Chapter I: PLUCKED a purple violet,

Its petals were all dewy wet,
I held it tightly for an hour,
And then I dropped the faded flower;
Dropped it and lost unconsciously,
Scarce thinking of the how or why.
’Twas hours since, but my fingers yet
Are scented with the violet;
The fragrant spell, invisible,
Has caught and holds me in it’s sway.
I would not flee if flight might be;
The violet still rules my day.

I plucked a flower when life was young,
I chose it all the flowers among.
It was so fresh, it was so fair,
Heaven’s very dew seemed cradled there;
A little while it smiled in morn,
And then it withered and was gone.
’Tis long years since, but every hour
I taste the perfume of that flower.
Still it endures, and all day pours
A balm of fragrance on the way.
I catch its breath high over death;
A memory still rules my day.

DARKENED.

HIGH in the windy lighthouse tower
The lamps are burning free,
Each sending with good-will and power
Its message o’er the sea,
Where ships are sailing out of sight,
Hidden in storm and cloud and night.

On the white waves that seethe and dash
A ruddy gleam is shed;
Above, the lighted windows flash
Alternate gold and red,
Save where one sad and blinded glass
Forbids the happy light to pass.

The hungry sea entreats the light,
The struggling light is fain,
But obdurate and blank as night
Rises the darkened pane,
Casting a shadow long and black
Along the weltering ocean track.

Ah, who shall say what drowning eyes
Yearn for that absent ray;
What unseen fleets and argosies,
Ploughing a doubtful way,
Seek through the night, and grope and strain
For guidance from that darkened pane?

Ah, Light Divine, so full, so free!
Ah, world that lies in night!
Ah, guiding radiance! shine through me
Brightly and still more bright,
Nor ever be thy rays in vain
Because I am a “darkened pane.”

THE KEYS OF GRANADA.

’TIS centuries since they were torn away,
Those sad-faced Moors from their belovèd Spain;
In long procession to the wind-swept bay,
With sobs and muttered curses, fierce with pain,
They took their woful road and never came again.

Behind them lay the homes of their delight,
The marble courtyards and cool palaces,
Where fountains flashed and shimmered day and night
’Neath dusk and silver blooms of blossoming trees.
They closed the echoing doors, and bore away the keys.

Palace and pleasure-garden are forgot;
The marble walls have crumbled long ago;
Their site, their ownership, remembered not,
And helpless wrath alike and hopeless woe
Are cooled and comforted by Time’s all-healing flow.

But still the children of those exiled Moors,
A sad transplanted stem on alien shore,
Keep as their trust—and will while time endures—
The rusty keys which their forefathers bore;
The keys of those shut doors which ne’er shall open more.

The doors are dust, but yet the hope lives on;
The walls are dust, but memories cannot die;
And still each sad-faced father tells his son
Of the lost homes, the blue Granadian sky,
The glory and the wrong of those old days gone by.

Ah, keys invisible of happy doors
Which long ago our own hands fastened tight!
We treasure them as do those hapless Moors,
Though dust the palaces of our delight,
Vacant and bodiless and vanished quite.

Keys of our dear, dead hopes, we prize them still,
Wet them with tears, embalm with useless sighs;
And at their sight and touch our pulses still
Waken and throb, and under alien skies
We taste the airs of home and gaze in long-closed eyes.

BEREAVED.

WHEN Lazarus from his three days’ tomb
Fronted with dazzled eyes the day,
And all the amazèd crowd made room,
As, wrapped in shroud, he went his way,
His sisters daring scarce to touch
His hand, their wonderment was such;

When friends and kindred met at meat,
And in the midst the man just dead
Sat in his old-time wonted seat,
And poured the wine and shared the bread
With the old gesture that they knew,—
Were they all glad, those sisters two?

Did they not guess a hidden pain
In the veiled eyes which shunned their gaze;
A dim reproach, a pale disdain
For human joys and human ways;
A loneliness too deep for speech,
Which all their love might never reach?

And as the slowly ebbing days
Went by, and Lazarus went and came
Still with the same estrangèd gaze,
His loneliness and loss the same,
Did they not whisper as they grieved,
“We are consoled—and he bereaved”?

Oh, weeper by a new-heaped mound,
Who vexes Heaven with outcries vain,
That, if but for one short hour’s round,
Thy heart’s desire might come again,—
The buried form, the vanished face,
The silent voice, the dear embrace,—

Think if he came, as Lazarus did,
But came reluctant, with surprise,
And sat familiar things amid
With a new distance in his eyes,
A distance death had failed to set,—
If hearts met not when bodies met!

