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

Poor little moth! thy summer sports were done.
Had I not happened by this pool to lie;
But thou hast pierced my conscience very sore
With thy vain flounderings, so come ashore
In the safe hollow of my helpful hand,—
Rest thee a little on the warm, dry sand,
Then crawling out into the friendly sun,
As best thou mayest, get thy wet wings dry.
Aye, it has touched my conscience, little moth,
To see thy bright wings made for other use,
Haply for just a moment's chance abuse,
Dragging thee, thus, to death; yet am I loath
To heed the lesson, for I fain would lie
Along the margin of this water low
And watch the sunshine run in tender gleams
Down the gray elders—watch those flowers of light,—
If flowers they be, and not the golden dreams
Left in her grassy pillows by the night,—
The dandelions, that trim the shadows so,
And watch the wild flag, with her eyes of blue
Wide open for the sun to look into,—
Her green skirts laid along the wind, and she,
As if to mar fair fortune wantonly,
Wading along the water, half her height.
Fain would I lie, with arms across my breast,
As quiet as yon wood-duck on her nest,
That sits the livelong day with ruffled quills,
Waiting to see the little yellow bills
Breach the white walls about them,—would that I
Could find out some sweet charm wherewith to buy
A too uneasy conscience,—then would Rest
Gather and fold me to itself; and last,
Forgetting the hereafter and the past,
My soul would have the present for its guest,
And grow immortal.
So, my little fool,
Thou 'rt back upon the water! Lord! how vain
The strife to save or man or moth from pain
Merited justly,—having thy wild way
To travel all the air, thou comest here
To try with spongy feet the treacherous pool;
Well, thou at least hast made one truth more clear,—
Men make their fate, and do not fate obey.

GOOD AND EVIL.

The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Julius Cæsar.

Once when the messenger that stays
For all, beside me stood,

151

I mused on what great Shakespeare says
Of evil and of good.

And shall the evil I have done
Live after me? I said;
When lo! a splendor like the sun
Shone round about my bed.

And a sweet spirit of the skies
Near me, yet all apart,
In whispers like the low wind's sighs,
Spake to my listening heart;

Saying, your poet, reverenced thus,
For once hath been unwise;
The good we do lives after us,
The evil 't is that dies!

Evil is earthy, of the earth,—
A thing of pain and crime,
That scarcely sends a shadow forth
Beyond the bounds of time.

But good, in substance, dwells above
This discontented sphere,
Extending only, through God's love,
Uncertain shadows here.

STROLLER'S SONG.

The clouds all round the sky are black,
As it never would shine again;
But I'll sling my wallet over my back,
And trudge in spite of the rain!

And if there rise no star to guide
My feet when day is gone,
I'll shift my wallet the other side,
And trudge right on and on.

For this of a truth I always note,
And shape my course thereby,
That Nature has never an overcoat
To keep her furrows dry.

And how should the hills be clothed with grain,
The vales with flowers be crowned,
But for the chain of the silver rain
That draws them out of the ground!

So I will trudge with heart elate,
And feet with courage shod,
For that which men call chance and fate
Is the handiwork of God.

There 's time for the night as well as the morn,
For the dark as the shining sky;
The grain of the corn and the flower unborn
Have rights as well as I.

A LESSON.

One autumn-time I went into the woods
When Nature grieves,
And wails the drying up of the bright floods
Of summer leaves.

The rose had drawn the green quilt of the grass
Over her head,
And, taking off her pretty, rustling dress,
Had gone to bed.

And, while the wind went ruffling through her bower
To do her harm,
She lay and slept away the frosty hour,
All safe and warm.

The little bird that came when May was new,
And sang her best,
Had gone,—I put my double hand into
Her chilly nest.

Then, sitting down beneath a naked tree,
I looked about,—
Saying, in these, if there a lesson be,
I'll spy it out.

And presently the teaching that was meant
I thought I saw,—
That I, in trial, should patiently consent
To God's great law.

