[Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary

O mourner, mourn not vanished light,
But fix your fearful hopes above;
The watcher, through the long, dark night,
Shall see the daybreak of God's love.

A land all green and bright and fair,
Lies just beyond this vale of tears,
And we shall meet, immortal there,
The pleasures of our mortal years.

He who to death has doomed our race,
With steadfast faith our souls has armed,
And made us children of his grace
To go into the grave, unharmed.

The storm may beat, the night may close,
The face may change, the blood run chill,
But his great love no limit knows,
And therefore we should fear no ill.

Dust as we are, and steeped in guilt,
How strange, how wondrous, how divine,
That He hath for us mansions built,
Where everlasting splendors shine.

Our days with beauty let us trim,
As Nature trims with flowers the sod;
Giving the glory all to Him,—
Our Friend, our Father, and our God.

CONSOLATION.

O friends, we are drawing nearer home
As day by day goes by;
Nearer the fields of fadeless bloom,
The joys that never die.

Ye doubting souls, from doubt be free,—
Ye mourners, mourn no more,
For every wave of death's dark sea
Breaks on that blissful shore.

God's ways are high above our ways,—
So shall we learn at length,
And tune our lives to sing his praise
With all our mind, might, strength.

About our devious paths of ill
He sets his stern decrees,
And works the wonder of his will
Through pains and promises.

Strange are the mysteries He employs,
Yet we his love will trust,
Though it should blight our dearest joys,
And bruise us into dust.

UNDER THE SHADOW.

My sorrowing friend, arise and go
About thy house with patient care;
The hand that bows thy head so low
Will bear the ills thou canst not bear.

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Arise, and all thy tasks fulfill,
And as thy day thy strength shall be;
Were there no power beyond the ill,
The ill could not have come to thee.

Though cloud and storm encompass thee,
Be not afflicted nor afraid;
Thou knowest the shadow could not be
Were there no sun beyond the shade.

For thy beloved, dead and gone,
Let sweet, not bitter, tears be shed;
Nor “open thy dark saying on
The harp,” as though thy faith were dead.

Couldst thou even have them reappear
In bodies plain to mortal sense,
How were the miracle more clear
To bring them than to take them hence?

Then let thy soul cry in thee thus
No more, nor let thine eyes thus weep;
Nothing can be withdrawn from us
That we have any need to keep.

Arise, and seek some height to gain
From life's dark lesson day by day,
Not just rehearse its peace and pain—
A wearied actor at the play.

Nor grieve that will so much transcends
Thy feeble powers, but in content
Do what thou canst, and leave the ends
And issues with the Omnipotent.

Dust as thou art, and born to woe,
Seeing darkly, and as through a glass,
He made thee thus to be, for lo!
He made the grass, and flower of grass.

The tempest's cry, the thunder's moan,
The waste of waters, wild and dim,
The still small voice thou hear'st alone—
All, all alike interpret Him.

Arise, my friend, and go about
Thy darkened house with cheerful feet;
Yield not one jot to fear nor doubt,
But, baffled, broken, still repeat:

“'T is mine to work, and not to win;
The soul must wait to have her wings;
Even time is but a landmark in
The great eternity of things.

“Is it so much that thou below,
O heart, shouldst fail of thy desire,
When death, as we believe and know,
Is but a call to come up higher?”

LOST LILIES.

Show you her picture? Here it lies!
Hands of lilies, and lily-like brow;
Mouth that is bright as a rose, and eyes
That are just the soul's sweetest overflow.

Darling shoulders, softly pale,
Borne by the undulating play
Of the life below, up out of their veil,
Like lilies out o' the waves o' the May.

Throat as white as the throat of a swan,
And all as proudly graceful held;
Fair, bare bosom, “clothed upon
With chastity,” like the lady of eld.

Tender lids, that drooping down,
Chide your glances overbold;
Fair, with a golden gleam in the brown,
And brown again in the gleamy gold.

These on your eyes like a splendor fall,
And you marvel not at my love, I see;
But it was not one, and it was not all,
That made her the angel she was to me.

So shut the picture and put it away,
Your fancy is only thus misled:
What can the dull, cold semblance say,
When the spirit and life of the life is fled?

Seven long years, and seven again,
And three to the seven—a weary space—
The weary fingers of the rain
Have drawn the daisies over her face.

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Seven and seven years, and three,
The leaves have faded to death in the frost,
Since the shadow that made for me
The world a shadow my pathway crossed.

And now and then some meteor gleam
Has broken the gloom of my life apart,
Or the only thread of some raveled dream
Has slid like sunshine in my heart.