If when you smiled you heard him sigh,
And when you spoke he only heard
As men absorbed hear absently
The idle chirping of a bird,
As, rapt in thoughts surpassing speech,
His mind moved on beyond your reach;

And still your joy was made his pain,
And still the distance wider grew,
His daily loss your daily gain,
Himself become more strange to you
Than when your following soul sought his
In the vast secret distances;—

If, death once tasted, life seemed vain
To please or tempt or satisfy,
And all his longing was again
To be released and free to die,
To get back to scarce-tasted bliss,—
What grief could be so sharp as this?

“HOW CAN THEY BEAR IT UP IN HEAVEN?”

HOW can they bear it up in heaven,
They who so loved, and love us yet,
If they can see us still, and know
The heavy hours that come and go,
The fears that sting, the cares that fret,
The hopes belied, the helps ungiven?

Can they sit watching us all day,
Measure our tears, and count our sighs,
And mark each throb and stab of pain,
The ungranted wish, the longing vain,
And still smile on with happy eyes,
Content on golden harps to play?

Ah no! we will not do them wrong!
When mothers hear their babies cry
For broken toy or trivial woe,
They smile, for all their love,—they know
Laughter shall follow presently,
And sighing turn to merry song.

They are not cruel, that they smile;
Their eyes, grown old, can farther see,
Weighing the large thing and the less
With wise, experienced tenderness,—
The moment’s grief with joy to be
In such a little, little while.

Just so the angels, starry-eyed,
With vision cleared and made all-wise,
Look past the storm-rack and the rain
And shifting mists of mortal pain
To where the steadfast sunshine lies,
And everlasting summer-tide.

They see, beyond the pang, the strife,
(To us how long, to them how brief!)
The compensation and the balm,
The victor’s wreath, the conqueror’s palm—
They see the healing laid to grief,
They see unfold the perfect life.

For all our blind, impatient pain,
Our desolate and sore estate,
They see the door that open is
Of Heaven’s abundant treasuries,
The comforts and the cures that wait
The bow of promise in the rain.

And even as they watch, they smile,
With eyes of love, as mothers may,
Nor grieve too much although we cry,
Because joy cometh presently,
And sunshine, and the fair new day,
When we have wept a little while.

WAVE AFTER WAVE.

OUT of the bosom of the sea,
From coasts where dim, rich treasures be,
By vast and urging forces blent,
Untired, untiring, and unspent,
The glad waves speed them one by one;
And, goal attained and errand done,
They lap the sands and softly lave,—
Wave after wave, wave after wave.

As stirred by longing for repose
Higher and higher each wave goes,
Striving to clasp with foam-white hands
The yielding and eluding sands;
And still the sea, relentless, grim,
Calls his wild truants back to him,—
Recalls the liberty he gave
Wave after wave, wave after wave.

All sad at heart and desolate
They heed the call, they bow to fate;
And outward swept, a baffled train,
Each feels his effort was in vain.
But fed by impulse lent by each
The gradual tide upon the beach
Rises to full, and thunders brave,
Wave after wave, wave after wave.

Ah, tired, discouraged heart and head,
Look up, and be thou comforted!
Thy puny effort may seem vain,
Wasted thy toil and naught thy pain,
Thy brief sun quench itself in shade,
Thy worthiest strength be weakness made,
Caught up in one great whelming grave,
Wave after wave, wave after wave.

Yet still, though baffled and denied,
Thy spended strength has swelled the tide.
A feather’s weight where oceans roll—
One atom in a mighty whole—
God’s hand uncounted agencies
Marshals and notes and counts as his:
His sands to bind, his threads to save,
His tides to build, wave after wave.

THE WORD WITH POWER.

HOW shall the Word be preached with power?
Not with elaborate care and toil,
With wastings of the midnight oil,
With graceful gesture studied well,
And full intonèd syllable;
With trope and simile lending force
To subdivisions of discourse,
Or labored feeling framed to please—
The word of power is not in these.

How shall the Word be preached with power?
Not by a separate holiness
Which stands aloof to warn and bless,
Speaking as from a higher plane
Which common men may not attain;
Which treats of sin and want and strife
As things outside the priestly life,
And only draws anigh to chide,
Holding a saintly robe aside.

How shall the Word be preached with power?
Ah, needless to debate and plan!
Heart answereth unto heart in man;
Out of the very life of each
Must come the power to heal or teach.
The life all eloquent may grieve,
The brain may subtly work and weave,
But if the heart take not its share,
The word of power is wanting there.

How shall the Word be preached with power?
Go, preacher, search thy soul, and mark
Each want, each weakness, every dark
And painful dint where life and sin
Have beaten their hard impress in:
Apply the balm, and test the cure,
And heal thyself, and be thou sure
That which helps thee has power again
To help the souls of other men.

