Last Verses

IN THE FOG

VEILS of pallid mist and grayWrap the world of yesterday;Fir-fringed island, rocky cape,Yellow sands, and mountain shape,Sun and sky, and waters blue,All are blotted from the view.Out to sea we blindly stare;Did we dream that such things were?No; untouched, and safe and sure,All these lovely things endure;Underneath that hovering mist,All the blue and amethyst,All the rocky cliffs and sea,All the surf-lines rippling free,Mountain forms and islands green, —All are there, although unseen.If we bravely bide and waitThrough this brief eclipse of Fate,Smile through the unsmiling noon,Keeping heart and hope in tune, —Shadow shall give place to sun,And, out-stealing, one by one,All the fair things mourned in vainShall be made our own again.Dear heart, faint heart, who in shadeSitteth, pale, perplexed, afraid,At the brief evanishmentOf thy yesterday’s content, —Courage take; for hope endures,Though a little mist obscures,And behind the fog-wreaths dunBrightens the eternal sun.

THE PORCH OF LIFE

WITHIN the Porch of Life we sit,The access to the heavenly door,The shadowy porch where cold rains pour,And every bleak wind blows on it.And those who crowd to stand thereonSmiling with youth grow grave anon.We sit among our fellows so,Shivering a little in the wind,And still our eyes reach out to findThe faint beam of an inward glow —A home-like ray, which through the doorSteals, softly beckoning, evermore.There in sure comfort, safe and warm;They sit who have an entrance won,Smiling and glad; each dearest oneWho once endured the bitter storm,And shared our patience and our pain,But come not forth to share again.Dear door, which never is shut tight,And knows no bolt and needs no bar,But through all ages stands ajarTo bless the eyes which yearn for sight,And keep the souls that wait withoutFrom the slow desolate death of doubt!The Porch of Life is hard and bare,And long the waiting sometimes seems.But while we catch the out-reaching beams,Making the darkness subtly fair,And know the door is open still,We can endure it with goodwill.

THE LIGHTHOUSE

HIGH lifted on the island cliffIts lantern fronts the sea,And sendeth forth a fine, straight rayOf dazzling light to me —A slender line of shimmering shineAcross night’s mystery.It is the path set for my eyesTo travel to the light,And warm their darkness in the blaze,And be made glad and bright.None other may catch just that ray,Or have the self-same sight.And yet, a hundred other eyes,Bent on that central blaze,Find each its separate, shining path,Its line of guiding rays;And all eyes meet in concord sweetBy all these differing ways.No voice shall say: “The Light is mine,All other eyes are dim!”No hand the glory hold or hideWhich streams to ocean’s rim,None claim or seize one ray as hisMore than belongs to him.O Light of Truth, which lighteneth all,And shineth all abroad,What favored soul or souls shall say,“Mine is the only road?”Each hath his own, to him made known,And all lead up to God.

ONCE AND FOREVER

OUR own are our own forever, God taketh not back his gift.They may pass beyond our vision, but our souls shall find them out,When the waiting is all accomplished, and the deathly shadows lift,And glory is given for grieving, and the surety of God for doubt.We may find the waiting bitter, and count the silence long,God knoweth we are dust, and he pitieth our pain;And when faith has grown to fulness, and the silence changed to song,We shall eat the fruit of patience, and shall hunger not again.So sorrowing hearts who dumbly in darkness and all aloneSit missing a dear lost presence and the joy of a vanished day,Be comforted with this message that our own are forever our own,And God, who gave the gracious gift, he takes it never away.

