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diff --git a/2303-h/2303-h.htm b/2303-h/2303-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d77f6c --- /dev/null +++ b/2303-h/2303-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5789 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Legends and Lyrics: First Series</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Legends and Lyrics: First Series, by Adelaide Anne Procter</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Legends and Lyrics: First Series, by Adelaide +Anne Procter, et al + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Legends and Lyrics: First Series + +Author: Adelaide Anne Procter + +Release Date: October 20, 2004 [eBook #2303] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS AND LYRICS: FIRST SERIES*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk +from the 1890 George Bell and Sons edition.</p> +<h1>LEGENDS AND LYRICS—FIRST SERIES<br /> +by Adelaide Ann Procter</h1> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>Dedication<br /> +An Introduction by Charles Dickens<br /> +The Angel’s Story<br /> +Echoes<br /> +A False Genius<br /> +My Picture<br /> +Judge Not<br /> +Friend Sorrow<br /> +One by One<br /> +True Honours<br /> +A Woman’s Question<br /> +The Three Rulers<br /> +A Dead Past<br /> +A Doubting Heart<br /> +A Student<br /> +A Knight Errant<br /> +Linger, oh, gentle Time<br /> +Homeward Bound<br /> +Life and Death<br /> +Now<br /> +Cleansing Fires<br /> +The Voice of the Wind<br /> +Treasures<br /> +Shining Stars<br /> +Waiting<br /> +The Cradle Song of the Poor<br /> +Be strong<br /> +God’s Gifts<br /> +A Tomb in Ghent<br /> +The Angel of Death<br /> +A Dream<br /> +The Present<br /> +Changes<br /> +Strive, Wait, and Pray<br /> +A Lament for the Summer<br /> +The Unknown Grave<br /> +Give me thy Heart<br /> +The Wayside Inn<br /> +Voices of the Past<br /> +The Dark Side<br /> +A First Sorrow<br /> +Murmurs<br /> +Give<br /> +My Journal<br /> +A Chain<br /> +The Pilgrims<br /> +Incompleteness<br /> +A Legend of Bregenz<br /> +A Farewell<br /> +Sowing and Reaping<br /> +The Storm<br /> +Words<br /> +A Love Token<br /> +A Tryst with Death<br /> +Fidelis<br /> +A Shadow<br /> +The Sailor Boy<br /> +A Crown of Sorrow<br /> +The Lesson of the War<br /> +The Two Spirits<br /> +A Little Longer<br /> +Grief<br /> +The Triumph of Time<br /> +A Parting<br /> +The Golden Gate<br /> +Phantoms<br /> +Thankfulness<br /> +Home-sickness<br /> +Wishes<br /> +The Peace of God<br /> +Life in Death and Death in Life<br /> +Recollections<br /> +Illusion<br /> +A Vision<br /> +Pictures in the Fire<br /> +The Settlers<br /> +Hush!<br /> +Hours<br /> +The Two Interpreters<br /> +Comfort<br /> +Home at last<br /> +Unexpressed<br /> +Because<br /> +Rest at Evening<br /> +A Retrospect<br /> +True or False<br /> +Golden Words</p> +<h2>DEDICATION</h2> +<p>TO MATILDA M. HAYS.</p> +<p>“Our tokens of love are for the most part barbarous. +Cold and lifeless, because they do not represent our life. The +only gift is a portion of thyself. Therefore let the farmer give +his corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, +his picture; and the poet, his poem.”—Emerson’s Essays.</p> +<p>A. A. P.</p> +<p>May, 1858</p> +<h2>AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES DICKENS</h2> +<p>In the spring of the year 1853, I observed, as conductor of the weekly +journal <i>Household Words</i>, a short poem among the proffered contributions, +very different, as I thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually setting +through the office of such a periodical, and possessing much more merit. +Its authoress was quite unknown to me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, +whom I had never heard of; and she was to be addressed by letter, if +addressed at all, at a circulating library in the western district of +London. Through this channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her +poem was accepted, and was invited to send another. She complied, +and became a regular and frequent contributor. Many letters passed +between the journal and Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick herself was never +seen.</p> +<p>How we came gradually to establish, at the office of <i>Household</i> +<i>Words</i>, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I have never discovered. +But we settled somehow, to our complete satisfaction, that she was governess +in a family; that she went to Italy in that capacity, and returned; +and that she had long been in the same family. We really knew +nothing whatever of her, except that she was remarkably business-like, +punctual, self-reliant, and reliable: so I suppose we insensibly invented +the rest. For myself, my mother was not a more real personage +to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became.</p> +<p>This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number, entitled +<i>The Seven Poor Travellers</i>, was sent to press. Happening +to be going to dine that day with an old and dear friend, distinguished +in literature as Barry Cornwall, I took with me an early proof of that +number, and remarked, as I laid it on the drawing-room table, that it +contained a very pretty poem, written by a certain Miss Berwick. +Next day brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of the poem +to the mother of its writer, in its writer’s presence; that I +had no such correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that the +name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall’s eldest daughter, Miss +Adelaide Anne Procter.</p> +<p>The anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to explain why +the parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to me for these poor +words of remembrance of their lamented child, strikingly illustrates +the honesty, independence, and quiet dignity, of the lady’s character. +I had known her when she was very young; I had been honoured with her +father’s friendship when I was myself a young aspirant; and she +had said at home, “If I send him, in my own name, verses that +he does not honestly like, either it will be very painful to him to +return them, or he will print them for papa’s sake, and not for +their own. So I have made up my mind to take my chance fairly +with the unknown volunteers.”</p> +<p>Perhaps it requires an editor’s experience of the profoundly +unreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to accept unsuitable +articles—such as having been to school with the writer’s +husband’s brother-in-law, or having lent an alpenstock in Switzerland +to the writer’s wife’s nephew, when that interesting stranger +had broken his own—fully to appreciate the delicacy and the self-respect +of this resolution.</p> +<p>Some verses by Miss Procter had been published in the <i>Book of +Beauty</i>, ten years before she became Miss Berwick. With the +exception of two poems in the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, two in <i>Good +Words</i>, and others in a little book called <i>A Chaplet of Verses</i> +(issued in 1862 for the benefit of a Night Refuge), her published writings +first appeared in <i>Household Words</i>, or <i>All the Year Round</i>. +The present edition contains the whole of her <i>Legends and Lyrics</i>, +and originates in the great favour with which they have been received +by the public.</p> +<p>Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of October, +1825. Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an age, that +I have before me a tiny album made of small note-paper, into which her +favourite passages were copied for her by her mother’s hand before +she herself could write. It looks as if she had carried it about, +as another little girl might have carried a doll. She soon displayed +a remarkable memory, and great quickness of apprehension. When +she was quite a young child, she learned with facility several of the +problems of Euclid. As she grew older, she acquired the French, +Italian, and German languages; became a clever pianoforte player; and +showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing. But, as soon as +she had completely vanquished the difficulties of any one branch of +study, it was her way to lose interest in it, and pass to another. +While her mental resources were being trained, it was not at all suspected +in her family that she had any gift of authorship, or any ambition to +become a writer. Her father had no idea of her having ever attempted +to turn a rhyme, until her first little poem saw the light in print.</p> +<p>When she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary number +of books, and throughout her life she was always largely adding to the +number. In 1853 she went to Turin and its neighbourhood, on a +visit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic lady. As Miss Procter had +herself professed the Roman Catholic Faith two years before, she entered +with the greater ardour on the study of the Piedmontese dialect, and +the observation of the habits and manners of the peasantry. In +the former, she soon became a proficient. On the latter head, +I extract from her familiar letters written home to England at the time, +two pleasant pieces of description.</p> +<h3>A BETROTHAL</h3> +<p>“We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a description. +Last Tuesday we had just done dinner at about seven, and stepped out +into the balcony to look at the remains of the sunset behind the mountains, +when we heard very distinctly a band of music, which rather excited +my astonishment, as a solitary organ is the utmost that toils up here. +I went out of the room for a few minutes, and, on my returning, Emily +said, ‘Oh! That band is playing at the farmer’s near +here. The daughter is <i>fiancée</i> to-day, and they have +a ball.’ I said, ‘I wish I was going!’ +‘Well,’ replied she, ‘the farmer’s wife did +call to invite us.’ ‘Then I shall certainly go,’ +I exclaimed. I applied to Madame B., who said she would like it +very much, and we had better go, children and all. Some of the +servants were already gone. We rushed away to put on some shawls, +and put off any shred of black we might have about us (as the people +would have been quite annoyed if we had appeared on such an occasion +with any black), and we started. When we reached the farmer’s, +which is a stone’s throw above our house, we were received with +great enthusiasm; the only drawback being, that no one spoke French, +and we did not yet speak Piedmontese. We were placed on a bench +against the wall, and the people went on dancing. The room was +a large whitewashed kitchen (I suppose), with several large pictures +in black frames, and very smoky. I distinguished the Martyrdom +of Saint Sebastian, and the others appeared equally lively and appropriate +subjects. Whether they were Old Masters or not, and if so, by +whom, I could not ascertain. The band were seated opposite us. +Five men, with wind instruments, part of the band of the National Guard, +to which the farmer’s sons belong. They played really admirably, +and I began to be afraid that some idea of our dignity would prevent +me getting a partner; so, by Madame B.’s advice, I went up to +the bride, and offered to dance with her. Such a handsome young +woman! Like one of Uwins’s pictures. Very dark, with +a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale. The children +were already dancing, as well as the maids. After we came to an +end of our dance, which was what they called a Polka-Mazourka, I saw +the bride trying to screw up the courage of her <i>fiancé</i> +to ask me to dance, which after a little hesitation he did. And +admirably he danced, as indeed they all did—in excellent time, +and with a little more spirit than one sees in a ball-room. In +fact, they were very like one’s ordinary partners, except that +they wore earrings and were in their shirt-sleeves, and truth compels +me to state that they decidedly smelt of garlic. Some of them +had been smoking, but threw away their cigars when we came in. +The only thing that did not look cheerful was, that the room was only +lighted by two or three oil-lamps, and that there seemed to be no preparation +for refreshments. Madame B., seeing this, whispered to her maid, +who disengaged herself from her partner, and ran off to the house; she +and the kitchenmaid presently returning with a large tray covered with +all kinds of cakes (of which we are great consumers and always have +a stock), and a large hamper full of bottles of wine, with coffee and +sugar. This seemed all very acceptable. The <i>fiancée</i> +was requested to distribute the eatables, and a bucket of water being +produced to wash the glasses in, the wine disappeared very quickly—as +fast as they could open the bottles. But, elated, I suppose, by +this, the floor was sprinkled with water, and the musicians played a +Monferrino, which is a Piedmontese dance. Madame B. danced with +the farmer’s son, and Emily with another distinguished member +of the company. It was very fatiguing—something like a Scotch +reel. My partner was a little man, like Perrot, and very proud +of his dancing. He cut in the air and twisted about, until I was +out of breath, though my attempts to imitate him were feeble in the +extreme. At last, after seven or eight dances, I was obliged to +sit down. We stayed till nine, and I was so dead beat with the +heat that I could hardly crawl about the house, and in an agony with +the cramp, it is so long since I have danced.”</p> +<h3>A MARRIAGE</h3> +<p>The wedding of the farmer’s daughter has taken place. +We had hoped it would have been in the little chapel of our house, but +it seems some special permission was necessary, and they applied for +it too late. They all said, “This is the Constitution. +There would have been no difficulty before!” the lower classes +making the poor Constitution the scapegoat for everything they don’t +like. So as it was impossible for us to climb up to the church +where the wedding was to be, we contented ourselves with seeing the +procession pass. It was not a very large one, for, it requiring +some activity to go up, all the old people remained at home. It +is not etiquette for the bride’s mother to go, and no unmarried +woman can go to a wedding—I suppose for fear of its making her +discontented with her own position. The procession stopped at +our door, for the bride to receive our congratulations. She was +dressed in a shot silk, with a yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large +gold chain. In the afternoon they sent to request us to go there. +On our arrival we found them dancing out of doors, and a most melancholy +affair it was. All the bride’s sisters were not to be recognised, +they had cried so. The mother sat in the house, and could not +appear. And the bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand! +The most melancholy spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom +was decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted at all the distress. +We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; and the bride crying +the whole time. The company did their utmost to enliven her by +firing pistols, but without success, and at last they began a series +of yells, which reminded me of a set of savages. But even this +delicate method of consolation failed, and the wishing good-bye began. +It was altogether so melancholy an affair that Madame B. dropped a few +tears, and I was very near it, particularly when the poor mother came +out to see the last of her daughter, who was finally dragged off between +her brother and uncle, with a last explosion of pistols. As she +lives quite near, makes an excellent match, and is one of nine children, +it really was a most desirable marriage, in spite of all the show of +distress. Albert was so discomfited by it, that he forgot to kiss +the bride as he had intended to do, and therefore went to call upon +her yesterday, and found her very smiling in her new house, and supplied +the omission. The cook came home from the wedding, declaring she +was cured of any wish to marry—but I would not recommend any man +to act upon that threat and make her an offer. In a couple of +days we had some rolls of the bride’s first baking, which they +call Madonnas. The musicians, it seems, were in the same state +as the bridegroom, for, in escorting her home, they all fell down in +the mud. My wrath against the bridegroom is somewhat calmed by +finding that it is considered bad luck if he does not get tipsy at his +wedding.”</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Those readers of Miss Procter’s poems who should suppose from +their tone that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast, would be +curiously mistaken. She was exceedingly humorous, and had a great +delight in humour. Cheerfulness was habitual with her, she was +very ready at a sally or a reply, and in her laugh (as I remember well) +there was an unusual vivacity, enjoyment, and sense of drollery. +She was perfectly unconstrained and unaffected: as modestly silent about +her productions, as she was generous with their pecuniary results. +She was a friend who inspired the strongest attachments; she was a finely +sympathetic woman, with a great accordant heart and a sterling noble +nature. No claim can be set up for her, thank God, to the possession +of any of the conventional poetical qualities. She never by any +means held the opinion that she was among the greatest of human beings; +she never suspected the existence of a conspiracy on the part of mankind +against her; she never recognised in her best friends, her worst enemies; +she never cultivated the luxury of being misunderstood and unappreciated; +she would far rather have died without seeing a line of her composition +in print, than that I should have maundered about her, here, as “the +Poet”, or “the Poetess”.</p> +<p>With the recollection of Miss Procter as a mere child and as a woman, +fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my way to the close +of this brief record, avoiding its end. But, even as the close +came upon her, so must it come here.</p> +<p>Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must not be +dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favourite pursuits must +be balanced by action in the real world around her, she was indefatigable +in her endeavours to do some good. Naturally enthusiastic, and +conscientiously impressed with a deep sense of her Christian duty to +her neighbour, she devoted herself to a variety of benevolent objects. +Now, it was the visitation of the sick, that had possession of her; +now, it was the sheltering of the houseless; now, it was the elementary +teaching of the densely ignorant; now, it was the raising up of those +who had wandered and got trodden under foot; now, it was the wider employment +of her own sex in the general business of life; now, it was all these +things at once. Perfectly unselfish, swift to sympathise and eager +to relieve, she wrought at such designs with a flushed earnestness that +disregarded season, weather, time of day or night, food, rest. +Under such a hurry of the spirits, and such incessant occupation, the +strongest constitution will commonly go down. Hers, neither of +the strongest nor the weakest, yielded to the burden, and began to sink.</p> +<p>To have saved her life, then, by taking action on the warning that +shone in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been impossible, +without changing her nature. As long as the power of moving about +in the old way was left to her, she must exercise it, or be killed by +the restraint. And so the time came when she could move about +no longer, and took to her bed.</p> +<p>All the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of her +natural disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, she lay +upon her bed through the whole round of changes of the seasons. +She lay upon her bed through fifteen months. In all that time, +her old cheerfulness never quitted her. In all that time, not +an impatient or a querulous minute can be remembered.</p> +<p>At length, at midnight on the second of February, 1864, she turned +down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up.</p> +<p>The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny album +was soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as the clock was on +the stroke of one:</p> +<p>“Do you think I am dying, mamma?”</p> +<p>“I think you are very, very ill to-night, my dear!”</p> +<p>“Send for my sister. My feet are so cold. Lift +me up?”</p> +<p>Her sister entering as they raised her, she said: “It has come +at last!” And with a bright and happy smile, looked upward, +and departed.</p> +<p>Well had she written:</p> +<blockquote><p>Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death,<br /> +Who waits thee at the portals of the skies,<br /> +Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath,<br /> +Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?</p> +<p>Oh what were life, if life were all? Thine eyes<br /> +Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see<br /> +Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies,<br /> +And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>VERSE: THE ANGEL’S STORY</h2> +<p>Through the blue and frosty heavens<br /> +Christmas stars were shining bright;<br /> +Glistening lamps throughout the City<br /> +Almost matched their gleaming light;<br /> +While the winter snow was lying,<br /> +And the winter winds were sighing,<br /> +Long ago, one Christmas night.</p> +<p>While, from every tower and steeple,<br /> +Pealing bells were sounding clear,<br /> +(Never with such tones of gladness,<br /> +Save when Christmas time is near,)<br /> +Many a one that night was merry<br /> +Who had toiled through all the year.</p> +<p>That night saw old wrongs forgiven,<br /> +Friends, long parted, reconciled;<br /> +Voices all unused to laughter,<br /> +Mournful eyes that rarely smiled,<br /> +Trembling hearts that feared the morrow,<br /> +From their anxious thoughts beguiled.</p> +<p>Rich and poor felt love and blessing<br /> +From the gracious season fall;<br /> +Joy and plenty in the cottage,<br /> +Peace and feasting in the hall;<br /> +And the voices of the children<br /> +Ringing clear above it all!</p> +<p>Yet one house was dim and darkened;<br /> +Gloom, and sickness, and despair,<br /> +Dwelling in the gilded chambers.<br /> +Creeping up the marble stair,<br /> +Even stilled the voice of mourning—<br /> +For a child lay dying there.</p> +<p>Silken curtains fell around him,<br /> +Velvet carpets hushed the tread.<br /> +Many costly toys were lying,<br /> +All unheeded, by his bed;<br /> +And his tangled golden ringlets<br /> +Were on downy pillows spread.</p> +<p>The skill of all that mighty City<br /> +To save one little life was vain;<br /> +One little thread from being broken,<br /> +One fatal word from being spoken;<br /> +Nay, his very mother’s pain,<br /> +And the mighty love within her,<br /> +Could not give him health again.</p> +<p>So she knelt there still beside him,<br /> +She alone with strength to smile,<br /> +Promising that he should suffer<br /> +No more in a little while,<br /> +Murmuring tender song and story<br /> +Weary hours to beguile.</p> +<p>Suddenly an unseen Presence<br /> +Checked those constant moaning cries,<br /> +Stilled the little heart’s quick fluttering,<br /> +Raised those blue and wondering eyes,<br /> +Fixed on some mysterious vision,<br /> +With a startled sweet surprise.</p> +<p>For a radiant angel hovered,<br /> +Smiling, o’er the little bed;<br /> +White his raiment, from his shoulders<br /> +Snowy dove-like pinions spread,<br /> +And a starlike light was shining<br /> +In a Glory round his head.</p> +<p>While, with tender love, the angel,<br /> +Leaning o’er the little nest,<br /> +In his arms the sick child folding,<br /> +Laid him gently on his breast,<br /> +Sobs and wailings told the mother<br /> +That her darling was at rest.</p> +<p>So the angel, slowing rising,<br /> +Spread his wings; and, through the air,<br /> +Bore the child, and while he held him<br /> +To his heart with loving care,<br /> +Placed a branch of crimson roses<br /> +Tenderly beside him there.</p> +<p>While the child, thus clinging, floated<br /> +Towards the mansions of the Blest,<br /> +Gazing from his shining guardian<br /> +To the flowers upon his breast,<br /> +Thus the angel spake, still smiling<br /> +On the little heavenly guest:</p> +<p>“Know, dear little one, that Heaven<br /> +Does no earthly thing disdain,<br /> +Man’s poor joys find there an echo<br /> +Just as surely as his pain;<br /> +Love, on earth so feebly striving,<br /> +Lives divine in Heaven again!</p> +<p>“Once in that great town below us,<br /> +In a poor and narrow street,<br /> +Dwelt a little sickly orphan;<br /> +Gentle aid, or pity sweet,<br /> +Never in life’s rugged pathway<br /> +Guided his poor tottering feet.</p> +<p>“All the striving anxious forethought<br /> +That should only come with age,<br /> +Weighed upon his baby spirit,<br /> +Showed him soon life’s sternest page;<br /> +Grim Want was his nurse, and Sorrow<br /> +Was his only heritage.</p> +<p>“All too weak for childish pastimes,<br /> +Drearily the hours sped;<br /> +On his hands so small and trembling<br /> +Leaning his poor aching head,<br /> +Or, through dark and painful hours,<br /> +Lying sleepless on his bed.</p> +<p>“Dreaming strange and longing fancies<br /> +Of cool forests far away;<br /> +And of rosy, happy children,<br /> +Laughing merrily at play,<br /> +Coming home through green lanes, bearing<br /> +Trailing boughs of blooming May.</p> +<p>“Scarce a glimpse of azure heaven<br /> +Gleamed above that narrow street,<br /> +And the sultry air of Summer<br /> +(That you call so warm and sweet)<br /> +Fevered the poor Orphan, dwelling<br /> +In the crowded alley’s heat.</p> +<p>“One bright day, with feeble footsteps<br /> +Slowly forth he tried to crawl,<br /> +Through the crowded city’s pathways,<br /> +Till he reached a garden-wall;<br /> +Where ’mid princely halls and mansions<br /> +Stood the lordliest of all.</p> +<p>“There were trees with giant branches,<br /> +Velvet glades where shadows hide;<br /> +There were sparkling fountains glancing,<br /> +Flowers, which in luxuriant pride<br /> +Even wafted breaths of perfume<br /> +To the child who stood outside.</p> +<p>“He against the gate of iron<br /> +Pressed his wan and wistful face,<br /> +Gazing with an awe-struck pleasure<br /> +At the glories of the place;<br /> +Never had his brightest day-dream<br /> +Shone with half such wondrous grace.</p> +<p>“You were playing in that garden,<br /> +Throwing blossoms in the air,<br /> +Laughing when the petals floated<br /> +Downwards on your golden hair;<br /> +And the fond eyes watching o’er you,<br /> +And the splendour spread before you,<br /> +Told a House’s Hope was there.</p> +<p>“When your servants, tired of seeing<br /> +Such a face of want and woe,<br /> +Turning to the ragged Orphan,<br /> +Gave him coin, and bade him go,<br /> +Down his cheeks so thin and wasted,<br /> +Bitter tears began to flow.</p> +<p>“But that look of childish sorrow<br /> +On your tender child-heart fell,<br /> +And you plucked the reddest roses<br /> +From the tree you loved so well,<br /> +Passed them through the stern cold grating,<br /> +Gently bidding him ‘Farewell!’