Chapter L: E. L (2)

As a man soweth so he reaps. The field was full of bleeding heaps; Ghastly corpses of men and horses That met death at a thousand sources; Cold limbs and putrifying flesh; Long love-locks clotted to a mesh That stifled; stiffened mouths beneath Staring eyes that had looked on death. 230

But these were dead: these felt no more The anguish of the wounds they bore. Behold, they shall not sigh again, Nor justly fear, nor hope in vain. What if none wept above them?--is The sleeper less at rest for this? Is not the young child's slumber sweet When no man watcheth over it? These had deep calm; but all around There was a deadly smothered sound, 240 The choking cry of agony From wounded men who could not die; Who watched the black wing of the raven Rise like a cloud 'twixt them and heaven, And in the distance flying fast Beheld the eagle come at last.

She knelt down in her agony: 'O Lord, it is enough,' said she: 'My heart's prayer putteth me to shame; Let me return to whence I came. 250 Thou for who love's sake didst reprove, Forgive me for the sake of love.'

SIT DOWN IN THE LOWEST ROOM

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, March 1864.)

Like flowers sequestered from the sun
And wind of summer, day by day
I dwindled paler, whilst my hair
Showed the first tinge of grey.

'Oh what is life, that we should live?
Or what is death, that we must die?
A bursting bubble is our life:
I also, what am I?'

'What is your grief? now tell me, sweet,
That I may grieve,' my sister said; 10
And stayed a white embroidering hand
And raised a golden head:

Her tresses showed a richer mass,
Her eyes looked softer than my own,
Her figure had a statelier height,
Her voice a tenderer tone.

'Some must be second and not first;
All cannot be the first of all:
Is not this, too, but vanity?
I stumble like to fall. 20

'So yesterday I read the acts
Of Hector and each clangorous king
With wrathful great Aeacides:--
Old Homer leaves a sting.'

The comely face looked up again,
The deft hand lingered on the thread:
'Sweet, tell me what is Homer's sting,
Old Homer's sting?' she said.

'He stirs my sluggish pulse like wine,
He melts me like the wind of spice, 30
Strong as strong Ajax' red right hand,
And grand like Juno's eyes.

'I cannot melt the sons of men,
I cannot fire and tempest-toss:--
Besides, those days were golden days,
Whilst these are days of dross.'

She laughed a feminine low laugh,
Yet did not stay her dexterous hand:
'Now tell me of those days,' she said,
'When time ran golden sand.' 40

'Then men were men of might and right,
Sheer might, at least, and weighty swords;
Then men in open blood and fire,
Bore witness to their words,

'Crest-rearing kings with whistling spears;
But if these shivered in the shock
They wrenched up hundred-rooted trees,
Or hurled the effacing rock.

'Then hand to hand, then foot to foot,
Stern to the death-grip grappling then, 50
Who ever thought of gunpowder
Amongst these men of men?

'They knew whose hand struck home the death,
They knew who broke but would not bend,
Could venerate an equal foe
And scorn a laggard friend.

'Calm in the utmost stress of doom,
Devout toward adverse powers above,
They hated with intenser hate
And loved with fuller love. 60

'Then heavenly beauty could allay
As heavenly beauty stirred the strife:
By them a slave was worshipped more
Than is by us a wife.'

She laughed again, my sister laughed,
Made answer o'er the laboured cloth:
'I would rather be one of us
Than wife, or slave, or both.'

'Oh better then be slave or wife
Than fritter now blank life away: 70
Then night had holiness of night,
And day was sacred day.

'The princess laboured at her loom,
Mistress and handmaiden alike;
Beneath their needles grew the field
With warriors armed to strike.

'Or, look again, dim Dian's face
Gleamed perfect through the attendant night;
Were such not better than those holes
Amid that waste of white? 80

'A shame it is, our aimless life:
I rather from my heart would feed
From silver dish in gilded stall
With wheat and wine the steed--

'The faithful steed that bore my lord
In safety through the hostile land,
The faithful steed that arched his neck
To fondle with my hand.'

