face.

Forward beyond the wrecks of time
Faith looks to another fairer clime
Where no crumbling shrines of lost happiness
Shall dim the past with their bitterness,
Where no vanished hand shall leave iets trace
Or love repine for a long lost face.

Faith turns from sad Memory's crumbling dome
And sings in her gladness: 'Home, sweet Home!'
Not for the streets of transparent gold
Nor the pearly gateways backward rolled
Nor the tree of Life, nor the river fair
Nor the untold glories gathered there,

Nor the many mansions ever bright
In the beautiful realm where there is no night;
Not even the crown or the glittering throne
Is the prize that lures to that better home.
O Heaven, time were but barren dearth
If gold and gems were thine only worth!

But brighter than all those towers above
Is the haloed presence of sacred love,
For those gates shall echo the eager feet
And those courts resound when the ransomed meet,
And those mansions ring from portal to dome
When the wandering children are gathered home;

And crowned over all in matchless grace
The glorious light of the Saviour's face,
And the power that sways that world of bliss
Is the power that makes a home in this;
But nevermore shall the pilgrims roam
When they join in the angel's Home sweet Home.

Night after night, week after week, month after month and year after year,
Clad in her garments of dingy black, ragged and wrinkled, she's waiting here
Watching the passenger trains come in, silent and sad in the self same place,
Anxiously viewing the careless crowd, eagerly scanning each stranger face.

Never a word she speaks as she waits patiently every night for the train,
Sadly and silently turning away, over and over again;
Children have grown to be women and men since the first evening she waited there,
Close by the station, silently, with that eager vacant stare.

Ah! that was thirty years ago, where she looked for three or four engines then
She watches, unnoting the flight of time, a score of trains come in;
And the city has grown to twice its size, yet faithful still at her post she stands
Grasping her old worn traveling bag tight in her wrinkled hands.

The station employees scarcely heed the thin bent figure and anxious face,
They have seen her there 'till she seems to them almost like a part of the place;
If any of them, as they pass her by, kindly warn her of coming snow or rain,
She only says, with a faint sad smile-
'He promised to come on the evening train.'

When the lights are extinguished, the crowd dispersed, wearily she will walk away
Only to come to her lonely post with a feebler step next day;
Whom is she looking for? you ask.
Perhaps it is not worth the telling o'er
The same old story I know you've heard many a time before.

He was her sailor lover and she, courted by many, young and fair
With rosy cheeks and graceful form and sunshiny golden hair;
She stood that day where she's standing now, watching the train 'till it passed from view,
Never doubting but he would prove faithful to death and true;

He had gone on a voyage across the sea promising to return in the Spring
When, with the chime of the early year, their bridal bells would ring;
But the Spring flowers bloomed and the blithe birds sang and she waited and waited in vain
For her sailor lover never returned and no message came to explain.

Whether he met with disaster or death, or proved to his promise false and untrue
No one can prove or even guess, for nobody ever knew;
Wild with anxiety, worn with grief, disease had found her an easy prey,
Flickering between life and death for many a week she lay.

And when she rose from her weary couch, restored to life and health again,
This one thought throbbed in her vacant mind: 'He promised to come on the evening train.'
So down to the station she daily walks, standing alone at the corner there,
Closely scanning each stranger face with that eager, vacant stare.

She sees friends meet when the trains come in, with clasping of hands, with smiles and tears
And fond embraces she often sees, and lovers' greetings she often hears;
But the face that she looks for among the throng will never gladden her sight again,
Poor faithful heart, you will soon forget the broken vow of the evening train.

The tropical islands of Tonga
In the Southern Pacific sea lie
Like fragments of cool rainbow color
Dropped down from the melting blue sky.

They are gardens of clustering palm trees
Of creepers and tall waving fronds,
Flowers, colored by sunshine and sea-breeze,
Fruits, painted by tropical dawns.

In these beautiful islands of Tonga
Dwelt a chieftain, young, stalwart and brave,
Who dived like a fish in the ocean
And rose with the foam on the wave.

One morning while swimming and diving
He ventured so deep by the shore
That he rose in a wonderful cavern
Which had never been heard of before.

