A Few More Verses

UNDER the snow lie sweet things out of sight,Couching like birds beneath a downy breast;They cluster ’neath the coverlet warm and white,And bide the winter-time in hopeful rest.There are the hyacinths, holding ivory tipsPointed and ready for a hint of sun;And hooded violets, with dim, fragrant lipsAsleep and dreaming fairy dreams each one.There lurk a myriad quick and linkèd roots,Coiled for a spring when the ripe time is near;The brave chrysanthemum’s pale yellow shootsAnd daffodils, the vanguard of the year;The nodding snowdrop and the columbine;The hardy crocus, prompt to hear a call;Pensile wistaria and thick woodbine;And valley lilies, sweetest of them all.All undismayed, although the drifts are deep,All sure of spring and strong of cheer they lie;And we, who see but snows, we smile and keepThe selfsame courage in the by and by.Ah! the same drifts shroud other precious things, —Flower-like faces, pallid now and chill,Feet laid to rest after long journeyings,And fair and folded hands forever still.All undismayed, in deep and hushed repose,Waiting a sweeter, further spring, they lie;And we, whose yearning eyes see but the snows,Shall we not trust, like them, the by and by?

SONNET

FOR A BIRTHDAY

I WISH thee sound health and true sanity,Ripe youth, a summer heart in age’s snow,Abiding joy in knowledge, wealth enowThat of the best thou ne’er mayst hindered be;Long life, love, marriage, children, faithful friends,Purpose in all thy doing, stintless zeal,Ambition, enthusiasm, the power to feelThy country dearer than thy private ends;The threefold joy of Nature, books, and fun,To be thy solace in adversity,To keep thy father’s name as clean as he,And so transmit it stainless to thy son;And lastly, crown of glory and of strife,May honored death give thee Eternal Life.Now count my wishes, and, the numbering done,You’ll find the enumeration – twenty-one.

“MANY WATERS CANNOT QUENCH LOVE.”

A LITTLE grave in a desolate spot,Where the sun scarce shines and flowers grow not,Where the prayers of the church are never heard,And the funeral bell swings not in air,And the brooding silence is only stirredBy the cries of wild birds nesting there;A low headstone, and a legend, greenWith moss: “Leonora, just seventeen.”Here she was laid long years ago,A child in years, but a woman in woe.Her sorrowful story is half forgot,Her playmates are old and bent and gray,And no one comes to visit the spotWhere, watched by the law, was hurried awayThe youth cut short, and the hapless bloomWhich fled from its sorrow to find the tomb.Her mourning kindred pleaded in vainThe broken heart and the frenzied brain;The church had no pardon for such as diedUnblessed by the church, and sternly barredAll holy ground to the suicide;So death as life to the girl was hard,And the potter’s field with its deep disgraceWas her only permitted resting-place.So the friends who loved her laid her thereWith no word of comfort, no word of prayer,And years went by; but as, one by one,They dropped from their daily tasks and died,And turned their faces from the sun,They were carried and buried by her side, —Each gave command that such should be,“For love to keep her company.”So the little grave, with the letters green,Of “Leonora, just seventeen,”Is ringed about with kindred dust,Not lonely like the other gravesIn that sad place, wherein are thrustOutcasts and nameless folk and slaves,But gently held and folded fastIn the arms that loved her first and last.O potter’s field, did I call you bare?No garden on earth can be more fair!For deathless love has a deathless bloom,And the lily of faithfulness a flower,And they grow beside each lowly tomb,And balm it with fragrance every hour;And with God, who forgiveth till seven times seven,A potter’s field may be gate of heaven.