How shall the Word be preached with power?
Go ask the suffering and the poor,
Go ask the beggar at thy door,
Go to the sacred page and read
What served the old-time want and need:
The clasping hand, the kindling eye,
Virtue given out unconsciously,
The self made selfless hour by hour,—
In these is preached the Word with power!

TO FELICIA SINGING.

SHE sat where sunset shadows fell,
And sunset rays, a miracle
Of palest blue and rose and amber,
Touched her and folded in their spell.

Her golden head against the sky
Was traced and outlined tenderly,
And, lily-soft in the soft late sunshine,
Her fair face blossomed to my eye.

She sang of love with tuneful breath,
Of sorrow, sweet as aught love saith;
Of noble pain, immortal longing,
And hope which stronger is than death.

And every word and every tone
Seemed born of something all my own.
’Twas I who sang, ’twas I who suffered;
Mine was the joyance, mine the moan.

Each lovely, vibrant, rapturous strain
Fulfilled my passion and my pain.
I was the instrument she played on;
I was her prelude and refrain.

And as dim echoes float and play
Through forests at the close of day,
Farther and farther, breathed mysterious
From glades and copses far away,

So echoed through my heart her song,
Deeper and deeper borne along,
Waking to life half-unsuspected
Grievings and hopes and yearnings strong.

Ah! life and heart may weary be
And youth may fail, and love may flee;
But when I hear her, see her singing,
The world grows beautiful to me.

EURYDICE.

HIS prayer availed! Touched by the tuneful plea,
The Lord of Death relaxed his iron hold,
And out of the swart shadows, deep and cold,
Stole the lost wife, the fair Eurydice.
He felt her soft arms in the old embrace,
He guessed the smile upon her unseen face,
And joyful turned him from the dreadful place.

A little patience, and all had been well;
A little faith, and bale had changed to bliss:
Was it too much that he should ask for this,
Whose love had dared the steep descent of hell?
Had faced the Furies and the tongues of fire,
The reek of torment, rising high and higher,
Proserpina’s sad woe and Pluto’s ire?

It seemed a little thing to hope and ask
That the glad wife, just rescued from the dead,
Should go unquestioning where her Orpheus led.
But no; for woman’s strength too hard the task.
“Why dost thou turn thine eyes away from me?
Am I grown ugly, then, unfit to see?
Unkind! Thou lovest not Eurydice!”

Was it because so short a time she stayed
Among the dead that she had not grown wise?
Do petty doubts and fears and jealousies,
Vanity, selfishness, the stain and shade
On mortal love, survive the poignant thrust
Which, winnowing souls from out their hindering dust,
Should wake the eyes to see, the heart to trust?

If we came back to those who love us so,
And fain would plead with Heaven for our recall,
Should we come back having forgotten all
The wisdom which all spirits needs must know?
Would the old faults revive, the old scars sting,
The old capacities for suffering
Quicken to life even in our quickening?

Oh, lovely myth, with just this marring stain!
I will not think that such deep wrong can be.
If ever it were given to one again
Earthward to turn in answer to Love’s plea,
Surely ’twould come in hushed and reverent guise,
With gentlest wisdom in far-seeing eyes,
Ripened for life by knowing Paradise.

THREE WORLDS.

WITHIN three worlds my Sorrow dwells;
Each made her own by heavenly right;
And one is sadly sweet and fair,
And one is bright beyond compare,
And one is void of light.

One is the world of long-past things;
There she can go at will, and sit
And sun herself in love’s embrace,
And see upon a vanished face
The tender, old-time meanings flit.

The second, veiled in glory dim,
She only dares in part explore;
Upon its misty bound she stands,
And reaches out imploring hands
And straining eyes, but does no more.

It is the world of unknown joy,
Where thou, Beloved, amid thy kin,
The saints of God, the Sons of Light,
The company in robes of white,
Hast been made free to enter in.

She sees thee, companied with these,
Standing far off among the Blest,
And is content to watch and wait,
To stand afar without the gate,
Nor interrupt thy perfect rest.

And so she turns, and down she sinks
To her third world, that dreary one,
Which once was shared and lit by thee,
And never any more can be,
In which she dwelleth all alone.

It were too dark a world to bear,
Could she not go, her pain to still,
Into the fair world of the Past,
Into the glory, sure and vast,
Made thine by the Eternal Will.

In these three worlds my Sorrow sits,
And each is dear because of thee;
I joyed in that, I wait in this,
And in the fulness of thy bliss
Thou waitest too, I know, for me.

OPPORTUNITY.

BUT yesterday, but yesterday,
She stood beside our dusty way,
Outreaching for one moment’s space
The key to fortune’s hiding-place.

With wistful meanings in her eyes,
Her radiance veiled in dull disguise,
A moment paused, then turned and fled,
Bearing her message still unsaid.