</p> +<p>“Dazzled by the fragrant treasure<br /> +And the gentle voice he heard,<br /> +In the poor forlorn boy’s spirit,<br /> +Joy, the sleeping Seraph, stirred;<br /> +In his hand he took the flowers,<br /> +In his heart the loving word.</p> +<p>“So he crept to his poor garret;<br /> +Poor no more, but rich and bright,<br /> +For the holy dreams of childhood—<br /> +Love, and Rest, and Hope, and Light—<br /> +Floated round the Orphan’s pillow<br /> +Through the starry summer night.</p> +<p>“Day dawned, yet the visions lasted;<br /> +All too weak to rise he lay;<br /> +Did he dream that none spake harshly—<br /> +All were strangely kind that day?<br /> +Surely then his treasured roses<br /> +Must have charmed all ills away.</p> +<p>“And he smiled, though they were fading;<br /> +One by one their leaves were shed;<br /> +‘Such bright things could never perish,<br /> +They would bloom again,’ he said.<br /> +When the next day’s sun had risen<br /> +Child and flowers both were dead.</p> +<p>“Know, dear little one! our Father<br /> +Will no gentle deed disdain;<br /> +Love on the cold earth beginning<br /> +Lives divine in Heaven again,<br /> +While the angel hearts that beat there<br /> +Still all tender thoughts retain.”</p> +<p>So the angel ceased, and gently<br /> +O’er his little burthen leant;<br /> +While the child gazed from the shining,<br /> +Loving eyes that o’er him bent,<br /> +To the blooming roses by him,<br /> +Wondering what that mystery meant.</p> +<p>Thus the radiant angel answered,<br /> +And with tender meaning smiled:<br /> +“Ere your childlike, loving spirit,<br /> +Sin and the hard world defiled,<br /> +God has given me leave to seek you—<br /> +I was once that little child!”</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>In the churchyard of that city<br /> +Rose a tomb of marble rare,<br /> +Decked, as soon as Spring awakened,<br /> +With her buds and blossoms fair—<br /> +And a humble grave beside it—<br /> +No one knew who rested there.</p> +<h2>VERSE: ECHOES</h2> +<p>Still the angel stars are shining,<br /> +Still the rippling waters flow,<br /> +But the angel-voice is silent<br /> +That I heard so long ago.<br /> +Hark! the echoes murmur low,<br /> +Long ago!</p> +<p>Still the wood is dim and lonely,<br /> +Still the plashing fountains play,<br /> +But the past and all its beauty,<br /> +Whither has it fled away?<br /> +Hark! the mournful echoes say,<br /> +Fled away!</p> +<p>Still the bird of night complaineth,<br /> +(Now, indeed, her song is pain,)<br /> +Visions of my happy hours,<br /> +Do I call and call in vain?<br /> +Hark! the echoes cry again,<br /> +All in vain!</p> +<p>Cease, oh echoes, mournful echoes!<br /> +Once I loved your voices well;<br /> +Now my heart is sick and weary—<br /> +Days of old, a long farewell!<br /> +Hark! the echoes sad and dreary<br /> +Cry farewell, farewell!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A FALSE GENIUS</h2> +<p>I see a Spirit by thy side,<br /> +Purple-winged and eagle-eyed,<br /> +Looking like a Heavenly guide.</p> +<p>Though he seem so bright and fair,<br /> +Ere thou trust his proffered care,<br /> +Pause a little, and beware!</p> +<p>If he bid thee dwell apart,<br /> +Tending some ideal smart<br /> +In a sick and coward heart;</p> +<p>In self-worship wrapped alone,<br /> +Dreaming thy poor griefs are grown<br /> +More than other men have known;</p> +<p>Dwelling in some cloudy sphere,<br /> +Though God’s work is waiting here,<br /> +And God deigneth to be near;</p> +<p>If his torch’s crimson glare<br /> +Show thee evil everywhere,<br /> +Tainting all the wholesome air;</p> +<p>While with strange distorted choice,<br /> +Still disdaining to rejoice,<br /> +Thou <i>wilt</i> hear a wailing voice;</p> +<p>If a simple, humble heart,<br /> +Seem to thee a meaner part,<br /> +Than thy noblest aim and art;</p> +<p>If he bid thee bow before<br /> +Crownèd Mind and nothing more,<br /> +The great idol men adore;</p> +<p>And with starry veil enfold<br /> +Sin, the trailing serpent old,<br /> +Till his scales shine out like gold;</p> +<p>Though his words seem true and wise,<br /> +Soul, I say to thee—Arise.<br /> +He is a Demon in disguise!</p> +<h2>VERSE: MY PICTURE</h2> +<p>Stand this way—more near the window—<br /> +By my desk—you see the light<br /> +Falling on my picture better—<br /> +Thus I see it while I write!</p> +<p>Who the head may be I know not,<br /> +But it has a student air;<br /> +With a look half sad, half stately,<br /> +Grave sweet eyes and flowing hair.</p> +<p>Little care I who the painter,<br /> +How obscure a name he bore;<br /> +Nor, when some have named Velasquez,<br /> +Did I value it the more.</p> +<p>As it is, I would not give it<br /> +For the rarest piece of art;<br /> +It has dwelt with me, and listened<br /> +To the secrets of my heart.</p> +<p>Many a time, when to my garret,<br /> +Weary, I returned at night,<br /> +It has seemed to look a welcome<br /> +That has made my poor room bright.</p> +<p>Many a time, when ill and sleepless,<br /> +I have watched the quivering gleam<br /> +Of my lamp upon that picture,<br /> +Till it faded in my dream.</p> +<p>When dark days have come, and friendship<br /> +Worthless seemed, and life in vain,<br /> +That bright friendly smile has sent me<br /> +Boldly to my task again.</p> +<p>Sometimes when hard need has pressed me<br /> +To bow down where I despise,<br /> +I have read stern words of counsel<br /> +In those sad reproachful eyes.</p> +<p>Nothing that my brain imagined,<br /> +Or my weary hand has wrought,<br /> +But it watched the dim Idea<br /> +Spring forth into armèd Thought.</p> +<p>It has smiled on my successes,<br /> +Raised me when my hopes were low,<br /> +And by turns has looked upon me<br /> +With all the loving eyes I know.</p> +<p>Do you wonder that my picture<br /> +Has become so like a friend?—<br /> +It has seen my life’s beginnings,<br /> +It shall stay and cheer the end!</p> +<h2>VERSE: JUDGE NOT</h2> +<p>Judge not; the workings of his brain<br /> +And of his heart thou canst not see;<br /> +What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,<br /> +In God’s pure light may only be<br /> +A scar, brought from some well-won field,<br /> +Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.</p> +<p>The look, the air, that frets thy sight,<br /> +May be a token, that below<br /> +The soul has closed in deadly fight<br /> +With some infernal fiery foe,<br /> +Whose glance would scorch thy smiling grace,<br /> +And cast thee shuddering on thy face!</p> +<p>The fall thou darest to despise—<br /> +May be the angel’s slackened hand<br /> +Has suffered it, that he may rise<br /> +And take a firmer, surer stand;<br /> +Or, trusting less to earthly things,<br /> +May henceforth learn to use his wings.</p> +<p>And judge none lost; but wait, and see,<br /> +With hopeful pity, not disdain;<br /> +The depth of the abyss may be<br /> +The measure of the height of pain<br /> +And love and glory that may raise<br /> +This soul to God in after days!</p> +<h2>VERSE: FRIEND SORROW</h2> +<p>Do not cheat thy Heart and tell her,<br /> +“Grief will pass away,<br /> +Hope for fairer times in future,<br /> +And forget to-day.”—<br /> +Tell her, if you will, that sorrow<br /> +Need not come in vain;<br /> +Tell her that the lesson taught her<br /> +Far outweighs the pain.</p> +<p>Cheat her not with the old comfort,<br /> +“Soon she will forget”—<br /> +Bitter truth, alas—but matter<br /> +Rather for regret;<br /> +Bid her not “Seek other pleasures,<br /> +Turn to other things:”—<br /> +Rather nurse her cagèd sorrow<br /> +’Till the captive sings.</p> +<p>Rather bid her go forth bravely.<br /> +And the stranger greet;<br /> +Not as foe, with spear and buckler,<br /> +But as dear friends meet;<br /> +Bid her with a strong clasp hold her,<br /> +By her dusky wings—<br /> +Listening for the murmured blessing<br /> +Sorrow always brings.</p> +<h2>VERSE: ONE BY ONE</h2> +<p>One by one the sands are flowing,<br /> +One by one the moments fall;<br /> +Some are coming, some are going;<br /> +Do not strive to grasp them all.</p> +<p>One by one thy duties wait thee,<br /> +Let thy whole strength go to each,<br /> +Let no future dreams elate thee,<br /> +Learn thou first what these can teach.</p> +<p>One by one (bright gifts from Heaven)<br /> +Joys are sent thee here below;<br /> +Take them readily when given,<br /> +Ready too to let them go.</p> +<p>One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,<br /> +Do not fear an armèd band;<br /> +One will fade as others greet thee;<br /> +Shadows passing through the land.</p> +<p>Do not look at life’s long sorrow;<br /> +See how small each moment’s pain;<br /> +God will help thee for to-morrow,<br /> +So each day begin again.</p> +<p>Every hour that fleets so slowly<br /> +Has its task to do or bear;<br /> +Luminous the crown, and holy,<br /> +When each gem is set with care.</p> +<p>Do not linger with regretting,<br /> +Or for passing hours despond;<br /> +Nor, the daily toil forgetting,<br /> +Look too eagerly beyond.</p> +<p>Hours are golden links, God’s token,<br /> +Reaching Heaven; but one by one<br /> +Take them, lest the chain be broken<br /> +Ere the pilgrimage be done.</p> +<h2>VERSE: TRUE HONOURS</h2> +<p>Is my darling tired already,<br /> +Tired of her day of play?<br /> +Draw your little stool beside me,<br /> +Smooth this tangled hair away.<br /> +Can she put the logs together,<br /> +Till they make a cheerful blaze?<br /> +Shall her blind old Uncle tell her<br /> +Something of his youthful days?</p> +<p>Hark! The wind among the cedars<br /> +Waves their white arms to and fro;<br /> +I remember how I watched them<br /> +Sixty Christmas Days ago:<br /> +Then I dreamt a glorious vision<br /> +Of great deeds to crown each year—<br /> +Sixty Christmas Days have found me<br /> +Useless, helpless, blind—and here!</p> +<p>Yes, I feel my darling stealing<br /> +Warm soft fingers into mine—<br /> +Shall I tell her what I fancied<br /> +In that strange old dream of mine?<br /> +I was kneeling by the window,<br /> +Reading how a noble band,<br /> +With the red cross on their breast-plates,<br /> +Went to gain the Holy Land.</p> +<p>While with eager eyes of wonder<br /> +Over the dark page I bent,<br /> +Slowly twilight shadows gathered<br /> +Till the letters came and went;<br /> +Slowly, till the night was round me;<br /> +Then my heart beat loud and fast,<br /> +For I felt before I saw it<br /> +That a spirit near me passed.</p> +<p>Then I raised my eyes, and shining<br /> +Where the moon’s first ray was bright<br /> +Stood a wingèd Angel-warrior<br /> +Clothed and panoplied in light:<br /> +So, with Heaven’s love upon him,<br /> +Stern in calm and resolute will,<br /> +Looked St. Michael—does the picture<br /> +Hang in the old cloister still?</p> +<p>Threefold were the dreams of honour<br /> +That absorbed my heart and brain;<br /> +Threefold crowns the Angel promised,<br /> +Each one to be bought by pain:<br /> +While he spoke, a threefold blessing<br /> +Fell upon my soul like rain.<br /> +HELPER OF THE POOR AND SUFFERING;<br /> +VICTOR IN A GLORIOUS STRIFE;<br /> +SINGER OF A NOBLE POEM:<br /> +Such the honours of my life.</p> +<p>Ah, that dream! Long years that gave me<br /> +Joy and grief as real things<br /> +Never touched the tender memory<br /> +Sweet and solemn that it brings—<br /> +Never quite effaced the feeling<br /> +Of those white and shadowing wings.</p> +<p>Do those blue eyes open wider?<br /> +Does my faith too foolish seem?<br /> +Yes, my darling, years have taught me<br /> +It was nothing but a dream.<br /> +Soon, too soon, the bitter knowledge<br /> +Of a fearful trial rose,<br /> +Rose to crush my heart, and sternly<br /> +Bade my young ambition close.</p> +<p>More and more my eyes were clouded,<br /> +Till at last God’s glorious light<br /> +Passed away from me for ever,<br /> +And I lived and live in night.<br /> +Dear, I will not dim your pleasure,<br /> +Christmas should be only gay—<br /> +In my night the stars have risen,<br /> +And I wait the dawn of day.</p> +<p>Spite of all I could be happy;<br /> +For my brothers’ tender care<br /> +In their boyish pastimes ever<br /> +Made me take, or feel a share.<br /> +Philip, even then so thoughtful,<br /> +Max so noble, brave and tall,<br /> +And your father, little Godfrey,<br /> +The most loving of them all.</p> +<p>Philip reasoned down my sorrow,<br /> +Max would laugh my gloom away,<br /> +Godfrey’s little arms put round me,<br /> +Helped me through my dreariest day;<br /> +While the promise of my Angel,<br /> +Like a star, now bright, now pale,<br /> +Hung in blackest night above me,<br /> +And I felt it could not fail.</p> +<p>Years passed on, my brothers left me,<br /> +Each went out to take his share<br /> +In the struggle of life; my portion<br /> +Was a humble one—to bear.<br /> +Here I dwelt, and learnt to wander<br /> +Through the woods and fields alone,<br /> +Every cottage in the village<br /> +Had a corner called my own.</p> +<p>Old and young, all brought their troubles,<br /> +Great or small, for me to hear;<br /> +I have often blessed my sorrow<br /> +That drew others’ grief so near.<br /> +Ah, the people needed helping—<br /> +Needed love—(for Love and Heaven<br /> +Are the only gifts not bartered,<br /> +They alone are freely given)—</p> +<p>And I gave it. Philip’s bounty,<br /> +(We were orphans, dear,) made toil<br /> +Prosper, and want never fastened<br /> +On the tenants of the soil.<br /> +Philip’s name (Oh, how I gloried,<br /> +He so young, to see it rise!)<br /> +Soon grew noted among statesmen<br /> +As a patriot true and wise.</p> +<p>And his people all felt honoured<br /> +To be ruled by such a name;<br /> +I was proud too that they loved me;<br /> +Through their pride in him it came.<br /> +He had gained what I had longed for,<br /> +I meanwhile grew glad and gay,<br /> +’Mid his people, to be serving<br /> +Him and them, in some poor way.</p> +<p>How his noble earnest speeches,<br /> +With untiring fervour came;<br /> +HELPER OF THE POOR AND SUFFERING;<br /> +Truly he deserved the name!<br /> +Had my Angel’s promise failed me?<br /> +Had that word of hope grown dim?<br /> +Why, my Philip had fulfilled it,<br /> +And I loved it best in him!</p> +<p>Max meanwhile—ah, you, my darling,<br /> +Can his loving words recall—<br /> +’Mid the bravest and the noblest,<br /> +Braver, nobler, than them all.<br /> +How I loved him! how my heart thrilled<br /> +When his sword clanked by his side.<br /> +When I touched his gold embroidery,<br /> +Almost <i>saw</i> him in his pride!</p> +<p>So we parted; he all eager<br /> +To uphold the name he bore,<br /> +Leaving in my charge—he loved me—<br /> +Some one whom he loved still more:<br /> +I must tend this gentle flower,<br /> +I must speak to her of him,<br /> +For he feared—Love still is fearful—<br /> +That his memory might grow dim.</p> +<p>I must guard her from all sorrow,<br /> +I must play a brother’s part,<br /> +Shield all grief and trial from her,<br /> +If it need be, with my heart.<br /> +Years passed, and his name grew famous;<br /> +We were proud, both she and I;<br /> +And we lived upon his letters,<br /> +While the slow days fleeted by.</p> +<p>Then at last—you know the story,<br /> +How a fearful rumour spread,<br /> +Till all hope had slowly faded,<br /> +And we heard that he was dead.<br /> +Dead! Oh, those were bitter hours;<br /> +Yet within my soul there dwelt<br /> +A warning, and while others mourned him,<br /> +Something like a hope I felt.</p> +<p>His was no weak life as mine was,<br /> +But a life, so full and strong—<br /> +No, I could not think he perished<br /> +Nameless, ’mid a conquered throng.<br /> +How she drooped! Years passed; no tidings<br /> +Came, and yet that little flame<br /> +Of strange hope within my spirit<br /> +Still burnt on, and lived the same.</p> +<p>Ah! my child, our hearts will fail us,<br /> +When to us they strongest seem;<br /> +I can look back on those hours<br /> +As a fearful, evil dream.<br /> +She had long despaired; what wonder<br /> +That her heart had turned to mine?<br /> +Earthly loves are deep and tender,<br /> +Not eternal and divine!</p> +<p>Can I say how bright a future<br /> +Rose before my soul that day?<br /> +Oh, so strange, so sweet, so tender—<br /> +And I had to turn away.<br /> +Hard and terrible the struggle,<br /> +For the pain not mine alone;<br /> +I called back my Brother’s spirit,<br /> +And I bade him claim his own.</p> +<p>Told her—now I dared to do it—<br /> +That I felt the day would rise<br /> +When he would return to gladden<br /> +My weak heart and her bright eyes.<br /> +And I pleaded—pleaded sternly—<br /> +In his name, and for his sake:<br /> +Now, I can speak calmly of it,<br /> +Then, I thought my heart would break.</p> +<p>Soon—ah, Love had not deceived me,<br /> +(Love’s true instincts never err,)<br /> +Wounded, weak, escaped from prison,<br /> +He returned to me; to her.<br /> +I could thank God that bright morning,<br /> +When I felt my Brother’s gaze,<br /> +That my heart was true and loyal,<br /> +As in our old boyish days.</p> +<p>Bought by wounds and deeds of daring,<br /> +Honours he had brought away;<br /> +Glory crowned his name—my Brother’s;<br /> +Mine too!—we were one that day.<br /> +Since the crown on him had fallen,<br /> +“VICTOR IN A NOBLE STRIFE,”<br /> +I could live and die contented<br /> +With my poor ignoble life.</p> +<p>Well, my darling, almost weary<br /> +Of my story? Wait awhile;<br /> +For the rest is only joyful;<br /> +I can tell it with a smile.<br /> +One bright promise still was left me,<br /> +Wound so close about my soul,<br /> +That, as one by one had failed me,<br /> +This dream now absorbed the whole.</p> +<p>“SINGER OF A NOBLE POEM,”—<br /> +Ah, my darling, few and rare<br /> +Burn the glorious names of Poets,<br /> +Like stars in the purple air.<br /> +That too, and I glory in it,<br /> +That great gift my Godfrey won;<br /> +I have my dear share of honour,<br /> +Gained by that belovèd one.</p> +<p>One day shall my darling read it;<br /> +Now she cannot understand<br /> +All the noble thoughts, that lighten<br /> +Through the genius of the land.<br /> +I am proud to be his brother,<br /> +Proud to think that hope was true;<br /> +Though I longed and strove so vainly,<br /> +What I failed in, he could do.</p> +<p>I was long before I knew it,<br /> +Longer ere I felt it so;<br /> +Then I strung my rhymes together<br /> +Only for the poor and low.<br /> +And, it pleases me to know it,<br /> +(For I love them well indeed,)<br /> +They care for my humble verses,<br /> +Fitted for their humble need.</p> +<p>And, it cheers my heart to bear it,<br /> +Where the far-off settlers roam,<br /> +My poor words are sung and cherished,<br /> +Just because they speak of Home.<br /> +And the little children sing them,<br /> +(That, I think, has pleased me best,)<br /> +Often, too, the dying love them,<br /> +For they tell of Heaven and rest.</p> +<p>So my last vain dream has faded;<br /> +(Such as I to think of fame!)<br /> +Yet I will not say it failed me,<br /> +For it crowned my Godfrey’s name.<br /> +No; my Angel did not cheat me,<br /> +For my long life <i>has</i> been blest;<br /> +He did give me Love and Sorrow,<br /> +He will bring me Light and Rest.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A WOMAN’S QUESTION</h2> +<p>Before I trust my Fate to thee,<br /> +Or place my hand in thine,<br /> +Before I let thy Future give<br /> +Colour and form to mine,<br /> +Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night for me.</p> +<p>I break all slighter bonds, nor feel<br /> +A shadow of regret:<br /> +Is there one link within the Past,<br /> +That holds thy spirit yet?<br /> +Or is thy Faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge to thee?</p> +<p>Does there within thy dimmest dreams<br /> +A possible future shine,<br /> +Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,<br /> +Untouched, unshared by mine?<br /> +If so, at any pain or cost, oh, tell me before all is lost.</p> +<p>Look deeper still. If thou canst feel<br /> +Within thy inmost soul,<br /> +That thou hast kept a portion back,<br /> +While I have staked the whole;<br /> +Let no false pity spare the blow, but in true mercy tell me so.</p> +<p>Is there within thy heart a need<br /> +That mine cannot fulfil?<br /> +One chord that any other hand<br /> +Could better wake or still?<br /> +Speak now—lest at some future day my whole life wither and decay.</p> +<p>Lives there within thy nature bid<br /> +The demon-spirit Change,<br /> +Shedding a passing glory still<br /> +On all things new and strange?—<br /> +It may not be thy fault alone—but shield my heart against thy +own.</p> +<p>Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day<br /> +And answer to my claim,<br /> +That Fate, and that to-day’s mistake,<br /> +Not thou—had been to blame?<br /> +Some soothe their conscience thus: but thou, wilt surely warn and save +me now.</p> +<p>Nay, answer <i>not</i>—I dare not hear,<br /> +The words would come too late;<br /> +Yet I would spare thee all remorse,<br /> +So, comfort thee, my Fate—<br /> +Whatever on my heart may fall—remember I <i>would</i> risk it +all!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE THREE RULERS</h2> +<p>I saw a Ruler take his stand<br /> +And trample on a mighty land;<br /> +The People crouched before his beck,<br /> +His iron heel was on their neck,<br /> +His name shone bright through blood and pain,<br /> +His sword flashed back their praise again.</p> +<p>I saw another Ruler rise—<br /> +His words were noble, good, and wise;<br /> +With the calm sceptre of his pen<br /> +He ruled the minds and thoughts of men;<br /> +Some scoffed, some praised—while many heard,<br /> +Only a few obeyed his word.</p> +<p>Another Ruler then I saw—<br /> +Love and sweet Pity were his law:<br /> +The greatest and the least had part<br /> +(Yet most the unhappy) in his heart—<br /> +The People, in a mighty band,<br /> +Rose up, and drove him from the land!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A DEAD PAST</h2> +<p>Spare her at least: look, you have taken from me<br /> +The Present, and I murmur not, nor moan;<br /> +The Future too, with all her glorious promise;<br /> +But do not leave me utterly alone.</p> +<p>Spare me the Past—for, see, she cannot harm you,<br /> +She lies so white and cold, wrapped in her shroud;<br /> +All, all my own! and, trust me, I will hide her<br /> +Within my soul, nor speak to her aloud.</p> +<p>I folded her soft hands upon her bosom,<br /> +And strewed my flowers upon her—<i>they</i> still live—<br /> +Sometimes I like to kiss her closed white eye-lids,<br /> +And think of all the joy she used to give.</p> +<p>Cruel indeed it were to take her from me;<br /> +She sleeps, she will not wake—no fear—again:<br /> +And so I laid her, such a gentle burthen,<br /> +Quietly on my heart to still its pain.</p> +<p>I do not think that any smiling Present,<br /> +Any vague Future, spite of all her charms,<br /> +Could ever rival her. You know you laid her,<br /> +Long years ago, then living, in my arms.</p> +<p>Leave her at least—while my tears fall upon her,<br /> +I dream she smiles, just as she did of yore;<br /> +As dear as ever to me—nay, it may be,<br /> +Even dearer still—since I have nothing more.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A DOUBTING HEART</h2> +<p>Where are the swallows fled?<br /> +Frozen and dead,<br /> +Perchance upon some bleak and stormy shore.<br /> +Oh doubting heart!<br /> +Far over purple seas,<br /> +They wait, in sunny ease,<br /> +The balmy southern breeze,<br /> +To bring them to their northern homes once more.</p> +<p>Why must the flowers die?<br /> +Prisoned they lie<br /> +In the cold tomb, heedless of tears or rain.<br /> +Oh doubting heart!<br /> +They only sleep below<br /> +The soft white ermine snow,<br /> +While winter winds shall blow,<br /> +To breathe and smile upon you soon again.</p> +<p>The sun has hid its rays<br /> +These many days;<br /> +Will dreary hours never leave the earth?<br /> +Oh doubting heart!<br /> +The stormy clouds on high<br /> +Veil the same sunny sky,<br /> +That soon (for spring is nigh)<br /> +Shall wake the summer into golden mirth.</p> +<p>Fair hope is dead, and light<br /> +Is quenched in night.<br /> +What sound can break the silence of despair?<br /> +Oh doubting heart!<br /> +Thy sky is overcast,<br /> +Yet stars shall rise at last,<br /> +Brighter for darkness past,<br /> +And angels’ silver voices stir the air.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A STUDENT</h2> +<p>Over an ancient scroll I bent,<br /> +Steeping my soul in wise content,<br /> +Nor paused a moment, save to chide<br /> +A low voice whispering at my side.</p> +<p>I wove beneath the stars’ pale shine<br /> +A dream, half human, half divine;<br /> +And shook off (not to break the charm)<br /> +A little hand laid on my arm.</p> +<p>I read; until my heart would glow<br /> +With the great deeds of long ago;<br /> +Nor heard, while with those mighty dead,<br /> +Pass to and fro a faltering tread.</p> +<p>On the old theme I pondered long—<br /> +The struggle between right and wrong;<br /> +I could not check such visions high,<br /> +To soothe a little quivering sigh.</p> +<p>I tried to solve the problem—Life;<br /> +Dreaming of that mysterious strife,<br /> +How could I leave such reasonings wise,<br /> +To answer two blue pleading eyes?</p> +<p>I strove how best to give, and when,<br /> +My blood to save my fellow-men—<br /> +How could I turn aside, to look<br /> +At snowdrops laid upon my book?</p> +<p>Now Time has fled—the world is strange,<br /> +Something there is of pain and change;<br /> +My books lie closed upon the shelf;<br /> +I miss the old heart in myself.</p> +<p>I miss the sunbeams in my room—<br /> +It was not always wrapped in gloom:<br /> +I miss my dreams—they fade so fast,<br /> +Or flit into some trivial past.</p> +<p>The great stream of the world goes by;<br /> +None care, or heed, or question, why<br /> +I, the lone student, cannot raise<br /> +My voice or hand as in old days.</p> +<p>No echo seems to wake again<br /> +My heart to anything but pain,<br /> +Save when a dream of twilight brings<br /> +The fluttering of an angel’s wings!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A KNIGHT ERRANT</h2> +<p>Though he lived and died among us,<br /> +Yet his name may be enrolled<br /> +With the knights whose deeds of daring<br /> +Ancient chronicles have told.</p> +<p>Still a stripling, he encountered<br /> +Poverty, and struggled long,<br /> +Gathering force from every effort,<br /> +Till he knew his arm was strong.</p> +<p>Then his heart and life he offered<br /> +To his radiant mistress—Truth;<br /> +Never thought, or dream, or faltering,<br /> +Marred the promise of his youth.</p> +<p>So he rode forth to defend her,<br /> +And her peerless worth proclaim;<br /> +Challenging each recreant doubter<br /> +Who aspersed her spotless name.</p> +<p>First upon his path stood Ignorance,<br /> +Hideous in his brutal might;<br /> +Hard the blows and long the battle<br /> +Ere the monster took to flight.</p> +<p>Then, with light and fearless spirit,<br /> +Prejudice he dared to brave;<br /> +Hunting back the lying craven<br /> +To her black sulphureous cave.</p> +<p>Followed by his servile minions,<br /> +Custom, the old Giant, rose;<br /> +Yet he, too, at last was conquered<br /> +By the good Knight’s weighty blows.</p> +<p>Then he turned, and, flushed with victory<br /> +Struck upon the brazen shield<br /> +Of the world’s great king, Opinion<br /> +And defied him to the field.