LIGHTS

A LITTLE lamp can send but a brief and feeble ray,The great lights bravely beam, and their radiance far awayIs the comfort of the nations and the furtherance of the day.All men remember when the great lights were lit,The day is kept in honor, and they name it as they sitAnd watch the guiding flame, thanking and blessing it.But the small and struggling lights which a breath of storm might kill,Each fain to light a continent, but doomed to smallness still,Is there no one to praise them for their service of goodwill?Yes, one, the Lord of all, who is the source of Light;He sees them where they burn in the blackness of Earth’s night,And the larger and the less alike are precious in his sight.He is the secret source by which their flames are fed,From the beacon’s wide, white ray which flashes overhead,To the intermittent ray which the half-spent tapers shed;And to each he says, “Well done,” which has bravely sought to burn.And when the dawn ariseth, and each is quenched in turn,Absorbed into the perfect day for which pure spirits yearn; —Each little flame that struggled to make the night more fairShall find its place in Paradise and burn in heavenly air,And the Father of all Lights shall be its welcome there.

ON THE LAWN

ON the half-frozen lawn, where the early grass was springing,In the sunny days just over, and where now the frost is lying,I hear a happy chorus of little voices singing,A hopeful, cheery call and a hopefuller replying.’Tis the bluebird and the robin, – what brings them back so earlyFrom the sunny southern meadows, and the fields of honeyed clover,From the stately tall magnolias, hung with blossoms sweet and pearly,And the starry yellow jasmine which the wood-bee hovers over?And now that they have come, beguiled and led a-strayingBy Mother Nature, who would seem to joy in such deceiving,How can they sing so blithely, with frost and famine playing,As if the world were never meant to be a place for grieving?What is the secret of the hope that bears them up so bravelyIn the shelterless unfed to-day, the unprovided morrow?Oh, would that I might learn it, – I who sit here looking gravelyWith an apprehensive shiver for the shape of coming sorrow!Say, bluebird, and say, robin? They answer but by singing,As with a whirr of fluttering wings the small shapes dart and fly;But my sadness rises with them, and all my cares seem winging,And leaving me as glad as they, but I cannot tell you why.

IF ONLY

IF only – shadow did not follow sun,If only – tempests lurked not in blue weather,If only – life did not so swiftly runAnd dreams need not be waked from altogether.If only – hearts were not attuned to ache,If only – joy and mirth turned not to grieving,If only – we could seize and overtakeThe rainbow Hope which lures us on deceiving!If only – love were not poured out to waste,If only – discord spared sweet music’s closes,If only – blight and canker did not hasteTo mar the lily’s white, the stainless roses!If only – sentinels beside the ways,Death, suffering, and sin stood not to daunt us,If shadows from the vanished yesterdaysAnd fears for the to-morrows did not haunt us.If only! – human grief unceasinglyRepeats in myriad tongues the wistful sighing.Mighty and mournful is the mingled cry,But never comes there any full replying,Except when, o’er the tumult and the pain,Above the upraised, questioning, tear-stained faces,We catch at times a half heard, answering strain,An antiphone from the high, heavenly places.“If only, Lord,” the happy voices sing,“If only – we have Thee, who faileth never,Nor life, nor death, nor any other thingCan hurt our joy forever and forever.“If men could know how quickly pain is spent,What compensations heaven has in keeping,What home means after earth’s bleak banishment,If only – they would smile instead of weeping.”Sing louder, radiant host, wake our dull ears,Till, though the path be hard and the day lonely,We, too, shall answer through the mists of tears,“If only – we have Thee, Lord, have Thee only.”

PRELUDE

A FEW notes, half harmoniousAnd half discordant, subtly blent,The master sounds and touches, thusTo test and try his instrument.Not music’s self, but its presage;Not tune, but hint of tune it is;Of better things the pledge and gage,And prized for what it promises.Just so the sweet musician, Spring,’Mid blowing winds and dropping rains,Tightens and sounds each vagrant string,In odd, capricious, sudden strains.It is not music she essays,But just a hint of what shall beWhen earth and sky and nights and daysJoin in the summer harmony.And do we dream, or is it true,The grass so brown but yester-mornHas caught a subtly greener hueIn sheltered corners of the lawn?Can there be buds upon the hedge —Wee, starry pointlets half unrolled?And were we blind to read the pledgeWritten in the willow’s pencilled gold?And is it fancy that there breathesA vagrant perfume in the air,A scent of freshly opened leaves?There are no leaves yet anywhere.Ah, dear Spring, stay thy flying feet;Try all thy chords; play leisurely;Though if thy preludes are so sweetWhat will the finished music be?