A cavern that no one could enter
But by diving deep down in the sea,
And stalactites hung from the center
And sides of its arched canopy.

No sunbeam illumined its arches,
No moonbeam lay on its stone floor,
Its pale pensive light was reflected
From the depths of its watery door.

Bright sea-shells and fragments of coral
And seaweed in chaplet and spray
Cast up by the waves' angry quarrel
In ledges and crevices lay.

The chieftain, transfixed in his wonder,
Gazed long with his dark eager eyes,
Like a warrior rejoiced o'er his plunder
He spoke to his wonderful prize.

'Thou art mine, O my beautiful palace!
No other my secret shall know,
My refuge from envy and malice,
I tell not my friend of my foe;

For a secret revealed to a brother
That hour is a secret no more,
One wave whispers low to another
And the surges speak loud on the shore.'

There was silence once more in the cavern
Then a splashing of sea-foam and wave
And the daring young chief of the Tonga
Rose up from his submarine cave.

Time passed and a ryler tyrannic
Reigned over the peaceful domain,
So cruel was he that a panic
Spread over the isles in his reign.

One chief planned a great insurrection
And well were his secret plans laid
When the news spread in every direction
That the deeply laid scheme was betrayed.

And he who had planned insurrection
And all of his family with him
Were sentenced to speedy destruction
By the dreadful, tyrannical king.

This chief had a beautiful daughter
Betrothed to a chief of high rank,
Like a great stone cast into the water
At the dread news her happy heart sank.

The youth who discovered the cavern
Had long loved the damsel in vain,
So he brought her the news of her danger
Which inspired him with hope once again.

He begged her to trust him to save her,
Though his terrible peril he knew
Naught but hope of their safety he gave her
As they fled in their little canoe.

On the way he described the lone cavern,
The place of their hasty retreat,
'Till he paused where the rocks towerd above them
And told her to lay at her feet.

With warcries the island resounded
'Till the birds hushed their songs in affright
Then a yell as of victory sounded;
Had the dread king discovered their flight?

Dim forms on the shore became clearer,
Then the splashing of heavy canoes
Just behind sounded nearer and nearer,
They had not a moment to lose.

These women can swim like the mermaids
And dive like the fish in the sea;
So the young chief sprang into the water
'Follow me.'

Down, down through the shadowy water,
With her hair streaming out on the tide,
Sank the great chieftain's beautiful daughter
With the young island chief at her side.

A splashing of waves and then silence,
By the gray rock an empty canoe;
And they rose in the wonderful cavern
That none but the young chieftain knew.

It was fifty feet high at the center
And the widest part, fifty feet wide;
What foeman could ever there enter
To harm the young maid or her guide?

And here the chief hid his brave lady
'Till the angry king gave up the chase
In the great cavern, silent and shady,
Lit but by the sea and her face.

And here to her palace he carried
Costly clothing, food, mats and perfume,
And none knew what treasure was buried
In the great cavern's silence and gloom.

And here by his kindness and daring
His love to the maiden he proved
And won for his bride the fair damsel
Whom long without hope he had wooed.

Meanwhile he prepared for a voyage
With all of his tribe to depart
From the land of a cruel oppressor,
The islands still dear to his heart.

At last they embarked all in safety
Unknown to the treacherous king,
He told them to wait in the shadow
And his bride from the sea he would bring.

He dived at the foot of the boulder,
His wondering tribe waited amazed
And half (each astonished beholder)
Believed that the chieftain was crazed.

Alarmed at his long disappearance
His people began to deplore,
O, surely the young chief had perished!
And they waited in fear by the shore.

A sound like the rushing of water,
A sparkling of foam from the tide
And the gallant young chief of the Tongas
Rose up from the sea with his bride.

Her dark hair streamed over the water,
Her eyes shone like stars in the blue;
And the dead chieftain's beautiful daughter
Was safe in her waiting canoe.

In a far distant kingdom they rested
'Till the cruel oppressor was dead,
Then returned to their homes unmolested
Where a better king reigned in his stead.

And long in their palm islands, shady
Dwelt the chieftain, so noble and brave,
With his tribe, and his beautiful lady
Whom he hid in the deep ocean cave.