Her needle erred; a moment's pause,
A moment's patience, all was well. 90
Then she: 'But just suppose the horse,
Suppose the rider fell?

'Then captive in an alien house,
Hungering on exile's bitter bread,--
They happy, they who won the lot
Of sacrifice,' she said.

Speaking she faltered, while her look
Showed forth her passion like a glass:
With hand suspended, kindling eye,
Flushed cheek, how fair she was! 100

'Ah well, be those the days of dross;
This, if you will, the age of gold:
Yet had those days a spark of warmth,
While these are somewhat cold--

'Are somewhat mean and cold and slow,
Are stunted from heroic growth:
We gain but little when we prove
The worthlessness of both.'

'But life is in our hands,' she said:
'In our own hands for gain or loss: 110
Shall not the Sevenfold Sacred Fire
Suffice to purge our dross?

'Too short a century of dreams,
One day of work sufficient length:
Why should not you, why should not I
Attain heroic strength?

'Our life is given us as a blank;
Ourselves must make it blest or curst:
Who dooms me I shall only be
The second, not the first? 120

'Learn from old Homer, if you will,
Such wisdom as his books have said:
In one the acts of Ajax shine,
In one of Diomed.

'Honoured all heroes whose high deeds
Thro' life, till death, enlarge their span:
Only Achilles in his rage
And sloth is less than man.'

'Achilles only less than man?
He less than man who, half a god, 130
Discomfited all Greece with rest,
Cowed Ilion with a nod?

'He offered vengeance, lifelong grief
To one dear ghost, uncounted price:
Beasts, Trojans, adverse gods, himself,
Heaped up the sacrifice.

'Self-immolated to his friend,
Shrined in world's wonder, Homer's page,
Is this the man, the less than men,
Of this degenerate age?' 140

'Gross from his acorns, tusky boar
Does memorable acts like his;
So for her snared offended young
Bleeds the swart lioness.'

But here she paused; our eyes had met,
And I was whitening with the jeer;
She rose: 'I went too far,' she said;
Spoke low: 'Forgive me, dear.

'To me our days seem pleasant days,
Our home a haven of pure content; 150
Forgive me if I said too much,
So much more than I meant.

'Homer, tho' greater than his gods,
With rough-hewn virtues was sufficed
And rough-hewn men: but what are such
To us who learn of Christ?'

The much-moved pathos of her voice,
Her almost tearful eyes, her cheek
Grown pale, confessed the strength of love
Which only made her speak: 160

For mild she was, of few soft words,
Most gentle, easy to be led,
Content to listen when I spoke
And reverence what I said;

I elder sister by six years;
Not half so glad, or wise, or good:
Her words rebuked my secret self
And shamed me where I stood.

She never guessed her words reproved
A silent envy nursed within, 170
A selfish, souring discontent
Pride-born, the devil's sin.

I smiled, half bitter, half in jest:
'The wisest man of all the wise
Left for his summary of life
"Vanity of vanities."

'Beneath the sun there's nothing new:
Men flow, men ebb, mankind flows on:
If I am wearied of my life,
Why so was Solomon. 180

'Vanity of vanities he preached
Of all he found, of all he sought:
Vanity of vanities, the gist
Of all the words he taught.

'This in the wisdom of the world,
In Homer's page, in all, we find:
As the sea is not filled, so yearns
Man's universal mind.

'This Homer felt, who gave his men
With glory but a transient state: 190
His very Jove could not reverse
Irrevocable fate.

'Uncertain all their lot save this--
Who wins must lose, who lives must die:
All trodden out into the dark
Alike, all vanity.'

She scarcely answered when I paused,
But rather to herself said: 'One
Is here,' low-voiced and loving, 'Yea,
Greater than Solomon.' 200

So both were silent, she and I:
She laid her work aside, and went
Into the garden-walks, like spring,
All gracious with content,

A little graver than her wont,
Because her words had fretted me;
Not warbling quite her merriest tune
Bird-like from tree to tree.