[He spoils his house and throws his pains away]

He spoils his house and throws his pains away
Who, as the sun veers, builds his windows o'er,
For, should he wait, the Light, some time of day,
Would come and sit beside him in his door.

152

ON SEEING A WILD BIRD.

Beautiful symbol of a freer life,
Knowing no purpose, and yet true to one;
Would I could learn thy wisdom, I who run
This way and that, striving against my strife.

No fancy vague, no object half unknown,
Diverts thee from thyself. By stops and starts
I live the while by little broken parts
A thousand lives,—not one of all, my own.

Thou sing'st thy full heart out, and low or high
Flyest at pleasure; who of us can say
He lives his inmost self e'en for a day,
And does the thing he would? alas, not I.

We hesitate, go backward, and return,
And when the earth with living sunshine gleams,
We make a darkness round us with our dreams,
And wait for that which we ourselves should earn.

For we shall work out answers to our needs
If we have continuity of will
To hold our shifting purposes until
They germinate, and bring forth fruit in deeds.

We ask and hope too much,—too lightly press
Toward the end sought, and haply learn, at length,
That we have vainly dissipated strength
Which, concentrated, would have brought success.

But Truth is sure, and can afford to wait
Our slow perception, (error ebbs and flows:)
Her essence is eternal, and she knows
The world must swing round to her, soon or late.

RICH, THOUGH POOR.

Red in the east the morning broke,
And in three chambers three men woke;
One through curtains wove that night
In the loom of the spider, saw the light
Lighting the rafters black and old,
And sighed for the genii to make them gold.

One in a chamber, high and fair,
With paneled ceilings, enameled rare,
On the purple canopy of his bed
Saw the light with a sluggard's dread,
And buried his sullen and sickly face
Deep in his pillow fringed with lace.

One, from a low and grassy bed,
With the golden air for a coverlet;
No ornaments had he to wear
But his curling beard and his coal-black hair;
His wealth was his acres, and oxen twain,
And health was his cheerful chamberlain.

Night fell stormy—“Woe is me!”
Sighed so wearily two of the three;
“The corn I planted to-day will sprout,”
Said one, “and the roses be blushing out;”
And his heart with its joyful hope o'erran:
Think you he was the poorest man?

[Still from the unsatisfying quest]

Still from the unsatisfying quest
To know the final plan,
I turn my soul to what is best
In nature and in man.

[The glance that doth thy neighbor doubt]

The glance that doth thy neighbor doubt
Turn thou, O man, within,
And see if it will not bring out
Some unsuspected sin.

To hide from shame the branded brow,
Make broad thy charity,
And judge no man, except as thou
Wouldst have him judge of thee.

153

SIXTEEN.

Suppose your hand with power supplied,—
Say, would you slip it 'neath my hair,
And turn it to the golden side
Of sixteen years? Suppose you dare?

And I stood here with smiling mouth,
Red cheeks, and hands all softly white,
Exceeding beautiful with youth,
And that some sly, consenting sprite,

Brought dreams as bright as dreams can be,
To keep the shadows from my brow,
And plucked down hearts to pleasure me,
As you would roses from a bough;

What could I do then? idly wear—
While all my mates went on before—
The bashful looks and golden hair
Of sixteen years, and nothing more!

Nay, done with youth is my desire,
To Time I give no false abuse,
Experience is the marvelous fire
That welds our knowledge into use.

And all its fires of heart, or brain,
Where purpose into power was wrought,
I'd bear, and gladly bear again,
Rather than be put back one thought.

So sigh no more, my gentle friend,
That I have reached the time of day
When white hairs come, and heartbeats send
No blushes through the cheeks astray.

For, could you mould my destiny
As clay within your loving hand,
I 'd leave my youth's sweet company,
And suffer back to where I stand.

PRAYER FOR LIGHT.

Oh what is Thy will toward us mortals,
Most Holy and High?
Shall we die unto life while we 're living?
Or die while we die?

Can we serve Thee and wait on Thee only
In cells, dark and low?
Must the altars we build Thee be built with
The stones of our woe?