WHOM NO MAN HATH HIRED

EACH soul must serve some master. Everywhere,Alike in wilderness and market places,They stand and wait all the long hours of day.They wait with expectation in their facesAnd mutely question each new wayfarer,And “Art thou he?” their asking glances say.Then some with downcast aspect take their wageAnd follow after shapes of darksome mien,Evil and doubtful, leading from the light;And some with radiant eyes alight are seen,Crowding, as bound on common pilgrimage,Behind a peaceful Leader robed in white.And Pain calls one to serve him at his will,And cloudy Doubt another claims for slave,And wingéd Riches offer specious feesAnd brightly gild a pathway to the grave,And Patience, with a forehead veiled and still,Enrols a few, making no promises.Some at the early dawning go their way,Some when the suntides wave the morning sky,And some at heat of noon and harvest-tide,While others with dull, disappointed eyesWatch the long shadows creep and dim the day,And still unhired and unemployed abide.Lord of the vintage, recompensing Lord,Behold these waiting ones and call them in,Let them not choose another Lord than Thee,Made the despairing thralls of self and sin,Losing the joy of toil and full rewardWhich make Thy service perfect liberty.Send forth the servants of Thy love and power,These whom no man hath hired make Thine own.Before the spent sun vanish in the westLet the brief toil the ill-spent day atone,And though not called till the eleventh hour,Give them like blessed wages with the rest.

ON EASTER EVEN

WHEN the sun sets, let me say,“Each day is an Easter day,When the Lord may rise in me,Bringing life and victory;Every eve an Easter eve,When my heart a glorious guestMust make ready to receive,Swept and cleansed and duly dressed.“On its altar there shall lieLilies white of purity;Roses white and roses redShall their grateful odors shed;Passion flowers with cross on breast,Violet purple sweet, I’ll layWhere my Lord’s dear feet may rest,Haply – on this Easter day.”No long waiting need we know,While the slow months come and go;No set Lent observe, if weMake all time our Lent to be;Not one festal, brief and bright,But a year, where every mornHearts made ready over nightWake to find an Easter dawn.So each night, O faithful heart,Keep thy vigil, draw apart,Dress thy altar fair and fit,Sure the Lord will hallow it!Death in vain forbids Him rise,Sin in vain would bar His way,And, each morrow, in the skies,There shall dawn an Easter day!

PALM SUNDAY

THE King is coming! All the roadWith branches of the palm is strewed;The multitudes are thronging fastTo see him as he rideth past.They look for pomp and sovereignty,Purple and gold and crown to see,They bring the sick, the halt, the dumb.The King is coming! Let him come.The Christ is coming! Coarsely dressedWith sandalled feet and fisher’s vest,His steed the lowly ass’s foal,His crown the viewless aureole;No sword, no seal, no royal cloak;Twelve tired and dusty working folkMake of his court the tale and sum.The Christ is coming! Let him come.The King is coming! Every yearHe comes for hearts that hold him dear,Borne in as on that by-gone dayWith palm-boughs strewed along his way,No longer clad in lowly guise,But King of Kings to faithful eyes.To every heart that gives him roomThe Lord of Love vouchsafes to come.The Christ is coming! Heart of mine,What fitting gift, of love the sign,Hast thou to lay as offeringUpon the pathway of the King?No palm-branch hast thou? Nothing meet?Then lay thyself before his feet.His smile can make thy dryness bloom.The Christ is coming! Let him come!