UNEXHAUSTED

ARE all the songs sung, all the music played?Are the keys quite worn out, and soundless quite,Which since sweet fancy’s dawning day have madePerpetual melody for man’s delight,And charmed the dull day and the heavy night?Must we go on with stale, repeated themes,Content with threadbare chords that faint and fail,Till all the fairy fabric of old dreamsBecomes a jaded, oft-repeated tale,And poetry grows tired, and romance pale?I cannot think it; for the soul of manIs strung to answer to such myriad keysSet and attuned and chorded on a planOf intricate and vibrant harmonies,How shall we limit that, or measure these?As free and urgent as the air that moves,As quick to tremble as Æolian strings,The soul responds and thrills to hates and loves,Desires and hopes, and joys and sufferings,And sympathy’s soft touch and anger’s stings.How dare we say the breezes all are blown,The chords have no reserved sweet in store;Or claim that all is tested and made known, —That nightingales may trill, or skylarks soar,But neither can surprise us any more?The world we call so old, God names his new;The thought we christen stale shall outlast men,While moons shall haunt the sky, and stars gleam through,While roses blossom on their thorny stem,And spring comes back again, and yet again;While human things like blossoms small and whiteAre dropped on earth from unseen parent skies,The olden dreams shall please, the songs delight,And those who shape and weave fair fantasiesShall catch the answering shine in new-born eyes.

WELCOME AND FAREWELL

WHEN the New Year came, we said,Half with hope and half with dread:“Welcome, child, new-born to beLast of Time’s great family!All thy brethren, bent and gray,Aged and worn, have passed awayTo the place where dead years go, —Place which mortals cannot know.Thou art fairest of them all,Ivory-limbed and strong and tall,Gold hair blown back, and deep eyesFull of happy prophecies;Rose-bloom on thy youthful cheek.Welcome, child!” And all the whileThe sweet New Year did not speak,Though we thought we saw him smile.When the Old Year went, we said,Looking at his grim gray head,At the shoulders burden-bowed,And the sad eyes dark with cloud:“Was he ever young and fair?Did we praise his sunny hairAnd glad eyes, with promise lit?We can scarce remember it.Treacherously he smiled, nor spoke,Hiding ’neath his rainbow cloakStore of grievous things to strewOn the way that we must go.Vain to chide him; old and weak,He is dying; let him die.”And the Old Year did not speak,But we thought we heard him sigh.

LIFE

MORE life we thirst for, but how can we take?We sit like children by the surging sea,Dip with our shallow shells all day, and makeA boast of the scant measure, two or threeBrief drops caught from the immensity;But what are these the long day’s thirst to slake?There is the sea, which would not be less full,Though all the lands should borrow of its flood;The sea of Life, fed by the beautifulAbounding river of the smile of God,Source of supply and fountain of all good,Boundless and free and inexhaustible.There is the sea; and close by is our thirst,Yet here we sit and gaze the waters o’er,And dip our shallow shells in as at first.Just where the ripples break to wash the shore,And catch a tantalizing drop, nor durstThe depth or distance of the wave explore.Ah, mighty ocean which we sport beside,One day thy wave will rise and foam, and we,Lost in its strong, outgoing, refluent tide,Shall be swept out into the deeper sea,Shall drink the life of life, and satisfiedSmile at the shore from far eternity.

SHUT IN

And the Lord shut him in. —Gen. vii. 16WAS it the Lord who shut me inBetween these walls of pain?Who drew between me and the sunThe darkening curtains, one by one,Cold storm and bitter rain,Hiding all happy things and fair,The flying birds, the blowing air,And bidding me to lie,All sick of heart and faint and blind,Waiting his will to loose or bind,To give or to deny?Was it the Lord who shut me inWithin this place of doubt?I chose not doubt, my doubt chose me,Not unpermitted, Lord, of thee, —It had not dared without:What doubt shall venture to uprearAnd whisper in a human ear,If thou, Lord, dost forbid?Yet is it of thy blessed willThat I sit questioning, grieving, chill,Nor joy as once I did?Is it the Lord that shuts me in?Then I can bear to wait!No place so dark, no place so poor,So strong and fast no prisoning door,Though walled by grievous fate,But out of it goes fair and broadAn unseen pathway, straight to God,By which I mount to thee.When the same Love that shut the doorShall lift the heavy bar once more,And set the prisoner free.