</p> +<p>Once again he rose a conqueror,<br /> +And, though wounded in the fight,<br /> +With a dying smile of triumph<br /> +Saw that Truth had gained her right.</p> +<p>On his failing ear re-echoing<br /> +Came the shouting round her throne;<br /> +Little cared he that no future<br /> +With her name would link his own.</p> +<p>Spent with many a hard-fought battle,<br /> +Slowly ebbed his life away,<br /> +And the crowd that flocked to greet her<br /> +Trampled on him where he lay.</p> +<p>Gathering all his strength, he saw her<br /> +Crowned and reigning in her pride!<br /> +Looked his last upon her beauty,<br /> +Raised his eyes to God, and died.</p> +<h2>VERSE: LINGER, OH, GENTLE TIME</h2> +<p>Linger, oh, gentle Time,<br /> +Linger, oh, radiant grace of bright To-day!<br /> +Let not the hours’ chime<br /> +Call thee away,<br /> +But linger near me still with fond delay.</p> +<p>Linger, for thou art mine!<br /> +What dearer treasures can the future hold?<br /> +What sweeter flowers than thine<br /> +Can she unfold?<br /> +What secrets tell my heart thou hast not told?</p> +<p>Oh, linger in thy flight!<br /> +For shadows gather round, and should we part,<br /> +A dreary starless night<br /> +May fill my heart,—<br /> +Then pause and linger yet ere thou depart.</p> +<p>Linger, I ask no more,—<br /> +Thou art enough for ever—thou alone;<br /> +What future can restore,<br /> +When thou art flown,<br /> +All that I hold from thee and call my own?</p> +<h2>VERSE: HOMEWARD BOUND</h2> +<p>I have seen a fiercer tempest,<br /> +Known a louder whirlwind blow;<br /> +I was wrecked off red Algiers,<br /> +Six-and-thirty years ago.<br /> +Young I was, and yet old seamen<br /> +Were not strong or calm as I;<br /> +While life held such treasures for me,<br /> +I felt sure I could not die.</p> +<p>Life I struggled for—and saved it;<br /> +Life alone—and nothing more;<br /> +Bruised, half dead, alone and helpless,<br /> +I was cast upon the shore.<br /> +I feared the pitiless rocks of Ocean;<br /> +So the great sea rose—and then<br /> +Cast me from her friendly bosom,<br /> +On the pitiless hearts of men.</p> +<p>Gaunt and dreary ran the mountains,<br /> +With black gorges, up the land;<br /> +Up to where the lonely Desert<br /> +Spreads her burning, dreary sand:<br /> +In the gorges of the mountains,<br /> +On the plain beside the sea,<br /> +Dwelt my stern and cruel masters,<br /> +The black Moors of Barbary.</p> +<p>Ten long years I toiled among them,<br /> +Hopeless—as I used to say;<br /> +Now I know Hope burnt within me<br /> +Fiercer, stronger, day by day:<br /> +Those dim years of toil and sorrow<br /> +Like one long dark dream appear;<br /> +One long day of weary waiting—<br /> +Then each day was like a year.</p> +<p>How I cursed the land—my prison;<br /> +How I cursed the serpent sea—<br /> +And the Demon Fate that showered<br /> +All her curses upon me;<br /> +I was mad, I think—God pardon<br /> +Words so terrible and wild—<br /> +This voyage would have been my last one,<br /> +For I left a wife and child.</p> +<p>Never did one tender vision<br /> +Fade away before my sight,<br /> +Never once through all my slavery,<br /> +Burning day or dreary night;<br /> +In my soul it lived, and kept me,<br /> +Now I feel, from black despair,<br /> +And my heart was not quite broken,<br /> +While they lived and blest me there.</p> +<p>When at night my task was over,<br /> +I would hasten to the shore;<br /> +(All was strange and foreign inland,<br /> +Nothing I had known before;)<br /> +Strange looked the bleak mountain passes,<br /> +Strange the red glare and black shade,<br /> +And the Oleanders, waving<br /> +To the sound the fountains made.</p> +<p>Then I gazed at the great Ocean,<br /> +Till she grew a friend again;<br /> +And because she knew old England,<br /> +I forgave her all my pain:<br /> +So the blue still sky above me,<br /> +With its white clouds’ fleecy fold,<br /> +And the glimmering stars, (though brighter,)<br /> +Looked like home and days of old.</p> +<p>And a calm would fall upon me,<br /> +Worn perhaps with work and pain,<br /> +The wild hungry longing left me,<br /> +And I was myself again:<br /> +Looking at the silver waters,<br /> +Looking up at the far sky,<br /> +Dreams of home and all I left there<br /> +Floated sorrowfully by.</p> +<p>A fair face, but pale with sorrow,<br /> +With blue eyes, brimful of tears,<br /> +And the little red mouth, quivering<br /> +With a smile, to hide its fears;<br /> +Holding out her baby towards me,<br /> +From the sky she looked on me;<br /> +So it was that last I saw her,<br /> +As the ship put out to sea.</p> +<p>Sometimes, (and a pang would seize me<br /> +That the years were floating on,)<br /> +I would strive to paint her, altered,<br /> +And the little baby gone:<br /> +She no longer young and girlish,<br /> +The child, standing by her knee,<br /> +And her face, more pale and saddened<br /> +With the weariness for me.</p> +<p>Then I saw, as night grew darker.<br /> +How she taught my child to pray,<br /> +Holding its small hands together,<br /> +For its father, far away;<br /> +And I felt her sorrow, weighing<br /> +Heavier on me than my own;<br /> +Pitying her blighted spring-time,<br /> +And her joy so early flown.</p> +<p>Till upon my hands (now hardened<br /> +With the rough, harsh toil of years)<br /> +Bitter drops of anguish falling,<br /> +Woke me from my dream, to tears;<br /> +Woke me as a slave, an outcast.<br /> +Leagues from home, across the deep;<br /> +So—though you may call it childish—<br /> +So I sobbed myself to sleep.</p> +<p>Well, the years sped on—my Sorrow,<br /> +Calmer, and yet stronger grown,<br /> +Was my shield against all suffering,<br /> +Poorer, meaner, than her own.<br /> +Thus my cruel master’s harshness<br /> +Fell upon me all in vain,<br /> +Yet the tale of what we suffered<br /> +Echoed back from main to main.</p> +<p>You have heard in a far country<br /> +Of a self-devoted band,<br /> +Vowed to rescue Christian captives<br /> +Pining in a foreign land.<br /> +And these gentle-hearted strangers<br /> +Year by year go forth from Rome,<br /> +In their hands the hard-earned ransom,<br /> +To restore some exiles home.</p> +<p>I was freed: they broke the tidings<br /> +Gently to me: but indeed<br /> +Hour by hour sped on, I knew not<br /> +What the words meant—I was freed!<br /> +Better so, perhaps; while sorrow<br /> +(More akin to earthly things)<br /> +Only strains the sad heart’s fibres—<br /> +Joy, bright stranger, breaks the strings.</p> +<p>Yet at last it rushed upon me,<br /> +And my heart beat full and fast;<br /> +What were now my years of waiting,<br /> +What was all the dreary past?<br /> +Nothing—to the impatient throbbing<br /> +I must bear across the sea:<br /> +Nothing—to the eternal hours<br /> +Still between my home and me!</p> +<p>How the voyage passed, I know not;<br /> +Strange it was once more to stand<br /> +With my countrymen around me,<br /> +And to clasp an English hand.<br /> +But, through all, my heart was dreaming<br /> +Of the first words I should hear,<br /> +In the gentle voice that echoed,<br /> +Fresh as ever, on my ear.</p> +<p>Should I see her start of wonder,<br /> +And the sudden truth arise,<br /> +Flushing all her face and lightening<br /> +The dimmed splendour of her eyes?<br /> +Oh! to watch the fear and doubting<br /> +Stir the silent depths of pain,<br /> +And the rush of joy—then melting<br /> +Into perfect peace again.</p> +<p>And the child!—but why remember<br /> +Foolish fancies that I thought?<br /> +Every tree and every hedge-row<br /> +From the well-known past I brought:<br /> +I would picture my dear cottage,<br /> +See the crackling wood-fire burn,<br /> +And the two beside it seated,<br /> +Watching, waiting, my return.</p> +<p>So, at last we reached the harbour.<br /> +I remember nothing more<br /> +Till I stood, my sick heart throbbing,<br /> +With my hand upon the door.<br /> +There I paused—I heard her speaking;<br /> +Low, soft, murmuring words she said;<br /> +Then I first knew the dumb terror<br /> +I had had, lest she were dead.</p> +<p>It was evening in late autumn,<br /> +And the gusty wind blew chill;<br /> +Autumn leaves were falling round me,<br /> +And the red sun lit the hill.<br /> +Six-and-twenty years are vanished<br /> +Since then—I am old and grey,<br /> +But I never told to mortal<br /> +What I saw, until this day.</p> +<p>She was seated by the fire,<br /> +In her arms she held a child,<br /> +Whispering baby-words caressing,<br /> +And then, looking up, she smiled:<br /> +Smiled on him who stood beside her—<br /> +Oh! the bitter truth was told,<br /> +In her look of trusting fondness—<br /> +I had seen the look of old!</p> +<p>But she rose and turned towards me<br /> +(Cold and dumb I waited there)<br /> +With a shriek of fear and terror,<br /> +And a white face of despair.<br /> +He had been an ancient comrade—<br /> +Not a single word we said,<br /> +While we gazed upon each other,<br /> +He the living: I the dead!</p> +<p>I drew nearer, nearer to her,<br /> +And I took her trembling hand,<br /> +Looking on her white face, looking<br /> +That her heart might understand<br /> +All the love and all the pity<br /> +That my lips refused to say—<br /> +I thank God no thought save sorrow<br /> +Rose in our crushed hearts that day.</p> +<p>Bitter tears that desolate moment,<br /> +Bitter, bitter tears we wept,<br /> +We three broken hearts together,<br /> +While the baby smiled and slept.<br /> +Tears alone—no words were spoken,<br /> +Till he—till her husband said<br /> +That my boy, (I had forgotten<br /> +The poor child,) that he was dead.</p> +<p>Then at last I rose, and, turning,<br /> +Wrung his hand, but made no sign;<br /> +And I stooped and kissed her forehead<br /> +Once more, as if she were mine.<br /> +Nothing of farewell I uttered,<br /> +Save in broken words to pray<br /> +That God would ever guard and bless her—<br /> +Then in silence passed away.</p> +<p>Over the great restless ocean<br /> +Six-and-twenty years I roam;<br /> +All my comrades, old and weary,<br /> +Have gone back to die at home.—<br /> +Home! yes, I shall reach a haven,<br /> +I, too, shall reach home and rest;<br /> +I shall find her waiting for me<br /> +With our baby on her breast.</p> +<h2>VERSE: LIFE AND DEATH</h2> +<p>“What is Life, Father?”<br /> +“A Battle, my child,<br /> +Where the strongest lance may fail,<br /> +Where the wariest eyes may be beguiled,<br /> +And the stoutest heart may quail.<br /> +Where the foes are gathered on every hand,<br /> +And rest not day or night,<br /> +And the feeble little ones must stand<br /> +In the thickest of the fight.”</p> +<p>“What is Death, Father?”<br /> +“The rest, my child,<br /> +When the strife and the toil are o’er;<br /> +The Angel of God, who, calm and mild,<br /> +Says we need fight no more;<br /> +Who, driving away the demon band,<br /> +Bids the din of the battle cease;<br /> +Takes banner and spear from our failing hand,<br /> +And proclaims an eternal Peace.”</p> +<p>“Let me die, Father! I tremble and fear<br /> +To yield in that terrible strife!”</p> +<p>“The crown must be won for Heaven, dear,<br /> +In the battle-field of life:<br /> +My child, though thy foes are strong and tried,<br /> +He loveth the weak and small;<br /> +The Angels of Heaven are on thy side,<br /> +And God is over all!”</p> +<h2>VERSE: NOW</h2> +<p>Rise! for the day is passing,<br /> +And you lie dreaming on;<br /> +The others have buckled their armour,<br /> +And forth to the fight are gone:<br /> +A place in the ranks awaits you,<br /> +Each man has some part to play;<br /> +The Past and the Future are nothing,<br /> +In the face of the stern To-day.</p> +<p>Rise from your dreams of the Future—<br /> +Of gaining some hard-fought field;<br /> +Of storming some airy fortress,<br /> +Or bidding some giant yield;<br /> +Your Future has deeds of glory,<br /> +Of honour (God grant it may!)<br /> +But your arm will never be stronger,<br /> +Or the need so great as To-day.</p> +<p>Rise! if the Past detains you,<br /> +Her sunshine and storms forget;<br /> +No chains so unworthy to hold you<br /> +As those of a vain regret:<br /> +Sad or bright, she is lifeless ever,<br /> +Cast her phantom arms away,<br /> +Nor look back, save to learn the lesson<br /> +Of a nobler strife To-day.</p> +<p>Rise! for the day is passing:<br /> +The sound that you scarcely hear<br /> +Is the enemy marching to battle—<br /> +Arise! for the foe is here!<br /> +Stay not to sharpen your weapons,<br /> +Or the hour will strike at last,<br /> +When, from dreams of a coming battle,<br /> +You may wake to find it past!</p> +<h2>VERSE: CLEANSING FIRES</h2> +<p>Let thy gold be cast in the furnace,<br /> +Thy red gold, precious and bright,<br /> +Do not fear the hungry fire,<br /> +With its caverns of burning light:<br /> +And thy gold shall return more precious,<br /> +Free from every spot and stain;<br /> +For gold must be tried by fire,<br /> +As a heart must be tried by pain!</p> +<p>In the cruel fire of Sorrow<br /> +Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail;<br /> +Let thy hand be firm and steady,<br /> +Do not let thy spirit quail:<br /> +But wait till the trial is over,<br /> +And take thy heart again;<br /> +For as gold is tried by fire,<br /> +So a heart must be tried by pain!</p> +<p>I shall know by the gleam and glitter<br /> +Of the golden chain you wear,<br /> +By your heart’s calm strength in loving,<br /> +Of the fire they have had to bear.<br /> +Beat on, true heart, for ever;<br /> +Shine bright, strong golden chain;<br /> +And bless the cleansing fire,<br /> +And the furnace of living pain!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE VOICE OF THE WIND</h2> +<p>Let us throw more logs on the fire!<br /> +We have need of a cheerful light,<br /> +And close round the hearth to gather,<br /> +For the wind has risen to-night.<br /> +With the mournful sound of its wailing<br /> +It has checked the children’s glee,<br /> +And it calls with a louder clamour<br /> +Than the clamour of the sea.<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<p>Let us listen to what it is saying,<br /> +Let us hearken to where it has been;<br /> +For it tells, in its terrible crying,<br /> +The fearful sights it has seen.<br /> +It clatters loud at the casements,<br /> +Round the house it hurries on,<br /> +And shrieks with redoubled fury,<br /> +When we say “The blast is gone!”<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<p>It has been on the field of battle,<br /> +Where the dying and wounded lie;<br /> +And it brings the last groan they uttered,<br /> +And the ravenous vulture’s cry.<br /> +It has been where the icebergs were meeting,<br /> +And closed with a fearful crash;<br /> +On shores where no foot has wandered,<br /> +It has heard the waters dash.<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<p>It has been on the desolate ocean,<br /> +When the lightning struck the mast;<br /> +It has heard the cry of the drowning,<br /> +Who sank as it hurried past;<br /> +The words of despair and anguish,<br /> +That were heard by no living ear;<br /> +The gun that no signal answered:<br /> +It brings them all to us here.<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<p>It has been on the lonely moorland,<br /> +Where the treacherous snow-drift lies,<br /> +Where the traveller, spent and weary,<br /> +Gasped fainter and fainter cries;<br /> +It has heard the bay of the bloodhounds,<br /> +On the track of the hunted slave,<br /> +The lash and the curse of the master,<br /> +And the groan that the captive gave.<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<p>It has swept through the gloomy forest,<br /> +Where the sledge was urged to its speed,<br /> +Where the howling wolves were rushing<br /> +On the track of the panting steed.<br /> +Where the pool was black and lonely,<br /> +It caught up a splash and a cry—<br /> +Only the bleak sky heard it,<br /> +And the wind as it hurried by.<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<p>Then throw more logs on the fire,<br /> +Since the air is bleak and cold,<br /> +And the children are drawing nigher,<br /> +For the tales that the wind has told.<br /> +So closer and closer gather<br /> +Round the red and crackling light;<br /> +And rejoice (while the wind is blowing)<br /> +We are safe and warm to-night.<br /> +Hark to the voice of the wind!</p> +<h2>VERSE: TREASURES</h2> +<p>Let me count my treasures,<br /> +All my soul holds dear,<br /> +Given me by dark spirits<br /> +Whom I used to fear.</p> +<p>Through long days of anguish,<br /> +And sad nights, did Pain<br /> +Forge my shield, Endurance,<br /> +Bright and free from stain!</p> +<p>Doubt, in misty caverns,<br /> +’Mid dark horrors sought,<br /> +Till my peerless jewel,<br /> +Faith to me she brought.</p> +<p>Sorrow, that I wearied<br /> +Should remain so long,<br /> +Wreathed my starry glory,<br /> +The bright Crown of Song.</p> +<p>Strife, that racked my spirit,<br /> +Without hope or rest,<br /> +Left the blooming flower,<br /> +Patience, on my breast.</p> +<p>Suffering, that I dreaded,<br /> +Ignorant of her charms,<br /> +Laid the fair child, Pity,<br /> +Smiling, in my arms.</p> +<p>So I count my treasures,<br /> +Stored in days long past—<br /> +And I thank the givers,<br /> +Whom I know at last!</p> +<h2>VERSE: SHINING STARS</h2> +<p>Shine, ye stars of heaven,<br /> +On a world of pain!<br /> +See old Time destroying<br /> +All our hoarded gain;<br /> +All our sweetest flowers,<br /> +Every stately shrine,<br /> +All our hard-earned glory,<br /> +Every dream divine!</p> +<p>Shine, ye stars of heaven,<br /> +On the rolling years!<br /> +See how Time, consoling,<br /> +Dries the saddest tears,<br /> +Bids the darkest storm-clouds<br /> +Pass in gentle rain;<br /> +While upspring in glory,<br /> +Flowers and dreams again!</p> +<p>Shine, ye stars of heaven,<br /> +On a world of fear!<br /> +See how Time, avenging,<br /> +Bringeth judgment here;<br /> +Weaving ill-won honours<br /> +To a fiery crown;<br /> +Bidding hard hearts perish;<br /> +Casting proud hearts down.</p> +<p>Shine, ye stars of heaven,<br /> +On the hours’ slow flight!<br /> +See how Time, rewarding,<br /> +Gilds good deeds with light;<br /> +Pays with kingly measure;<br /> +Brings earth’s dearest prize;<br /> +Or, crowned with rays diviner,<br /> +Bids the end arise!</p> +<h2>VERSE: WAITING</h2> +<p>“Wherefore dwell so sad and lonely,<br /> +By the desolate sea-shore,<br /> +With the melancholy surges<br /> +Beating at your cottage door?</p> +<p>“You shall dwell beside the castle<br /> +Shadowed by our ancient trees;<br /> +And your life shall pass on gently,<br /> +Cared for, and in rest and ease.”</p> +<p>“Lady, one who loved me dearly<br /> +Sailed for distant lands away;<br /> +And I wait here his returning<br /> +Hopefully from day to day.</p> +<p>“To my door I bring my spinning,<br /> +Watching every ship I see;<br /> +Waiting, hoping, till the sunset<br /> +Fades into the western sea.</p> +<p>“After sunset, at my casement,<br /> +Still I place a signal light;<br /> +He will see its well-known shining<br /> +Should his ship return at night.</p> +<p>“Lady, see your infant smiling,<br /> +With its flaxen curling hair—<br /> +I remember when your mother<br /> +Was a baby just as fair.</p> +<p>“I was watching then, and hoping:<br /> +Years have brought great change to all;<br /> +To my neighbours in their cottage,<br /> +To you nobles at the hall.</p> +<p>“Not to me—for I am waiting,<br /> +And the years have fled so fast,<br /> +I must look at you to tell me<br /> +That a weary time has past!</p> +<p>“When I hear a footstep coming<br /> +On the shingle—years have fled—<br /> +Yet amid a thousand others,<br /> +I shall know his quick, light tread.</p> +<p>“When I hear (to-night it may be)<br /> +Some one pausing at my door,<br /> +I shall know the gay soft accents,<br /> +Heard and welcomed oft before!</p> +<p>“So each day I am more hopeful,<br /> +He may come before the night:<br /> +Every sunset I feel surer<br /> +He must come ere morning light.</p> +<p>“Then I thank you, noble lady,<br /> +But I cannot do your will:<br /> +Where he left me, he must find me.<br /> +Waiting, watching, hoping, still!”</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE CRADLE SONG OF THE POOR</h2> +<p>Hush! I cannot bear to see thee<br /> +Stretch thy tiny hands in vain;<br /> +Dear, I have no bread to give thee,<br /> +Nothing, child, to ease thy pain!<br /> +When God sent thee first to bless me,<br /> +Proud, and thankful too, was I;<br /> +Now, my darling I, thy mother,<br /> +Almost long to see thee die.<br /> +Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;<br /> +God is good, but life is dreary.</p> +<p>I have watched thy beauty fading,<br /> +And thy strength sink day by day;<br /> +Soon, I know, will Want and Fever<br /> +Take thy little life away.<br /> +Famine makes thy father reckless,<br /> +Hope has left both him and me;<br /> +We could suffer all, my baby,<br /> +Had we but a crust for thee.<br /> +Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;<br /> +God is good, but life is dreary.</p> +<p>Better thou shouldst perish early,<br /> +Starve so soon, my darling one,<br /> +Than in helpless sin and sorrow<br /> +Vainly live, as I have done.<br /> +Better that thy angel spirit<br /> +With my joy, my peace, were flown,<br /> +Than thy heart grew cold and careless,<br /> +Reckless, hopeless, like my own.<br /> +Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;<br /> +God is good, but life is dreary.</p> +<p>I am wasted, dear, with hunger,<br /> +And my brain is all opprest,<br /> +I have scarcely strength to press thee,<br /> +Wan and feeble, to my breast.<br /> +Patience, baby, God will help us,<br /> +Death will come to thee and me,<br /> +He will take us to his Heaven,<br /> +Where no want or pain can be.<br /> +Sleep, my darling, thou art weary;<br /> +God is good, but life is dreary.</p> +<p>Such the plaint that, late and early,<br /> +Did we listen, we might hear<br /> +Close beside us,—but the thunder<br /> +Of a city dulls our ear.<br /> +Every heart, as God’s bright Angel,<br /> +Can bid one such sorrow cease;<br /> +God has glory when his children<br /> +Bring his poor ones joy and peace!<br /> +Listen, nearer while she sings<br /> +Sounds the fluttering of wings!</p> +<h2>VERSE: BE STRONG</h2> +<p>Be strong to <i>hope</i>, oh Heart!<br /> +Though day is bright,<br /> +The stars can only shine<br /> +In the dark night.<br /> +Be strong, oh Heart of mine,<br /> +Look towards the light!</p> +<p>Be strong to <i>bear</i>, oh Heart!<br /> +Nothing is vain:<br /> +Strive not, for life is care,<br /> +And God sends pain,<br /> +Heaven is above, and there<br /> +Rest will remain!</p> +<p>Be strong to <i>love</i>, oh Heart!<br /> +Love knows not wrong,<br /> +Didst thou love—creatures even,<br /> +Life were not long;<br /> +Didst thou love God in Heaven,<br /> +Thou wouldst be strong!</p> +<h2>VERSE: GOD’S GIFTS</h2> +<p>God gave a gift to Earth:- a child,<br /> +Weak, innocent, and undefiled,<br /> +Opened its ignorant eyes and smiled.</p> +<p>It lay so helpless, so forlorn,<br /> +Earth took it coldly and in scorn,<br /> +Cursing the day when it was born.</p> +<p>She gave it first a tarnished name,<br /> +For heritage, a tainted fame,<br /> +Then cradled it in want and shame.</p> +<p>All influence of Good or Right,<br /> +All ray of God’s most holy light,<br /> +She curtained closely from its sight.</p> +<p>Then turned her heart, her eyes away,<br /> +Ready to look again, the day<br /> +Its little feet began to stray.</p> +<p>In dens of guilt the baby played,<br /> +Where sin, and sin alone, was made<br /> +The law that all around obeyed.</p> +<p>With ready and obedient care,<br /> +He learnt the tasks they taught him there;<br /> +Black sin for lesson—oaths for prayer.</p> +<p>Then Earth arose, and, in her might,<br /> +To vindicate her injured right,<br /> +Thrust him in deeper depths of night.</p> +<p>Branding him with a deeper brand<br /> +Of shame, he could not understand,<br /> +The felon outcast of the land.</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>God gave a gift to Earth:- a child,<br /> +Weak, innocent, and undefiled,<br /> +Opened its ignorant eyes and smiled.</p> +<p>And Earth received the gift, and cried<br /> +Her joy and triumph far and wide,<br /> +Till echo answered to her pride.</p> +<p>She blest the hour when first he came<br /> +To take the crown of pride and fame,<br /> +Wreathed through long ages for his name.</p> +<p>Then bent her utmost art and skill<br /> +To train the supple mind and will,<br /> +And guard it from a breath of ill.</p> +<p>She strewed his morning path with flowers,<br /> +And Love, in tender dropping showers,<br /> +Nourished the blue and dawning hours.</p> +<p>She shed, in rainbow hues of light,<br /> +A halo round the Good and Right,<br /> +To tempt and charm the baby’s sight.</p> +<p>And every step, of work or play.<br /> +Was lit by some such dazzling ray,<br /> +Till morning brightened into day.</p> +<p>And then the World arose, and said—<br /> +Let added honours now be shed<br /> +On such a noble heart and head!</p> +<p>O World, both gifts were pure and bright,<br /> +Holy and sacred in God’s sight:-<br /> +God will judge them and thee aright!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A TOMB IN GHENT</h2> +<p>A smiling look she had, a figure slight,<br /> +With cheerful air, and step both quick and light;<br /> +A strange and foreign look the maiden bore,<br /> +That suited the quaint Belgian dress she wore<br /> +Yet the blue fearless eyes in her fair face,<br /> +And her soft voice told her of English race;<br /> +And ever, as she flitted to and fro,<br /> +She sang, (or murmured, rather,) soft and low,<br /> +Snatches of song, as if she did not know<br /> +That she was singing, but the happy load<br /> +Of dream and thought thus from her heart o’erflowed:<br /> +And while on household cares she passed along,<br /> +The air would bear me fragments of her song;<br /> +Not such as village maidens sing, and few<br /> +The framers of her changing music knew;<br /> +Chants such as heaven and earth first heard of when<br /> +The master Palestrina held the pen.<br /> +But I with awe had often turned the page,<br /> +Yellow with time, and half defaced by age,<br /> +And listened, with an ear not quite unskilled,<br /> +While heart and soul to the grand echo thrilled;<br /> +And much I marvelled, as her cadence fell<br /> +From the Laudate, that I knew so well,<br /> +Into Scarlatti’s minor fugue, how she<br /> +Had learned such deep and solemn harmony.<br /> +But what she told I set in rhyme, as meet<br /> +To chronicle the influence, dim and sweet,<br /> +’Neath which her young and innocent life had grown:<br /> +Would that my words were simple as her own.</p> +<p>Many years since, an English workman went<br /> +Over the seas, to seek a home in Ghent,<br /> +Where English skill was prized; nor toiled in vain;<br /> +Small, yet enough, his hard-earned daily gain.<br /> +He dwelt alone—in sorrow, or in pride.<br /> +He mixed not with the workers by his side;<br /> +He seemed to care but for one present joy—<br /> +To tend, to watch, to teach his sickly boy.