Shall we only attain the great measures
Of grace and of bliss
In the life that awaits us, by cruelly
Warring on this?

Or, may we still watch while we work, and
Be glad while we pray?
So reverent, we cast the poor shows of
Our reverence away!

Shall the nature thou gav'st us, pronouncing it
Good, and not ill,
Be warped by our pride or our passion
Outside of Thy will?

Shall the sins which we do in our blindness
Thy mercy transcend,
And drag us down deeper and deeper
Through worlds without end?

Or, are we stayed back in sure limits,
And Thou, high above,
O'erruling our trials for our triumph,
Our hatreds for love?

And is each soul rising, though slowly,
As onward it fares,
And are life's good things and its evil
The steps in the stairs?

All day with my heart and my spirit,
In fear and in awe,
I strive to feel out through my darkness
Thy light and Thy law.

And this, when the sun from his shining
Goes sadly away,
And the moon looketh out of her chamber,
Is all I can say;

154

That He who foresaw of transgression
The might and the length,
Has fashioned the law to exceed not
Our poor human strength!

THE UNCUT LEAF.

You think I do not love you! Why,
Because I have my secret grief?
Because in reading I pass by,
Time and again, the uncut leaf?

One rainy night you read to me
In some old book, I know not what,
About the woods of Eldersie,
And a great hunt—I have forgot

What all the story was—ah, well,
It touched me, and I felt the pain
With which the poor dumb creature fell
To his weak knees, then rose again,

And shuddering, dying, turned about,
Lifted his antlered head in pride,
And from his wounded face shook out
The bloody arrows ere he died!

That night I almost dared, I think,
To cut the leaf, and let the sun
Shine in upon the mouldy ink,—
You ask me why it was not done.

Because I rather feel than know
The truth which every soul receives
From kindred souls that long ago
You read me through the double leaves!

So pray you, leave my tears to blot
The record of my secret grief,
And though I know you know, seem not
Ever to see the uncut leaf.

THE MIGHT OF TRUTH.

We are proclaimed, even against our wills—
If we are silent, then our silence speaks—
Children from tumbling on the summer-hills
Come home with roses rooted in their cheeks.
I think no man can make his lie hold good,—
One way or other, truth is understood.

The still sweet influence of a life of prayer
Quickens their hearts who never bow the knee,—
So come fresh draughts of living inland air
To weary homesick men, far out at sea.
Acquaint thyself with God, O man, and lo!
His light shall, like a garment, round thee flow.

The selfishness that with our lives has grown,
Though outward grace its full expression bar,
Will crop out here and there like belts of stone
From shallow soil, discovering what we are.
The thing most specious cannot stead the true,—
Who would appear clean, must be clean all through.

In vain doth Satan say, “My heart is glad,
I wear of Paradise the morning gem;”
While on his brow, magnificently sad,
Hangs like a crag his blasted diadem.
Still doth the truth the hollow lie invest,
And all the immortal ruin stands confessed.

TWO TRAVELERS.

Two travelers, meeting by the way,
Arose, and at the peep of day
Brake bread, paid reckoning, and they say

Set out together, and so trode
Till where upon the forking road
A gray and good old man abode.

There each began his heart to strip,
And all that light companionship
That cometh of the eye and lip

Had sudden end, for each began
To ask the gray and good old man
Whither the roads before them ran.

One, as they saw, was shining bright,

155

With such a great and gracious light,
It seemed that heaven must be in sight.

“This,” said the old man, “doth begin
Full sweetly, but its end is in
The dark and desert-place of sin.

“And this, that seemeth all to lie
In gloomy shadow,—by-and-by,
Maketh the gateway of the sky.

“Bide ye a little; fast and pray,
And 'twixt the good and evil way,
Choose ye, my brethren, this day.”

And as the day was at the close
The two wayfaring men arose,
And each the road that pleased him chose.

One took the pathway that began
So brightly, and so smoothly ran
Through flowery fields,—deluded man!

Ere long he saw, alas! alas!
All darkly, and as through a glass,
Flames, and not flowers, along the grass.

