University of Virginia Library


45

[Here, and not here]

Here, and not here!
When following care about my house I tread
Sadly, and all so slowly,
There often seemeth to be round me spread

46

A blessed light, as if the place were holy;
And then thou art near.
Lost, and not lost!
When silence taketh in the night her place,
And I my soul deliver
All to sweet dreaming of thy sovereign grace,
I see the green hills on beyond the river
Thy feet have crossed.
And so, my friend,
I have and hold thee all the while I wait,
Musing and melancholy;
And so these songs to thee I dedicate,
Whose song shall flow henceforth serene and holy,
Life without end.
For dear, dear one,
Even as a traveler, doomed alone to go
Through some wild wintry valley,
Takes in his poor, rude hand the wayside snow
And shapes it to the likeness of a lily,
So have I done;
That while I wove
Lays that to men's minds haply might recall
Some bower of bliss unsaddened,
Moulding and modulating one and all
Upon thy life, so many lives that gladdened
With light and love.