<br /> +Severe to all beside, yet for the child<br /> +He softened his rough speech to soothings mild;<br /> +For him he smiled, with him each day he walked<br /> +Through the dark gloomy streets; to him he talked<br /> +Of home, of England, and strange stories told<br /> +Of English heroes in the days of old;<br /> +And, (when the sunset gilded roof and spire,)<br /> +The marvellous tale which never seemed to tire:<br /> +How the gilt dragon, glaring fiercely down<br /> +From the great belfry, watching all the town,<br /> +Was brought, a trophy of the wars divine,<br /> +By a Crusader from far Palestine,<br /> +And given to Bruges; and how Ghent arose,<br /> +And how they struggled long as deadly foes,<br /> +Till Ghent, one night, by a brave soldier’s skill,<br /> +Stole the great dragon; and she keeps it still.<br /> +One day the dragon—so ’tis said—will rise,<br /> +Spread his bright wines, and glitter in the skies.<br /> +And over desert lands and azure seas,<br /> +Will seek his home ’mid palm and cedar trees.<br /> +So, as he passed the belfry every day,<br /> +The boy would look if it were flown away;<br /> +Each day surprised to find it watching there,<br /> +Above him, as he crossed the ancient square,<br /> +To seek the great cathedral, that had grown<br /> +A home for him—mysterious and his own.</p> +<p>Dim with dark shadows of the ages past,<br /> +St. Bavon stands, solemn and rich and vast;<br /> +The slender pillars, in long vistas spread,<br /> +Like forest arches meet and close o’erhead;<br /> +So high that, like a weak and doubting prayer,<br /> +Ere it can float to the carved angels there,<br /> +The silver clouded incense faints in air:<br /> +Only the organ’s voice, with peal on peal,<br /> +Can mount to where those far-off angels kneel.<br /> +Here the pale boy, beneath a low side-arch,<br /> +Would listen to its solemn chant or march;<br /> +Folding his little hands, his simple prayer<br /> +Melted in childish dreams, and both in air:<br /> +While the great organ over all would roll,<br /> +Speaking strange secrets to his innocent soul,<br /> +Bearing on eagle-wings the great desire<br /> +Of all the kneeling throng, and piercing higher<br /> +Than aught but love and prayer can reach, until<br /> +Only the silence seemed to listen still;<br /> +Or gathering like a sea still more and more,<br /> +Break in melodious waves at heaven’s door,<br /> +And then fall, slow and soft, in tender rain,<br /> +Upon the pleading longing hearts again.</p> +<p>Then he would watch the rosy sunlight glow,<br /> +That crept along the marble floor below,<br /> +Passing, as life does, with the passing hours,<br /> +Now by a shrine all rich with gems and flowers,<br /> +Now on the brazen letters of a tomb,<br /> +Then, leaving it again to shade and gloom,<br /> +And creeping on, to show, distinct and quaint,<br /> +The kneeling figure of some marble saint:<br /> +Or lighting up the carvings strange and rare,<br /> +That told of patient toil, and reverent care;<br /> +Ivy that trembled on the spray, and ears,<br /> +Of heavy corn, and slender bulrush spears,<br /> +And all the thousand tangled weeds that grow<br /> +In summer, where the silver rivers flow;<br /> +And demon-heads grotesque, that seemed to glare<br /> +In impotent wrath on all the beauty there:<br /> +Then the gold rays up pillared shaft would climb,<br /> +And so be drawn to heaven, at evening time.<br /> +And deeper silence, darker shadows flowed<br /> +On all around, only the windows glowed<br /> +With blazoned glory, like the shields of light<br /> +Archangels bear, who, armed with love and might,<br /> +Watch upon heaven’s battlements at night.<br /> +Then all was shade; the silver lamps that gleamed,<br /> +Lost in the daylight, in the darkness seemed<br /> +Like sparks of fire in the dim aisles to shine,<br /> +Or trembling stars before each separate shrine.<br /> +Grown half afraid, the child would leave them there,<br /> +And come out, blinded by the noisy glare<br /> +That burst upon him from the busy square.</p> +<p>The church was thus his home for rest or play,<br /> +And as he came and went again each day,<br /> +The pictured faces that he knew so well,<br /> +Seemed to smile on him welcome and farewell.<br /> +But holier, and dearer far than all,<br /> +One sacred spot his own he loved to call;<br /> +Save at mid-day, half-hidden by the gloom;<br /> +The people call it The White Maiden’s Tomb:<br /> +For there she stands; her folded hands are pressed<br /> +Together, and laid softly on her breast,<br /> +As if she waited but a word to rise<br /> +From the dull earth, and pass to the blue skies;<br /> +Her lips expectant part, she holds her breath,<br /> +As listening for the angel voice of death.<br /> +None know how many years have seen her so,<br /> +Or what the name of her who sleeps below.<br /> +And here the child would come, and strive to trace,<br /> +Through the dim twilight, the pure gentle face<br /> +He loved so well, and here he oft would bring<br /> +Some violet blossom of the early spring;<br /> +And climbing softly by the fretted stand,<br /> +Not to disturb her, lay it in her hand;<br /> +Or, whispering a soft loving message sweet,<br /> +Would stoop and kiss the little marble feet.<br /> +So, when the organ’s pealing music rang,<br /> +He thought amid the gloom the Maiden sang;<br /> +With reverent simple faith by her he knelt,<br /> +And fancied what she thought, and what she felt.<br /> +“Glory to God,” re-echoed from her voice,<br /> +And then his little spirit would rejoice;<br /> +Or when the Requiem sobbed upon the air,<br /> +His baby tears dropped with her mournful prayer.</p> +<p>So years fled on, while childish fancies past,<br /> +The childish love and simple faith could last.<br /> +The artist-soul awoke in him, the flame<br /> +Of genius, like the light of Heaven, came<br /> +Upon his brain, and (as it will, if true)<br /> +It touched his heart and lit his spirit, too<br /> +His father saw, and with a proud content<br /> +Let him forsake the toil where he had spent<br /> +His youth’s first years, and on one happy day<br /> +Of pride, before the old man passed away,<br /> +He stood with quivering lips, and the big tears<br /> +Upon his cheek, and heard the dream of years<br /> +Living and speaking to his very heart—<br /> +The low hushed murmur at the wondrous art<br /> +Of him, who with young trembling fingers made<br /> +The great church-organ answer as he played;<br /> +And, as the uncertain sound grew full and strong,<br /> +Rush with harmonious spirit-wings along,<br /> +And thrill with master-power the breathless throng.</p> +<p>The old man died, and years passed on, and still<br /> +The young musician bent his heart and will<br /> +To his dear toil. St. Bavon now had grown<br /> +More dear to him, and even more his own;<br /> +And as he left it every night he prayed<br /> +A moment by the archway in the shade,<br /> +Kneeling once more within the sacred gloom<br /> +Where the White Maiden watched upon her tomb.<br /> +His hopes of travel and a world-wide fame,<br /> +Cold Time had sobered, and his fragile frame;<br /> +Content at last only in dreams to roam,<br /> +Away from the tranquillity of home;<br /> +Content that the poor dwellers by his side<br /> +Saw in him but the gentle friend and guide,<br /> +The patient counsellor in the poor strife<br /> +And petty details of their common life,<br /> +Who comforted where woe and grief might fall,<br /> +Nor slighted any pain or want as small,<br /> +But whose great heart took in and felt for all.</p> +<p>Still he grew famous—many came to be<br /> +His pupils in the art of harmony.<br /> +One day a voice floated so pure and free<br /> +Above his music, that he turned to see<br /> +What angel sang, and saw before his eyes,<br /> +What made his heart leap with a strange surprise,<br /> +His own White Maiden, calm, and pure, and mild,<br /> +As in his childish dreams she sang and smiled;<br /> +Her eyes raised up to Heaven, her lips apart,<br /> +And music overflowing from her heart.<br /> +But the faint blush that tinged her cheek betrayed<br /> +No marble statue, but a living maid;<br /> +Perplexed and startled at his wondering look,<br /> +Her rustling score of Mozart’s Sanctus shook;<br /> +The uncertain notes, like birds within a snare,<br /> +Fluttered and died upon the trembling air.</p> +<p>Days passed; each morning saw the maiden stand,<br /> +Her eyes cast down, her lesson in her hand,<br /> +Eager to study, never weary, while<br /> +Repaid by the approving word or smile<br /> +Of her kind master; days and months fled on;<br /> +One day the pupil from the choir was gone;<br /> +Gone to take light, and joy, and youth once more,<br /> +Within the poor musician’s humble door;<br /> +And to repay, with gentle happy art,<br /> +The debt so many owed his generous heart.<br /> +And now, indeed, was one who knew and felt<br /> +That a great gift of God within him dwelt;<br /> +One who could listen, who could understand,<br /> +Whose idle work dropped from her slackened hand,<br /> +While with wet eyes entranced she stood, nor knew<br /> +How the melodious wingèd hours flew;<br /> +Who loved his art as none had loved before,<br /> +Yet prized the noble tender spirit more.<br /> +While the great organ brought from far and near<br /> +Lovers of harmony to praise and hear,<br /> +Unmarked by aught save what filled every day,<br /> +Duty, and toil, and rest, years passed away:<br /> +And now by the low archway in the shade<br /> +Beside her mother knelt a little maid,<br /> +Who, through the great cathedral learned to roam,<br /> +Climb to the choir, and bring her father home;<br /> +And stand, demure and solemn by his side,<br /> +Patient till the last echo softly died;<br /> +Then place her little hand in his, and go<br /> +Down the dark winding stair to where below<br /> +The mother knelt, within the gathering gloom<br /> +Waiting and praying by the Maiden’s Tomb.</p> +<p>So their life went, until, one winter’s day,<br /> +Father and child came there alone to pray—<br /> +The mother, gentle soul, had fled away!<br /> +Their life was altered now, and yet the child<br /> +Forgot her passionate grief in time, and smiled,<br /> +Half wondering why, when spring’s fresh breezes came,<br /> +To see her father was no more the same.<br /> +Half guessing at the shadow of his pain,<br /> +And then contented if he smiled again,<br /> +A sad cold smile, that passed in tears away,<br /> +As re-assured she ran once more to play.<br /> +And now each year that added grace to grace,<br /> +Fresh bloom and sunshine to the young girl’s face,<br /> +Brought a strange light in the musician’s eyes,<br /> +As if he saw some starry hope arise,<br /> +Breaking upon the midnight of sad skies.<br /> +It might be so: more feeble year by year,<br /> +The wanderer to his resting-place drew near.<br /> +One day the Gloria he could play no more,<br /> +Echoed its grand rejoicing as of yore;<br /> +His hands were clasped, his weary head was laid,<br /> +Upon the tomb where the White Maiden prayed:<br /> +Where the child’s love first dawned, his soul first spoke,<br /> +The old man’s heart there throbbed its last and broke.<br /> +The grave cathedral that had nursed his youth,<br /> +Had helped his dreaming, and had taught him truth,<br /> +Had seen his boyish grief and baby tears,<br /> +And watched the sorrows and the joys of years,<br /> +Had lit his fame and hope with sacred rays,<br /> +And consecrated sad and happy days—<br /> +Had blessed his happiness, and soothed his pain,<br /> +Now took her faithful servant home again.</p> +<p>He rests in peace: some travellers mention yet<br /> +An organist whose name they all forget.<br /> +He has a holier and a nobler fame<br /> +By poor men’s hearths, who love and bless the name<br /> +Of a kind friend; and in low tones to-day,<br /> +Speak tenderly of him who passed away.<br /> +Too poor to help the daughter of their friend,<br /> +They grieved to see the little pittance end;<br /> +To see her toil and strive with cheerful heart,<br /> +To bear the lonely orphan’s struggling part;<br /> +They grieved to see her go at last alone<br /> +To English kinsmen she had never known:<br /> +And here she came; the foreign girl soon found<br /> +Welcome, and love, and plenty all around,<br /> +And here she pays it back with earnest will,<br /> +By well-taught housewife watchfulness and skill;<br /> +Deep in her heart she holds her father’s name,<br /> +And tenderly and proudly keeps his fame;<br /> +And while she works with thrifty Belgian care,<br /> +Past dreams of childhood float upon the air;<br /> +Some strange old chant, or solemn Latin hymn,<br /> +That echoed through the old cathedral dim,<br /> +When as a little child each day she went<br /> +To kneel and pray by an old tomb in Ghent.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE ANGEL OF DEATH</h2> +<p>Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, Death,<br /> +Who waits thee at the portals of the skies,<br /> +Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath,<br /> +Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?</p> +<p>How many a tranquil soul has passed away,<br /> +Fled gladly from fierce pain and pleasures dim,<br /> +To the eternal splendour of the day;<br /> +And many a troubled heart still calls for him.</p> +<p>Spirits too tender for the battle here<br /> +Have turned from life, its hopes, its fears, its charms;<br /> +And children, shuddering at a world so drear,<br /> +Have smiling passed away into his arms.</p> +<p>He whom thou fearest will, to ease its pain,<br /> +Lay his cold hand upon thy aching heart:<br /> +Will soothe the terrors of thy troubled brain,<br /> +And bid the shadow of earth’s grief depart.</p> +<p>He will give back what neither time, nor might,<br /> +Nor passionate prayer, nor longing hope restore.<br /> +(Dear as to long blind eyes recovered sight,)<br /> +He will give back those who are gone before.</p> +<p>Oh, what were life, if life were all? Thine eyes<br /> +Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see<br /> +Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies,<br /> +And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A DREAM</h2> +<p>All yesterday I was spinning,<br /> +Sitting alone in the sun;<br /> +And the dream that I spun was so lengthy,<br /> +It lasted till day was done.</p> +<p>I heeded not cloud or shadow<br /> +That flitted over the hill,<br /> +Or the humming-bees, or the swallows,<br /> +Or the trickling of the rill.</p> +<p>I took the threads for my spinning,<br /> +All of blue summer air,<br /> +And a flickering ray of sunlight<br /> +Was woven in here and there.</p> +<p>The shadows grew longer and longer,<br /> +The evening wind passed by,<br /> +And the purple splendour of sunset<br /> +Was flooding the western sky.</p> +<p>But I could not leave my spinning,<br /> +For so fair my dream had grown.<br /> +I heeded not, hour by hour,<br /> +How the silent day had flown.</p> +<p>At last the grey shadows fell round me,<br /> +And the night came dark and chill,<br /> +And I rose and ran down the valley,<br /> +And left it all on the hill.</p> +<p>I went up the hill this morning<br /> +To the place where my spinning lay—<br /> +There was nothing but glistening dewdrops<br /> +Remained of my dream to-day.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE PRESENT</h2> +<p>Do not crouch to-day, and worship<br /> +The old Past, whose life is fled,<br /> +Hush your voice to tender reverence;<br /> +Crowned he lies, but cold and dead:<br /> +For the Present reigns our monarch,<br /> +With an added weight of hours;<br /> +Honour her, for she is mighty!<br /> +Honour her, for she is ours!</p> +<p>See the shadows of his heroes<br /> +Girt around her cloudy throne;<br /> +Every day the ranks are strengthened<br /> +By great hearts to him unknown;<br /> +Noble things the great Past promised,<br /> +Holy dreams, both strange and new;<br /> +But the Present shall fulfil them,<br /> +What he promised, she shall do.</p> +<p>She inherits all his treasures,<br /> +She is heir to all his fame,<br /> +And the light that lightens round her<br /> +Is the lustre of his name;<br /> +She is wise with all his wisdom,<br /> +Living on his grave she stands,<br /> +On her brow she bears his laurels,<br /> +And his harvest in her hands.</p> +<p>Coward, can she reign and conquer<br /> +If we thus her glory dim?<br /> +Let us fight for her as nobly<br /> +As our fathers fought for him.<br /> +God, who crowns the dying ages,<br /> +Bids her rule, and us obey—<br /> +Bids us cast our lives before her,<br /> +Bids us serve the great To-day.</p> +<h2>VERSE: CHANGES</h2> +<p>Mourn, O rejoicing heart!<br /> +The hours are flying;<br /> +Each one some treasure takes,<br /> +Each one some blossom breaks,<br /> +And leaves it dying;<br /> +The chill dark night draws near,<br /> +Thy sun will soon depart,<br /> +And leave thee sighing;<br /> +Then mourn, rejoicing heart,<br /> +The hours are flying!</p> +<p>Rejoice, O grieving heart!<br /> +The hours fly fast;<br /> +With each some sorrow dies,<br /> +With each some shadow flies,<br /> +Until at last<br /> +The red dawn in the east<br /> +Bids weary night depart,<br /> +And pain is past.<br /> +Rejoice then, grieving heart,<br /> +The hours fly fast!</p> +<h2>VERSE: STRIVE, WAIT, AND PRAY</h2> +<p>Strive; yet I do not promise<br /> +The prize you dream of to-day<br /> +Will not fade when you think to grasp it,<br /> +And melt in your hand away;<br /> +But another and holier treasure,<br /> +You would now perchance disdain,<br /> +Will come when your toil is over,<br /> +And pay you for all your pain.</p> +<p>Wait; yet I do not tell you<br /> +The hour you long for now,<br /> +Will not come with its radiance vanished,<br /> +And a shadow upon its brow;<br /> +Yet far through the misty future,<br /> +With a crown of starry light,<br /> +An hour of joy you know not<br /> +Is winging her silent flight.</p> +<p>Pray; though the gift you ask for<br /> +May never comfort your fears,<br /> +May never repay your pleading,<br /> +Yet pray, and with hopeful tears;<br /> +An answer, not that you long for,<br /> +But diviner, will come one day,<br /> +Your eyes are too dim to see it,<br /> +Yet strive, and wait, and pray.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A LAMENT FOR THE SUMMER</h2> +<p>Moan, oh ye Autumn Winds!<br /> +Summer has fled,<br /> +The flowers have closed their tender leaves and die;<br /> +The Lily’s gracious head<br /> +All low must lie,<br /> +Because the gentle Summer now is dead.</p> +<p>Grieve, oh ye Autumn Winds!<br /> +Summer lies low;<br /> +The rose’s trembling leaves will soon be shed,<br /> +For she that loved her so,<br /> +Alas, is dead!<br /> +And one by one her loving children go.</p> +<p>Wail, oh ye Autumn Winds!<br /> +She lives no more,<br /> +The gentle Summer, with her balmy breath,<br /> +Still sweeter than before<br /> +When nearer death,<br /> +And brighter every day the smile she wore!</p> +<p>Mourn, mourn, oh Autumn Winds,<br /> +Lament and mourn;<br /> +How many half-blown buds must close and die;<br /> +Hopes with the Summer born<br /> +All faded lie,<br /> +And leave us desolate and Earth forlorn!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE UNKNOWN GRAVE</h2> +<p>No name to bid us know<br /> +Who rests below,<br /> +No word of death or birth,<br /> +Only the grass’s wave,<br /> +Over a mound of earth,<br /> +Over a nameless grave.</p> +<p>Did this poor wandering heart<br /> +In pain depart?<br /> +Longing, but all too late,<br /> +For the calm home again,<br /> +Where patient watchers wait,<br /> +And still will wait in vain.</p> +<p>Did mourners come in scorn,<br /> +And thus forlorn,<br /> +Leave him, with grief and shame.<br /> +To silence and decay,<br /> +And hide the tarnished name<br /> +Of the unconscious clay?</p> +<p>It may be from his side<br /> +His loved ones died,<br /> +And last of some bright band,<br /> +(Together now once more,)<br /> +He sought his home, the land<br /> +Where they had gone before.</p> +<p>No matter—limes have made<br /> +As cool a shade,<br /> +And lingering breezes pass<br /> +As tenderly and slow,<br /> +As if beneath the grass<br /> +A monarch slept below.</p> +<p>No grief, though loud and deep,<br /> +Could stir that sleep;<br /> +And earth and heaven tell<br /> +Of rest that shall not cease,<br /> +Where the cold world’s farewell<br /> +Fades into endless peace.</p> +<h2>VERSE: GIVE ME THY HEART</h2> +<p>With echoing steps the worshippers<br /> +Departed one by one;<br /> +The organ’s pealing voice was stilled,<br /> +The vesper hymn was done;<br /> +The shadows fell from roof and arch,<br /> +Dim was the incensed air,<br /> +One lamp alone with trembling ray,<br /> +Told of the Presence there!</p> +<p>In the dark church she knelt alone;<br /> +Her tears were falling fast;<br /> +“Help, Lord,” she cried, “the shades of death<br /> +Upon my soul are cast!<br /> +Have I not shunned the path of sin,<br /> +And chosen the better part?”<br /> +What voice came through the sacred air?—<br /> +“My child, give me thy Heart!”</p> +<p>“Have I not laid before Thy shrine<br /> +My wealth, oh Lord?” she cried;<br /> +“Have I kept aught of gems or gold,<br /> +To minister to pride?<br /> +Have I not bade youth’s joys retire,<br /> +And vain delights depart?”—<br /> +But sad and tender was the voice—<br /> +“My child, give me thy Heart!”</p> +<p>“Have I not, Lord, gone day by day<br /> +Where Thy poor children dwell;<br /> +And carried help, and gold, and food?<br /> +Oh Lord, Thou knowest it well!<br /> +From many a house, from many a soul,<br /> +My hand bids care depart:”—<br /> +More sad, more tender, was the voice—<br /> +“My child, give me thy Heart!”</p> +<p>“Have I not worn my strength away<br /> +With fast and penance sore?<br /> +Have I not watched and wept?” she cried;<br /> +“Did Thy dear Saints do more?<br /> +Have I not gained Thy grace, oh Lord,<br /> +And won in Heaven my part?”—<br /> +It echoed louder in her soul—<br /> +“My child, give me thy Heart!”</p> +<p>“For I have loved thee with a love<br /> +No mortal heart can show;<br /> +A love so deep, my Saints in heaven<br /> +Its depths can never know:<br /> +When pierced and wounded on the Cross,<br /> +Man’s sin and doom were mine,<br /> +I loved thee with undying love,<br /> +Immortal and divine!</p> +<p>“I love thee ere the skies were spread;<br /> +My soul bears all thy pains;<br /> +To gain thy love my sacred Heart<br /> +In earthly shrines remains:<br /> +Vain are thy offerings, vain thy sighs,<br /> +Without one gift divine,<br /> +Give it, my child, thy Heart to me,<br /> +And it shall rest in mine!”</p> +<p>In awe she listened, and the shade<br /> +Passed from her soul away;<br /> +In low and trembling voice she cried—<br /> +“Lord, help me to obey!<br /> +Break Thou the chains of earth, oh Lord,<br /> +That bind and hold my heart;<br /> +Let it be Thine, and Thine alone,<br /> +Let none with Thee have part.</p> +<p>“Send down, oh Lord, Thy sacred fire!<br /> +Consume and cleanse the sin<br /> +That lingers still within its depths:<br /> +Let heavenly love begin.<br /> +That sacred flame Thy Saints have known,<br /> +Kindle, oh Lord, in me,<br /> +Thou above all the rest for ever,<br /> +And all the rest in Thee.”</p> +<p>The blessing fell upon her soul;<br /> +Her angel by her side<br /> +Knew that the hour of peace was come;<br /> +Her soul was purified:<br /> +The shadows fell from roof and arch,<br /> +Dim was the incensed air—<br /> +But Peace went with her as she left<br /> +The sacred Presence there!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE WAYSIDE INN</h2> +<p>A little past the village<br /> +The Inn stood, low and white;<br /> +Green shady trees behind it,<br /> +And an orchard on the right;<br /> +Where over the green paling<br /> +The red-cheeked apples hung,<br /> +As if to watch how wearily<br /> +The sign-board creaked and swung.</p> +<p>The heavy-laden branches,<br /> +Over the road hung low,<br /> +Reflected fruit or blossom<br /> +From the wayside well below;<br /> +Where children, drawing water,<br /> +Looked up and paused to see,<br /> +Amid the apple-branches,<br /> +A purple Judas Tree.</p> +<p>The road stretched winding onward<br /> +For many a weary mile—<br /> +So dusty foot-sore wanderers<br /> +Would pause and rest awhile;<br /> +And panting horses halted,<br /> +And travellers loved to tell<br /> +The quiet of the wayside inn,<br /> +The orchard, and the well.</p> +<p>Here Maurice dwelt; and often<br /> +The sunburnt boy would stand<br /> +Gazing upon the distance,<br /> +And shading with his hand<br /> +His eyes, while watching vainly<br /> +For travellers, who might need<br /> +His aid to loose the bridle,<br /> +And tend the weary steed.</p> +<p>And once (the boy remembered<br /> +That morning, many a day—<br /> +The dew lay on the hawthorn,<br /> +The bird sang on the spray)<br /> +A train of horsemen, nobler<br /> +Than he had seen before,<br /> +Up from the distance galloped,<br /> +And halted at the door.</p> +<p>Upon a milk-white pony,<br /> +Fit for a faery queen,<br /> +Was the loveliest little damsel<br /> +His eyes had ever seen:<br /> +A serving-man was holding<br /> +The leading rein, to guide<br /> +The pony and its mistress,<br /> +Who cantered by his side.</p> +<p>Her sunny ringlets round her<br /> +A golden cloud had made,<br /> +While her large hat was keeping<br /> +Her calm blue eyes in shade;<br /> +One hand held fast the silken reins<br /> +To keep her steed in check,<br /> +The other pulled his tangled mane,<br /> +Or stroked his glossy neck.</p> +<p>And as the boy brought water,<br /> +And loosed the rein, he heard<br /> +The sweetest voice that thanked him<br /> +In one low gentle word;<br /> +She turned her blue eyes from him,<br /> +Looked up, and smiled to see<br /> +The hanging purple blossoms<br /> +Upon the Judas Tree;</p> +<p>And showed it with a gesture,<br /> +Half pleading, half command,<br /> +Till he broke the fairest blossom,<br /> +And laid it in her hand;<br /> +And she tied it to her saddle<br /> +With a ribbon from her hair,<br /> +While her happy laugh rang gaily,<br /> +Like silver on the air.</p> +<p>But the champing steeds were rested—<br /> +The horsemen now spurred on,<br /> +And down the dusty highway<br /> +They vanished and were gone.<br /> +Years passed, and many a traveller<br /> +Paused at the old inn-door,<br /> +But the little milk-white pony<br /> +And the child returned no more.</p> +<p>Years passed, the apple-branches<br /> +A deeper shadow shed;<br /> +And many a time the Judas Tree,<br /> +Blossom and leaf, lay dead;<br /> +When on the loitering western breeze<br /> +Came the bells’ merry sound,<br /> +And flowery arches rose, and flags<br /> +And banners waved around.</p> +<p>Maurice stood there expectant:<br /> +The bridal train would stay<br /> +Some moments at the inn-door,<br /> +The eager watchers say;<br /> +They come—the cloud of dust draws near—<br /> +’Mid all the state and pride,<br /> +He only sees the golden hair<br /> +And blue eyes of the bride.</p> +<p>The same, yet, ah, still fairer;<br /> +He knew the face once more<br /> +That bent above the pony’s neck<br /> +Years past at that inn-door:<br /> +Her shy and smiling eyes looked round,<br /> +Unconscious of the place,<br /> +Unconscious of the eager gaze<br /> +He fixed upon her face.</p> +<p>He plucked a blossom from the tree—<br /> +The Judas Tree—and cast<br /> +Its purple fragrance towards the Bride,<br /> +A message from the Past.<br /> +The signal came, the horses plunged—<br /> +Once more she smiled around:<br /> +The purple blossom in the dust<br /> +Lay trampled on the ground.