I chose a book to read and dream:
Yet half the while with furtive eyes 210
Marked how she made her choice of flowers
Intuitively wise,

And ranged them with instinctive taste
Which all my books had failed to teach;
Fresh rose herself, and daintier
Than blossom of the peach.

By birthright higher than myself,
Tho' nestling of the self-same nest:
No fault of hers, no fault of mine,
But stubborn to digest. 220

I watched her, till my book unmarked
Slid noiseless to the velvet floor;
Till all the opulent summer-world
Looked poorer than before.

Just then her busy fingers ceased,
Her fluttered colour went and came;
I knew whose step was on the walk,
Whose voice would name her name.

* * * * * * *

Well, twenty years have passed since then:
My sister now, a stately wife 230
Still fair, looks back in peace and sees
The longer half of life--

The longer half of prosperous life,
With little grief, or fear, or fret:
She loved, and, loving long ago,
Is loved and loving yet.

A husband honourable, brave,
Is her main wealth in all the world:
And next to him one like herself,
One daughter golden-curled; 240

Fair image of her own fair youth,
As beautiful and as serene,
With almost such another love
As her own love has been.

Yet, tho' of world-wide charity,
And in her home most tender dove,
Her treasure and her heart are stored
In the home-land of love:

She thrives, God's blessed husbandry;
She like a vine is full of fruit; 250
Her passion-flower climbs up toward heaven
Tho' earth still binds its root.

I sit and watch my sister's face:
How little altered since the hours
When she, a kind, light-hearted girl,
Gathered her garden flowers;

Her song just mellowed by regret
For having teased me with her talk;
Then all-forgetful as she heard
One step upon the walk. 260

While I? I sat alone and watched
My lot in life, to live alone,
In mine own world of interests,
Much felt but little shown.

Not to be first: how hard to learn
That lifelong lesson of the past;
Line graven on line and stroke on stroke;
But, thank God, learned at last.

So now in patience I possess
My soul year after tedious year, 270
Content to take the lowest place,
The place assigned me here.

Yet sometimes, when I feel my strength
Most weak, and life most burdensome,
I lift mine eyes up to the hills
From whence my help shall come:

Yea, sometimes still I lift my heart
To the Archangelic trumpet-burst,
When all deep secrets shall be shown,
And many last be first. 280

MY FRIEND

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, Dec. 1864.)

Two days ago with dancing glancing hair,
With living lips and eyes:
Now pale, dumb, blind, she lies;
So pale, yet still so fair.

We have not left her yet, not yet alone;
But soon must leave her where
She will not miss our care,
Bone of our bone.

Weep not; O friends, we should not weep:
Our friend of friends lies full of rest; 10
No sorrow rankles in her breast,
Fallen fast asleep.

She sleeps below,
She wakes and laughs above:
To-day, as she walked, let us walk in love;
To-morrow follow so.

LAST NIGHT

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, May 1865.)

Where were you last night? I watched at the gate; I went down early, I stayed down late. Were you snug at home, I should like to know, Or were you in the coppice wheedling Kate?

She's a fine girl, with a fine clear skin; Easy to woo, perhaps not hard to win. Speak up like a man and tell me the truth: I'm not one to grow downhearted and thin.

If you love her best speak up like a man; It's not I will stand in the light of your plan: 10 Some girls might cry and scold you a bit, And say they couldn't bear it; but I can.

Love was pleasant enough, and the days went fast; Pleasant while it lasted, but it needn't last; Awhile on the wax and awhile on the wane, Now dropped away into the past.

Was it pleasant to you? To me it was; Now clean gone as an image from glass, As a goodly rainbow that fades away, As dew that steams upward from the grass, 20

As the first spring day, or the last summer day, As the sunset flush that leaves heaven grey, As a flame burnt out for lack of oil, Which no pains relight or ever may.

Good luck to Kate and good luck to you: I guess she'll be kind when you come to woo. I wish her a pretty face that will last, I wish her a husband steady and true.