THE PASCHAL FEAST

IN travelling guise they held the Paschal FeastIn olden days.With loins girt about, and shoes on feet,And staves in hand, they met and shared the meat,And gave God praise.No lingering at the banquet; each man tookHis portion due,And swiftly hied him forth, even as didHis fathers, worn slaves of the pyramid,Zion in view.A single morsel might suffice for some,Snatched as they went;On promise and on type their souls were fed,So, though their bodies lacked a little bread,They were content.And even thus, my soul, be it with thee,This Easter Day.With loins girt about, and staff in hand,As one made ready for the Promised Land,Who may not stay;Come, then. The feast is spread which angels stillDesire to taste;Take thou thy crumb, nor wait for farther good,To bask and batten on immortal food,But rise in haste;And get thee forth to the hard-trodden way,The toil and tire,The wilderness with many thorns beset,O’er which the cloudy pillar hovers yet,The guiding fire.The Promised Land it beckons fair and far,Beyond thy view.And though the foe be fierce, and travail long,The Lord shall hold thee up, and keep thee strong,And guide thee through.Then, at the upper table, safely set,Thou mayst abideIn full security and rest at last,With all the thirst and hunger of the pastQuite satisfied.

A NEW YEAR PRAYER

THE Christmas moon rides bravely in the skies,The young and untried year is at the gate.We tremble at his aspect grave with fate,At his inscrutable, unsmiling eyes,Subtle with hope and full of prophecies.Lord, he is all unknown, but Thou art true;As in the old year, guide us in the new.The clock has struck – with the last clanging knellComes in the new year, goeth out the old;To-morrow is to-day, to have and hold;The future binds us with her mystic spell.For bliss? for bale? what man shall ask or tell?Forward we look with wistful, questioning eyes;Lord, who art wisdom’s fountain, make us wise.The old year’s love shall live on in the new.But love is weak and ignorant and blind,Led by each wandering fancy of the mind,Enticed by song of bird and scent of dew,Misleading still where fain it would be true.O Lord, whose love fails never night or day,Teach us to love in Thine own perfect way.That comes to end which now is just begun.To wax, to wane, it is the common fate,The new year must be old year; soon or lateThe hovering shadow wrappeth every one,And hides him from the day and from the sun.Darkness and light are Thine, O Lord, Most High;Make us content to live and glad to die.

HOW SHALL I PRAY?

FATHER, how can I thus be bold to prayThat thou shalt grant me that or spare me this?How should my ignorance not go astray,How should my foolish lips not speak amissAnd ask for woe when fain they would ask bliss?How shall I dare to prompt thee, the All-wise,To show me kindness? Thou art ever kind.What is my feeble craving in thine eyesWhich view the centuries vast, before, behind,And sweep unnumbered worlds like viewless wind?Thy goodness ordereth what thing shall be,The wisdom knoweth even my inmost want;Why should I raise a needless prayer to thee,Or importune Omnipotence to grantMy wishes, dim, short-sighted, ignorant?And yet I come, – for thou hast bidden and said,But not to weary thee, or specifyA wish, but rather with this prayer instead:“O Lord, thou knowest: – give it or deny,Fill up the cup of joy, or pass me by.”Just as thou wilt is just what I would will;Give me but this, the heart to be content,And if my wish is thwarted to lie still,Waiting till puzzle and till pain are spent,And the sweet thing made plain which the Lord meant.

GOOD-NIGHT

“GOOD-NIGHT, Beloved,” I softly cryAcross the chill immensity,The unmeasurable star-hung spaceWhich hides the smiling of thy face.The echoless air is all unstirred,But yet I feel that thou hast heard,Somehow, somewhere, the old-time word,And smiled, perhaps, that I should say“Good-night,” when all with thee is Day.“Good-night, Beloved,” – for near and farAnd separate and together areBut mortal phrases, little worthExcept in the dull speech of earth,The ignorant speech which doubts and fears.God is the sun of all the spheres,The source and centre of our years.Our little lives, so brief, so dim,Are only lit when lit by him.His ear can catch the lightest callWho heedeth even the sparrow’s fall;As clear to him the sobbing prayerOf grief, as heavenly praises areWhen angels veil their eyes and bow.Through him I reach to thee, and thouThrough him art nearer to me nowThan in the days of lost delightWhen each to each could say, “Good-night.”Oh, comfort of the sorrowing heart!Where’er I am, where’er thou art,Linked in this heavenly unisonWe still are near, we still are one!God is our meeting-place and goal,The safe, sure shelter of the soul.Let the wide heavens between us roll;Still fearlessly, though out of sight,I still may say, “Beloved, good-night.”

