A Few More Verses

FREEDOM

I WOULD be free! For freedom is all fair,And her strong smile is like the smile of God.Her voice rings out like trumpet on the air,And men rise up and follow; though the roadBe all unknown and hard to understand,They tread it gladly, holding Freedom’s hand.I would be free! The little spark of HeavenLet in my soul when life was breathed in meIs like a flame, this way and that way drivenBy ever wavering winds, which ceaselesslyKindle and blow till all my soul is hot.And would consume if liberty were not.I would be free! But what is freedom, then?For widely various are the shapes she wearsIn different ages and to different men;And many titles, many forms she bears, —Riot and revolution, sword and flame,All called in turn by Freedom’s honored name.I would be free! Not free to burn and spoil,To trample down the weak and smite the strong,To seize the larger share of wine and oil,And rob the sun my daylight to prolong,And rob the night of sleep while others wake, —Feast on their famine, basely free to take.I would be free! Free in a dearer way,Free to become all that I may or can;To be my best and utmost self each day,Not held or bound by any chain of man,By dull convention, or by foolish sneer,Or love’s mistaken clasp of feeble fear.Free to be kind and true and faithful; freeTo do the happy thing that makes life good,To grow as grows the goodly forest-tree;By none gainsaid, by none misunderstood,To taste life’s freshness with a child’s delight,And find new joy in every day and night.I would be free! Ah! so may all be free.Then shall the world grow sweet at core and sound.And, moved in blest and ordered circuit, seeThe bright millennial sun rise fair and round,Heaven’s day begin, and Christ, whose service isFreedom all perfect, rule the world as his.

THE VISION AND THE SUMMONS

THE trance of golden afternoonLay on the Judæan skies;The trance of vision, like a swoon,Sealed the Apostle’s eyes.Upon the roof he sat and sawAngelic hands let down and drawAgain the mighty vessel fullOf beasts and birds innumerable.Three times the heavenly vision fell,Three times the Lord’s voice spoke;When Peter, loath to break the spell,Roused from his trance, and woke,To hear a common sound and rude,Which jarred and shook his solitude, —A knocking at the doorway near,Where stood the two from Cæsarea.And should he heed, or should he stay?Scarce had the vision fled, —Perchance it might return that day,Perchance more words be saidBy the Lord’s voice? – he rises slow;Again the knocking; he must go;Nor guessed, while going down the stair,That ’twas the Lord who called him there.Had he sat still upon the roof,Wooing the vision long,The Gentile world had missed the truth,And Heaven one “sweet new song.”Souls might have perished in blind pain,And the Lord Christ have died in vainFor them. He knew not what it meant,But Peter rose and Peter went.Oh, souls which sit in upper air,Longing for heavenly sight,Glimpses of truth all fleeting-fair,Set in unearthly light, —Is there no knocking heard below,For which you should arise and go,Leaving the vision, and againBearing its message unto men?Sordid the world were vision not,But fruitless were your stay;So, having seen the sight, and gotThe message, haste away.Though pure and bright thy higher air,And hot the street and dull the stair,Still get thee down, for who shall knowBut ’tis the Lord who knocks below?

FORECAST

ALWAYS when the roses bloom most brightly,Some sad heart is sure to presage blight;Always when the breeze is kindliest blowingThere are eyes that look out for a gale;Always when the bosom’s lord sits lightlyComes some croaking proverb to affright,And in sweetest music grieving blindlySits the shadow of a sorrow pale.Though to-day says not a word to sadden,Still to-morrow’s menace fills my ear.Less intent on this than that I hie me,Fearful, eager, all the worst to know,Missing that which might the moment gladden,For the prescience of a far-off fear,Which again and yet again flits by me,Clouding all the sunshine as I go.There is manna for the day’s supplying,There are daily dews and daily balms,Yet I shrink and shudder to rememberAll the desert drought I yet may see.Past the green oasis fare I, sighing,Caring not to rest beneath the palms.All my May is darkened by December,All my laughter by the tears to be.Must my life go on thus to its closing?Lord, hold fast this restless heart of mine;Put thy arm about me when I shiver,Make me feel thy presence all the way.Hope and fear, and travail and reposing,All by thee are cared for, all are thine,Quick to help, sufficient to deliver,Near in sun and shade, in night and day.