Hate you? not I, my very good friend; All things begin and all have an end. 30 But let broken be broken; I put no faith In quacks who set up to patch and mend.

Just my love and one word to Kate: Not to let time slip if she means to mate;-- For even such a thing has been known As to miss the chance while we weigh and wait.

CONSIDER

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, Jan. 1866.)

Consider
The lilies of the field whose bloom is brief:--
We are as they;
Like them we fade away,
As doth a leaf.

Consider
The sparrows of the air of small account:
Our God doth view
Whether they fall or mount,--
He guards us too. 10

Consider
The lilies that do neither spin nor toil,
Yet are most fair:--
What profits all this care
And all this coil?

Consider
The birds that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;
God gives them food:--
Much more our Father seeks
To do us good. 20

HELEN GREY

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, March 1866.)

Because one loves you, Helen Grey,
Is that a reason you should pout,
And like a March wind veer about,
And frown, and say your shrewish say?
Don't strain the cord until it snaps,
Don't split the sound heart with your wedge,
Don't cut your fingers with the edge
Of your keen wit; you may, perhaps.

Because you're handsome, Helen Grey,
Is that a reason to be proud? 10
Your eyes are bold, your laugh is loud,
Your steps go mincing on their way;
But so you miss that modest charm
Which is the surest charm of all:
Take heed, you yet may trip and fall,
And no man care to stretch his arm.

Stoop from your cold height, Helen Grey,
Come down, and take a lowlier place;
Come down, to fill it now with grace;
Come down you must perforce some day: 20
For years cannot be kept at bay,
And fading years will make you old;
Then in their turn will men seem cold,
When you yourself are nipped and grey.

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON

B.C. 570

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, October 1866.)

Here where I dwell I waste to skin and bone;
The curse is come upon me, and I waste
In penal torment powerless to atone.
The curse is come on me, which makes no haste
And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud
Hard man and him the sinner double-faced.
Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed
Within me, as my body in this mire;
My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore-bested and cowed.
As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire, 10
As Jericho before God's trumpet-peal,
So we the elect ones perish in His ire.
Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel
With famished faces toward Jerusalem:
His heart is shut against us not to feel,
His ears against our cry He shutteth them,
His hand He shorteneth that He will not save,
His law is loud against us to condemn:
And we, as unclean bodies in the grave
Inheriting corruption and the dark, 20
Are outcast from His presence which we crave.
Our Mercy hath departed from His Ark,
Our Glory hath departed from His rest,
Our Shield hath left us naked as a mark
Unto all pitiless eyes made manifest.
Our very Father hath forsaken us,
Our God hath cast us from Him: we oppressed
Unto our foes are even marvellous,
A hissing and a butt for pointing hands,
Whilst God Almighty hunts and grinds us thus; 30
For He hath scattered us in alien lands,
Our priests, our princes, our anointed king,
And bound us hand and foot with brazen bands.
Here while I sit my painful heart takes wing
Home to the home-land I must see no more,
Where milk and honey flow, where waters spring
And fail not, where I dwelt in days of yore
Under my fig-tree and my fruitful vine,
There where my parents dwelt at ease before:
Now strangers press the olives that are mine, 40
Reap all the corners of my harvest-field,
And make their fat hearts wanton with my wine;
To them my trees, to them my garden yield
Their sweets and spices and their tender green,
O'er them in noontide heat outspread their shield.
Yet these are they whose fathers had not been
Housed with my dogs, whom hip and thigh we smote
And with their blood washed their pollutions clean,
Purging the land which spewed them from its throat;
Their daughters took we for a pleasant prey, 50
Choice tender ones on whom the fathers doat.
Now they in turn have led our own away;
Our daughters and our sisters and our wives
Sore weeping as they weep who curse the day,
To live, remote from help, dishonoured lives,
Soothing their drunken masters with a song,
Or dancing in their golden tinkling gyves:
Accurst if they remember through the long
Estrangement of their exile, twice accursed
If they forget and join the accursèd throng. 60
How doth my heart that is so wrung not burst
When I remember that my way was plain,
And that God's candle lit me at the first,
Whilst now I grope in darkness, grope in vain,
Desiring but to find Him Who is lost,
To find Him once again, but once again.
His wrath came on us to the uttermost,
His covenanted and most righteous wrath:
Yet this is He of Whom we made our boast,
Who lit the Fiery Pillar in our path, 70
Who swept the Red Sea dry before our feet,
Who in His jealousy smote kings, and hath
Sworn once to David: One shall fill thy seat
Born of thy body, as the sun and moon
'Stablished for aye in sovereignty complete.
O Lord, remember David, and that soon.
The Glory hath departed, Ichabod!
Yet now, before our sun grow dark at noon,
Before we come to nought beneath Thy rod,
Before we go down quick into the pit, 80
Remember us for good, O God, our God:--
Thy Name will I remember, praising it,
Though Thou forget me, though Thou hide Thy face,
And blot me from the Book which Thou hast writ;
Thy Name will I remember in my praise
And call to mind Thy faithfulness of old,
Though as a weaver Thou cut off my days,
And end me as a tale ends that is told.