And we? Our eyes were on the dust;
Still faring on as fare all must
In the hot glare of midday sun
Until the weary way be done.

So, fast and far she sped and flew
Into the depths of ether blue;
And we, too late, make bitter cry,
“Come back, dear Opportunity!”

In vain: the fleet, unpausing wings
Stay not in their bright journeyings;
And sadly sweet as funeral bell
The answer drops, “Farewell! Farewell!”

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE.

A PICTURE.

A DIM rich space, a vault of arching gold,
A furious, shouting rabble pressing near,
A single sentinel to bar and hold
With his one spear.

I see the Roman ruler careless sit
To judge the cause in his accustomed place;
I see the coarse, dull, cruel meanings flit
Across his face.

I see the pitiless priests who urge and rave,
Intent to see the victim sacrificed,
Fearful that scruple or that plea should save—
Where is the Christ?

Not that pale shape which stands amid the press,
In gentle patience uncomplainingly,
Clad in the whiteness of his Teacher’s dress—
That is not he!

_That_ slender flame were easily blown out;
One furious gust of human hate, but one!
One chilling breath of treason or of doubt—
And it were gone!

But thou, O mighty Christ, endurest still;
Quenchless thy fire, fed by immortal breath,
Lord of the heart, Lord of the erring will,
And Lord of Death!

King of the world, thou livest to the end,
Ruling the nations as no other can;
Best comrade, healer, teacher, guide, best friend
And help of man.

I see thee, not a wan and grieving shape,
Facing, like lamb led forth for sacrifice,
The destiny from which is no escape,
With mild, sad eyes,—

But strong and brave and resolute to bear,
Knowing that Death, once conquered, was to be
Thy willing thrall, thy servant grave and fair,
Best help to thee!

The vision changes on the pictured scene;
The pallid Victim fades, and in his place
Comes a victorious, steadfast, glorious mien,
The true Christ’s face.

NON OMNIS MORIAR.

OH, blue and glad the summer skies,
And golden green the widths of plain
Where sun and shadow mingled lay,
As forth we went, with gay intent,
Across the Mesa’s flowery rise,
To where the shimmering mountain chain
Beckoned and shone from far away!

The noontide flashed, the noontide sang,
Along the glittering distant track;
The dancing wind made answer brave.
It seemed that all kept festival,
That joy fires burned and joy bells rang;
But still our hearts went hovering back
To sit beside one lonely grave.

It seems so strange, so half unkind,
That still the earth with life should stir,
That still we smile, and still we jest.
And drink our share of sun and air
And joy—and leave her there behind;
Nor share such happy things with her
Who always gave us all her best!

And yet—our love is loyal still;
And yet—she joyed to have us gay;
And yet—the moving world moves on,
And does not wait our sad estate,
To soothe our hurt or note our ill,
But, touch by touch, and day by day,
Heals us, and changes every one.

But she? What is her work to do?
For never tell me that she lies
Inactive, lifeless, in the mould,
Content to keep a moveless sleep
While worlds revolve in courses new.
Her fiery zeal, her quick emprise,
Could never brook such rest to hold!

That grave but hides her worn-out dress,—
One of God’s sure-winged messengers
I see her, on swift errand sped,
Glad of the task which strong souls ask,
Earth’s sharpest pain grown littleness
In the new tide of life made hers,
Smiling that we should call her dead!

Smile on, dear Heart, until the dawn!
When once the eternal heights are bared,
And the long earthly shadows flit,
And with clear eyes we front the skies,
We too shall smile with heavenly scorn
At the dull, human selves who dared
To call life “Death” and pity it!

AT DAWN OF DAY.

THE yellow lighthouse star is quenched
Across the lonely sea;
The mountains rend their misty veils,
The wind of dawn blows free;
The waves beat with a gladder thrill,
Pulsing in lines of spray,
And fast and far chime on the bar—
God bless my Dear to-day!

A thousand leagues may lie between
A world of distance dim;
But speeding with the speeding light
My heart goes forth to him.
Faster than wind or wave it flies,
As love and longing may,
And undenied stands by his side—
God bless my Dear to-day!

God bless him if he wake to smiles,
Or if he wake to sighs;
Temper his will to bear all fate,
And keep him true and wise;
Be to him all I fain would be
Who am so far away,—
Light, counsel, consolation, cheer—
God bless my Dear to-day!

The gradual light has grown full fain,
And streameth far abroad.
The urgence of my voiceless plea
Is gathered up by God.
Take some sweet thing which else were mine,
Inly I dare to pray,
And with it brim his cup of joy—
God bless my Dear to-day!

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

SO many things there might have been,
Had our dear child not died.
We count them up and call them o’er,
We weigh the less against the more,—
The joy she never knew or shared,
The bitter woes forever spared,
The dangers turned aside,
Heaven’s full security,—and then
Perplexed we sigh,—all might have been.