But never a planet, steady and still,
And never a rainbow, brave and fine,
And never the flowery head of a hill
Has made the cloud of my life to shine.

Yet God is love! and this I trust,
Though summer is over and sweetness done,
That all my lilies are safe, in the dust,
As they were in the glow of the great, glad sun.

Yea, God is love, and love is might!
Mighty as surely to keep as to make;
And the sleepers, sleeping in death's dark night,
In the resurrection of life shall wake.

A WONDER.

Still alway groweth in me the great wonder,
When all the fields are blushing like the dawn,
And only one poor little flower ploughed under,
That I can see no flowers, that one being gone:
No flower of all, because of one being gone.

Aye, ever in me groweth the great wonder,
When all the hills are shining, white and red,
And only one poor little flower ploughed under,
That it were all as one if all were dead:
Aye, all as one if all the flowers were dead.

I cannot feel the beauty of the roses;
Their soft leaves seem to me but layers of dust;
Out of my opening hand each blessing closes:
Nothing is left to me but my hope and trust,
Nothing but heavenly hope and heavenly trust.

I get no sweetness of the sweetest places;
My house, my friends no longer comfort me;
Strange somehow grow the old familiar faces;
For I can nothing have, not having thee:
All my possessions I possessed through thee.

Having, I have them not—strange contradiction!
Heaven needs must cast its shadow on our earth;
Yea, drown us in the waters of affliction
Breast high, to make us know our treasure's worth,
To make us know how much our love is worth.

And while I mourn, the anguish of my story
Breaks, as the wave breaks on the hindering bar:
Thou art but hidden in the deeps of glory,
Even as the sunshine hides the lessening star,
And with true love I love thee from afar.

I know our Father must be good, not evil,
And murmur not, for faith's sake, at my ill;
Nor at the mystery of the working cavil,
That somehow bindeth all things in his will,
And, though He slay me, makes me trust Him still.

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MOST BELOVED.

My heart thou makest void, and full;
Thou giv'st, thou tak'st away my care;
O most beloved! most beautiful!
I miss, and find thee everywhere!

In the sweet water, as it flows;
The winds, that kiss me as they pass;
The starry shadow of the rose,
Sitting beside her on the grass;

The daffodilly trying to bless
With better light the beauteous air;
The lily, wearing the white dress
Of sanctuary, to be more fair;

The lithe-armed, dainty-fingered brier,
That in the woods, so dim and drear,
Lights up betimes her tender fire
To soothe the homesick pioneer;

The moth, his brown sails balancing
Along the stubble, crisp and dry;
The ground-flower, with a blood-red ring
On either hand: the pewet's cry;

The friendly robin's gracious note;
The hills, with curious weeds o'errun;
The althea, in her crimson coat
Tricked out to please the wearied sun;

The dandelion, whose golden share
Is set before the rustic's plough;
The hum of insects in the air;
The blooming bush; the withered bough;

The coming on of eve; the springs
Of daybreak, soft and silver bright;
The frost, that with rough, rugged wings
Blows down the cankered buds; the white,

Long drifts of winter snow; the heat
Of August falling still and wide;
Broad corn fields; one chance stalk of wheat,
Standing with bright head hung aside:

All things, my darling, all things seem
In some strange way to speak of thee;
Nothing is half so much a dream,
Nothing so much reality.

MY DARLINGS.

When steps are hurrying homeward,
And night the world o'erspreads,
And I see at the open windows
The shining of little heads,
I think of you, my darlings,
In your low and lonesome beds.

And when the latch is lifted,
And I hear the voices glad,
I feel my arms more empty,
My heart more widely sad;
For we measure dearth of blessings
By the blessings we have had.

But sometimes in sweet visions
My faith to sight expands,
And with my babes in his bosom,
My Lord before me stands,
And I feel on my head bowed lowly
The touches of little hands.

Then pain is lost in patience,
And tears no longer flow:
They are only dead to the sorrow
And sin of life, I know;
For if they were not immortal
My love would make them so.

WAIT.

Go not far in the land of light!
A little while by the golden gate,
Lest that I lose you out of sight,
Wait, my darling, wait.

Forever now from your happy eyes
Life's scenic picture has passed away;
You have entered into realities,
And I am yet at the play!

Yet at the play of time—through all,
Thinking of you, and your high estate;
A little while, and the curtain will fall—
Wait, my darling, wait!

Mine is a dreary part to do—
A mask of mirth on a mourning brow;
The chance approval, the flower or two,
Are nothing—nothing now!

The last sad act is drawing on;
A little while by the golden gate
Of the holy heaven to which you are gone,
Wait, my darling, wait.

THE OTHER SIDE.