SEASONS

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, Dec. 1866.)

Oh the cheerful Budding-time!
When thorn-hedges turn to green,
When new leaves of elm and lime
Cleave and shed their winter screen;
Tender lambs are born and 'baa,'
North wind finds no snow to bring,
Vigorous Nature laughs 'Ha, ha,'
In the miracle of spring.

Oh the gorgeous Blossom-days!
When broad flag-flowers drink and blow, 10
In and out in summer-blaze
Dragon-flies flash to and fro;
Ashen branches hang out keys,
Oaks put forth the rosy shoot,
Wandering herds wax sleek at ease,
Lovely blossoms end in fruit.

Oh the shouting Harvest-weeks!
Mother earth grown fat with sheaves
Thrifty gleaner finds who seeks;
Russet-golden pomp of leaves 20
Crowns the woods, to fall at length;
Bracing winds are felt to stir,
Ocean gathers up her strength,
Beasts renew their dwindled fur.

Oh the starving Winter-lapse!
Ice-bound, hunger-pinched and dim;
Dormant roots recall their saps,
Empty nests show black and grim,
Short-lived sunshine gives no heat,
Undue buds are nipped by frost, 30
Snow sets forth a winding-sheet,
And all hope of life seems lost.

MOTHER COUNTRY

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, March 1868.)

Oh what is that country
And where can it be,
Not mine own country,
But dearer far to me?
Yet mine own country,
If I one day may see
Its spices and cedars,
Its gold and ivory.

As I lie dreaming
It rises, that land: 10
There rises before me
Its green golden strand,
With its bowing cedars
And its shining sand;
It sparkles and flashes
Like a shaken brand.

Do angels lean nearer
While I lie and long?
I see their soft plumage
And catch their windy song, 20
Like the rise of a high tide
Sweeping full and strong;
I mark the outskirts
Of their reverend throng.

Oh what is a king here,
Or what is a boor?
Here all starve together,
All dwarfed and poor;
Here Death's hand knocketh
At door after door, 30
He thins the dancers
From the festal floor.

Oh what is a handmaid,
Or what is a queen?
All must lie down together
Where the turf is green,
The foulest face hidden,
The fairest not seen;
Gone as if never,
They had breathed or been. 40

Gone from sweet sunshine
Underneath the sod,
Turned from warm flesh and blood
To senseless clod,
Gone as if never
They had toiled or trod,
Gone out of sight of all
Except our God.

Shut into silence
From the accustomed song, 50
Shut into solitude
From all earth's throng,
Run down tho' swift of foot,
Thrust down tho' strong;
Life made an end of
Seemed it short or long.

Life made an end of,
Life but just begun,
Life finished yesterday,
Its last sand run; 60
Life new-born with the morrow,
Fresh as the sun:
While done is done for ever;
Undone, undone.