A SPRING PARABLE

TILL yesterday one tree was brown, —One only, mid the green of spring;Wearing her dead leaves like a crownShe stood, and seemed to gloom and frownOn every glad rejoicing thing,Till yesterday! When, touched at last,The slow buds quickened and uncurled,And the poor tree forgave her past,And learned to hope, and thick and fastShowered her dry leaves on the world.Swift sudden hope replaced despair;The brown leaves dropped, the green leaves grew,And clothed upon, and fresh and fair,The happy boughs swung all in air,And drank the sunshine and the dew.Souls have their dead leaves, sere and dry,Dead hopes, dead visions, dead delight,Relics of gladder days gone by,Worthless to every human eye;But yet we clasp the poor things tight,And feel that life were bare indeedIf we should lose them, or let fall,And all the old-time hurts would bleed,And we unwrapped from sorrowing weedLike mourners dragged to carnival.Then in a moment suddenlyGod’s blessed sunshine, all unguessed,Reaches and heals our hearts, and we,Tasting its sweetness, know that heBids us be happy with the rest.

“THY RIGHTEOUSNESS IS LIKE THE STRONG MOUNTAINS”

STRONG are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!They rise, a bulwark to the guarded land,Which foes pass not, nor traitors undermine;For children’s children’s safety they shall stand;And so, O Lord, thou standest unto thine,A mighty guardian, a defence divine.Strong are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!Where beats the tempest on the hither side,Beneath their shelter blooms the vine and rose;So do thy chosen ones in thee abide,Nor fear the storm-wind though it wildly blows,All undisturbed in their secure repose.Strong are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!Their far, fair snowy summits fountains are,Whence fertilizing streams begin their race;So, from thy might of mercy stream afarThe over-brimming rivers of thy grace,Gladdening the wilderness and desert place.Strong are the mountains, Lord, but stronger thou!Immutable they stand from age to ageThough the world rock and empires shift and pale;So, though the people war and heathen rage,The safety of thy promise shall prevail,Nor ever once thy love and goodness fail.

LIVING OR DEAD

THEY are not dead to us, who keepTheir long, unvexed, reposeful sleep’Neath grassy coverlets, flower-bespread:For love abides though graves are deep,And those who love are never dead.They are not dead while heart to heartStill hold communion though apart,The visible with the unseen,And faith and longing know the artOf bridging the wide space between.They are not dead who, folded fairIn the kind Shepherd’s steadfast care,Await our coming in sure faith,When we shall see them as they are,Made yet more beautiful by death.But they are dead whose love has grownTo be the ghost of love alone,Who meet us with averted eyes,And air constrained and altered tone,And chill and alien courtesies.They move, they accost us, and they seemLike creatures of some weary dream;So dead, so lost, so all-estranged,The fire which cheered us with its gleamInto the veriest ashes changed.While if our dear and living dead,With soft, still smiles and noiseless tread,Should come, some day, to the old place,There would not be a thought of dreadIn their first rapture of embrace!Oh, strangely blended joy and pain!Death turned to naught, and life made vain,Love’s shade and substance still at strife,Who shall decide between the twain,Or which is death, and which is life?

A MORNING SONG

AWAKE, awake, dull heart, and singThe praises of thy Lord and King,Who gives the new day and the sun,Hope, health, and every pleasant thing.He scatters all the shades of night,Out of the darkness builds the light,And on man’s ignorance and wrongFounds his eternal law of right.If he one hour withdrew his careThe Earth would stagger in blind air,And laughter would give place to wail,And hope to horror, everywhere.Angels and saints, the white-robed choir,Praise God all day, and never tire,And weaker voices from belowMay join and swell the chorus higher.For praise is privilege there as here,And each in his own place and sphere,Angel or man, or high or low,May take his share and count it dear.Then wake, my heart, remembering this,That truest praise true service is,And take thy new day from God’s hands,And work therein for him and his.