GOOD-BY

THE interlacing verdurous screenOf the stanch woodbine still is green,And thickly set with milk-white bloomsGold-anthered, breathing out perfumes;The clematis on trellis barsStill flaunts with white and purple stars;No missing leaf has thinner madeThe obelisks of maple shade;Fresh beech boughs flutter in the breezeWhich, warm as summer, stirs the trees;The sun is clear, the skies are blue:But still a sadness filters throughThe beauty and the bloom; and we,Touched by some mournful prophecy,Whisper each day: “Delay, delay!Make not such haste to fly away!”And they, with silent lips, reply:“Summer is gone; we may not stay.Summer is gone. Good-by! good-by!”Roses may be as fragrant fairAs in the sweet June days they were;No hint of frost may daunt as yetThe clustering brown mignonette,Nor chilly wind forbid to opeThe odorous, fragile heliotrope;The sun may be as warm as May,The night forbear to chase the day,And hushed in false securityAll the sweet realm of Nature be:But the South-loving birds have fled,By their mysterious instinct led;The butterflies their nests have spun,And donned their silken shrouds each one;The bees have hived them fast, while weWhisper each day: “Delay, delay!Make not such haste to fly away!”And all, with pitying looks, reply:“Summer is fled; we may not stay.Summer is gone. Good-by! good-by!”

WHAT THE ANGEL SAID

THEY sat in the cool of the day to rest, —Adam and Eve, and a nameless guest.The sky o’er the desert was hot and red,But the palm boughs nestled overhead,And the bubbling waters of the wellUp and down in their basin fell,And the goats and the camels browsed at ease,And the confident song birds sang and flewIn the shade of the thick mimosa trees;For fear was not when the world was new.In the early dawning had come the guest,And whether from east or whether from westThey knew not, nor asked, as he stood and bentAt the entrance of the lowly tent:He had dipped his hand in the bowl of food,He had thanked and praised and called it good;And now between his hosts he sat,And talked of matters so deep and wiseThat Eve looked up from her braiding matWith wonderment in her beautiful eyes.“All is not lost,” the stranger said,“Though the garden of God be forfeited;Still is there hope for the life of man,Still can he struggle and will and plan,Still can he strain toward the shining goalWhich tempts and beckons his sinewy soul;Still there is work to brace his thews,And love to sweeten the hard-won way,And the power to give, and the right to choose, —And – ” He paused; and the rest he did not say.Then silence fell, for their thoughts were fullOf the fair lost garden beautiful;A homesick silence, which neither brokeTill once again the stranger spoke:“You are strong,” he said, “with the strength of heaven,And the world and its creatures to you are given;You shall win in the fight, though many oppose.You shall tread on the young of the lion’s den,And the desert shall blossom as the rose’Neath your tendance.” And Adam asked: “And then?”“Then, ripening with the riper age,Your sons, a goodly heritage,Like palm-trees in their stately strength,Shall win to man’s estate at length.Beside thee shall they take their stand,To do thy will, uphold thy hand,To speed thy errands with eager feet,To quit them in their lot like men,With tendance and obedience meet.”Then once more Adam said, “And then?”“Then, as mild age draws slowly on,And faintly burns thy westering sun,When on the pulse no longer hotFalls quietude which youth knows not,When patience rules the tempered will,And strength is won by sitting still,Then shall a new-born pleasure comeInto thy heart and arms again,As children’s children fill thy home.”Eve smiled; but Adam said, “And then?”“Then” – and the guest rose up to go —“The best, the last thing shalt thou know:This life of struggle and of fightShall vanish like a wind-blown light;And after brief eclipse shall beRe-lit, to burn more gloriously.Men by a strange, sad name shall callThe darkness, and with bated breathConfront it, but of God’s gifts allAre nothing worth compared with death.”Even as he spoke his visage gleamedWith light unearthly, and it seemedThat radiant wings, unseen till then,Lifted and bore him from their ken.Awe-struck the solitary twoBeheld him vanish from their view.“It was the angel of the Lord,”They said. “How blind we were and dull!He did not bear the fiery sword;Surely the Lord is pitiful.”And then? The unrelenting yearsSurged tide-like on, with hopes and fearsAnd labors full, but nevermoreBrought any angel to their door.But still his words within her heartEve kept, and pondered them apart.And when one fatal day they broughtHer Abel to her, cold and dead,She stayed her anguish with this thought:“’Tis God’s best gift, the angel said.”