</p> +<p>Again the slow years fleeted,<br /> +Their passage only known<br /> +By the height the Passion-flower<br /> +Around the porch had grown;<br /> +And many a passing traveller<br /> +Paused at the old inn-door,<br /> +But the bride, so fair and blooming,<br /> +The bride returned no more.</p> +<p>One winter morning, Maurice,<br /> +Watching the branches bare,<br /> +Rustling and waving dimly<br /> +In the grey and misty air,<br /> +Saw blazoned on a carriage<br /> +Once more the well-known shield,<br /> +The stars and azure fleurs-de-lis<br /> +Upon a silver field.</p> +<p>He looked—was that pale woman,<br /> +So grave, so worn, so sad,<br /> +The child, once young and smiling,<br /> +The bride, once fair and glad?<br /> +What grief had dimmed that glory,<br /> +And brought that dark eclipse<br /> +Upon her blue eyes’ radiance,<br /> +And paled those trembling lips?</p> +<p>What memory of past sorrow,<br /> +What stab of present pain,<br /> +Brought that deep look of anguish,<br /> +That watched the dismal rain,<br /> +That watched (with the absent spirit<br /> +That looks, yet does not see)<br /> +The dead and leafless branches<br /> +Upon the Judas Tree.</p> +<p>The slow dark months crept onward<br /> +Upon their icy way,<br /> +’Till April broke in showers<br /> +And Spring smiled forth in May;<br /> +Upon the apple-blossoms<br /> +The sun shone bright again,<br /> +When slowly up the highway<br /> +Came a long funeral train.</p> +<p>The bells toiled slowly, sadly,<br /> +For a noble spirit fled;<br /> +Slowly, in pomp and honour,<br /> +They bore the quiet dead.<br /> +Upon a black-plumed charger<br /> +One rode, who held a shield,<br /> +Where stars and azure fleurs-de-lis<br /> +Shone on a silver field.</p> +<p>’Mid all that homage given<br /> +To a fluttering heart at rest,<br /> +Perhaps an honest sorrow<br /> +Dwelt only in one breast.<br /> +One by the inn-door standing<br /> +Watched with fast-dropping tears<br /> +The long procession passing,<br /> +And thought of bygone years,</p> +<p>The boyish, silent homage<br /> +To child and bride unknown,<br /> +The pitying tender sorrow<br /> +Kept in his heart alone,<br /> +Now laid upon the coffin<br /> +With a purple flower, might be<br /> +Told to the cold dead sleeper;<br /> +The rest could only see<br /> +A fragrant purple blossom,<br /> +Plucked from a Judas Tree.</p> +<h2>VERSE: VOICES OF THE PAST</h2> +<p>You wonder that my tears should flow<br /> +In listening to that simple strain;<br /> +That those unskilful sounds should fill<br /> +My soul with joy and pain—<br /> +How can you tell what thoughts it stirs<br /> +Within my heart again?</p> +<p>You wonder why that common phrase,<br /> +So all unmeaning to your ear,<br /> +Should stay me in my merriest mood,<br /> +And thrill my soul to hear—<br /> +How can you tell what ancient charm<br /> +Has made me hold it dear?</p> +<p>You marvel that I turn away<br /> +From all those flowers so fair and bright,<br /> +And gaze at this poor herb, till tears<br /> +Arise and dim my sight—<br /> +You cannot tell how every leaf<br /> +Breathes of a past delight.</p> +<p>You smile to see me turn and speak<br /> +With one whose converse you despise;<br /> +You do not see the dreams of old<br /> +That with his voice arise—<br /> +How can you tell what links have made<br /> +Him sacred in my eyes?</p> +<p>Oh, these are Voices of the Past,<br /> +Links of a broken chain,<br /> +Wings that can bear me back to Times<br /> +Which cannot come again—<br /> +Yet God forbid that I should lose<br /> +The echoes that remain!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE DARK SIDE</h2> +<p>Thou hast done well, perhaps,<br /> +To lift the bright disguise,<br /> +And lay the bitter truth<br /> +Before our shrinking eyes;<br /> +When evil crawls below<br /> +What seems so pure and fair,<br /> +Thine eyes are keen and true<br /> +To find the serpent there:<br /> +And yet—I turn away;<br /> +Thy task is not divine—<br /> +The evil angels look<br /> +On earth with eyes like thine.</p> +<p>Thou hast done well, perhaps,<br /> +To show how closely wound<br /> +Dark threads of sin and self<br /> +With our best deeds are found.<br /> +How great and noble hearts,<br /> +Striving for lofty aims,<br /> +Have still some earthly cord<br /> +A meaner spirit claims;<br /> +And yet—although thy task<br /> +Is well and fairly done,<br /> +Methinks for such as thou<br /> +There is a holier one.</p> +<p>Shadows there are, who dwell<br /> +Among us, yet apart,<br /> +Deaf to the claim of God,<br /> +Or kindly human heart;<br /> +Voices of earth and heaven<br /> +Call, but they turn away,<br /> +And Love, through such black night,<br /> +Can see no hope of day;<br /> +And yet—our eyes are dim,<br /> +And thine are keener far—<br /> +Then gaze till thou canst see<br /> +The glimmer of some star.</p> +<p>The black stream flows along,<br /> +Whose waters we despise—<br /> +Show us reflected there<br /> +Some fragment of the skies;<br /> +’Neath tangled thorns and briars,<br /> +(The task is fit for thee,)<br /> +Seek for the hidden flowers,<br /> +We are too blind to see;<br /> +Then will I thy great gift<br /> +A crown and blessing call;<br /> +Angels look thus on men,<br /> +And God sees good in all!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A FIRST SORROW</h2> +<p>Arise! this day shall shine,<br /> +For evermore,<br /> +To thee a star divine,<br /> +On Time’s dark shore.</p> +<p>Till now thy soul has been<br /> +All glad and gay:<br /> +Bid it awake, and look<br /> +At grief to-day!</p> +<p>No shade has come between<br /> +Thee and the sun;<br /> +Like some long childish dream<br /> +Thy life has run:</p> +<p>But now the stream has reached<br /> +A dark, deep sea,<br /> +And Sorrow, dim and crowned,<br /> +Is waiting thee.</p> +<p>Each of God’s soldiers bears<br /> +A sword divine:<br /> +Stretch out thy trembling hands<br /> +To-day for thine!</p> +<p>To each anointed Priest<br /> +God’s summons came:<br /> +Oh, Soul, he speaks to-day<br /> +And calls thy name.</p> +<p>Then, with slow reverent step,<br /> +And beating heart,<br /> +From out thy joyous days,<br /> +Thou must depart.</p> +<p>And, leaving all behind,<br /> +Come forth, alone,<br /> +To join the chosen band<br /> +Around the throne.</p> +<p>Raise up thine eyes—be strong,<br /> +Nor cast away<br /> +The crown, that God has given<br /> +Thy soul to-day!</p> +<h2>VERSE: MURMURS</h2> +<p>Why wilt thou make bright music<br /> +Give forth a sound of pain?<br /> +Why wilt thou weave fair flowers<br /> +Into a weary chain?</p> +<p>Why turn each cool grey shadow<br /> +Into a world of fears?<br /> +Why say the winds are wailing?<br /> +Why call the dewdrops tears?</p> +<p>The voices of happy nature,<br /> +And the Heaven’s sunny gleam,<br /> +Reprove thy sick heart’s fancies,<br /> +Upbraid thy foolish dream.</p> +<p>Listen, and I will tell thee<br /> +The song Creation sings,<br /> +From the humming of bees in the heather,<br /> +To the flutter of angels’ wings.</p> +<p>An echo rings for ever,<br /> +The sound can never cease;<br /> +It speaks to God of glory,<br /> +It speaks to Earth of peace.</p> +<p>Not alone did angels sing it<br /> +To the poor shepherds’ ear;<br /> +But the spherèd Heavens chant it,<br /> +While listening ages hear.</p> +<p>Above thy peevish wailing<br /> +Rises that holy song;<br /> +Above Earth’s foolish clamour,<br /> +Above the voice of wrong.</p> +<p>No creature of God’s too lowly<br /> +To murmur peace and praise:<br /> +When the starry nights grow silent,<br /> +Then speak the sunny days.</p> +<p>So leave thy sick heart’s fancies,<br /> +And lend thy little voice<br /> +To the silver song of glory<br /> +That bids the world rejoice.</p> +<h2>VERSE: GIVE</h2> +<p>See the rivers flowing<br /> +Downwards to the sea,<br /> +Pouring all their treasures<br /> +Bountiful and free—<br /> +Yet to help their giving<br /> +Hidden springs arise;<br /> +Or, if need be, showers<br /> +Feed them from the skies!</p> +<p>Watch the princely flowers<br /> +Their rich fragrance spread,<br /> +Load the air with perfumes,<br /> +From their beauty shed—<br /> +Yet their lavish spending<br /> +Leaves them not in dearth,<br /> +With fresh life replenished<br /> +By their mother earth!</p> +<p>Give thy heart’s best treasures—<br /> +From fair Nature learn;<br /> +Give thy love—and ask not,<br /> +Wait not a return!<br /> +And the more thou spendest<br /> +From thy little store,<br /> +With a double bounty,<br /> +God will give thee more.</p> +<h2>VERSE: MY JOURNAL</h2> +<p>It is a dreary evening;<br /> +The shadows rise and fall:<br /> +With strange and ghostly changes,<br /> +They flicker on the wall.</p> +<p>Make the charred logs burn brighter;<br /> +I will show you, by their blaze,<br /> +The half-forgotten record<br /> +Of bygone things and days.</p> +<p>Bring here the ancient volume;<br /> +The clasp is old and worn,<br /> +The gold is dim and tarnished,<br /> +And the faded leaves are torn.</p> +<p>The dust has gathered on it—<br /> +There are so few who care<br /> +To read what Time has written<br /> +Of joy and sorrow there.</p> +<p>Look at the first fair pages;<br /> +Yes—I remember all:<br /> +The joys now seem so trivial,<br /> +The griefs so poor and small.</p> +<p>Let us read the dreams of glory<br /> +That childish fancy made;<br /> +Turn to the next few pages,<br /> +And see how soon they fade.</p> +<p>Here, where still waiting, dreaming,<br /> +For some ideal Life,<br /> +The young heart all unconscious<br /> +Had entered on the strife.</p> +<p>See how this page is blotted:<br /> +What—could those tears be mine?<br /> +How coolly I can read you,<br /> +Each blurred and trembling line.</p> +<p>Now I can reason calmly,<br /> +And, looking back again,<br /> +Can see divinest meaning<br /> +Threading each separate pain.</p> +<p>Here strong resolve—how broken;<br /> +Rash hope, and foolish fear,<br /> +And prayers, which God in pity<br /> +Refused to grant or hear.</p> +<p>Nay—I will turn the pages<br /> +To where the tale is told<br /> +Of how a dawn diviner<br /> +Flushed the dark clouds with gold.</p> +<p>And see, that light has gilded<br /> +The story—nor shall set;<br /> +And, though in mist and shadow,<br /> +You know I see it yet.</p> +<p>Here—well, it does not matter,<br /> +I promised to read all;<br /> +I know not why I falter,<br /> +Or why my tears should fall;</p> +<p>You see each grief is noted;<br /> +Yet it was better so—<br /> +I can rejoice to-day—the pain<br /> +Was over, long ago.</p> +<p>I read—my voice is failing,<br /> +But you can understand<br /> +How the heart beat that guided<br /> +This weak and trembling hand.</p> +<p>Pass over that long struggle,<br /> +Read where the comfort came,<br /> +Where the first time is written<br /> +Within the book your name.</p> +<p>Again it comes, and oftener,<br /> +Linked, as it now must be,<br /> +With all the joy or sorrow<br /> +That Life may bring to me.</p> +<p>So all the rest—you know it:<br /> +Now shut the clasp again,<br /> +And put aside the record<br /> +Of bygone hours of pain.</p> +<p>The dust shall gather on it,<br /> +I will not read it more:<br /> +Give me your hand—what was it<br /> +We were talking of before?</p> +<p>I know not why—but tell me<br /> +Of something gay and bright.<br /> +It is strange—my heart is heavy,<br /> +And my eyes are dim to-night.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A CHAIN</h2> +<p>The bond that links our souls together;<br /> +Will it last through stormy weather?<br /> +Will it moulder and decay<br /> +As the long hours pass away?<br /> +Will it stretch if Fate divide us,<br /> +When dark and weary hours have tried us?<br /> +Oh, if it look too poor and slight<br /> +Let us break the links to-night!</p> +<p>It was not forged by mortal hands,<br /> +Or clasped with golden bars and bands;<br /> +Save thine and mine, no other eyes<br /> +The slender link can recognise:<br /> +In the bright light it seems to fade—<br /> +And it is hidden in the shade;<br /> +While Heaven nor Earth have never heard,<br /> +Or solemn vow, or plighted word.</p> +<p>Yet what no mortal hand could make,<br /> +No mortal power can ever break:<br /> +What words or vows could never do,<br /> +No words or vows can make untrue;<br /> +And if to other hearts unknown<br /> +The dearer and the more our own,<br /> +Because too sacred and divine<br /> +For other eyes, save thine and mine.</p> +<p>And see, though slender, it is made<br /> +Of Love and Trust, and can they fade?<br /> +While, if too slight it seem, to bear<br /> +The breathings of the summer air,<br /> +We know that it could bear the weight<br /> +Of a most heavy heart of late,<br /> +And as each day and hour flew<br /> +The stronger for its burthen grew.</p> +<p>And, too, we know and feel again<br /> +It has been sanctified by pain,<br /> +For what God deigns to try with sorrow<br /> +He means not to decay to-morrow;<br /> +But through that fiery trial last<br /> +When earthly ties and bonds are past;<br /> +What slighter things dare not endure<br /> +Will make our Love more safe and pure.</p> +<p>Love shall be purified by Pain,<br /> +And Pain be soothed by Love again:<br /> +So let us now take heart and go<br /> +Cheerfully on, through joy and woe;<br /> +No change the summer sun can bring,<br /> +Or the inconstant skies of spring,<br /> +Or the bleak winter’s stormy weather,<br /> +For we shall meet them, Love, together!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE PILGRIMS</h2> +<p>The way is long and dreary,<br /> +The path is bleak and bare;<br /> +Our feet are worn and weary,<br /> +But we will not despair.<br /> +More heavy was Thy burthen,<br /> +More desolate Thy way;—<br /> +Oh Lamb of God who takest<br /> +The sin of the world away,<br /> +Have mercy on us.</p> +<p>The snows lie thick around us<br /> +In the dark and gloomy night;<br /> +And the tempest wails above us,<br /> +And the stars have hid their light;<br /> +But blacker was the darkness<br /> +Round Calvary’s Cross that day;—<br /> +Oh Lamb of God who takest<br /> +The sin of the world away,<br /> +Have mercy on us.</p> +<p>Our hearts are faint with sorrow,<br /> +Heavy and hard to bear;<br /> +For we dread the bitter morrow,<br /> +But we will not despair:<br /> +Thou knowest all our anguish,<br /> +And Thou wilt bid it cease,—<br /> +Oh Lamb of God who takest<br /> +The sin of the world away,<br /> +Give us Thy Peace!</p> +<h2>VERSE: INCOMPLETENESS</h2> +<p>Nothing resting in its own completeness<br /> +Can have worth or beauty: but alone<br /> +Because it leads and tends to farther sweetness,<br /> +Fuller, higher, deeper than its own.</p> +<p>Spring’s real glory dwells not in the meaning,<br /> +Gracious though it be, of her blue hours;<br /> +But is hidden in her tender leaning<br /> +To the Summer’s richer wealth of flowers.</p> +<p>Dawn is fair, because the mists fade slowly<br /> +Into Day, which floods the world with light;<br /> +Twilight’s mystery is so sweet and holy<br /> +Just because it ends in starry Night.</p> +<p>Childhood’s smiles unconscious graces borrow<br /> +From Strife, that in a far-off future lies;<br /> +And angel glances (veiled now by Life’s sorrow)<br /> +Draw our hearts to some belovèd eyes.</p> +<p>Life is only bright when it proceedeth<br /> +Towards a truer, deeper Life above;<br /> +Human Love is sweetest when it leadeth<br /> +To a more divine and perfect Love.</p> +<p>Learn the mystery of Progression duly:<br /> +Do not call each glorious change, Decay;<br /> +But know we only hold our treasures truly,<br /> +When it seems as if they passed away.</p> +<p>Nor dare to blame God’s gifts for incompleteness;<br /> +In that want their beauty lies: they roll<br /> +Towards some infinite depth of love and sweetness,<br /> +Bearing onward man’s reluctant soul.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A LEGEND OF BREGENZ</h2> +<p>Girt round with rugged mountains<br /> +The fair Lake Constance lies;<br /> +In her blue heart reflected<br /> +Shine back the starry skies;<br /> +And, watching each white cloudlet<br /> +Float silently and slow,<br /> +You think a piece of Heaven<br /> +Lies on our earth below!</p> +<p>Midnight is there: and Silence,<br /> +Enthroned in Heaven, looks down<br /> +Upon her own calm mirror,<br /> +Upon a sleeping town:<br /> +For Bregenz, that quaint city<br /> +Upon the Tyrol shore,<br /> +Has stood above Lake Constance,<br /> +A thousand years and more.</p> +<p>Her battlements and towers,<br /> +From off their rocky steep,<br /> +Have cast their trembling shadow<br /> +For ages on the deep:<br /> +Mountain, and lake, and valley,<br /> +A sacred legend know,<br /> +Of how the town was saved, one night,<br /> +Three hundred years ago.</p> +<p>Far from her home and kindred,<br /> +A Tyrol maid had fled,<br /> +To serve in the Swiss valleys,<br /> +And toil for daily bread;<br /> +And every year that fleeted<br /> +So silently and fast,<br /> +Seemed to bear farther from her<br /> +The memory of the Past.</p> +<p>She served kind, gentle masters,<br /> +Nor asked for rest or change;<br /> +Her friends seemed no more new ones,<br /> +Their speech seemed no more strange;<br /> +And when she led her cattle<br /> +To pasture every day,<br /> +She ceased to look and wonder<br /> +On which side Bregenz lay.</p> +<p>She spoke no more of Bregenz,<br /> +With longing and with tears:<br /> +Her Tyrol home seemed faded<br /> +In a deep mist of years;<br /> +She heeded not the rumours<br /> +Of Austrian war and strife;<br /> +Each day she rose contented,<br /> +To the calm toils of life.</p> +<p>Yet, when her master’s children<br /> +Would clustering round her stand,<br /> +She sang them ancient ballads<br /> +Of her own native land;<br /> +And when at morn and evening<br /> +She knelt before God’s throne,<br /> +The accents of her childhood<br /> +Rose to her lips alone.</p> +<p>And so she dwelt: the valley<br /> +More peaceful year by year;<br /> +When suddenly strange portents,<br /> +Of some great deed seemed near.<br /> +The golden corn was bending<br /> +Upon its fragile stalk,<br /> +While farmers, heedless of their fields,<br /> +Paced up and down in talk.</p> +<p>The men seemed stern and altered,<br /> +With looks cast on the ground;<br /> +With anxious faces, one by one,<br /> +The women gathered round;<br /> +All talk of flax, or spinning,<br /> +Or work, was put away;<br /> +The very children seemed afraid<br /> +To go alone to play.</p> +<p>One day, out in the meadow<br /> +With strangers from the town,<br /> +Some secret plan discussing,<br /> +The men walked up and down.<br /> +Yet, now and then seemed watching,<br /> +A strange uncertain gleam,<br /> +That looked like lances ’mid the trees,<br /> +That stood below the stream.</p> +<p>At eve they all assembled,<br /> +Then care and doubt were fled;<br /> +With jovial laugh they feasted;<br /> +The board was nobly spread.<br /> +The elder of the village<br /> +Rose up, his glass in hand,<br /> +And cried, “We drink the downfall<br /> +“Of an accursed land!</p> +<p>“The night is growing darker,<br /> +“Ere one more day is flown,<br /> +“Bregenz, our foemen’s stronghold,<br /> +“Bregenz shall be our own!”<br /> +The women shrank in terror,<br /> +(Yet Pride, too, had her part,)<br /> +But one poor Tyrol maiden<br /> +Felt death within her heart.</p> +<p>Before her, stood fair Bregenz;<br /> +Once more her towers arose;<br /> +What were the friends beside her?<br /> +Only her country’s foes!<br /> +The faces of her kinsfolk,<br /> +The days of childhood flown,<br /> +The echoes of her mountains,<br /> +Reclaimed her as their own!</p> +<p>Nothing she heard around her,<br /> +(Though shouts rang forth again,)<br /> +Gone were the green Swiss valleys,<br /> +The pasture, and the plain;<br /> +Before her eyes one vision,<br /> +And in her heart one cry,<br /> +That said, “Go forth, save Bregenz,<br /> +And then, if need be, die!”</p> +<p>With trembling haste and breathless,<br /> +With noiseless step she sped;<br /> +Horses and weary cattle<br /> +Were standing in the shed;<br /> +She loosed the strong white charger,<br /> +That fed from out her hand,<br /> +She mounted, and she turned his head<br /> +Towards her native land.</p> +<p>Out—out into the darkness—<br /> +Faster, and still more fast;<br /> +The smooth grass flies behind her,<br /> +The chestnut wood is past;<br /> +She looks up; clouds are heavy:<br /> +Why is her steed so slow?—<br /> +Scarcely the wind beside them,<br /> +Can pass them as they go.</p> +<p>“Faster!” she cries, “Oh faster!”<br /> +Eleven the church-bells chime:<br /> +“Oh God,” she cries, “help Bregenz,<br /> +And bring me there in time!”<br /> +But louder than bells’ ringing,<br /> +Or lowing of the kine,<br /> +Grows nearer in the midnight<br /> +The rushing of the Rhine.</p> +<p>Shall not the roaring waters<br /> +Their headlong gallop check?<br /> +The steed draws back in terror,<br /> +She leans upon his neck<br /> +To watch the flowing darkness;<br /> +The bank is high and steep;<br /> +One pause—he staggers forward,<br /> +And plunges in the deep.</p> +<p>She strives to pierce the blackness,<br /> +And looser throws the rein;<br /> +Her steed must breast the waters<br /> +That dash above his mane.<br /> +How gallantly, how nobly,<br /> +He struggles through the foam,<br /> +And see—in the far distance,<br /> +Shine out the lights of home!</p> +<p>Up the steep banks he bears her,<br /> +And now, they rush again<br /> +Towards the heights of Bregenz,<br /> +That tower above the plain.<br /> +They reach the gate of Bregenz,<br /> +Just as the midnight rings,<br /> +And out come serf and soldier<br /> +To meet the news she brings.</p> +<p>Bregenz is saved! Ere daylight<br /> +Her battlements are manned;<br /> +Defiance greets the army<br /> +That marches on the land.<br /> +And if to deeds heroic<br /> +Should endless fame be paid,<br /> +Bregenz does well to honour<br /> +The noble Tyrol maid.</p> +<p>Three hundred years are vanished,<br /> +And yet upon the hill<br /> +An old stone gateway rises,<br /> +To do her honour still.<br /> +And there, when Bregenz women<br /> +Sit spinning in the shade,<br /> +They see in quaint old carving<br /> +The Charger and the Maid.</p> +<p>And when, to guard old Bregenz,<br /> +By gateway, street, and tower,<br /> +The warder paces all night long,<br /> +And calls each passing hour;<br /> +“Nine,” “ten,” “eleven,” he cries +aloud,<br /> +And then (Oh crown of Fame!)<br /> +When midnight pauses in the skies,<br /> +He calls the maiden’s name!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A FAREWELL</h2> +<p>Farewell, oh dream of mine!<br /> +I dare not stay;<br /> +The hour is come, and time<br /> +Will not delay:<br /> +Pleasant and dear to me<br /> +Wilt thou remain;<br /> +No future hour<br /> +Brings thee again.</p> +<p>She stands, the Future dim,<br /> +And draws me on,<br /> +And shows me dearer joys—<br /> +But thou art gone!<br /> +Treasures and Hopes more fair,<br /> +Bears she for me,<br /> +And yet I linger,<br /> +Oh dream, with thee!</p> +<p>Other and brighter days,<br /> +Perhaps she brings;<br /> +Deeper and holier songs,<br /> +Perchance she sings;<br /> +But thou and I, fair time,<br /> +We too must sever—<br /> +Oh dream of mine,<br /> +Farewell for ever!</p> +<h2>VERSE: SOWING AND REAPING</h2> +<p>Sow with a generous hand;<br /> +Pause not for toil or pain;<br /> +Weary not through the heat of summer,<br /> +Weary not through the cold spring rain;<br /> +But wait till the autumn comes<br /> +For the sheaves of golden grain.</p> +<p>Scatter the seed, and fear not,<br /> +A table will be spread;<br /> +What matter if you are too weary<br /> +To eat your hard-earned bread:<br /> +Sow, while the earth is broken,<br /> +For the hungry must be fed.</p> +<p>Sow;—while the seeds are lying<br /> +In the warm earth’s bosom deep,<br /> +And your warm tears fall upon it—<br /> +They will stir in their quiet sleep;<br /> +And the green blades rise the quicker,<br /> +Perchance, for the tears you weep.</p> +<p>Then sow;—for the hours are fleeting,<br /> +And the seed must fall to-day;<br /> +And care not what hands shall reap it,<br /> +Or if you shall have passed away<br /> +Before the waving corn-fields<br /> +Shall gladden the sunny day.</p> +<p>Sow; and look onward, upward,<br /> +Where the starry light appears—<br /> +Where, in spite of the coward’s doubting,<br /> +Or your own heart’s trembling fears,<br /> +You shall reap in joy the harvest<br /> +You have sown to-day in tears.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE STORM</h2> +<p>The tempest rages wild and high,<br /> +The waves lift up their voice and cry<br /> +Fierce answers to the angry sky,—<br /> +Miserere Domine.</p> +<p>Through the black night and driving rain,<br /> +A ship is struggling, all in vain<br /> +To live upon the stormy main;—<br /> +Miserere Domine.</p> +<p>The thunders roar, the lightnings glare,<br /> +Vain is it now to strive or dare;<br /> +A cry goes up of great despair,—<br /> +Miserere Domine.</p> +<p>The stormy voices of the main,<br /> +The moaning wind, and pelting rain<br /> +Beat on the nursery window pane:-<br /> +Miserere Domine.</p> +<p>Warm curtained was the little bed,<br /> +Soft pillowed was the little head;<br /> +“The storm will wake the child,” they said:-<br /> +Miserere Domine.</p> +<p>Cowering among his pillows white<br /> +He prays, his blue eyes dim with fright,<br /> +“Father, save those at sea to-night!”<br /> +Miserere Domine.</p> +<p>The morning shone all clear and gay,<br /> +On a ship at anchor in the bay,<br /> +And on a little child at play,—<br /> +Gloria tibi Domine!</p> +<h2>VERSE: WORDS</h2> +<p>Words are lighter than the cloud-foam<br /> +Of the restless ocean spray;<br /> +Vainer than the trembling shadow<br /> +That the next hour steals away.<br /> +By the fall of summer raindrops<br /> +Is the air as deeply stirred;<br /> +And the rose-leaf that we tread on<br /> +Will outlive a word.</p> +<p>Yet, on the dull silence breaking<br /> +With a lightning flash, a Word,<br /> +Bearing endless desolation<br /> +On its blighting wings, I heard:<br /> +Earth can forge no keener weapon,<br /> +Dealing surer death and pain,<br /> +And the cruel echo answered<br /> +Through long years again.</p> +<p>I have known one word hang starlike<br /> +O’er a dreary waste of years,<br /> +And it only shone the brighter<br /> +Looked at through a mist of tears;<br /> +While a weary wanderer gathered<br /> +Hope and heart on Life’s dark way,<br /> +By its faithful promise, shining<br /> +Clearer day by day.</p> +<p>I have known a spirit, calmer<br /> +Than the calmest lake, and clear<br /> +As the heavens that gazed upon it,<br /> +With no wave of hope or fear;<br /> +But a storm had swept across it,<br /> +And its deepest depths were stirred,<br /> +(Never, never more to slumber,)<br /> +Only by a word.</p> +<p>I have known a word more gentle<br /> +Than the breath of summer air;<br /> +In a listening heart it nestled,<br /> +And it lived for ever there.<br /> +Not the beating of its prison<br /> +Stirred it ever, night or day;<br /> +Only with the heart’s last throbbing<br /> +Could it fade away.</p> +<p>Words are mighty, words are living:<br /> +Serpents with their venomous stings,<br /> +Or bright angels, crowding round us,<br /> +With heaven’s light upon their wings:<br /> +Every word has its own spirit,<br /> +True or false, that never dies;<br /> +Every word man’s lips have uttered<br /> +Echoes in God’s skies.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A LOVE TOKEN</h2> +<p>Do you grieve no costly offering<br /> +To the Lady you can make?