EARLY TAKEN

SHE seemed so young, so young to die!Life, like a dawning, rosy day,Stretched from her fair young feet away,And beams from the just-risen sunBeckoned and wooed and urged her on.She met the light with happy eyes,Fresh with the dews of Paradise,And held her sweet hands out to graspThe joys that crowded to her clasp,Each a surprise, and all so dear:How could we guess that night was near?She seemed so young, so young to die!When the old go, we sadly say,’Tis Nature’s own appointed way;The ripe grain gathered in must be,The ripe fruit from the laden tree,The sear leaf quit the bare, brown bough;Summer is done, ’tis autumn now,God’s harvest-time; the sheaves among,His angels raise the reaping-song,And though we grieve, we would not stayThe shining sickles on their way.She seemed so young, so young to die!We question wearily and vainWhat never answer shall make plain:“Can it be this the good Lord meantWhich frustrates his benign intent?Why was she planted like a flowerIn mortal sun and mortal shower,And left to grow, and taught to bloom,To gather beauty and perfume;Why were we set to train and tendIf only for this bootless end?”She seemed so young, so young to die!But age and youth, – what do they meanMeasured by the eternal schemeOf God, and sifted out and laidIn his unerring scales and weighed?How may we test their sense or worth, —These poor glib phrases, born of earth,False accents of a long exile, —Or know the angels do not smile,Holding out truth’s immortal gauge,To hear us prate of youth and age?She seemed so young, so young to die!So needed here by every one,Nor there; for heaven has need of none.And yet, how can we tell or say?Heaven is so far, so far away!How do we know its blissful storeIs full and needeth nothing more?It may be that some tiny spaceLacked just that little angel face,Or the full sunshine missed one rayUntil our darling found the way.

SOME LOVER’S DEAR THOUGHT

I OUGHT to be kinder always,For the light of his kindly eyes;I ought to be wiser always,Because he is so just and wise;And gentler in all my bearing,And braver in all my daring,For the patience that in him lies.I must be as true as the HeavenWhile he is as true as the day,Nor balance the gift with the given,For he giveth to me alway.And I must be firm and steady;For my Love, he is that already,And I follow him as I may.O dear little golden fetter,You bind me to difficult things;But my soul while it strives grows better,And I feel the stirring of wingsAs I stumble, doubting and dreading,Up the path of his stronger treading,Intent on his beckonings.

ASHES

I SAW the gardener bring and strewGray ashes where blush roses grew.The fair, still roses bent them low,Their pink cheeks dimpled all with dew,And seemed to view with pitying airThe dim gray atoms lying there.Ah, bonny rose, all fragrances,And life and hope and quick desires,What can you need or gain from thesePoor ghosts of long-forgotten fires?The rose-tree leans, the rose-tree sighs,And wafts this answer subtly wise:“All death, all life are mixed and blent,Out of dead lives fresh life is sent,Sorrow to these is growth for me,And who shall question God’s decree?”Ah, dreary life, whose gladsome sparkNo longer leaps in song and fire,But lies in ashes gray and stark,Defeated hopes and dead desire,Useless and dull and all bereft, —Take courage, this one thing is left:Some happier life may use thee so,Some flower bloom fairer on its tree,Some sweet or tender thing may growTo stronger life because of thee;Content to play a humble part,Give of the ashes of thy heart,And haply God, whose dear decreesTaketh from those to give to these,Who draws the snow-drop from the snowsMay from those ashes feed a rose.