COMMONPLACE

“A COMMONPLACE life,” we say, and we sigh;But why should we sigh as we say?The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky,Makes up the commonplace day;The moon and the stars are commonplace things,And the flower that blooms, and the bird that sings:But dark were the world and sad our lotIf the flowers failed and the sun shone not;And God, who studies each separate soul,Out of commonplace lives makes his beautiful whole.

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH

GOLD, frankincense, and myrrh they brought the new-born Christ, —Those wise men from the East, – and in the ox’s stallThe far-brought precious gifts they heaped, with love unpriced;And Christ the babe looked on, and wondered not at all.Gold, frankincense, and myrrh I, too, would offer thee,O King of faithful hearts, upon thy Christmas Day;And poor and little worth although the offering be,Because thou art so kind, I dare to think I may.I bring the gold of faith, which, through the centuries long,Still seeks the Holy Child, and worships at his feet,And owns him for its Lord, with gladness deep and strong,And joins the angel choir, singing in chorus sweet.The frankincense I bear is worship which can rise,Like perfume floating up higher and higher still,Till on the wings of prayer it finds the far blue skies,And falls, as falls the dew, to freshen heart and will.And last I bring the myrrh, half bitter and half sweet,Of my own selfish heart, through sacrifice made clean,And break the vase and spill the oil upon thy feet,O Lord of Christmas Day, as did the Magdalene.Gold, frankincense, and myrrh, – ’tis all I have to bringTo thee, O Holy Child, now throned in heaven’s mid!Because thou art so kind, take the poor offering,And let me go forth blessed, as once the Wise Men did.

A THOUGHT

GOD, in his power, keeps making more men,Peopling the great world again and again;Age after age, as the centuries roll,Never he makes a mistake with a soul,Never neglects them, and never forgets.Atoms in space from their birth to their end,Dead or alive, he is always their friend.Those who lived first, when the world was all new,Still are as dear in his sight as are you;Perished their names from the earth that they trod,But every name is remembered by God, —All that they sought for, and all that they wrought.Fixed in unlikeness each separate soul,Brethren and kin in the infinite whole.Is God not tired, though almighty He is,As the long years form the slow centuries,And the slow centuries linked in embraceMake up the cycles and meet into space?Wearies He never, nor ceaseth His toil,Nor says, “It is finished; creation is done”? —Men are so many, and God is but one!Foolish and childish the thought that I frame.Meteors fall in, but the sun is the same.What are the birds to the air-spaces free?What are the fish to the surge or the sea,Grains to the desert sands, motes to the beam?Time hides its face at Eternity’s call;Men may be many, but God he is all.

AT FLOOD

ALL winter long it ebbed and ebbed, and left the cold earth bare.No pulse of growth the bare boughs stirred, no hope the frozen air;No twitters cheered the snow-heaped nests, no songs the vine and trees,As outward, outward swept the tide, and left the world to freeze.Then came a subtle change, – a time when for a moment’s spaceLife seemed to stay its flying feet and cease its outward race,And, poised as waves poise, turn its face toward the deserted shore,And with a pitying rush come back to visit it once more.We saw the freshening forces rise in every yellowing stem,In budding oak and tasselled larch and scarlet maple gem.Inch after inch, wave following wave, it rose on every side;And now the tide is at its flood, the blessed summer-tide.For every ebb there comes a flow; brave hearts can smile at both.The waters come, the waters go; we watch them, nothing loath.Led by a hand invisible, their bright waves seem to sing,“The Lord who rules the winter is the Lord who sends the spring!”