<br /> +One there is, and gifts less worthy<br /> +Queens have stooped to take.</p> +<p>Take a Heart of virgin silver,<br /> +Fashion it with heavy blows,<br /> +Cast it into Love’s hot furnace<br /> +When it fiercest glows.</p> +<p>With Pain’s sharpest point transfix it,<br /> +And then carve in letters fair,<br /> +Tender dreams and quaint devices,<br /> +Fancies sweet and rare.</p> +<p>Set within it Hope’s blue sapphire,<br /> +Many-changing opal fears,<br /> +Blood-red ruby-stones of daring,<br /> +Mixed with pearly tears.</p> +<p>And when you have wrought and laboured<br /> +Till the gift is all complete,<br /> +You may humbly lay your offering<br /> +At the Lady’s feet.</p> +<p>Should her mood perchance be gracious—<br /> +With disdainful smiling pride,<br /> +She will place it with the trinkets<br /> +Glittering at her side.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A TRYST WITH DEATH</h2> +<p>I am footsore and very weary,<br /> +But I travel to meet a Friend:<br /> +The way is long and dreary,<br /> +But I know that it soon must end.</p> +<p>He is travelling fast like the whirlwind,<br /> +And though I creep slowly on,<br /> +We are drawing nearer, nearer,<br /> +And the journey is almost done.</p> +<p>Through the heat of many summers,<br /> +Through many a springtime rain,<br /> +Through long autumns and weary winters,<br /> +I have hoped to meet him, in vain.</p> +<p>I know that he will not fail me,<br /> +So I count every hour chime,<br /> +Every throb of my own heart’s beating,<br /> +That tells of the flight of Time.</p> +<p>On the day of my birth he plighted<br /> +His kingly word to me:-<br /> +I have seen him in dreams so often,<br /> +That I know what his smile must be.</p> +<p>I have toiled through the sunny woodland,<br /> +Through fields that basked in the light;<br /> +And through the lone paths in the forest<br /> +I crept in the dead of night.</p> +<p>I will not fear at his coming,<br /> +Although I must meet him alone;<br /> +He will look in my eyes so gently,<br /> +And take my hand in his own.</p> +<p>Like a dream all my toil will vanish,<br /> +When I lay my head on his breast—<br /> +But the journey is very weary,<br /> +And he only can give me rest!</p> +<h2>VERSE: FIDELIS</h2> +<p>You have taken back the promise<br /> +That you spoke so long ago;<br /> +Taken back the heart you gave me—<br /> +I must even let it go.<br /> +Where Love once has breathed, Pride dieth:<br /> +So I struggled, but in vain,<br /> +First to keep the links together,<br /> +Then to piece the broken chain.</p> +<p>But it might not be—so freely<br /> +All your friendship I restore,<br /> +And the heart that I had taken<br /> +As my own for evermore.<br /> +No shade of reproach shall touch you,<br /> +Dread no more a claim from me—<br /> +But I will not have you fancy<br /> +That I count myself as free.</p> +<p>I am bound by the old promise;<br /> +What can break that golden chain?<br /> +Not even the words that you have spoken,<br /> +Or the sharpness of my pain:<br /> +Do you think, because you fail me<br /> +And draw back your hand to-day,<br /> +That from out the heart I gave you<br /> +My strong love can fade away?</p> +<p>It will live. No eyes may see it;<br /> +In my soul it will lie deep,<br /> +Hidden from all; but I shall feel it<br /> +Often stirring in its sleep.<br /> +So remember, that the friendship<br /> +Which you now think poor and vain,<br /> +Will endure in hope and patience,<br /> +Till you ask for it again.</p> +<p>Perhaps in some long twilight hour,<br /> +Like those we have known of old,<br /> +When past shadows gather round you,<br /> +And your present friends grow cold,<br /> +You may stretch your hands out towards me,—<br /> +Ah! you will—I know not when—<br /> +I shall nurse my love and keep it<br /> +Faithfully, for you, till then.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A SHADOW</h2> +<p>What lack the valleys and mountains<br /> +That once were green and gay?<br /> +What lack the babbling fountains?<br /> +Their voice is sad to-day.<br /> +Only the sound of a voice,<br /> +Tender and sweet and low,<br /> +That made the earth rejoice,<br /> +A year ago!</p> +<p>What lack the tender flowers?<br /> +A shadow is on the sun:<br /> +What lack the merry hours,<br /> +That I long that they were done?<br /> +Only two smiling eyes,<br /> +That told of joy and mirth:<br /> +They are shining in the skies,<br /> +I mourn on earth!</p> +<p>What lacks my heart, that makes it<br /> +So weary and full of pain,<br /> +That trembling Hope forsakes it,<br /> +Never to come again?<br /> +Only another heart,<br /> +Tender and all mine own,<br /> +In the still grave it lies;<br /> +I weep alone!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE SAILOR BOY</h2> +<p>My Life you ask of? why, you know<br /> +Full soon my little Life is told;<br /> +It has had no great joy or woe,<br /> +For I am only twelve years old.<br /> +Ere long I hope I shall have been<br /> +On my first voyage, and wonders seen.<br /> +Some princess I may help to free<br /> +From pirates, on a far-off sea;<br /> +Or, on some desert isle be left,<br /> +Of friends and shipmates all bereft.</p> +<p>For the first time I venture forth,<br /> +From our blue mountains of the north.<br /> +My kinsman kept the lodge that stood<br /> +Guarding the entrance near the wood,<br /> +By the stone gateway grey and old,<br /> +With quaint devices carved about,<br /> +And broken shields; while dragons bold<br /> +Glared on the common world without;<br /> +And the long trembling ivy spray<br /> +Half hid the centuries’ decay.<br /> +In solitude and silence grand<br /> +The castle towered above the land:<br /> +The castle of the Earl, whose name<br /> +(Wrapped in old bloody legends) came<br /> +Down through the times when Truth and Right<br /> +Bent down to armèd Pride and Might.<br /> +He owned the country far and near;<br /> +And, for some weeks in every year,<br /> +(When the brown leaves were falling fast<br /> +And the long, lingering autumn passed,)<br /> +He would come down to hunt the deer,<br /> +With hound and horse in splendid pride.<br /> +The story lasts the live-long year,<br /> +The peasant’s winter evening fills,<br /> +When he is gone and they abide<br /> +In the lone quiet of their hills.</p> +<p>I longed, too, for the happy night,<br /> +When, all with torches flaring bright,<br /> +The crowding villagers would stand,<br /> +A patient, eager, waiting band,<br /> +Until the signal ran like flame—<br /> +“They come!” and, slackening speed, they came.<br /> +Outriders first, in pomp and state,<br /> +Pranced on their horses through the gate;<br /> +Then the four steeds as black as night,<br /> +All decked with trappings blue and white,<br /> +Drew through the crowd that opened wide,<br /> +The Earl and Countess side by side.<br /> +The stern grave Earl, with formal smile<br /> +And glistening eyes and stately pride,<br /> +Could ne’er my childish gaze beguile<br /> +From the fair presence by his side.<br /> +The lady’s soft sad glance, her eyes,<br /> +(Like stars that shone in summer skies,)<br /> +Her pure white face so calmly bent,<br /> +With gentle greetings round her sent<br /> +Her look, that always seemed to gaze<br /> +Where the blue past had closed again<br /> +Over some happy shipwrecked days,<br /> +With all their freight of love and pain:<br /> +She did not even seem to see<br /> +The little lord upon her knee.<br /> +And yet he was like angel fair,<br /> +With rosy cheeks and golden hair,<br /> +That fell on shoulders white as snow:<br /> +But the blue eyes that shone below<br /> +His clustering rings of auburn curls,<br /> +Were not his mother’s, but the Earl’s.</p> +<p>I feared the Earl, so cold and grim,<br /> +I never dared be seen by him.<br /> +When through our gate he used to ride,<br /> +My kinsman Walter bade me hide;<br /> +He said he was so stern.<br /> +So, when the hunt came past our way,<br /> +I always hastened to obey,<br /> +Until I heard the bugles play<br /> +The notes of their return.<br /> +But she—my very heart-strings stir<br /> +Whene’er I speak or think of her—<br /> +The whole wide world could never see<br /> +A noble lady such as she,<br /> +So full of angel charity.</p> +<p>Strange things of her our neighbours told<br /> +In the long winter evenings cold,<br /> +Around the fire. They would draw near<br /> +And speak half-whispering, as in fear;<br /> +As if they thought the Earl could hear<br /> +Their treason ’gainst his name.<br /> +They thought the story that his pride<br /> +Had stooped to wed a low-born bride,<br /> +A stain upon his fame.<br /> +Some said ’twas false; there could not be<br /> +Such blot on his nobility:<br /> +But others vowed that they had heard<br /> +The actual story word for word,<br /> +From one who well my lady knew,<br /> +And had declared the story true.</p> +<p>In a far village, little known,<br /> +She dwelt—so ran the tale—alone.<br /> +A widowed bride, yet, oh! so bright,<br /> +Shone through the mist of grief, her charms;<br /> +They said it was the loveliest sight—<br /> +She with her baby in her arms.<br /> +The Earl, one summer morning, rode<br /> +By the sea-shore where she abode;<br /> +Again he came—that vision sweet<br /> +Drew him reluctant to her feet.<br /> +Fierce must the struggle in his heart<br /> +Have been, between his love and pride,<br /> +Until he chose that wondrous part,<br /> +To ask her to become his bride.<br /> +Yet, ere his noble name she bore,<br /> +He made her vow that nevermore<br /> +She would behold her child again,<br /> +But hide his name and hers from men.<br /> +The trembling promise duly spoken,<br /> +All links of the low past were broken;<br /> +And she arose to take her stand<br /> +Amid the nobles of the land.<br /> +Then all would wonder—could it be<br /> +That one so lowly born as she,<br /> +Raised to such height of bliss, should seem<br /> +Still living in some weary dream?<br /> +’Tis true she bore with calmest grace<br /> +The honours of her lofty place,<br /> +Yet never smiled, in peace or joy,<br /> +Not even to greet her princely boy.<br /> +She heard, with face of white despair,<br /> +The cannon thunder through the air,<br /> +That she had given the Earl an heir.<br /> +Nay, even more, (they whispered low,<br /> +As if they scarce durst fancy so,)<br /> +That, through her lofty wedded life,<br /> +No word, no tone, betrayed the wife.<br /> +Her look seemed ever in the past;<br /> +Never to him it grew more sweet;<br /> +The self-same weary glance she cast<br /> +Upon the grey-hound at her feet,<br /> +As upon him, who bade her claim<br /> +The crowning honour of his name.</p> +<p>This gossip, if old Walter heard,<br /> +He checked it with a scornful word:<br /> +I never durst such tales repeat;<br /> +He was too serious and discreet<br /> +To speak of what his lord might do;<br /> +Besides, he loved my lady too.<br /> +And many a time, I recollect,<br /> +They were together in the wood;<br /> +He, with an air of grave respect,<br /> +And earnest look, uncovered stood.<br /> +And though their speech I never heard,<br /> +(Save now and then a louder word,)<br /> +I saw he spake as none but one<br /> +She loved and trusted, durst have done;<br /> +For oft I watched them in the shade<br /> +That the close forest branches made,<br /> +Till slanting golden sunbeams came<br /> +And smote the fir-trees into flame,<br /> +A radiant glory round her lit,<br /> +Then down her white robes seemed to flit,<br /> +Gilding the brown leaves on the ground,<br /> +And all the waving ferns around.<br /> +While by some gloomy pine she leant<br /> +And he in earnest talk would stand,<br /> +I saw the tear-drops, as she bent,<br /> +Fall on the flowers in her hand.—<br /> +Strange as it seemed and seems to be,<br /> +That one so sad, so cold as she,<br /> +Could love a little child like me—<br /> +Yet so it was. I never heard<br /> +Such tender words as she would say,<br /> +And murmurs, sweeter than a word,<br /> +Would breathe upon me as I lay.<br /> +While I, in smiling joy, would rest,<br /> +For hours, my head upon her breast.<br /> +Our neighbours said that none could see<br /> +In me the common childish charms,<br /> +(So grave and still I used to be,)<br /> +And yet she held me in her arms,<br /> +In a fond clasp, so close, so tight—<br /> +I often dream of it at night.<br /> +She bade me tell her all—no other<br /> +My childish thoughts e’er cared to know:<br /> +For I—I never knew my mother;<br /> +I was an orphan long ago.<br /> +And I could all my fancies pour,<br /> +That gentle loving face before.<br /> +She liked to hear me tell her all;<br /> +How that day I had climbed the tree,<br /> +To make the largest fir-cones fall;<br /> +And how one day I hoped to be<br /> +A sailor on the deep blue sea—<br /> +She loved to hear it all!</p> +<p>Then wondrous things she used to tell,<br /> +Of the strange dreams that she had known.<br /> +I used to love to hear them well,<br /> +If only for her sweet low tone,<br /> +Sometimes so sad, although I knew<br /> +That such things never could be true.<br /> +One day she told me such a tale<br /> +It made me grow all cold and pale,<br /> +The fearful thing she told!<br /> +Of a poor woman mad and wild<br /> +Who coined the life-blood of her child,<br /> +And tempted by a fiend, had sold<br /> +The heart out of her breast for gold.<br /> +But, when she saw me frightened seem,<br /> +She smiled, and said it was a dream.<br /> +When I look back and think of her,<br /> +My very heart-strings seem to stir;<br /> +How kind, how fair she was, how good<br /> +I cannot tell you. If I could<br /> +You, too, would love her. The mere thought<br /> +Of her great love for me has brought<br /> +Tears in my eyes: though far away,<br /> +It seems as it were yesterday.<br /> +And just as when I look on high<br /> +Through the blue silence of the sky,<br /> +Fresh stars shine out, and more and more,<br /> +Where I could see so few before;<br /> +So, the more steadily I gaze<br /> +Upon those far-off misty days,<br /> +Fresh words, fresh tones, fresh memories start<br /> +Before my eyes and in my heart.<br /> +I can remember how one day<br /> +(Talking in silly childish way)<br /> +I said how happy I should be<br /> +If I were like her son—as fair,<br /> +With just such bright blue eyes as he,<br /> +And such long locks of golden hair.<br /> +A strange smile on her pale face broke,<br /> +And in strange solemn words she spoke:<br /> +“My own, my darling one—no, no!<br /> +I love you, far, far better so.<br /> +I would not change the look you bear,<br /> +Or one wave of your dark brown hair.<br /> +The mere glance of your sunny eyes,<br /> +Deep in my deepest soul I prize<br /> +Above that baby fair!<br /> +Not one of all the Earl’s proud line<br /> +In beauty ever matched with thine;<br /> +And, ’tis by thy dark locks thou art<br /> +Bound even faster round my heart,<br /> +And made more wholly mine!”<br /> +And then she paused, and weeping said,<br /> +“You are like one who now is dead—<br /> +Who sleeps in a far-distant grave.<br /> +Oh may God grant that you may be<br /> +As noble and as good as he,<br /> +As gentle and as brave!”<br /> +Then in my childish way I cried,<br /> +“The one you tell me of who died,<br /> +Was he as noble as the Earl?”<br /> +I see her red lips scornful curl,<br /> +I feel her hold my hand again<br /> +So tightly, that I shrink in pain—<br /> +I seem to hear her say,<br /> +“He whom I tell you of, who died,<br /> +He was so noble and so gay,<br /> +So generous and so brave,<br /> +That the proud Earl by his dear side<br /> +Would look a craven slave.”<br /> +She paused; then, with a quivering sigh,<br /> +She laid her hand upon my brow:<br /> +“Live like him, darling, and so die.<br /> +Remember that he tells you now,<br /> +True peace, real honour, and content,<br /> +In cheerful pious toil abide;<br /> +That gold and splendour are but sent<br /> +To curse our vanity and pride.”<br /> +One day some childish fever pain<br /> +Burnt in my veins and fired my brain.<br /> +Moaning, I turned from side to side;<br /> +And, sobbing in my bed, I cried,<br /> +Till night in calm and darkness crept<br /> +Around me, and at last I slept.<br /> +When suddenly I woke to see<br /> +The Lady bending over me.<br /> +The drops of cold November rain<br /> +Were falling from her long, damp hair;<br /> +Her anxious eyes were dim with pain;<br /> +Yet she looked wondrous fair.<br /> +Arrayed for some great feast she came,<br /> +With stones that shone and burnt like flame;<br /> +Wound round her neck, like some bright snake,<br /> +And set like stars within her hair,<br /> +They sparkled so, they seemed to make<br /> +A glory everywhere.<br /> +I felt her tears upon my face,<br /> +Her kisses on my eyes;<br /> +And a strange thought I could not trace<br /> +I felt within my heart arise;<br /> +And, half in feverish pain, I said:<br /> +“Oh if my mother were not dead!”<br /> +And Walter bade me sleep; but she<br /> +Said, “Is it not the same to thee<br /> +That <i>I</i> watch by thy bed?”<br /> +I answered her, “I love you, too;<br /> +But it can never be the same;<br /> +She was no Countess like to you,<br /> +Nor wore such sparkling stones of flame.”<br /> +Oh the wild look of fear and dread!<br /> +The cry she gave of bitter woe!<br /> +I often wonder what I said<br /> +To make her moan and shudder so.<br /> +Through the long night she tended me<br /> +With such sweet care and charity.<br /> +But should weary you to tell<br /> +All that I know and love so well:<br /> +Yet one night more stands out alone<br /> +With a sad sweetness all its own.</p> +<p>The wind blew loud that dreary night:<br /> +Its wailing voice I well remember:<br /> +The stars shone out so large and bright<br /> +Upon the frosty fir-boughs white,<br /> +That dreary night of cold December.<br /> +I saw old Walter silent stand,<br /> +Watching the soft white flakes of snow<br /> +With looks I could not understand,<br /> +Of strange perplexity and woe.<br /> +At last he turned and took my hand,<br /> +And said the Countess just had sent<br /> +To bid us come; for she would fain<br /> +See me once more, before she went<br /> +Away—never to come again.<br /> +We came in silence through the wood<br /> +(Our footfall was the only sound)<br /> +To where the great white castle stood,<br /> +With darkness shadowing it around.<br /> +Breathless, we trod with cautious care<br /> +Up the great echoing marble stair;<br /> +Trembling, by Walter’s hand I held,<br /> +Scared by the splendours I beheld:<br /> +Now thinking, “Should the Earl appear!”<br /> +Now looking up with giddy fear<br /> +To the dim vaulted roof, that spread<br /> +Its gloomy arches overhead.<br /> +Long corridors we softly past,<br /> +(My heart was beating loud and fast)<br /> +And reached the Lady’s room at last:<br /> +A strange faint odour seemed to weigh<br /> +Upon the dim and darkened air;<br /> +One shaded lamp, with softened ray,<br /> +Scarce showed the gloomy splendour there.<br /> +The dull red brands were burning low,<br /> +And yet a fitful gleam of light,<br /> +Would now and then, with sudden glow,<br /> +Start forth, then sink again in night.<br /> +I gazed around, yet half in fear,<br /> +Till Walter told me to draw near:<br /> +And in the strange and flickering light,<br /> +Towards the Lady’s bed I crept;<br /> +All folded round with snowy white,<br /> +She lay; (one would have said she slept;)<br /> +So still the look of that white face,<br /> +It seemed as it were carved in stone,<br /> +I paused before I dared to place<br /> +Within her cold white hand my own.<br /> +But, with a smile of sweet surprise,<br /> +She turned to me her dreamy eyes;<br /> +And slowly, as if life were pain,<br /> +She drew me in her arms to lie:<br /> +She strove to speak, and strove in vain;<br /> +Each breath was like a long-drawn sigh.<br /> +The throbs that seemed to shake her breast,<br /> +The trembling clasp, so loose and weak,<br /> +At last grew calmer, and at rest;<br /> +And then she strove once more to speak:<br /> +“My God, I thank thee, that my pain<br /> +Of day by day and year by year,<br /> +Has not been suffered all in vain,<br /> +And I may die while he is near.<br /> +I will not fear but that Thy grace<br /> +Has swept away my sin and woe,<br /> +And sent this little angel face,<br /> +In my last hour to tell me so.”<br /> +(And here her voice grew faint and low,)<br /> +“My child, where’er thy life may go,<br /> +To know that thou art brave and true,<br /> +Will pierce the highest heavens through,<br /> +And even there my soul shall be<br /> +More joyful for this thought of thee.”<br /> +She folded her white hands, and stayed;<br /> +All cold and silently she lay:<br /> +I knelt beside the bed, and prayed<br /> +The prayer she used to make me say.<br /> +I said it many times, and then<br /> +She did not move, but seemed to be<br /> +In a deep sleep, nor stirred again.<br /> +No sound woke in the silent room,<br /> +Or broke the dim and solemn gloom,<br /> +Save when the brands that burnt so low,<br /> +With noisy fitful gleam of light,<br /> +Would spread around a sudden glow,<br /> +Then sink in silence and in night.<br /> +How long I stood I do not know:<br /> +At last poor Walter came, and said<br /> +(So sadly) that we now must go,<br /> +And whispered, she we loved was dead.<br /> +He bade me kiss her face once more,<br /> +Then led me sobbing to the door.<br /> +I scarcely knew what dying meant,<br /> +Yet a strange grief, before unknown,<br /> +Weighed on my spirit as we went<br /> +And left her lying all alone.</p> +<p>We went to the far North once more,<br /> +To seek the well-remembered home,<br /> +Where my poor kinsman dwelt before,<br /> +Whence now he was too old to roam;<br /> +And there six happy years we past,<br /> +Happy and peaceful till the last;<br /> +When poor old Walter died, and he<br /> +Blessed me and said I now might be<br /> +A sailor on the deep blue sea.<br /> +And so I go; and yet in spite<br /> +Of all the joys I long to know,<br /> +Though I look onward with delight,<br /> +With something of regret I go;<br /> +And young or old, on land or sea,<br /> +One guiding memory I shall take—<br /> +Of what She prayed that I might be,<br /> +And what I will be for her sake!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A CROWN OF SORROW</h2> +<p>A Sorrow, wet with early tears<br /> +Yet bitter, had been long with me;<br /> +I wearied of this weight of years,<br /> +And would be free.</p> +<p>I tore my Sorrow from my heart,<br /> +I cast it far away in scorn;<br /> +Right joyful that we two could part—<br /> +Yet most forlorn.</p> +<p>I sought, (to take my Sorrow’s place,)<br /> +Over the world for flower or gem—<br /> +But she had had an ancient grace<br /> +Unknown to them.</p> +<p>I took once more with strange delight<br /> +My slighted Sorrow; proudly now,<br /> +I wear it, set with stars of light,<br /> +Upon my brow.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE LESSON OF THE WAR (1855)</h2> +<p>The feast is spread through England<br /> +For rich and poor to-day;<br /> +Greetings and laughter may be there,<br /> +But thoughts are far away;<br /> +Over the stormy ocean,<br /> +Over the dreary track,<br /> +Where some are gone, whom England<br /> +Will never welcome back.</p> +<p>Breathless she waits, and listens<br /> +For every eastern breeze<br /> +That bears upon its bloody wings<br /> +News from beyond the seas.<br /> +The leafless branches stirring<br /> +Make many a watcher start;<br /> +The distant tramp of steed may send<br /> +A throb from heart to heart.</p> +<p>The rulers of the nation,<br /> +The poor ones at their gate,<br /> +With the same eager wonder<br /> +The same great news await.<br /> +The poor man’s stay and comfort,<br /> +The rich man’s joy and pride,<br /> +Upon the bleak Crimean shore<br /> +Are fighting side by side.</p> +<p>The bullet comes—and either<br /> +A desolate hearth may see;<br /> +And God alone to-night knows where<br /> +The vacant place may be!<br /> +The dread that stirs the peasant<br /> +Thrills nobles’ hearts with fear—<br /> +Yet above selfish sorrow<br /> +Both hold their country dear.</p> +<p>The rich man who reposes<br /> +In his ancestral shade,<br /> +The peasant at his ploughshare,<br /> +The worker at his trade,<br /> +Each one his all his perilled,<br /> +Each has the same great stake,<br /> +Each soul can but have patience,<br /> +Each heart can only break!</p> +<p>Hushed is all party clamour;<br /> +One thought in every heart,<br /> +One dread in every household,<br /> +Has bid such strife depart.<br /> +England has called her children;<br /> +Long silent—the word came<br /> +That lit the smouldering ashes<br /> +Through all the land to flame.</p> +<p>Oh you who toil and suffer,<br /> +You gladly heard the call;<br /> +But those you sometimes envy<br /> +Have they not given their all?<br /> +Oh you who rule the nation,<br /> +Take now the toil-worn hand—<br /> +Brothers you are in sorrow,<br /> +In duty to your land.<br /> +Learn but this noble lesson<br /> +Ere Peace returns again,<br /> +And the life-blood of Old England<br /> +Will not be shed in vain.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE TWO SPIRITS (1855)</h2> +<p>Last night, when weary silence fell on all,<br /> +And starless skies arose so dim and vast,<br /> +I heard the Spirit of the Present call<br /> +Upon the sleeping Spirit of the Past.<br /> +Far off and near, I saw their radiance shine,<br /> +And listened while they spoke of deeds divine.</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Past.</p> +<p>My deeds are writ in iron;<br /> +My glory stands alone;<br /> +A veil of shadowy honour<br /> +Upon my tombs is thrown;<br /> +The great names of my heroes<br /> +Like gems in history lie;<br /> +To live they deemed ignoble,<br /> +Had they the chance to die!</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Present.</p> +<p>My children, too, are honoured;<br /> +Dear shall their memory be<br /> +To the proud lands that own them;<br /> +Dearer than thine to thee;<br /> +For, though they hold that sacred<br /> +Is God’s great gift of life,<br /> +At the first call of duty<br /> +They rush into the strife!</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Past.</p> +<p>Then, with all valiant precepts<br /> +Woman’s soft heart was fraught;<br /> +“Death, not dishonour,” echoed<br /> +The war-cry she had taught.<br /> +Fearless and glad, those mothers,<br /> +At bloody deaths elate,<br /> +Cried out they bore their children<br /> +Only for such a fate!</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Present.</p> +<p>Though such stern laws of honour<br /> +Are faded now away,<br /> +Yet many a mourning mother,<br /> +With nobler grief than they,<br /> +Bows down in sad submission:<br /> +The heroes of the fight<br /> +Learnt at her knee the lesson,<br /> +“For God and for the Right!”</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Past.</p> +<p>No voice there spake of sorrow:<br /> +They saw the noblest fall<br /> +With no repining murmur;<br /> +Stern Fate was lord of all.<br /> +And when the loved ones perished,<br /> +One cry alone arose,<br /> +Waking the startled echoes,<br /> +“Vengeance upon our foes!”</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Present.</p> +<p>Grief dwells in France and England<br /> +For many a noble son;<br /> +Yet louder than the sorrow,<br /> +“Thy will, Oh God, be done!”<br /> +From desolate homes is rising<br /> +One prayer, “Let carnage cease!