And if that life is life,
This is but a breath,
The passage of a dream
And the shadow of death;
But a vain shadow
If one considereth; 70
Vanity of vanities,
As the Preacher saith.

A SMILE AND A SIGH

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, May 1868.)

A smile because the nights are short!
And every morning brings such pleasure
Of sweet love-making, harmless sport:
Love, that makes and finds its treasure;
Love, treasure without measure.

A sigh because the days are long!
Long long these days that pass in sighing,
A burden saddens every song:
While time lags who should be flying,
We live who would be dying.

DEAD HOPE

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, May 1868.)

Hope new born one pleasant morn
Died at even;
Hope dead lives nevermore.
No, not in heaven.

If his shroud were but a cloud
To weep itself away;
Or were he buried underground
To sprout some day!
But dead and gone is dead and gone
Vainly wept upon. 10

Nought we place above his face
To mark the spot,
But it shows a barren place
In our lot.
Hope has birth no more on earth
Morn or even;
Hope dead lives nevermore,
No, not in heaven.

AUTUMN VIOLETS

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, November 1868.)

Keep love for youth, and violets for the spring: Of if these bloom when worn-out autumn grieves, Let them lie hid in double shade of leaves, Their own, and others dropped down withering; For violets suit when home birds build and sing, Not when the outbound bird a passage cleaves; Not with dry stubble of mown harvest sheaves, But when the green world buds to blossoming. Keep violets for the spring, and love for youth, Love that should dwell with beauty, mirth, and hope: Or if a later sadder love be born, Let this not look for grace beyond its scope, But give itself, nor plead for answering truth-- A grateful Ruth tho' gleaning scanty corn.

'THEY DESIRE A BETTER COUNTRY'

(_Macmillan's Magazine_, March 1869.)

I

I would not if I could undo my past,
Tho' for its sake my future is a blank;
My past, for which I have myself to thank,
For all its faults and follies first and last.
I would not cast anew the lot once cast,
Or launch a second ship for one that sank,
Or drug with sweets the bitterness I drank,
Or break by feasting my perpetual fast.
I would not if I could: for much more dear
Is one remembrance than a hundred joys, 10
More than a thousand hopes in jubilee;
Dearer the music of one tearful voice
That unforgotten calls and calls to me,
'Follow me here, rise up, and follow here.'

II

What seekest thou far in the unknown land?
In hope I follow joy gone on before,
In hope and fear persistent more and more,
As the dry desert lengthens out its sand.
Whilst day and night I carry in my hand
The golden key to ope the golden door 20
Of golden home; yet mine eye weepeth sore
For the long journey that must make no stand.
And who is this that veiled doth walk with thee?
Lo, this is Love that walketh at my right;
One exile holds us both, and we are bound
To selfsame home-joys in the land of light.
Weeping thou walkest with him; weepeth he?--
Some sobbing weep, some weep and make no sound.

III

A dimness of a glory glimmers here
Thro' veils and distance from the space remote, 30
A faintest far vibration of a note
Reaches to us and seems to bring us near,
Causing our face to glow with braver cheer,
Making the serried mist to stand afloat,
Subduing langour with an antidote,
And strengthening love almost to cast out fear,
Till for one moment golden city walls
Rise looming on us, golden walls of home,
Light of our eyes until the darkness falls;
Then thro' the outer darkness burdensome 40
I hear again the tender voice that calls,
'Follow me hither, follow, rise, and come.'

THE OFFERING OF THE NEW LAW, THE ONE OBLATION ONCE OFFERED

(_Lyra Eucharistica_, 1863.)

Once I thought to sit so high In the Palace of the sky; Now, I thank God for His Grace, If I may fill the lowest place.

Once I thought to scale so soon Heights above the changing moon; Now, I thank God for delay-- To-day, it yet is called to-day.

While I stumble, halt and blind, Lo! He waiteth to be kind; 10 Bless me soon, or bless me slow, Except He bless, I let not go.