We might have seen her sweet cheeks glow
With love’s own happy bloom,
Her eyes with maiden gladness full,
Finding the whole world beautiful;
We might have seen the joyance fail,
The dear face sadden and grow pale,
The smiles fade into gloom,
Love’s sun grow dim and sink again,—
Either of these it might have been.

We might have seen her with the crown
Of wifehood on her head,
A queen of home’s fair sovereignties,
With little children at her knees;
Or, broken-hearted and alone,
Bereft and widowed of her own,
Mourning beside her dead,—
This thing or that, beyond our ken,
It might have been, it might have been.

There is no need of question now,
No doubts or risks or fears:
Safe folded in the Eternal care,
Grown fairer each day and more fair,
With radiance in the clear young eyes
Which in cool depths of Paradise
Look without stain of tears,
Reading the Lord’s intent, and then
Smiling to think what might have been.

We too will smile, O dearest child!
Our dull souls may not know
The deep things hidden from mortal sense,
Which feed thy heavenly confidence.
On this one sure thought can we rest,
That God has chosen for thee the best,
Or else it were not so;
He called thee back to Heaven again
Because he knew what might have been.

SOME TIME.

THE night will round into the morn,
The angry storm-wind cease to beat,
The spent bird preen his wet tired wing,
Grief ceaseth when the babe is born.
There comes an end to hardest thing
Some time,—
Some time, some far time, late but sweet.

I could not keep on with the fight;
I could not face my want, my sin,
The baffled hope, the urgent foe,
The mighty wrong, the struggling right,
Excepting that I surely know
Some time—
Some time, some dear time,—I shall win.

I could not hold so sure, so fast,
The truth which is to me so true,
The truth which men deride and shun,
Were I not sure it shall at last
Be held as truth by every one
Some time,—
Some time all men shall own it too.

Some time the morning bells shall chime,
Some time be heard the victor-song,
Some time the hard goal be attained,
The puzzles shall be clear some time,
The tears all shed, the gains all gained,
Some time—
Ah, dear time, tarry not too long!

THE STARS ARE IN THE SKY ALL DAY.

THE stars are in the sky all day;
Each linkèd coil of Milky Way,
And every planet that we know,
Behind the sun are circling slow.
They sweep, they climb with stately tread,—
Venus the fair and Mars the red,
Saturn engirdled with clear light,
And Jupiter with moons of white.
Each knows his path and keeps due tryst;
Not even the smallest star is missed
From those wide fields of deeper sky
Which gleam and flash mysteriously,
As if God’s outstretched fingers must
Have sown them thick with diamond dust.
There are they all day long; but we,
Sun-blinded, have no eyes to see.

The stars are in the sky all day;
But when the sun has gone away,
And hovering shadows cool the west,
And call the sleepy birds to rest,
And heaven grows softly dim and dun,
Into its darkness one by one
Steal forth those starry shapes all fair—
We say steal forth, but they were there,
There all day long, unseen, unguessed,
Climbing the sky from east to west.
The angels saw them where they hid,
And so, perhaps, the eagles did,
For they can face the sharp sun-ray,
Nor wink, nor need to look away;
But we, blind mortals, gazed from far,
And did not see a single star.

I wonder if the world is full
Of other secrets beautiful,
As little guessed, as hard to see,
As this sweet starry mystery?
Do angels veil themselves in space,
And make the sun their hiding-place?
Do white wings flash as spirits go
On heavenly errands to and fro,
While we, down-looking, never guess
How near our lives they crowd and press?
If so, at life’s set we may see
Into the dusk steal noiselessly
Sweet faces that we used to know,
Dear eyes like stars that softly glow,
Dear hands stretched out to point the way,
And deem the night more fair than day.

NOW.

LOVE me now! Love has such a little minute!
Day crowds on day with swift and noiseless tread,
Life’s end comes ere fairly we begin it;
Pain jostles joy, and hope gives place to dread.
Love me now!
It will be too late when we are dead!

Love me now! While we still are young together,
While glad and brave the sun shines overhead,
Hand locked in hand, in blue, smiling weather.
Sighing were sin, and variance ill bestead;
It will be too late when you are dead!

Love me now! Shadows hover in the distance,
Cold winds are coming, green leaves must turn red.
Frownest thou, my Love, at this sad insistence?
Even this moment may the dart be sped.
Love me now!
It will be too late when I am dead!

JUST BEYOND.

WHEN out of the body the soul is sent,
As a bird speeds forth from the opened tent,
As the smoke flies out when it finds a vent,
To lose itself in the spending,—

Does it travel wide, does it travel far,
To find the place where all spirits are?
Does it measure long leagues from star to star,
And feel its travel unending?