<br /> +On friends and foes have mercy,<br /> +Oh Lord, and give us peace!”</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Past.</p> +<p>Then, every hearth was honoured<br /> +That sent its children forth,<br /> +To spread their country’s glory,<br /> +And gain her south or north.<br /> +Then, little recked they numbers,<br /> +No band would ever fly,<br /> +But stern and resolute they stood<br /> +To conquer or to die.</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Present.</p> +<p>And now from France and England<br /> +Their dearest and their best<br /> +Go forth to succour freedom,<br /> +To help the much oppressed;<br /> +Now, let the far-off Future<br /> +And Past bow down to-day,<br /> +Before the few young hearts that hold<br /> +Whole armaments at bay.</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Past.</p> +<p>Then, each one strove for honour,<br /> +Each for a deathless name;<br /> +Love, home, rest, joy, were offered<br /> +As sacrifice to Fame.<br /> +They longed that in far ages<br /> +Their deeds might still be told,<br /> +And distant times and nations<br /> +Their names in honour hold.</p> +<p>The Spirit of the Present.</p> +<p>Though nursed by such old legends,<br /> +Our heroes of to-day<br /> +Go cheerfully to battle<br /> +As children go to play;<br /> +They gaze with awe and wonder<br /> +On your great names of pride,<br /> +Unconscious that their own will shine<br /> +In glory side by side!</p> +<p>Day dawned; and as the Spirits passed away,<br /> +Methought I saw, in the dim morning grey,<br /> +The Past’s bright diadem had paled before<br /> +The starry crown the glorious Present wore.</p> +<h2>VERSE: A LITTLE LONGER</h2> +<p>A little longer yet—a little longer,<br /> +Shall violets bloom for thee, and sweet birds sing;<br /> +And the lime branches where soft winds are blowing,<br /> +Shall murmur the sweet promise of the Spring!</p> +<p>A little longer yet—a little longer,<br /> +Thou shalt behold the quiet of the morn;<br /> +While tender grasses and awakening flowers<br /> +Send up a golden mist to greet the dawn!</p> +<p>A little longer yet—a little longer,<br /> +The tenderness of twilight shall be thine,<br /> +The rosy clouds that float o’er dying daylight,<br /> +Nor fade till trembling stars begin to shine.</p> +<p>A little longer yet—a little longer,<br /> +Shall starry night be beautiful for thee;<br /> +And the cold moon shall look through the blue silence,<br /> +Flooding her silver path upon the sea.</p> +<p>A little longer yet—a little longer,<br /> +Life shall be thine; life with its power to will;<br /> +Life with its strength to bear, to love, to conquer,<br /> +Bringing its thousand joys thy heart to fill.</p> +<p>A little longer yet—a little longer,<br /> +The voices thou hast loved shall charm thine ear;<br /> +And thy true heart, that now beats quick to hear them,<br /> +A little longer yet shall hold them dear.</p> +<p>A little longer yet—joy while thou mayest;<br /> +Love and rejoice! for time has nought in store;<br /> +And soon the darkness of the grave shall bid thee<br /> +Love and rejoice and feel and know no more.</p> +<p>* * *</p> +<p>A little longer still—Patience, Belovèd:<br /> +A little longer still, ere Heaven unroll<br /> +The Glory, and the Brightness, and the Wonder,<br /> +Eternal, and divine, that waits thy Soul!</p> +<p>A little longer ere Life true, immortal,<br /> +(Not this our shadowy Life,) will be thine own;<br /> +And thou shalt stand where winged Archangels worship,<br /> +And trembling bow before the Great White Throne.</p> +<p>A little longer still, and Heaven awaits thee,<br /> +And fills thy spirit with a great delight;<br /> +Then our pale joys will seem a dream forgotten,<br /> +Our Sun a darkness, and our Day a Night.</p> +<p>A little longer, and thy Heart, Belovèd,<br /> +Shall beat for ever with a Love divine;<br /> +And joy so pure, so mighty, so eternal,<br /> +No creature knows and lives, will then be thine.</p> +<p>A little longer yet—and angel voices<br /> +Shall ring in heavenly chant upon thine ear;<br /> +Angels and Saints await thee, and God needs thee:<br /> +Belovèd, can we bid thee linger here!</p> +<h2>VERSE: GRIEF</h2> +<p>An ancient enemy have I,<br /> +And either he or I must die;<br /> +For he never leaveth me,<br /> +Never gives my soul relief,<br /> +Never lets my sorrow cease,<br /> +Never gives my spirit peace—<br /> +For mine enemy is Grief!</p> +<p>Pale he is, and sad and stern;<br /> +And whene’er he cometh nigh,<br /> +Blue and dim the torches burn,<br /> +Pale and shrunk the roses turn;<br /> +While my heart that he has pierced<br /> +Many a time with fiery lance,<br /> +Beats and trembles at his glance:<br /> +Clad in burning steel is he,<br /> +All my strength he can defy;<br /> +For he never leaveth me—<br /> +And one of us must die!</p> +<p>I have said, “Let ancient sages<br /> +Charm me from my thoughts of pain!”<br /> +So I read their deepest pages,<br /> +And I strove to think—in vain!<br /> +Wisdom’s cold calm words I tried,<br /> +But he was seated by my side:-<br /> +Learning I have won in vain;<br /> +She cannot rid me of my pain.</p> +<p>When at last soft sleep comes o’er me,<br /> +A cold hand is on my heart;<br /> +Stern sad eyes are there before me;<br /> +Not in dreams will he depart:<br /> +And when the same dreary vision<br /> +From my weary brain has fled,<br /> +Daylight brings the living phantom,<br /> +He is seated by my bed,<br /> +Bending o’er me all the while,<br /> +With his cruel, bitter smile,<br /> +Ever with me, ever nigh;—<br /> +And either he or I must die!</p> +<p>Then I said, long time ago,<br /> +“I will flee to other climes,<br /> +I will leave mine ancient foe!”<br /> +Though I wandered far and wide—<br /> +Still he followed at my side.</p> +<p>And I fled where the blue waters<br /> +Bathe the sunny isles of Greece;<br /> +Where Thessalian mountains rise<br /> +Up against the purple skies;<br /> +Where a haunting memory liveth<br /> +In each wood and cave and rill;<br /> +But no dream of gods could help me—<br /> +He went with me still!</p> +<p>I have been where Nile’s broad river<br /> +Flows upon the burning sand;<br /> +Where the desert monster broodeth,<br /> +Where the Eastern palm-trees stand;<br /> +I have been where pathless forests<br /> +Spread a black eternal shade;<br /> +Where the lurking panther hiding<br /> +Glares from every tangled glade;<br /> +But in vain I wandered wide,<br /> +He was always by my side!<br /> +Then I fled where snows eternal<br /> +Cold and dreary ever lie;<br /> +Where the rosy lightnings gleam,<br /> +Flashing through the northern sky;<br /> +Where the red sun turns again<br /> +Back upon his path of pain;—<br /> +But a shadowy form was with me—<br /> +I had fled in vain!</p> +<p>I have thought, “If I can gaze<br /> +Sternly on him he will fade,<br /> +For I know that he is nothing<br /> +But a dim ideal shade.”<br /> +As I gazed at him the more,<br /> +He grew stronger than before!</p> +<p>Then I said, “Mine arm is strong,<br /> +I will make him turn and flee:”<br /> +I have struggled with him long—<br /> +But that could never be!</p> +<p>Once I battled with him so<br /> +That I thought I laid him low;<br /> +Then in trembling joy I fled,<br /> +While again and still again<br /> +Murmuring to myself I said,<br /> +“Mine old enemy is dead!”<br /> +And I stood beneath the stars,<br /> +When a chill came on my frame,<br /> +And a fear I could not name,<br /> +And a sense of quick despair,<br /> +And, lo! mine enemy was there!</p> +<p>Listen, for my soul is weary,<br /> +Weary of its endless woe;<br /> +I have called on one to aid me<br /> +Mightier even than my foe.<br /> +Strength and hope fail day by day;<br /> +I shall cheat him of his prey;<br /> +Some day soon, I know not when,<br /> +He will stab me through and through;<br /> +He has wounded me before,<br /> +But my heart can bear no more;<br /> +Pray that hour may come to me,<br /> +Only then shall I be free;<br /> +Death alone has strength to take me<br /> +Where my foe can never be;<br /> +Death, and Death alone, has power<br /> +To conquer mine old enemy!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE TRIUMPH OF TIME</h2> +<p>The tender delicate Flowers,<br /> +I saw them fanned by a warm western wind,<br /> +Fed by soft summer showers,<br /> +Shielded by care, and yet, (oh Fate unkind!)<br /> +Fade in a few short hours.</p> +<p>The gentle and the gay,<br /> +Rich in a glorious Future of bright deeds,<br /> +Rejoicing in the day,<br /> +Are met by Death, who sternly, sadly leads<br /> +Them far away.</p> +<p>And Hopes, perfumed and bright,<br /> +So lately shining, wet with dew and tears,<br /> +Trembling in morning light;<br /> +I saw them change to dark and anxious fears<br /> +Before the night!</p> +<p>I wept that all must die—<br /> +“Yet Love,” I cried, “doth live, and conquer death—”<br /> +And Time passed by,<br /> +And breathed on Love, and killed it with his breath<br /> +Ere Death was nigh.</p> +<p>More bitter far than all<br /> +It was to know that Love could change and die—<br /> +Hush! for the ages call<br /> +“The Love of God lives through eternity,<br /> +And conquers all!”</p> +<h2>VERSE: A PARTING</h2> +<p>Without one bitter feeling let us part—<br /> +And for the years in which your love has shed<br /> +A radiance like a glory round my head,<br /> +I thank you, yes, I thank you from my heart.</p> +<p>I thank you for the cherished hope of years,<br /> +A starry future, dim and yet divine,<br /> +Winging its way from Heaven to be mine,<br /> +Laden with joy, and ignorant of tears.</p> +<p>I thank you, yes, I thank you even more<br /> +That my heart learnt not without love to live,<br /> +But gave and gave, and still had more to give,<br /> +From an abundant and exhaustless store.</p> +<p>I thank you, and no grief is in these tears;<br /> +I thank you, not in bitterness but truth,<br /> +For the fair vision that adorned my youth<br /> +And glorified so many happy years.</p> +<p>Yet how much more I thank you that you tore<br /> +At length the veil your hand had woven away,<br /> +Which hid my idol was a thing of clay,<br /> +And false the altar I had knelt before.</p> +<p>I thank you that you taught me the stern truth,<br /> +(None other could have told and I believed,)<br /> +That vain had been my life, and I deceived,<br /> +And wasted all the purpose of my youth.</p> +<p>I thank you that your hand dashed down the shrine,<br /> +Wherein my idol worship I had paid;<br /> +Else had I never known a soul was made<br /> +To serve and worship only the Divine.</p> +<p>I thank you that the heart I cast away<br /> +On such as you, though broken, bruised and crushed,<br /> +Now that its fiery throbbing is all hushed,<br /> +Upon a worthier altar I can lay.</p> +<p>I thank you for the lesson that such love<br /> +Is a perverting of God’s royal right,<br /> +That it is made but for the Infinite,<br /> +And all too great to live except above.</p> +<p>I thank you for a terrible awaking,<br /> +And if reproach seemed hidden in my pain,<br /> +And sorrow seemed to cry on your disdain,<br /> +Know that my blessing lay in your forsaking.</p> +<p>Farewell for ever now:- in peace we part;<br /> +And should an idle vision of my tears<br /> +Arise before your soul in after years—<br /> +Remember that I thank you from my heart!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE GOLDEN GATE</h2> +<p>Dim shadows gather thickly round, and up the misty stair they climb,<br /> +The cloudy stair that upward leads to where the closèd portals +shine,<br /> +Round which the kneeling spirits wait the opening of the Golden Gate.</p> +<p>And some with eager longing go, still pressing forward, hand in hand,<br /> +And some with weary step and slow, look back where their Belovèd +stand—<br /> +Yet up the misty stair they climb, led onward by the Angel Time.</p> +<p>As unseen hands roll back the doors, the light that floods the very +air<br /> +Is but the shadow from within, of the great glory hidden there—<br /> +And morn and eve, and soon and late, the shadows pass within the gate.</p> +<p>As one by one they enter in, and the stern portals close once more,<br /> +The halo seems to linger round those kneeling closest to the door:<br /> +The joy that lightened from that place shines still upon the watcher’s +face.</p> +<p>The faint low echo that we hear of far-off music seems to fill<br /> +The silent air with love and fear, and the world’s clamours all +grow still,<br /> +Until the portals close again, and leave us toiling on in pain.</p> +<p>Complain not that the way is long—what road is weary that leads +there?<br /> +But let the Angel take thy hand, and lead thee up the misty stair,<br /> +And then with beating heart await, the opening of the Golden Gate.</p> +<h2>VERSE: PHANTOMS</h2> +<p>Back, ye Phantoms of the Past;<br /> +In your dreary caves remain:<br /> +What have I to do with memories<br /> +Of a long-forgotten pain?</p> +<p>For my Present is all peaceful,<br /> +And my Future nobly planned:<br /> +Long ago Time’s mighty billows<br /> +Swept your footsteps from the sand.</p> +<p>Back into your caves; nor haunt me<br /> +With your voices full of woe;<br /> +I have buried grief and sorrow<br /> +In the depths of Long-ago.</p> +<p>See the glorious clouds of morning<br /> +Roll away, and clear and bright<br /> +Shine the rays of cloudless daylight—<br /> +Wherefore will ye moan of night?</p> +<p>Never shall my heart be burthened<br /> +With its ancient woe and fears;<br /> +I can drive them from my presence,<br /> +I can check these foolish tears.</p> +<p>Back, ye Phantoms; leave, oh leave me<br /> +To a new and happy lot;<br /> +Speak no more of things departed;<br /> +Leave me—for I know ye not.</p> +<p>Can it be that ’mid my gladness<br /> +I must ever hear you wail,<br /> +Of the grief that wrung my spirit,<br /> +And that made my cheek so pale?</p> +<p>Joy is mine; but your sad voices<br /> +Murmur ever in mine ear:<br /> +Vain is all the Future’s promise,<br /> +While the dreary Past is here.</p> +<p>Vain, oh worse than vain, the Visions<br /> +That my heart, my life would fill,<br /> +If the Past’s relentless phantoms<br /> +Call upon me still!</p> +<h2>VERSE: THANKFULNESS</h2> +<p>My God, I thank Thee who hast made<br /> +The Earth so bright;<br /> +So full of splendour and of joy,<br /> +Beauty and light;<br /> +So many glorious things are here,<br /> +Noble and right!</p> +<p>I thank Thee, too, that Thou hast made<br /> +Joy to abound;<br /> +So many gentle thoughts and deeds<br /> +Circling us round,<br /> +That in the darkest spot of Earth<br /> +Some love is found.</p> +<p>I thank Thee <i>more</i> that all our joy<br /> +Is touched with pain;<br /> +That shadows fall on brightest hours;<br /> +That thorns remain;<br /> +So that Earth’s bliss may be our guide,<br /> +And not our chain.</p> +<p>For Thou who knowest, Lord, how soon<br /> +Our weak heart clings,<br /> +Hast given us joys, tender and true,<br /> +Yet all with wings,<br /> +So that we see, gleaming on high,<br /> +Diviner things!</p> +<p>I thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast kept<br /> +The best in store;<br /> +We have enough, yet not too much<br /> +To long for more:<br /> +A yearning for a deeper peace,<br /> +Not known before.</p> +<p>I thank Thee, Lord, that here our souls,<br /> +Though amply blest,<br /> +Can never find, although they seek,<br /> +A perfect rest—<br /> +Nor ever shall, until they lean<br /> +On Jesus’ breast!</p> +<h2>VERSE: HOME-SICKNESS</h2> +<p>Where I am, the halls are gilded,<br /> +Stored with pictures bright and rare;<br /> +Strains of deep melodious music<br /> +Float upon the perfumed air:-<br /> +Nothing stirs the dreary silence<br /> +Save the melancholy sea,<br /> +Near the poor and humble cottage,<br /> +Where I fain would be!</p> +<p>Where I am, the sun is shining,<br /> +And the purple windows glow,<br /> +Till their rich armorial shadows<br /> +Stain the marble floor below:-<br /> +Faded Autumn leaves are trembling,<br /> +On the withered jasmine tree,<br /> +Creeping round the little casement,<br /> +Where I fain would be!</p> +<p>Where I am, the days are passing<br /> +O’er a pathway strewn with flowers;<br /> +Song and joy and starry pleasures<br /> +Crown the happy smiling hours:-<br /> +Slowly, heavily, and sadly,<br /> +Time with weary wings must flee,<br /> +Marked by pain, and toil, and sorrow,<br /> +Where I fain would be!</p> +<p>Where I am, the great and noble<br /> +Tell me of renown and fame,<br /> +And the red wine sparkles highest,<br /> +To do honour to my name:-<br /> +Far away a place is vacant,<br /> +By a humble hearth, for me,<br /> +Dying embers dimly show it,<br /> +Where I fain would be!</p> +<p>Where I am, are glorious dreaminess,<br /> +Science, genius, art divine;<br /> +And the great minds whom all honour<br /> +Interchange their thoughts with mine:-<br /> +A few simple hearts are waiting,<br /> +Longing, wearying, for me,<br /> +Far away where tears are falling,<br /> +Where I fain would be!</p> +<p>Where I am, all think me happy,<br /> +For so well I play my part,<br /> +None can guess, who smile around me,<br /> +How far distant is my heart—<br /> +Far away, in a poor cottage,<br /> +Listening to the dreary sea,<br /> +Where the treasures of my life are,<br /> +Where I fain would be!</p> +<h2>VERSE: WISHES</h2> +<p>All the fluttering wishes<br /> +Caged within thy heart<br /> +Beat their wings against it,<br /> +Longing to depart,<br /> +Till they shake their prison<br /> +With their wounded cry;<br /> +Open wide thy heart to-day,<br /> +And let the captives fly.</p> +<p>Let them first fly upward<br /> +Through the starry air,<br /> +Till you almost lose them,<br /> +For their home is there;<br /> +Then, with outspread pinions,<br /> +Circling round and round,<br /> +Wing their way, wherever<br /> +Want and woe are found.</p> +<p>Where the weary stitcher<br /> +Toils for daily bread;<br /> +Where the lonely watcher<br /> +Watches by her dead;<br /> +Where with thin weak fingers,<br /> +Toiling at the loom,<br /> +Stand the little children,<br /> +Blighted ere they bloom.</p> +<p>Where, by darkness blinded,<br /> +Groping for the light,<br /> +With distorted conscience<br /> +Men do wrong for right;<br /> +Where, in the cold shadow,<br /> +By smooth pleasure thrown,<br /> +Human hearts by hundreds<br /> +Harden into stone.</p> +<p>Where on dusty highways,<br /> +With faint heart and slow,<br /> +Cursing the glad sunlight,<br /> +Hungry outcasts go:<br /> +Where all mirth is silenced,<br /> +And the hearth is chill,<br /> +For one place is empty,<br /> +And one voice is still.</p> +<p>Some hearts will be lighter<br /> +While your captives roam<br /> +For their tender singing,<br /> +Then recal them home;<br /> +When the sunny hours<br /> +Into night depart,<br /> +Softly they will nestle<br /> +In a quiet heart.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE PEACE OF GOD</h2> +<p>We ask for Peace, oh Lord!<br /> +Thy children ask Thy Peace;<br /> +Not what the world calls rest,<br /> +That toil and care should cease,<br /> +That through bright sunny hours<br /> +Calm Life should fleet away,<br /> +And tranquil night should fade<br /> +In smiling day;—<br /> +It is not for such Peace that we would pray.</p> +<p>We ask for Peace, oh Lord!<br /> +Yet not to stand secure,<br /> +Girt round with iron Pride,<br /> +Contented to endure:<br /> +Crushing the gentle strings<br /> +That human hearts should know,<br /> +Untouched by others’ joy<br /> +Or others’ woe;—<br /> +Thou, oh dear Lord, wilt never teach us so.</p> +<p>We ask Thy Peace, oh Lord!<br /> +Through storm, and fear, and strife,<br /> +To light and guide us on,<br /> +Through a long struggling life:<br /> +While no success or gain<br /> +Shall cheer the desperate fight,<br /> +Or nerve, what the world calls,<br /> +Our wasted might:-<br /> +Yet pressing through the darkness to the light.</p> +<p>It is Thine own, oh Lord,<br /> +Who toil while others sleep;<br /> +Who sow with loving care<br /> +What other hands shall reap:<br /> +They lean on Thee entranced,<br /> +In calm and perfect rest:<br /> +Give us that Peace, oh Lord,<br /> +Divine and blest,<br /> +Thou keepest for those hearts who love Thee best.</p> +<h2>VERSE: LIFE IN DEATH AND DEATH IN LIFE</h2> +<p>I.</p> +<p>If the dread day that calls thee hence,<br /> +Through a red mist of fear should loom,<br /> +(Closing in deadliest night and gloom<br /> +Long hours of aching dumb suspense,)<br /> +And leave me to my lonely doom.</p> +<p>I think, belovèd, I could see<br /> +In thy dear eyes the loving light<br /> +Glaze into vacancy and night,<br /> +And still say, “God is good to me,<br /> +And all that He decrees is right.”</p> +<p>That, watching thy slow struggling breath,<br /> +And answering each imperfect sign,<br /> +I still could pray thy prayer and mine,<br /> +And tell thee, dear, though this was death,<br /> +That God was love, and love divine.</p> +<p>Could hold thee in my arms, and lay<br /> +Upon my heart thy weary head,<br /> +And meet thy last smile ere it fled;<br /> +Then hear, as in a dream, one say,<br /> +“Now all is over,—she is dead.”</p> +<p>Could smooth thy garments with fond care,<br /> +And cross thy hands upon thy breast,<br /> +And kiss thine eyelids down to rest,<br /> +And yet say no word of despair,<br /> +But, through my sobbing, “It is best.”</p> +<p>Could stifle down the gnawing pain,<br /> +And say, “We still divide our life,<br /> +She has the rest, and I the strife,<br /> +And mine the loss, and hers the gain:<br /> +My ill with bliss for her is rife.”</p> +<p>Then turn, and the old duties take—<br /> +Alone now—yet with earnest will<br /> +Gathering sweet sacred traces still<br /> +To help me on, and, for thy sake,<br /> +My heart and life and soul to fill.</p> +<p>I think I could check vain weak tears,<br /> +And toil,—although the world’s great space<br /> +Held nothing but one vacant place,<br /> +And see the dark and weary years<br /> +Lit only by a vanished grace.</p> +<p>And sometimes, when the day was o’er,<br /> +Call up the tender past again:<br /> +Its painful joy, its happy pain,<br /> +And live it over yet once more,<br /> +And say, “But few more years remain.”</p> +<p>And then, when I had striven my best,<br /> +And all around would smiling say,<br /> +“See how Time makes all grief decay,”<br /> +Would lie down thankfully to rest,<br /> +And seek thee in eternal day.</p> +<p>II.</p> +<p>But if the day should ever rise—<br /> +It could not and it cannot be—<br /> +Yet, if the sun should ever see,<br /> +Looking upon us from his skies,<br /> +A day that took thy heart from me;</p> +<p>If loving thee still more and more,<br /> +And still so willing to be blind,<br /> +I should the bitter knowledge find,<br /> +That Time had eaten out the core<br /> +Of love, and left the empty rind;</p> +<p>If the poor lifeless words, at last,<br /> +(The soul gone, that was once so sweet,)<br /> +Should cease my eager heart to cheat,<br /> +And crumble back into the past,<br /> +And show the whole a vain deceit;</p> +<p>If I should see thee turn away,<br /> +And know that prayer, and time, and pain,<br /> +Could no more thy lost love regain,<br /> +Than bid the hours of dying day<br /> +Gleam in their mid-day noon again;</p> +<p>If I should loose thy hand, and know<br /> +That henceforth we must dwell apart,<br /> +Since I had seen thy love depart,<br /> +And only count the hours flow<br /> +By the dull throbbing of my heart;</p> +<p>If I should gaze and gaze in vain<br /> +Into thine eyes so deep and clear,<br /> +And read the truth of all my fear<br /> +Half mixed with pity for my pain,<br /> +And sorrow for the vanished year;</p> +<p>If not to grieve thee overmuch,<br /> +I strove to counterfeit disdain,<br /> +And weave me a new life again,<br /> +Which thy life could not mar, or touch,<br /> +And so smile down my bitter pain;</p> +<p>The ghost of my dead Past would rise<br /> +And mock me, and I could not dare<br /> +Look to a future of despair,<br /> +Or even to the eternal skies,<br /> +For I should still be lonely there.</p> +<p>All Truth, all Honour, then would seem<br /> +Vain clouds, which the first wind blew by;<br /> +All Trust, a folly doomed to die;<br /> +All Life, a useless empty dream;<br /> +All Love—since thine had failed—a lie.</p> +<p>But see, thy tender smile has cast<br /> +My fear away: this thought of mine<br /> +Is treason to my Love and thine;<br /> +For Love is Life, and Death at last<br /> +Crowns it eternal and divine!</p> +<h2>VERSE: RECOLLECTIONS</h2> +<p>As strangers, you and I are here;<br /> +We both as aliens stand,<br /> +Where once, in years gone by, I dwelt<br /> +No stranger in the land.<br /> +Then while you gaze on park and stream,<br /> +Let me remain apart,<br /> +And listen to the awakened sound<br /> +Of voices in my heart.</p> +<p>Here, where upon the velvet lawn<br /> +The cedar spreads its shade,<br /> +And by the flower-beds all around,<br /> +Bright roses bloom and fade;<br /> +Shrill merry childish laughter rings,<br /> +And baby voices sweet,<br /> +And by me, on the path, I hear<br /> +The tread of little feet.</p> +<p>Down the dark avenue of limes,<br /> +Whose perfume loads the air,<br /> +Whose boughs are rustling overhead,<br /> +(For the west wind is there,)<br /> +I hear the sound of earnest talk,<br /> +Warnings and counsels wise,<br /> +And the quick questioning that brought<br /> +Such gentle calm replies.</p> +<p>Still the light bridge hangs o’er the lake,<br /> +Where broad-leaved lilies lie,<br /> +And the cool water shows again<br /> +The cloud that moves on high;—<br /> +And one voice speaks, in tones I thought<br /> +The past for ever kept;<br /> +But now I know, deep in my heart<br /> +Its echoes only slept.</p> +<p>I hear, within the shady porch,<br /> +Once more, the measured sound<br /> +Of the old ballads that were read,<br /> +While we sat listening round;<br /> +The starry passion-flower still<br /> +Up the green trellice climbs;<br /> +The tendrils waving seem to keep<br /> +The cadence of the rhymes.</p> +<p>I might have striven, and striven in vain,<br /> +Such visions to recall,<br /> +Well known and yet forgotten; now<br /> +I see, I hear, them all!<br /> +The Present pales before the Past,<br /> +Who comes with angel wings;<br /> +As in a dream I stand, amidst<br /> +Strange yet familiar things!</p> +<p>Enough; so let us go, mine eyes<br /> +Are blinded by their tears;<br /> +A voice speaks to my soul to-day<br /> +Of long forgotten years.<br /> +And yet the vision in my heart,<br /> +In a few hours more,<br /> +Will fade into the silent past,<br /> +Silently as before.</p> +<h2>VERSE: ILLUSION</h2> +<p>Where the golden corn is bending,<br /> +And the singing reapers pass,<br /> +Where the chestnut woods are sending<br /> +Leafy showers upon the grass,</p> +<p>The blue river onward flowing<br /> +Mingles with its noisy strife,<br /> +The murmur of the flowers growing,<br /> +And the hum of insect life.</p> +<p>I, from that rich plain was gazing<br /> +Towards the snowy mountains high,<br /> +Who their gleaming peaks were raising<br /> +Up against the purple sky.</p> +<p>And the glory of their shining,<br /> +Bathed in clouds of rosy light,<br /> +Set my weary spirit pining<br /> +For a home so pure and bright!</p> +<p>So I left the plain, and weary,<br /> +Fainting, yet with hope sustained,<br /> +Toiled through pathways long and dreary<br /> +Till the mountain top was gained.