THE ANGELS

ARE the angels never impatientThat we are so weak and slow,So dull to their guiding touches,So deaf to the whispers lowWith which, entreating and urging,They follow us as we go?Ah no! the pitiful angelsAre clearer of sight than we,And they note not only the thing that we are,But the thing that we fain would be, —The hint of gold in the cumbering dross,Of fruit on the bare, cold tree.And I think that at times the angelsMust smile as mothers smileAt the peevish babies on their knees,Loving them all the while,And cheating the little ones of their painWith sweet and motherly wile.And if they are so patient, the angels,How tenderer far than theyMust the mighty Lord of the angels be,Whom the heavenly hosts obey,Who speeds them forth on their errands,And cares for us more than they!

NOT YET

“NOT yet,” she cried, “not yet!It is the dawning, and life looks so fair;Give me my little hour of sun and dew.Is it a sin that I should crave my share,The common sunshine and the common air,Before I go away, dark shade, with you?Not yet!“Not yet,” she cried, “not yet!The day is hot, and noon is pulsing strong,And every hour is measured by a task;There is no time for sighing or for song.Leave me a little longer, just so longAs till my work is done, – ’tis all I ask.Not yet!“Not yet,” she cried, “not yet!Nightfall is near, and I am tired and frail;Day was too full, now resting-time has come.Let me sit still and hear the nightingale,And see the sunset colors shift and pale,Before I take the long, hard journey home.Not yet!”And to all these in turn,Comes Death, the unbidden, universal guest,With deep and urgent meanings in his eyes,And poppied flowers upon his brow, his breast,Whispering, “Life is good, but I am best;”And never a parted soul looks back and cries,“Not yet!”

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW

TO-DAY is mine; I hold it fast,Hold it and use it as I may,Unmindful of the shadow castBy that dim thing called Yesterday.To-morrow hovers just before,A bright-winged shape, and lures me on,Till in my zeal to grasp and know her,I drop To-day, – and she is gone.The bright wings captured lose their light:To-morrow weeps, and seems to say,“I am To-day, – ah, hold me tight!Erelong I shall be Yesterday.”

“THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD.”

THEY spy it from afar,The beacon’s fiery star,And storm-tossed birds, by fierce winds buffeted,Rally with half-spent force,And shape their struggling courseTo where it rears its blazing, beckoning head.Faintly the tired wings beatThat rhythmical repeatWhich was such joy in summer and in sun;Glazed are the keen, bright eyes,And heave with panting sighsThe soft and plumèd bosoms every one.O’er the white, weltering waves,Which yawn like empty graves,Borne on the urgings of the wind, they fly;They reach the luring glow,They launch and plunge, and lo!Are dashed upon the glass, and fall and die.So through the storm and night,Outwearied with long flight,Our souls come crowding o’er the angry sea.In North, in East, in West,There is no place of rest,Except, O kindly Light, except with thee.No cold, unyielding glassBars and forbids to pass;Thy dear light scorcheth not, nor burns in vain;The soul that finds and knowsSuch safe and sure reposeNeed nevermore go out or roam again.Ah, steadfast citadel!Ah, lamp that burns so wellUpon the Rock of Ages, founded true!Above the angry seaWe urge our flight to thee.Shine, kindly Light, and guide us safely through!

THE STAR

THEY followed the Star the whole night through;As it moved with the midnight they moved too;And cared not whither it led, nor knew,Till Christmas Day in the morning.And just at the dawn in the twilight shadeThey came to the stable, and, unafraid,Saw the Blessed Babe in the manger laidOn Christmas Day in the morning.We have followed the Star a whole long year,And watched its beckon, now faint, now clear,And it now stands still as we draw anearTo Christmas Day in the morning.And just as the wise men did of old,In the hush of the winter dawning cold,We come to the stable, and we beholdThe Child on the Christmas morning.And just as the wise men deemed it meetTo offer him gold and perfumes sweet,We would lay our gifts at his holy feet, —Our gifts on the Christmas morning.O Babe, once laid in the ox’s bed,With never a pillow for thy head,Now throned in the highest heavens instead,O Lord of the Christmas morning! —Because we have known and have loved thy star,And have followed it long and followed it far,From the land where the shadows and darkness are,To find thee on Christmas morning, —Accept the gifts that we dare to bring,Though worthless and poor the offering,And help our souls to rise and to singIn the joy of thy Christmas morning.