And caught by each baffling, blowing wind,
Storm-tossed and beaten, before, behind,
Till the courage fails and the sight is blind,
Must it go in search of its heaven?

I do not think that it can be so;
For weary is life, as all men know,
And battling and struggling to and fro
Man goes from his morn to his even.

And surely this is enough to bear,—
The long day’s work in the sun’s hot glare,
The doubt and the loss which breed despair,
The anguish of baffled hoping.

And when the end of it all has come,
And the soul has won the right to its home,
I do not believe it must wander and roam
Through the infinite spaces groping.

No; wild may the storm be, and dark the day,
And the shuddering soul may clasp its clay,
Afraid to go and unwilling to stay;
But when it girds it for going,

With a rapture of sudden consciousness,
I think it awakes to a knowledge of this,
That heaven earth’s closest neighbor is,
And only waits for our knowing;

That ’tis but a step from dark to day,
From the worn-out tent and the burial clay,
To the rapture of youth renewed for aye,
And the smile of the saints uprisen;

And that just where the soul, perplexed and awed,
Begins its journey, it meets the Lord,
And finds that heaven and the great reward
Lay just outside of its prison!

CONTACT.

NO soul can be quite separate,
However set apart by fate,
However cold or dull or shy,
Or shrinking from the public eye.
The world is common to the race,
And nowhere is a hiding-place;
Before, behind, on either side,
The surging masses press, divide;
Behind, before, with rhythmic beat,
Is heard the tread of marching feet;
To left, to right, they urge, they fare,
And touch us here, and touch us there.
Hold back your garment as you will,
The crowding world will rub it still.
Then, since such contact needs must be,
What shall it do for you and me?

Shall it be cold and hard alone,
As when a stone doth touch a stone,
Fruitless, unwelcome, and unmeant,
Put by as a dull accident,
While we pass onward, deaf and blind,
With no relenting look behind?
Or as when two round drops of rain,
Let fall upon a window-pane,
Wander, divergent, from their course,
Led by some blind, instinctive force,
Mingle and blend and interfuse,
Their separate shapes and being lose,
Made one thereafter and the same,
Identical in end and aim,
Nor brighter gleam, nor faster run,
Because they are not two, but one?

Or shall we meet in warring mood,
The contact of the fire and flood,
Decreed by Nature and by Will,
The one to warm, the one to chill,
The one to burn, the one to slake,
To thwart and counteract and make
Each other’s wretchedness, and dwell
In hate irreconcilable?
Or as when fierce fire meets frail straw,
And carries out the fatal law
Which makes the weaker thing to be
The prey of strength and tyranny;
A careless touch, half scorn, half mirth,
A brief resistance, little worth;
A little blaze soon quenched and marred,
And ashes ever afterward?

No; let us meet, since meet we must,
Not shaking off the common dust,
As if we feared our fellow-men,
And fain would walk aloof from them;
Not fruitlessly, as rain meets rain,
To lose ourselves and nothing gain;
Not fiercely, prey to adverse fate,
And not to spoil and desolate.
But as we meet and touch, each day,
The many travellers on our way,
Let every such brief contact be
A glorious, helpful ministry;
The contact of the soil and seed,
Each giving to the other’s need,
Each helping on the other’s best,
And blessing, each, as well as blest.

AN EASTER SONG.

WE bore to see the summer go;
We bore to see the ruthless wind
Beat all the golden leaves and red
In drifting masses to and fro,
Till not a leaf remained behind;
We faced the winter’s frown, and said,
“There comes reward for all our pain,
For every loss there comes a gain;
And spring, which never failed us yet,
Out of the snow-drift and the ice
Shall some day bring the violet.”

We bore—what could we do but bear?—
To see youth perish in its prime,
And hope grow faint, and joyance grieved,
And dreams all vanish in thin air,
And beauty, at the touch of time,

Become a memory, half believed;
Still we could smile, and still we said,
“Hope, joy, and beauty are not dead;
God’s angel guards them all and sees—
Close by the grave he sits and waits—
There comes a spring for even these.”

We bore to see dear faces pale,
Dear voices falter, smiles grow wan,
And life ebb like a tide at sea,
Till underneath the misty veil
Our best belovèd, one by one,
Vanished and parted silently.
We stayed without, but still could say,
“Grief’s winter dureth not alway;
Who sleep in Christ with Christ shall rise.
We wait our Easter morn in tears,
They in the smile of Paradise.”

O thought of healing, word of strength!
O light to lighten darkest way!
O saving help and balm of ill!
For all our dead shall dawn at length
A slowly broadening Easter Day,
A Resurrection calm and still.