</p> +<p>Lo! the height that I had taken,<br /> +As so shining from below,<br /> +Was a desolate, forsaken<br /> +Region of perpetual snow.</p> +<p>I am faint, my feet are bleeding,<br /> +All my feeble strength is worn,<br /> +In the plain no soul is heeding,<br /> +I am here alone, forlorn.</p> +<p>Lights are shining, bells are tolling,<br /> +In the busy vale below;<br /> +Near me night’s black clouds are rolling,<br /> +Gathering o’er a waste of snow.</p> +<p>So I watch the river winding<br /> +Through the misty fading plain,<br /> +Bitter are the tear-drops blinding,<br /> +Bitter useless toil and pain—<br /> +Bitterest of all the finding<br /> +That my dream was false and vain!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A VISION</h2> +<p>Gloomy and black are the cypress trees,<br /> +Drearily waileth the chill night breeze.<br /> +The long grass waveth, the tombs are white,<br /> +And the black clouds flit o’er the chill moonlight.<br /> +Silent is all save the dropping rain,<br /> +When slowly there cometh a mourning train,<br /> +The lone churchyard is dark and dim,<br /> +And the mourners raise a funeral hymn:</p> +<p>“Open, dark grave, and take her;<br /> +Though we have loved her so,<br /> +Yet we must now forsake her,<br /> +Love will no more awake her:<br /> +(Oh, bitter woe!)<br /> +Open thine arms and take her<br /> +To rest below!</p> +<p>“Vain is our mournful weeping,<br /> +Her gentle life is o’er;<br /> +Only the worm is creeping,<br /> +Where she will soon be sleeping,<br /> +For evermore—<br /> +Nor joy nor love is keeping<br /> +For her in store!”</p> +<p>Gloomy and black are the cypress trees,<br /> +And drearily wave in the chill night breeze.<br /> +The dark clouds part and the heavens are blue,<br /> +Where the trembling stars are shining through.<br /> +Slowly across the gleaming sky,<br /> +A crowd of white angels are passing by.<br /> +Like a fleet of swans they float along,<br /> +Or the silver notes of a dying song.<br /> +Like a cloud of incense their pinions rise,<br /> +Fading away up the purple skies.<br /> +But hush! for the silent glory is stirred,<br /> +By a strain such as earth has never heard:</p> +<p>“Open, oh Heaven! we bear her,<br /> +This gentle maiden mild,<br /> +Earth’s griefs we gladly spare her,<br /> +From earthly joys we tear her,<br /> +Still undefiled;<br /> +And to thine arms we bear her,<br /> +Thine own, thy child.</p> +<p>“Open, oh Heaven! no morrow<br /> +Will see this joy o’ercast,<br /> +No pain, no tears, no sorrow,<br /> +Her gentle heart will borrow;<br /> +Sad life is past;<br /> +Shielded and safe from sorrow,<br /> +At home at last.”</p> +<p>But the vision faded and all was still,<br /> +On the purple valley and distant hill.<br /> +No sound was there save the wailing breeze,<br /> +The rain, and the rustling cypress trees.</p> +<h2>VERSE: PICTURES IN THE FIRE</h2> +<p>What is it you ask me, darling?<br /> +All my stories, child, you know;<br /> +I have no strange dreams to tell you,<br /> +Pictures I have none to show.</p> +<p>Tell you glorious scenes of travel?<br /> +Nay, my child, that cannot be,<br /> +I have seen no foreign countries,<br /> +Marvels none on land or sea.</p> +<p>Yet strange sights in truth I witness,<br /> +And I gaze until I tire,<br /> +Wondrous pictures, changing ever,<br /> +As I look into the fire.</p> +<p>There, last night, I saw a cavern,<br /> +Black as pitch; within it lay<br /> +Coiled in many folds a dragon,<br /> +Glaring as if turned at bay.</p> +<p>And a knight in dismal armour<br /> +On a wingèd eagle came,<br /> +To do battle with this dragon;<br /> +And his crest was all of flame.</p> +<p>As I gazed the dragon faded,<br /> +And, instead, sate Pluto crowned,<br /> +By a lake of burning fire;<br /> +Spirits dark were crouching round.</p> +<p>That was gone, and lo! before me,<br /> +A cathedral vast and grim;<br /> +I could almost hear the organ<br /> +Peal alone the arches dim.</p> +<p>As I watched the wreathèd pillars,<br /> +Groves of stately palms arose,<br /> +And a group of swarthy Indians<br /> +Stealing on some sleeping foes.</p> +<p>Stay; a cataract glancing brightly,<br /> +Dashed and sparkled; and beside<br /> +Lay a broken marble monster,<br /> +Mouth and eyes were staring wide.</p> +<p>Then I saw a maiden wreathing<br /> +Starry flowers in garlands sweet;<br /> +Did she see the fiery serpent<br /> +That was wrapped about her feet?</p> +<p>That fell crashing all and vanished;<br /> +And I saw two armies close—<br /> +I could almost hear the clarions,<br /> +And the shouting of the foes.</p> +<p>They were gone; and lo! bright angels,<br /> +On a barren mountain wild,<br /> +Raised appealing arms to Heaven,<br /> +Bearing up a little child.</p> +<p>And I gazed, and gazed, and slowly<br /> +Gathered in my eyes sad tears,<br /> +And the fiery pictures bore me<br /> +Back through distant dreams of years.</p> +<p>Once again I tasted sorrow,<br /> +With past joy was once more gay,<br /> +Till the shade had gathered round me—<br /> +And the fire had died away.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE SETTLERS</h2> +<p>Two stranger youths in the Far West,<br /> +Beneath the ancient forest trees,<br /> +Pausing, amid their toil to rest,<br /> +Spake of their home beyond the seas;<br /> +Spake of the hearts that beat so warmly,<br /> +Of the hearts they loved so well.<br /> +In their chilly northern country.<br /> +“Would,” they cried, “some voice could tell<br /> +Where they are, our own beloved ones!”<br /> +They looked up to the evening sky<br /> +Half hidden by the giant branches,<br /> +But heard no angel-voice reply.<br /> +All silent was the quiet evening;<br /> +Silent were the ancient trees;<br /> +They only heard the murmuring song<br /> +Of the summer breeze,<br /> +That gently played among<br /> +The acacia trees.<br /> +And did no warning spirit answer,<br /> +Amid the silence all around;<br /> +“Before the lowly village altar<br /> +She thou lovest may be found,<br /> +Thou, who trustest still so blindly,<br /> +Know she stands a smiling bride!<br /> +Forgetting thee, she turneth kindly<br /> +To the stranger at her side.<br /> +Yes, this day thou art forgotten,<br /> +Forgotten, too, thy last farewell,<br /> +All the vows that she has spoken,<br /> +And thy heart has kept so well.<br /> +Dream no more of a starry future,<br /> +In thy home beyond the seas!”<br /> +But he only heard the gentle sigh<br /> +Of the summer breeze,<br /> +So softly passing by<br /> +The acacia trees.</p> +<p>And vainly, too, the other, looking<br /> +Smiling up through hopeful tears,<br /> +Asked in his heart of hearts, “Where is she,<br /> +She I love these many years?”<br /> +He heard no echo calling faintly:<br /> +“Lo, she lieth cold and pale,<br /> +And her smile so calm and saintly<br /> +Heeds not grieving sob or wail—<br /> +Heeds not the lilies strewn upon her,<br /> +Pure as she is, and as white,<br /> +Or the solemn chanting voices,<br /> +Or the taper’s ghastly light.”<br /> +But silent still was the ancient forest,<br /> +Silent were the gloomy trees,<br /> +He only heard the wailing sound<br /> +Of the summer breeze,<br /> +That sadly played around<br /> +The acacia trees</p> +<h2>VERSE: HUSH</h2> +<p>“I can scarcely hear,” she murmured,<br /> +“For my heart beats loud and fast,<br /> +But surely, in the far, far distance,<br /> +I can hear a sound at last.”<br /> +“It is only the reapers singing,<br /> +As they carry home their sheaves,<br /> +And the evening breeze has risen,<br /> +And rustles the dying leaves.”</p> +<p>“Listen! there are voices talking.”<br /> +Calmly still she strove to speak,<br /> +Yet her voice grew faint and trembling,<br /> +And the red flushed in her cheek.<br /> +“It is only the children playing<br /> +Below, now their work is done,<br /> +And they laugh that their eyes are dazzled<br /> +By the rays of the setting sun.”</p> +<p>Fainter grew her voice, and weaker<br /> +As with anxious eyes she cried,<br /> +“Down the avenue of chestnuts,<br /> +I can hear a horseman ride.”<br /> +“It was only the deer that were feeding<br /> +In a herd on the clover grass,<br /> +They were startled, and fled to the thicket,<br /> +As they saw the reapers pass.”</p> +<p>Now the night arose in silence,<br /> +Birds lay in their leafy nest,<br /> +And the deer couched in the forest,<br /> +And the children were at rest:<br /> +There was only a sound of weeping<br /> +From watchers around a bed,<br /> +But Rest to the weary spirit,<br /> +Peace to the quiet Dead!</p> +<h2>VERSE: HOURS</h2> +<p>When the bright stars came out last night,<br /> +And the dew lay on the flowers,<br /> +I had a vision of delight—<br /> +A dream of by-gone hours.</p> +<p>Those hours that came and fled so fast,<br /> +Of pleasure or of pain,<br /> +As phantoms rose from out the past<br /> +Before my eyes again.</p> +<p>With beating heart did I behold<br /> +A train of joyous hours,<br /> +Lit with the radiant light of old,<br /> +And, smiling, crowned with flowers.</p> +<p>And some were hours of childish sorrow,<br /> +A mimicry of pain,<br /> +That through their tears looked for a morrow<br /> +They knew must smile again.</p> +<p>Those hours of hope that longed for life,<br /> +And wished their part begun,<br /> +And ere the summons to the strife,<br /> +Dreamed that the field was won.</p> +<p>I knew the echo of their voice,<br /> +The starry crowns they wore;<br /> +The vision made my soul rejoice<br /> +With the old thrill of yore.</p> +<p>I knew the perfume of their flowers;<br /> +The glorious shining rays<br /> +Around these happy smiling hours<br /> +Were lit in by-gone days.</p> +<p>Oh stay, I cried—bright visions, stay,<br /> +And leave me not forlorn!<br /> +But, smiling still, they passed away,<br /> +Like shadows of the morn.</p> +<p>One spirit still remained, and cried,<br /> +“Thy soul shall ne’er forget!”<br /> +He standeth ever by my side—<br /> +The phantom called Regret!</p> +<p>But still the spirits rose, and there<br /> +Were weary hours of pain,<br /> +And anxious hours of fear and care<br /> +Bound by an iron chain.</p> +<p>Dim shadows came of lonely hours,<br /> +That shunned the light of day,<br /> +And in the opening smile of flowers<br /> +Saw only quick decay.</p> +<p>Calm hours that sought the starry skies<br /> +For heavenly lore were there;<br /> +With folded hands and earnest eyes,<br /> +I knew the hours of prayer.</p> +<p>Stern hours that darkened the sun’s light,<br /> +Heralds of coming woes,<br /> +With trailing wings, before my sight<br /> +From the dim past arose.</p> +<p>As each dark vision passed and spoke<br /> +I prayed it to depart:<br /> +At each some buried sorrow woke<br /> +And stirred within my heart.</p> +<p>Until these hours of pain and care<br /> +Lifted their tearful eyes,<br /> +Spread their dark pinions in the air<br /> +And passed into the skies.</p> +<h2>VERSE: THE TWO INTERPRETERS</h2> +<p>“The clouds are fleeting by, father,<br /> +Look in the shining west,<br /> +The great white clouds sail onward<br /> +Upon the sky’s blue breast.<br /> +Look at a snowy eagle,<br /> +His wings are tinged with red,<br /> +And a giant dolphin follows him,<br /> +With a crown upon his head!”</p> +<p>The father spake no word, but watched<br /> +The drifting clouds roll by;<br /> +He traced a misty vision too<br /> +Upon the shining sky:<br /> +A shadowy form, with well-known grace<br /> +Of weary love and care,<br /> +Above the smiling child she held,<br /> +Shook down her floating hair.</p> +<p>“The clouds are changing now, father,<br /> +Mountains rise higher and higher!<br /> +And see where red and purple ships<br /> +Sail in a sea of fire!”<br /> +The father pressed the little hand<br /> +More closely in his own,<br /> +And watched a cloud-dream in the sky<br /> +That he could see alone:<br /> +Bright angels carrying far away<br /> +A white form, cold and dead,<br /> +Two held the feet, and two bore up<br /> +The flower-crowned, drooping head.</p> +<p>“See, father, see! a glory floods<br /> +The sky, and all is bright,<br /> +And clouds of every hue and shade<br /> +Burn in the golden light.<br /> +And now, above an azure lake,<br /> +Rise battlements and towers,<br /> +Where knights and ladies climb the heights,<br /> +All bearing purple flowers.”</p> +<p>The father looked, and, with a pang<br /> +Of love and strange alarm,<br /> +Drew close the little eager child<br /> +Within his sheltering arm;<br /> +From out the clouds the mother looks<br /> +With wistful glance below,<br /> +She seems to seek the treasure left<br /> +On earth so long ago;<br /> +She holds her arms out to her child,<br /> +His cradle-song she sings:<br /> +The last rays of the sunset gleam<br /> +Upon her outspread wings.</p> +<p>Calm twilight veils the summer sky,<br /> +The shining clouds are gone;<br /> +In vain the merry laughing child<br /> +Still gaily prattles on;<br /> +In vain the bright stars, one by one,<br /> +On the blue silence start,<br /> +A dreary shadow rests to-night<br /> +Upon the father’s heart</p> +<h2>VERSE: COMFORT</h2> +<p>Hast thou o’er the clear heaven of thy soul<br /> +Seen tempests roll?<br /> +Hast thou watched all the hopes thou wouldst have won<br /> +Fade, one by one?<br /> +Wait till the clouds are past, then raise thine eyes<br /> +To bitter skies.</p> +<p>Hast thou gone sadly through a dreary night,<br /> +And found no light,<br /> +No guide, no star, to cheer thee through the plain—<br /> +No friend, save pain?<br /> +Wait, and thy soul shall see, when most forlorn,<br /> +Rise a new morn.</p> +<p>Hast thou beneath another’s stern control<br /> +Bent thy sad soul,<br /> +And wasted sacred hopes and precious tears?<br /> +Yet calm thy fears,<br /> +For thou canst gain, even from the bitterest part,<br /> +A stronger heart.</p> +<p>Has Fate overwhelmed thee with some sudden blow?<br /> +Let thy tears flow;<br /> +But know when storms are past, the heavens appear<br /> +More pure, more clear;<br /> +And hope, when farthest from their shining rays,<br /> +For brighter days.</p> +<p>Hast thou found life a cheat, and worn in vain<br /> +Its iron chain?<br /> +Has thy soul bent beneath earth’s heavy bond?<br /> +Look thou beyond;<br /> +If life is bitter—<i>there</i> for ever shine<br /> +Hopes more divine.</p> +<p>Art thou alone, and does thy soul complain<br /> +It lives in vain?<br /> +Not vainly does he live who can endure<br /> +Oh be thou sure,<br /> +That he who hopes and suffers here, can earn<br /> +A sure return.</p> +<p>Hast thou found nought within thy troubled life<br /> +Save inward strife?<br /> +Hast thou found all she promised thee, Deceit,<br /> +And Hope a cheat?<br /> +Endure, and there shall dawn within thy breast<br /> +Eternal rest!</p> +<h2>VERSE: HOME AT LAST</h2> +<p>Child, do not fear;<br /> +We shall reach our home to-night,<br /> +For the sky is clear,<br /> +And the waters bright;<br /> +And the breezes have scarcely strength<br /> +To unfold that little cloud,<br /> +That like a shroud<br /> +Spreads out its fleecy length<br /> +Then have no fear,<br /> +As we cleave our silver way<br /> +Through the waters clear.</p> +<p>Fear not, my child!<br /> +Though the waves are white and high,<br /> +And the storm blows wild<br /> +Through the gloomy sky;<br /> +On the edge of the western sea,<br /> +See that line of golden light,<br /> +Is the haven bright<br /> +Where home is awaiting thee;<br /> +Where, this peril past,<br /> +We shall rest from our stormy voyage<br /> +In peace at last.</p> +<p>Be not afraid;<br /> +But give me thy hand, and see<br /> +How the waves have made<br /> +A cradle for thee.<br /> +Night is come, dear, and we shall rest;<br /> +So turn from the angry skies,<br /> +And close thine eyes,<br /> +And lay thy head on my breast:<br /> +Child, do not weep;<br /> +In the calm, cold, purple depths<br /> +There we shall sleep.</p> +<h2>VERSE: UNEXPRESSED</h2> +<p>Dwells within the soul of every Artist<br /> +More than all his effort can express;<br /> +And he knows the best remains unuttered;<br /> +Sighing at what <i>we</i> call his success.</p> +<p>Vainly he may strive; he dare not tell us<br /> +All the sacred mysteries of the skies:<br /> +Vainly he may strive; the deepest beauty<br /> +Cannot be unveiled to mortal eyes.</p> +<p>And the more devoutly that he listens,<br /> +And the holier message that is sent,<br /> +Still the more his soul must struggle vainly,<br /> +Bowed beneath a noble discontent.</p> +<p>No great Thinker ever lived and taught you<br /> +All the wonder that his soul received;<br /> +No true Painter ever set on canvas<br /> +All the glorious vision he conceived.</p> +<p>No Musician ever held your spirit<br /> +Charmed and bound in his melodious chains,<br /> +But be sure he heard, and strove to render,<br /> +Feeble echoes of celestial strains.</p> +<p>No real Poet ever wove in numbers<br /> +All his dream; but the diviner part,<br /> +Hidden from all the world, spake to him only<br /> +In the voiceless silence of his heart.</p> +<p>So with Love: for Love and Art united<br /> +Are twin mysteries; different, yet the same:<br /> +Poor indeed would be the love of any<br /> +Who could find its full and perfect name.</p> +<p>Love may strive, but vain is the endeavour<br /> +All its boundless riches to enfold;<br /> +Still its tenderest, truest secret lingers<br /> +Ever in its deepest depths untold.</p> +<p>Things of Time have voices: speak and perish.<br /> +Art and Love speak—but their words must be<br /> +Like sighings of illimitable forests,<br /> +And waves of an unfathomable sea.</p> +<h2>VERSE: BECAUSE</h2> +<p>It is not because your heart is mine—mine only—<br /> +Mine alone;<br /> +It is not because you chose me, weak and lonely,<br /> +For your own;<br /> +Not because the earth is fairer, and the skies<br /> +Spread above you<br /> +Are more radiant for the shining of your eyes—<br /> +That I love you!</p> +<p>It is not because the world’s perplexèd meaning<br /> +Grows more clear;<br /> +And the Parapets of Heaven, with angels leaning,<br /> +Seem more near;<br /> +And Nature sings of praise with all her voices<br /> +Since yours spoke,<br /> +Since within my silent heart, that now rejoices,<br /> +Love awoke!</p> +<p>Nay, not even because your hand holds heart and life;<br /> +At your will<br /> +Soothing, hushing all its discord, making strife<br /> +Calm and still;<br /> +Teaching Trust to fold her wings, nor ever roam<br /> +From her nest;<br /> +Teaching Love that her securest, safest home<br /> +Must be Rest.</p> +<p>But because this human Love, though true and sweet—<br /> +Yours and mine—<br /> +Has been sent by Love more tender, more complete,<br /> +More divine;<br /> +That it leads our hearts to rest at last in Heaven,<br /> +Far above you;<br /> +Do I take you as a gift that God has given—<br /> +—And I love you!</p> +<h2>VERSE: REST AT EVENING</h2> +<p>When the weariness of Life is ended,<br /> +And the task of our long day is done,<br /> +And the props, on which our hearts depended,<br /> +All have failed or broken, one by one;<br /> +Evening and our Sorrow’s shadow blended<br /> +Telling us that peace is now begun.</p> +<p>How far back will seem the sun’s first dawning,<br /> +And those early mists so cold and grey!<br /> +Half forgotten even the toil of morning,<br /> +And the heat and burthen of the day:<br /> +Flowers that we were tending, and weeds scorning,<br /> +All alike withered and cast away.</p> +<p>Vain will seem the impatient heart, which waited<br /> +Toils that gathered but too quickly round;<br /> +And the childish joy, so soon elated<br /> +At the path we thought none else had found;<br /> +And the foolish ardour, soon abated<br /> +By the storm which cast us to the ground.</p> +<p>Vain those pauses on the road, each seeming<br /> +As our final home and resting-place;<br /> +And the leaving them, while tears were streaming<br /> +Of eternal sorrow down our face;<br /> +And the hands we held, fond folly dreaming<br /> +That no future could their touch efface.</p> +<p>All will then be faded:- night will borrow<br /> +Stars of light to crown our perfect rest;<br /> +And the dim vague memory of faint sorrow<br /> +Just remain to show us all was best,<br /> +Then melt into a divine to-morrow:-<br /> +Oh, how poor a day to be so blest!</p> +<h2>VERSE: A RETROSPECT</h2> +<p>From this fair point of present bliss,<br /> +Where we together stand,<br /> +Let me look back once more, and trace<br /> +That long and desert land,<br /> +Wherein till now was cast my lot, and I could live, and thou wert not.</p> +<p>Strange that my heart could beat, and know<br /> +Alternate joy and pain,<br /> +That suns could roll from east to west,<br /> +And clouds could pass in rain,<br /> +And the slow hours without thee fleet, nor stay their noiseless silver +feet.</p> +<p>What had I then? a hope, that grew<br /> +Each hour more bright and dear,<br /> +The flush upon the eastern skies<br /> +That showed the sun was near:-<br /> +Now night has faded far away, my sun has risen, and it is day.</p> +<p>A dim Ideal of tender grace<br /> +In my soul reigned supreme;<br /> +Too noble and too sweet I thought<br /> +To live, save in a dream—<br /> +Within thy heart to-day it lies, and looks on me from thy dear eyes.</p> +<p>Some gentle spirit—Love I thought—<br /> +Built many a shrine of pain;<br /> +Though each false Idol fell to dust,<br /> +The worship was not vain,<br /> +But a faint radiant shadow cast back from our Love upon the Past.</p> +<p>And Grief, too, held her vigil there;<br /> +With unrelenting sway<br /> +Breaking my cloudy visions down,<br /> +Throwing my flowers away:-<br /> +I owe to her fond care alone that I may now be all thine own.</p> +<p>Fair Joy was there—her fluttering wings<br /> +At times she strove to raise;<br /> +Watching through long and patient nights,<br /> +Listening long eager days:<br /> +I know now that her heart and mine were waiting, Love, to welcome thine.</p> +<p>Thus I can read thy name throughout,<br /> +And, now her task is done,<br /> +Can see that even that faded Past<br /> +Was thine, belovèd one,<br /> +And so rejoice my Life may be all consecrated, dear, to thee.</p> +<h2>VERSE: TRUE OR FALSE</h2> +<p>So you think you love me, do you?<br /> +Well, it may be so;<br /> +But there are many ways of loving<br /> +I have learnt to know.<br /> +Many ways, and but one true way,<br /> +Which is very rare;<br /> +And the counterfeits look brightest,<br /> +Though they will not wear.</p> +<p>Yet they ring, almost, quite truly,<br /> +Last (with care) for long;<br /> +But in time must break, may shiver<br /> +At a touch of wrong:<br /> +Having seen what looked most real<br /> +Crumble into dust;<br /> +Now I chose that test and trial<br /> +Should precede my trust.</p> +<p>I have seen a love demanding<br /> +Time and hope and tears,<br /> +Chaining all the past, exacting<br /> +Bonds from future years;<br /> +Mind and heart, and joy and sorrow,<br /> +Claiming as its fee:<br /> +That was Love of Self, and never,<br /> +Never Love of me!</p> +<p>I have seen a love forgetting<br /> +All above, beyond,<br /> +Linking every dream and fancy<br /> +In a sweeter bond;<br /> +Counting every hour worthless,<br /> +Which was cold or free:-<br /> +That, perhaps, was—Love of Pleasure,<br /> +But not Love of me!</p> +<p>I have seen a love whose patience<br /> +Never turned aside,<br /> +Full of tender, fond devices;<br /> +Constant, even when tried;<br /> +Smallest boons were held as victories,<br /> +Drops that swelled the sea:<br /> +That I think was—Love of Power,<br /> +But not Love of me!</p> +<p>I have seen a love disdaining<br /> +Ease and pride and fame,<br /> +Burning even its own white pinions<br /> +Just to feed its flame;<br /> +Reigning thus, supreme, triumphant,<br /> +By the soul’s decree;<br /> +That was—Love of Love, I fancy,<br /> +But not Love of me!</p> +<p>I have heard—or dreamt, it may be—<br /> +What Love is when true;<br /> +How to test and how to try it,<br /> +Is the gift of few:<br /> +These few say (or did I dream it?)<br /> +That true Love abides<br /> +In these very things, but always<br /> +Has a soul besides.</p> +<p>Lives among the false loves, knowing<br /> +Just their peace and strife:<br /> +Bears the self-same look, but always<br /> +Has an inner life.<br /> +Only a true heart can find it,<br /> +True as it is true,<br /> +Only eyes as clear and tender<br /> +Look it through and through.</p> +<p>If it dies, it will not perish<br /> +By Time’s slow decay,<br /> +True Love only grows (they tell me)<br /> +Stronger, day by day:<br /> +Pain—has been its friend and comrade;<br /> +Fate—it can defy;<br /> +Only by its own sword, sometimes<br /> +Love can choose to die.</p> +<p>And its grave shall be more noble<br /> +And more sacred still,<br /> +Than a throne, where one less worthy<br /> +Reigns and rules at will.<br /> +Tell me then, do you dare offer<br /> +This true Love to me? . . .<br /> +Neither you nor I can answer;<br /> +We will—wait and see!</p> +<h2>VERSE: GOLDEN WORDS</h2> +<p>Some words are played on golden strings,<br /> +Which I so highly rate,<br /> +I cannot bear for meaner things<br /> +Their sound to desecrate.</p> +<p>For every day they are not meet,<br /> +Or for a careless tone;<br /> +They are for rarest, and most sweet,<br /> +And noblest use alone.</p> +<p>One word is POET: which is flung<br /> +So carelessly away,<br /> +When such as you and I have sung,<br /> +We hear it, day by day.</p> +<p>Men pay it for a tender phrase<br /> +Set in a cadenced rhyme:<br /> +I keep it as a crown of praise<br /> +To crown the kings of time.</p> +<p>And LOVE: the slightest feelings, stirred<br /> +By trivial fancy, seek<br /> +Expression in that golden word<br /> +They tarnish while they speak.</p> +<p>Nay, let the heart’s slow, rare decree,<br /> +That word in reverence keep<br /> +Silence herself should only be<br /> +More sacred and more deep.</p> +<p>FOR EVER: men have grown at length<br /> +To use that word, to raise<br /> +Some feeble protest into strength,<br /> +Or turn some tender phrase.</p> +<p>It should be said in awe and fear<br /> +By true heart and strong will,<br /> +And burn more brightly year by year,<br /> +A starry witness still.</p> +<p>HONOUR: all trifling hearts are fond<br /> +Of that divine appeal,<br /> +And men, upon the slightest bond,<br /> +Set it as slighter seal.</p> +<p>That word should meet a noble foe<br /> +Upon a noble field,<br /> +And echo—like a deadly blow<br /> +Turned by a silver shield.</p> +<p>Trust me, the worth of words is such<br /> +They guard all noble things,<br /> +And that this rash irreverent touch<br /> +Has jarred some golden strings.</p> +<p>For what the lips have lightly said<br /> +The heart will lightly hold,<br /> +And things on which we daily tread<br /> +Are lightly bought and sold.</p> +<p>The sun of every day will bleach<br /> +The costliest purple hue.<br /> +And so our common daily speech<br /> +Discolours what was true.</p> +<p>But as you keep some thoughts apart<br /> +In sacred honoured care,<br /> +If in the silence of your heart,<br /> +Their utterance too be rare;</p> +<p>Then, while a thousand words repeat<br /> +Unmeaning clamours all,<br /> +Melodious golden echoes sweet<br /> +Shall answer when you call.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEGENDS AND LYRICS: FIRST SERIES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 2303-h.htm or 2303-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/3/0/2303 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from 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