THE STONE OF THE SEPULCHRE

“HOW shall the stone be rolled away?”Thus questioned they, the women three,Who at dim dawn went forth to seeThe sealed and closely guarded cellWhere slept the Lord they loved so well.First of all Easter sacrifice,The linen and the burial spice,They carried, as with anxious speechThey sadly questioned, each to each:Still, as they near and nearer drewThe puzzle and the terror grew,And none had word of cheer to say;But lo, the stone was rolled away!“How shall the stone be rolled away?”So, like the Marys, question we,As looking on we dimly seeSome mighty barrier raise its headTo bar the path we needs must tread.Our little strength seems weakness made,Our hearts are faint and sore afraid;Drooping we journey on alone.We only mark the heavy stone,We do not see the helping LoveWhich moves before us as we move,Which chides our faithless, vain dismay,And rolls for us the stone away!“How shall the stone be rolled away?”Ah, many a heart, with terrors pent,Has breathed the question as it went,With faltering feet and failing breath,In the chill company of death,Adown the narrow path and straight,Which all must traverse soon or late,And nearing thus the dreaded tomb,Just in the thickest, deepest gloom,Has heard the stir of angel wings,Dear voices, sweetest welcomings,And, as on that first Easter day,Has found the dread stone rolled away!

TOO LITTLE AND TOO MUCH

SOME pine with wistful hunger all their years,Watering their scanty crumb of joy with tears;And some there are who, feasting long lives through,Frighted at over-happiness, weep too.The sense of undesert, a constant sting,Pierces and stabs through every pleasant thing,They shrink before the cup filled to the brim,Lest through God’s very gift they forfeit him.Ah! dear hearts, heavy with this nobler woe,This pain divine, which even saints may know,There is this thought to balm and still your pain:“God gives to us that we may give again.”“I am unworthy!” do you, trembling, say?Strive to be worthier, then, and day by dayHeap corn and wine, and stand with open door, —A granary of heaven to feed the poor.Put of your sweet into each bitterer cup;Halve every loaf, that some one else may sup, —Till in the crumbs and fragments of your goodThe miracle of old shall seem renewed.And so, all fearless of the gift of heaven,Give gladly out that which to you is given,Sure that to be God’s cup-bearer is meantFor privilege, and not for punishment.

THE MESSENGER WITH THE BOW-STRING

INTO the banquet-hall of all delightsGrimly he forced his way,Amid the perfumes and the fairy lights,And trickling fountain-spray,Where mandolins were sounding low and sweet,And on the marble tilesTwinkled and shone the dancers’ slender feet,And all was joy and smiles.One dark blot on the joyous life and stir,There stood he, fierce and still,Holding his token out as messengerOf the stern Caliph’s will —A loosened bow-string from the bow untied.Laughter was changed to wail,And all the happy song in silence diedOn lips grown mute and pale.Death’s sudden summons! Still the flowers fairProffered their cups of bloom;Still rose the mazy fountain in the air,Scattering its soft perfume;But in one moment, though these bright things stayed,Death’s shape, all grimly gray,Entered the hall with soundless step and laidA shadow on the day.Into our summer palace of delight,Flower-hung and fairy-fanned,Entered the ghastly messenger last night,The bow-string in his hand.Amid the fulness of full life he stood,A spectral form to see,And held the signal out with gesture rudeAnd beckoned silently.Still smile the late pink roses on their stem,And heliotropes, thick set,Woo every passing hand to gather them;The brown, sweet mignonetteStill spreads a fragrant carpet, and the gayNasturtiums flaunt and soar,Making a mimic sunshine on the gray;But death is at the door!O messenger! have patience for a space.Summer is fresh and strong;Never so beautiful her radiant face,Never so sweet her song.Wait but a little, till our shivering soulsAre strong to bear. He standsSpeechless, unheedful, answers not, and holdsThe bow-string in his hands.