The little sleep will not seem long,
The silence shall break out in song,
The sealèd eyes shall ope,—and then
We who have waited patiently
Shall live and have our own again.

CONCORD.

MAY 31, 1882.

“FARTHER horizons every year!”
Oh, tossing pines which surge and wave
Above the poet’s just made grave,
And waken for his sleeping ear
The music that he loved to hear,
Through summer’s sun and winter’s chill,
With purpose stanch and dauntless will,
Sped by a noble discontent,
You climb toward the blue firmament,—
Climb as the winds climb, mounting high
The viewless ladders of the sky;
Spurning our lower atmosphere,
Heavy with sighs and dense with night,
And urging upward year by year
To ampler air, diviner light.

“Farther horizons every year!”
Beneath you pass the tribes of men,
Your gracious boughs o’ershadow them;
You hear, but do not seem to heed
Their jarring speech, their faulty creed.
Your roots are firmly set in soil
Won from their humming paths of toil;
Content their lives to watch and share,
To serve them, shelter, and upbear,
Yet bent to win an upward way
And larger gift of heaven than they,
Benignant view and attitude,
Close knowledge of celestial sign,
Still working for all earthly good
While pressing on to the Divine.

“Farther horizons every year!”
So he, by reverent hands just laid
Beneath your boughs of wavering shade,
Climbed as you climb the upward way,
Knowing not boundary or stay.
His eyes surcharged with heavenly lights,
His senses steeped in heavenly sights,
His soul attuned to heavenly keys,
How should he pause for rest and ease,
Or turn his wingèd feet again,
To share the common feasts of men?
He blessed them with his word and smile,
But still, above their fickle moods,
Wooing, constraining him awhile,
Beckoned the shining altitudes.

“Farther horizons every year!”
To what immeasurable height,
What clear irradiance of light,
What far and all-transcendent goal
Hast thou now risen, O steadfast soul!
We may not follow with our eyes
To where thy farther pathway lies,
Nor guess what vision vast and free
God keeps in store for souls like thee.
But still the pines that bend and wave
Their boughs above thy honored grave
Shall be thy emblem brave and fit,
Firm-rooted in the stalwart sod,
Blessing the earth while spurning it,
Content with nothing short of God.

HEREAFTER.

WHEN we are dead, when you and I are dead,
Have rent and tossed aside each earthly fetter
And wiped the grave-dust from our wondering eyes,
And stand together, fronting the sunrise,
I think that we shall know each other better.

Puzzle and pain will lie behind us then;
All will be known and all will be forgiven.
We shall be glad of every hardness past,
And not one earthly shadow shall be cast
To dim the brightness of the bright new heaven.

And I shall know, and you as well as I,
What was the hindering thing our whole lives through,
Which kept me always shy, constrained, distressed;
Why I, to whom you were the first and best,
Could never, never be my best with you;

Why, loving you as dearly as I did,
And prizing you above all earthly good,
I yet was cold and dull when you were by,
And faltered in my speech or shunned your eye,
Unable quite to say the thing I would;

Could never front you with the happy ease
Of those whose perfect trust has cast out fear,
Or take, content, from Love his daily dole,
But longed to grasp and be and have the whole,
As blind men long to see, the deaf to hear.

My dear Love, when I forward look, and think
Of all these baffling barriers swept away,
Against which I have beat so long and strained,
Of all the puzzles of the past explained,
I almost wish that we could die to-day.

OUR DAILY BREAD.

“GIVE us our daily bread,” we pray,
And know but half of what we say.

The bread on which our bodies feed
Is but the moiety of our need.

The soul, the heart, must nourished be,
And share the daily urgency.

And though it may be bitter bread
On which these nobler parts are fed,

No less we crave the daily dole,
O Lord, of body and of soul!

Sweet loaves, the wine-must all afoam,
The manna, and the honey-comb,—

All these are good, but better still
The food which checks and moulds the will.

The sting for pride, the smart for sin,
The purging draught for self within,

The sorrows which we shuddering meet,
Not knowing their after-taste of sweet,—

All these we ask for when we pray,
“Give us our daily bread this day.”

Lord, leave us not athirst, unfed;
Give us this best and hardest bread,

Until, these mortal needs all past,
We sit at thy full feast at last,

The bread of angels broken by thee,
The wine of joy poured constantly.

SLEEPING AND WAKING.

GOD giveth his beloved sleep;
They lie securely ’neath his wing
Till the night pale, the dawning break;
Safe in its overshadowing
They fear no dark and harmful thing;—
What does he give to those who wake?

To those who sleep he gives good dreams;
For bodies overtasked and spent
Comes rest to comfort every ache;
To weary eyes new light is sent,
To weary spirits new content;—
What does God give to those who wake?