I dreamed I had a plot of ground.
Once on a time, as story saith,
All closèd in and closèd round
With a great wall, as black as death.

I saw a hundred mornings break,
So far a little dream may reach;
And, like a blush on some fair cheek,
The spring-time mantling over each.

Sweet vines o'erhung, like vernal floods,
The wall, I thought, and though I spied
The glorious promise of the buds,
They only bloomed the other side.

Tears, torments, darkened all my ground,
Yet Heaven, by starts, above me gleamed;
I saw, with senses strangely bound,
And in my dreaming knew I dreamed.

Saying to my heart, these things are signs
Sent to instruct us that 't is ours
Duly to dress and keep our vines,
Waiting in patience for the flowers.

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But when the angel, feared by all,
Across my hearth his shadow spread,
The rose that climbed my garden wall
Had bloomed, the other side, I said.

A WINTRY WASTE.

The boughs they blow across the pane,
And my heart is stirred with sudden joy,
For I think 't is the shadow of my boy,
My long lost boy, come home again
To love, and to live with me;
And I put the work from off my knee,
And open the door with eager haste—
There lieth the cold, wild winter waste,
And that is all I see!

The boughs they drag against the eaves.
I hear them early, I hear them late,
And I think 't is the latch of the dooryard gate.
Or a step on the frozen leaves.
And I say to my heart, he is slow, he is slow.
And I call him loud and I call him low,
And listen, and listen, again and again,
And I see the wild shadows go over the pane.
And the dead leaves, as they fall,
I hear, and that is all.

But fancy only half deceives—
My joys are counterfeits of joy,
For I know he never will come, my boy;
And I see through my make-believes,
Only the wintry waste of snow,
Where he lieth so cold, and lieth so low,
And so far from the light and me:
And boughs go over the window-pane,
And drag on the lonely eaves, in vain,—
That waste is all I see.

THE SHADOW.

In vain the morning trims her brows,
A shadow all the sunshine shrouds;
The moon at evening vainly ploughs
Her golden furrows in the clouds.

In vain the morn her splendor hath;
The stars, in vain, their gracious cheer;
There moves a phantom on my path,
A shapeless phantom that I fear.

The summer wears a weary smile,
A weary hum the woodland fills;
The dusty road looks tired the while
It climbs along the sleepy hills.

Still do I strive to build my song
Against this grim aggressive gloom;
O hope, I say, be strong, be strong!
Some special, saving grace must come.

I sit and talk of sunnier skies,
Of flowers with healing in their gleams,
But still the shapeless shadow flies
Before me to the land of dreams.

O friends of mine, who sit dismayed
And watch, I cry, with bated breath;
Yet from their answering shrink afraid,
Lest that they name the name of Death.

HOW PEACE CAME.

As the still hours toward midnight wore,
She called to me—her voice was low
And soft as snow that falls in snow—
She called my name, and nothing more.

Sleeping, I felt the life-blood stir
With piercing anguish all my heart—
I felt my dreams like curtains part,
And straightway passed through them to her.

Yet, 'twixt my answer and her call,
My thoughts had time enough to run
Through everything that I had done
From my youth upward. One and all.

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The harmful words which I had said—
The sinful thoughts, the looks untrue,
Straight into fearful phantoms grew,
And ranged themselves about her bed.

Weeping, I called her names most sweet,
But still the phantoms, evil-eyed,
Between us stood, and though I died,
I could not even touch her feet.

My soul within me seemed to groan—
My cheek was burning up with shame—
I called each dark deed by its name,
And humbly owned it for my own.

My tongue was loosed—my heart was free—
I took the little shining head
Betwixt my palms—the phantoms fled.
And Heaven was moved, and came to me.

BE STILL.

Come, bring me wild pinks from the valleys,
Ablaze with the fire o' the sun—
No poor little pitiful lilies
That speak of a life that is done!

And open the windows to lighten
The wearisome chamber of pain—
The eyes of my darling will brighten
To see the green hill-tops again.

Choose tunes with a lullaby flowing,
And sing through the watches you keep
Be soft with your coming and going—
Be soft! she is falling asleep.

Ah, what would my life be without her!
Pray God that I never may know!
Dear friends, as you gather about her,
Be low with your weeping—be low.

Be low, oh, be low with your weeping!
Your sobs would be sorrow to her;
I tremble lest while she is sleeping
A rose on her pillow should stir.

Sing slower, sing softer and slower!
Her sweet cheek is losing its red—
Sing low, aye, sing lower and lower—
Be still, oh, be still! She is dead.

VANISHED.

Out of the wild and weary night
I see the morning softly rise,
But oh, my lovely, lovely eyes!
The world is dim without your light.