HELEN

THE autumn seems to cry for thee,Best lover of the autumn days!Each scarlet-tipped and wine-red tree,Each russet branch and branch of gold,Gleams through its veil of shimmering haze,And seeks thee as they sought of old;For all the glory of their dress,They wear a look of wistfulness.In every wood I see thee stand,The ruddy boughs above thy head,And heaped in either slender handThe frosted white and amber ferns,The sumach’s deep, resplendent red,Which like a fiery feather burns,And over all, thy happy eyes,Shining as clear as autumn skies.I hear thy call upon the breezeGay as the dancing wind, and sweet,And underneath the radiant trees,O’er lichens gray and darkling moss,Follow the trace of those light feetWhich never were at fault or loss,But, by some forest instinct led,Knew where to turn and how to tread.Where art thou, comrade true and tried?The woodlands call for thee in vain,And sadly burns the autumn-tideBefore my eyes, made dim and blindBy blurring, puzzling mists of pain.I look before, I look behind;Beauty and loss seem everywhere,And grief and glory fill the air.Already, in these few short weeks,A hundred things I leave unsaid,Because there is no voice that speaksIn answer, and no listening ear,No one to care now thou art dead!And month by month, and year by year,I shall but miss thee more, and goWith half my thought untold, I know.I do not think thou hast forgot,I know that I shall not forget,And some day, glad, but wondering not,We two shall meet, and face to face,In still, fair fields unseen as yet,Shall talk of each old time and place,And smile at pain interpretedBy wisdom learned since we were dead.

LUX IN TENEBRIS

DARK falls the night, withheld the day,Weary we fare perplexed and chill,Led by one little guiding rayShining from centuries far away, —Good-will and Peace: Peace and Good-will.The torch of glory pales and wanes,The lamp of love must know decease,But still o’er far Judæan plainsThe quenchless star-beam lives and reigns, —Peace and Good-will: Good-will and Peace.And clear to-day as long agoThe angel-chorus echoes still,Above the clamor and the throeOf human passion, human woe, —Good-will and Peace: Peace and Good-will.Through eighteen hundred stormy yearsThe dear notes ring, and will not cease;And past all mists of mortal tearsThe guiding star rebukes our fears, —Peace and Good-will: Good-will and Peace.Shine, blessed star, the night is black,Shine, and the heavens with radiance fill,While on thy slender, guiding trackThe angel voices echo back, —Good-will and Peace: Peace and Good-will.

LENT

IS it the Fast which God approves,When I awhile for flesh eat fish,Changing one dainty dishFor others no less good?Do angels smile and count it gainThat I compose my laughing faceTo gravity for a brief space,Then straightway laugh again?Does Heaven take pleasure as I sitCounting my joys as usurers gold, —This bit to give, that to withhold,Weighing and measuring it;Setting off abstinence from danceAs buying privilege of song;Calling six right and seven wrong,With decorous countenance;Compounding for the dull to-dayBy projects for to-morrow’s fun,Checking off each set task as done,Grudging a short delay?I cannot think that God will careFor such observance; He can seeThe very inmost heart of me,And every secret there.But if I keep a truer Lent,Not heeding what I wear or eat,Not balancing the sour with sweet,Evenly abstinent,And lay my soul with all its stainOf travel from the year-long road,Between the healing hands of GodTo be made clean again;And put my sordid self away,Forgetting for a little spaceThe petty prize, the eager race,The restless, striving day;Opening my darkness to the sun,Opening my narrow eyes to seeThe pain and need so close to meWhich I had willed to shun;Praying God’s quickening grace to showThe thing he fain would have me do,The errand that I may pursueAnd quickly rise and go; —If so I do it, starving pride,Fasting from sin instead of food,God will accept such Lent as good,And bless its Easter-tide.