Once for earth I laid my plan, Once I leaned on strength of man, When my hope was swept aside, I stayed my broken heart on pride:

Broken reed hath pierced my hand; Fell my house I built on sand; Roofless, wounded, maimed by sin, Fightings without and fears within: 20

Yet, a tree, He feeds my root; Yet, a branch, He prunes for fruit; Yet, a sheep, these eves and morns, He seeks for me among the thorns.

With Thine Image stamped of old, Find Thy coin more choice than gold; Known to Thee by name, recall To Thee Thy home-sick prodigal.

Sacrifice and Offering None there is that I can bring, 30 None, save what is Thine alone: I bring Thee, Lord, but of Thine Own--

Broken Body, Blood Outpoured, These I bring, my God, my Lord; Wine of Life, and Living Bread, With these for me Thy Board is spread.

CONFERENCE BETWEEN CHRIST, THE SAINTS, AND THE SOUL

(_Lyra Eucharistica_, 1863.)

I am pale with sick desire,
For my heart is far away
From this world's fitful fire
And this world's waning day;
In a dream it overleaps
A world of tedious ills
To where the sunshine sleeps
On th' everlasting hills.
Say the Saints--There Angels ease us
Glorified and white. 10
They say--We rest in Jesus,
Where is not day nor night.

My Soul saith--I have sought
For a home that is not gained,
I have spent yet nothing bought,
Have laboured but not attained;
My pride strove to rise and grow,
And hath but dwindled down;
My love sought love, and lo!
Hath not attained its crown. 20
Say the Saints--Fresh Souls increase us,
None languish nor recede.
They say--We love our Jesus,
And He loves us indeed.

I cannot rise above,
I cannot rest beneath,
I cannot find out Love,
Nor escape from Death;
Dear hopes and joys gone by
Still mock me with a name; 30
My best belovèd die
And I cannot die with them.
Say the Saints--No deaths decrease us,
Where our rest is glorious.
They say--We live in Jesus,
Who once dièd for us.

Oh, my Soul, she beats her wings
And pants to fly away
Up to immortal Things
In the Heavenly day: 40
Yet she flags and almost faints;
Can such be meant for me?
Come and see--say the Saints.
Saith Jesus--Come and see.
Say the Saints--His Pleasures please us
Before God and the Lamb.
Come and taste My Sweets--saith Jesus--
Be with Me where I am.

COME UNTO ME

(_Lyra Eucharistica_, second edition, 1864.)

Oh, for the time gone by, when thought of Christ
Made His Yoke easy and His Burden light;
When my heart stirred within me at the sight
Of Altar spread for awful Eucharist;
When all my hopes His promises sufficed,
When my Soul watched for Him by day, by night,
When my lamp lightened and my robe was white,
And all seemed loss, except the Pearl unpriced.
Yet, since He calls me still with tender Call,
Since He remembers Whom I half forgot,
I even will run my race and bear my lot:
For Faith the walls of Jericho cast down,
And Hope to whoso runs holds forth a Crown,
And Love is Christ, and Christ is All in all.

JESUS, DO I LOVE THEE?

(_Lyra Eucharistica_, second edition, 1864.)

Jesus, do I love Thee? Thou art far above me, Seated out of sight Hid in Heavenly Light Of most highest height. Martyred hosts implore Thee, Seraphs fall before Thee, Angels and Archangels, Cherub throngs adore Thee; Blessed She that bore Thee! 10 All the Saints approve Thee, All the Virgins love Thee. I show as a blot Blood hath cleansed not, As a barren spot In Thy fruitful lot. I, fig-tree fruit-unbearing; Thou, righteous Judge unsparing: What canst Thou do more to me That shall not more undo me? 20 Thy Justice hath a sound-- Why cumbereth it the ground? Thy Love with stirrings stronger Pleads--Give it one year longer. Thou giv'st me time: but who Save Thou shall give me dew; Shall feed my root with Blood, And stir my sap for good? Oh, by Thy Gifts that shame me, Give more lest they condemn me: 30 Good Lord, I ask much of Thee, But most I ask to love Thee; Kind Lord, be mindful of me, Love me, and make me love Thee.