ONE LESSER JOY

WHAT is the dearest happiness of heaven?Ah, who shall say!So many wonders, and so wondrous fair,Await the soul who, just arrivèd thereIn trance of safety, sheltered and forgiven,Opens glad eyes to front the eternal day:Relief from earth’s corroding discontent,Relief from pain,The satisfaction of perplexing fears,Full compensation for the long, hard years,Full understanding of the Lord’s intent,The things that were so puzzling made quite plain;And all astonished joy as, to the spot,From further skies,Crowd our belovèd with white wingèd feet,And voices than the chiming harps more sweet,Faces whose fairness we had half forgot,And outstretched hands, and welcome in their eyes; —Heart cannot image forth the endless storeWe may but guess;But this one lesser joy I hold my own:All shall be known in heaven; at last be knownThe best and worst of me; the less, the more,My own shall know – and shall not love me less.Oh, haunting shadowy dread which underliesAll loving here!We inly shiver as we whisper low,“Oh, if they knew – if they could only know,Could see our naked souls without disguise —How they would shrink from us and pale with fear!”The bitter thoughts we hold in leash withinBut do not kill;The petty anger and the mean desire,The jealousy which burns, – a smouldering fire, —The slimy trail of half-unnoted sin,The sordid wish which daunts the nobler will.We fight each day with foes we dare not name.We fight, we fail!Noiseless the conflict and unseen of men;We rise, are beaten down, and rise again,And all the time we smile, we move, the same,And even to dearest eyes draw close the veil.But in the blessed heaven these wars are past;Disguise is o’er!With new anointed vision, face to face,We shall see all, and clasped in close embraceShall watch the haunting shadow flee at last,And know as we are known, and fear no more.

CLOSE AT HAND

“Did you not know Me, my child?” the lips and eyes that were all love seemed to say to her. “You have thought the thoughts that I inspired, you have spoken my words, you set forth to fight on my side in the battle against evil; and yet you forget me, and have often gone near to deny me, while I was standing by your side and giving you the strength to speak and think. Look at me now, and see if I am not better than the images that have hid me from you.” —A Doubting Heart.

THE day is long, and the day is hard;We are tired of the march and of keeping guard,Tired of the sense of a fight to be won,Of days to live through and of work to be done,Tired of ourselves and of being alone.And all the while, did we only see,We walk in the Lord’s own company;We fight, but ’tis he who nerves our arm,He turns the arrows which else might harm,And out of the storm he brings a calm.The work which we count so hard to do,He makes it easy, for he works too;The days that are long to live are his,A bit of his bright eternities,And close to our need his helping is.O eyes that were holden and blinded quite,And caught no glimpse of the guiding light!O deaf, deaf ears which did not hearThe heavenly garment trailing near!O faithless heart, which dared to fear!

ONLY A DREAM

I DREAMED we sat within a shaded place,Where mournful waters fell, and no sun shone;And suddenly, a smile upon his face,There came to us a winged, mysterious one,And said, with pitying eyes: “O mourning souls, arise!“Take up your travelling staves, your sandals lace,And journey to the Northland and the snow,Where wild and leaping Borealis traceFantastic, glistening dances to and fro;Where suns at midnight beam, to fright the sleeper’s dream.“There, in the icy, solitary waste,God’s goodness grants this boon, – that thou shalt see,And hold communion for a little spaceWith that dear child so lately gone from thee.Arise, and haste away; God may not let her stay.”So we arose, and quickly we went forth;How could we slight such all undreamed-of boon?And when we reached the ultimate far North —All in a hush of frozen afternoon,Lit by a dim sun-ray, liker to night than day —There, o’er the white bare feld we saw her come,Our little maid, in the dear guise we knew,With the same look she used to wear at home,The same sweet eyes of deepest, dark-fringed blue;Her steps they made no sound upon the icy ground.She kissed us gently, and she stood and smiled,While close we clasped and questioned her, and stroveTo win some hint or answer from the childThat should appease the hunger of our love,Something to soothe the pain when she must go again.And was she happy, happier than of old?Did heaven fulfil its promises of bliss?And had she seen our other dead, and toldThe story of that loving faithfulness

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