University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

DROUGHT.

There is a trouble may befall the soul,
Beside which grief will seem a happiness.
The stream whose murmur evermore to bless
Your desert with bewildering music stole,
And over your waste borders did unroll
A weft of green, for beauty and for shade,
That in the wilderness a garden made—
Withdraws, drop after drop, its priceless dole;
And the sweet grasses that the wind sang through,
And all the star-eyed blossoms, droop and die,
Till your bare life lies open to the sky,
The wide, calm weariness of rainless blue,
Without a voice to babble its distress;
A barren, uncomplaining silentness.

SPRINGS IN THE DESERT.

And there is joy no music can express,
When in the empty channels of the heart
New springs of love from unknown sources start;
When all the desert-land of selfishness
That, parched and shrivelling in its own distress,
Sent not a drop to cheer the neighboring waste,—
Breaks into song, and, brimmed with happy haste,
Pours rill to rill, a suffering soil to bless.
O silent, burning hearts! of lonely things
Your lot is far the mournfullest, the worst.
But when your sands with cooling waters burst,
Each thought in welcome of that wonder sings,
“Spring up, O well! from God the fountain flows
That makes the desert blossom as the rose!”