I see the young buds break and start
To fresher life when frosts are o'er,
But oh, my rose-red mouth! no more
Will kiss of yours delight my heart.

The worm that knows nor hope nor trust
Comes forth with glorious wings dispread,
But oh, my little golden head!
I see you only in the dust.

I hear the calling of the lark,
Despite the cloud, despite the rain;
But oh, my snow-white hands! in vain
I search to find you through the dark.

When the strong whirlwind's rage is o'er,
A whisper bids the land rejoice;
But oh, my gentle, gentle voice
Your music gladdens me no more.

But though no earthly joy dispel
This gloom that fills my life with woe,
My sweetest, and my best! I know
That you are still alive and well.

Alive and well: oh, blissful thought!
In some sweet clime, I know not where;
I only know that you are there,
And sickness, pain, and death are not.

SAFE.

Ah, she was not an angel to adore,
She was not perfect—she was only this:
A woman to be prattled to, to kiss,
To praise with all sweet praises, and before

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Whose face you never were ashamed to lay
The affections of your pride away.

I have kept Fancy traveling to and fro
Full many an hour, to find what name were best,
If there were any sweeter than the rest,
That I might always call my darling so;
And this of woman seems to me the sweetest,
The finest, the most gracious, the completest.

The dust she wore about her I agree
Was poor and sickly, even to make you sad,
But this rough world we live in never had
An ornament more excellent than she;
The earthly dress was all so frail that you
Could see the beauteous spirit shining through.

Not what she was, but what she was to me
Is what I fain would tell—from her was drawn
The softness of the eve, the light of dawn:
With her and for her I could only see
What things were sweet and sensible and pure;
Now all is dull, slow guessing, nothing sure.

My sorrow with this comfort yet is stilled—
I do not dread to hear the winter stir
His wild winds up—I have no fear for her:
And all my love could never hope to build
A place so sweet beneath heaven's arch of blue,
As she by death has been elected to.

WAITING.

Ah yes, I see the sunshine play,
I hear the robin's cheerful call,
But I am thinking of the day
My darling left me—that is all.

I do not grieve for her—ah no!
To her the way is clear, I trust;
But for myself I grieve, so low,
So weak, so in, and of the dust.

And for my sadness I am sad—
I would be gay if so I might,
But she was all the joy I had—
My life, my love, my heart's delight,

We came together to the door
Of our sweet home that is to be,
And knowing, she went in before,
To put on marriage robes for me.

'T is weary work to wait so long,
But true love knows not how to doubt;
God's wisdom fashions seeming wrong,
That we may find right meanings out.

INTIMATIONS.

There is hovering about me
A power so sweet, so sweet,
That I know, despite my sorrow,
We assuredly shall meet.
I know, and thus the darkness
In between us, is defied,
That death is but a shadow
With the sunshine either side.

The world is very weary,
But I never cease to know
That still there is a border-land
Where spirits come and go;
For you send me intimations
In the morning's gentle beams,
And at night you come and meet me
In the golden gate of dreams.

I am desolate and dreary,
But mortal pain and doubt
Are blessings, and our part it is
To find their meanings out:
To find their blessed meanings,
And to wait in hope and trust,
Till our gracious Lord and Master
Shall redeem us from the dust.

THE GREAT QUESTION.

“How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?”

The waves, they are wildly heaving,
And bearing me out from the shore,

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And I know of the things I am leaving,
But not of the things before.
O Lord of love, whom the shape of a dove
Came down and hovered o'er,
Descend to-night with heavenly light,
And show me the farther shore.

There is midnight darkness o'er me,
And 't is light, more light, I crave;
The billows behind and before me
Are gaping, each with a grave:
Descend to-night, O Lord of might,
Who died our souls to save;
Descend to-night, my Lord, my Light,
And walk with me on the wave!

My heart is heavy to breaking
Because of the mourners' sighs,
For they cannot see the awak'ning,
Nor the body with which we arise.
Thou, who for sake of men didst break
The awful seal of the tomb—
Show them the way into life, I pray,
And the body with which we come!

Comfort their pain and pining
For the nearly wasted sands,
With the many mansions shining
In the house not made with hands:
And help them by faith to see through death
To that brighter and better shore,
Where they never shall weep who are fallen asleep
And never be sick any more.

[What comfort, when with clouds of woe]

What comfort, when with clouds of woe
The heart is burdened, and must weep,
To feel that pain must end,—to know,
“He giveth his beloved sleep.”

When in the mid-day march we meet
The outstretched shadows of the night,
The promise, how divinely sweet,
“At even-time it shall be light.”

University of Virginia Library

POEMS OF GRIEF AND CONSOLATION.

MOURN NOT.