His angels sit beside the beds
Of such as rest beneath his care.
Unweariedly their post they take,
They wave their wings to fan the air,
They cool the brow and stroke the hair,—
God comes himself to those who wake.

To fevered eyes that cannot close,
To hearts o’erburdened with their lot,
He comes to soothe, to heal, to slake;
Close to the pillows hard and hot
He stands, although they see him not,
And taketh care of those who wake.

Nor saint nor angel will he trust
With this one blessed ministry,
Lest they should falter or mistake;
They guard the sleepers faithfully
Who are the Lord’s beloved; but he
Watches by those beloved who wake.

Oh, in the midnight dense and drear,
When life drifts outward with the tide,
And mortal terrors overtake,
In this sure thought let us abide,
And unafraid be satisfied,—
God comes himself to those who wake!

THORNS.

ROSES have thorns, and love is thorny too;
And this is love’s sharp thorn which guards its flower,
That our beloved have the cruel power
To hurt us deeper than all others do.

The heart attuned to our heart like a charm,
Beat answering beat, as echo answers song,
If the throb falter, or the pulse beat wrong,
How shall it fail to grieve us or to harm?

The taunt which, uttered by a stranger’s lips,
Scarce heard, scarce minded, passed us like the wind,
Breathed by a dear voice, which has grown unkind,
Turns sweet to bitter, sunshine to eclipse.

The instinct of a change we cannot prove,
The pitiful tenderness, the sad too-much,
The sad too-little, shown in look or touch,—
All these are wounding thorns of thorny love.

Ah, sweetest rose which earthly gardens bear,
Fought for, desired, life’s guerdon and life’s end,
Although your thorns may slay and wound and rend,
Still men must snatch you; for you are so fair.

A NEW-ENGLAND LADY.

SHE talks of “gentry” still, and “birth,”
And holds the good old-fashioned creed
Of widely differing ranks and station,
And gentle blood, whose obligation
Is courteous word and friendly deed.

She knows her own ancestral line,
And numbers all its links of honor;
But in her theory of right living
Good birth involves good will, good giving,—
A daily duty laid upon her.

Her hands are versed in household arts:
She kneads and stirs, compounds and spices;
Her bread is famous in the region;
Her cakes and puddings form a legion
Of sure successes, swift surprises.

A lady in her kitchen apron;
Always a lady, though she labors;
She has a “faculty” prompt and certain,
Which makes each flower-bed, gown, and curtain
A standing wonder to her neighbors.

Her days seem measured by some planet
More liberal than our common sun is;
For she finds time when others miss it
The poor to cheer, the sick to visit,
And carry brightness in where none is.

Behold her as, her day’s work over,
Her house from attic to door-scraper
In order, all her tasks completed,
She sits down, calm, composed, unheated,
To read her Emerson or her paper.

She hears the new æsthetic Gospel,
And unconvinced although surprised is;
_Her_ family knows what is proper.
She smiles, and does not care a copper,
Although her carpet stigmatized is.

She does not quite accept tradition;
She has her private theory ready;
Her shrewd, quaint insight baffles leading;
And straight through dogma’s special pleading
She holds her own, composed and steady.

Kindness her law; her king is duty.
You cannot bend her though you break her;
As tough as yew and as elastic
Her fibre; unconvinced, unplastic,—
She clasps conviction like a Quaker.

Long live her type, to be our anchor
When times go wrong and true men rally,
Till aged Chocorua fails and bleaches
Beside the shining Saco reaches,
Monadnock by the Jaffrey valley.

UNDER THE SNOW.

UNDER the snow lie sweet things out of sight,
Couching like birds beneath a downy breast;
They cluster ’neath the coverlet warm and white,
And bide the winter-time in hopeful rest.

There are the hyacinths, holding ivory tips
Pointed and ready for a hint of sun;
And hooded violets, with dim, fragrant lips
Asleep and dreaming fairy dreams each one.

There lurk a myriad quick and linkèd roots,
Coiled for a spring when the ripe time is near;
The brave chrysanthemum’s pale yellow shoots
And daffodils, the vanguard of the year;

The nodding snowdrop and the columbine;
The hardy crocus, prompt to hear a call;
Pensile wistaria and thick woodbine;
And valley lilies, sweetest of them all.

All undismayed, although the drifts are deep,
All sure of spring and strong of cheer they lie;
And we, who see but snows, we smile and keep
The selfsame courage in the by and by.

Ah! the same drifts shroud other precious things,—
Flower-like faces, pallid now and chill,
Feet laid to rest after long journeyings,
And fair and folded hands forever still.

All undismayed, in deep and hushed repose,
Waiting a sweeter, further spring, they lie;
And we, whose yearning eyes see but the snows,
Shall we not trust, like them, the by and by?

SONNET

FOR A BIRTHDAY.