Then shadows round about him fell,
And in his soul he knew full well
His feet were taking hold on hell.

He tried all vainly to retrace
His pathway; horrors blocked the place,
And demons mocked him to his face.

Broken in spirit, crushed in pride,
One morning by the highway-side
He fell, and all unfriended, died.

The other, after fast and prayer,
Pursued the road that seemed less fair,
And peace went with him, unaware.

And when the old man saw where lay
The traveler's choice, he said, “I pray,
Take this to help you on the way;”

And gave to him a lovely book,
Wherein for guidance he must look,
He told him, if the path should crook.

And so, through labyrinths of shade,
When terror pressed, or doubt dismayed,
He walked in armor all arrayed.

So, over pitfalls traveled he,
And passed the gates of harlotry,
Safe with his heavenly company.

And when the road did low descend,
He found a good inn, and a friend,
And made a comfortable end.

THE BLIND TRAVELER.

A poor blind man was traveling one day,
The guiding staff from out his hand was gone,
And the road crooked, so he lost his way,
And the night fell, and a great storm came on.

He was not, therefore, troubled and afraid,
Nor did he vex the silence with his cries,
But on the rainy grass his cheek he laid,
And waited for the morning sun to rise.

Saying to his heart,—Be still, my heart, and wait,
For if a good man happen to go by,
He will not leave us to our dark estate
And the cold cover of the storm, to die;

But he will sweetly take us by the hand,
And lead us back into the straight highway;
Full soon the clouds will have evanished, and
All the wide east be blazoned with the day.

And we are like that blind man, all of us,—
Benighted, lost! But while the storm doth fall
Shall we not stay our sinking hearts up, thus,—
Above us there is One who sees it all;

And if His name be Love, as we are told,
He will not leave us to unequal strife;
But to that city with the streets of gold
Bring us, and give us everlasting life.

156

MY GOOD ANGEL.

Very simple are my pleasures,—
O good angel, stay with me,
While I number what they be,—
Easy 't is to count my treasures.

Easy 't is,—they are not many:
Friends for love and company,
O good angel grant to me;
Strength to work; and is there any

Man or woman, evil seeing
In my daily walk and way,
Grant, and give me grace to pray
For a less imperfect being.

Grant a larger light, and better,
To inform my foe and me,
So we quickly shall agree;
Grant forgiveness to my debtor.

Make my heart, I pray, of kindness
Always full, as clouds of showers;
Keep my mortal eyes from blindness;
I would see the sun and flowers.

From temptation pray deliver;
And, good angel, grant to me
That my heart be grateful ever:
Herein all my askings be.

CARE.

Care is like a husbandman
Who doth guard our treasures:
And the while, all ways he can,
Spoils our harmless pleasures.

Loving hearts and laughing brows,
Most he seeks to plunder,
And each furrow that he ploughs
Turns the roses under.

MORE LIFE.

When spring-time prospers in the grass,
And fills the vales with tender bloom,
And light winds whisper as they pass
Of sunnier days to come:

In spite of all the joy she brings
To flood and field, to hill and grove,
This is the song my spirit sings,—
More light, more life, more love!

And when, her time fulfilled, she goes
So gently from her vernal place,
And meadow wide and woodland glows
With sober summer grace:

When on the stalk the ear is set,
With all the harvest promise bright,
My spirit sings the old song yet,—
More love, more life, more light.

When stubble takes the place of grain,
And shrunken streams steal slow along,
And all the faded woods complain
Like one who suffers wrong;

When fires are lit, and everywhere
The pleasures of the household rife,
My song is solemnized to prayer,—
More love, more light, more life!

CONTRADICTORY.

We contradictory creatures
Have something in us alien to our birth,
That doth suffuse us with the infinite,
While downward through our natures
Run adverse thoughts, that only find delight
In the poor perishable things of earth.

Blindly we feel about
Our little circle,—ever on the quest
Of knowledge, which is only, at the best,
Pushing the boundaries of our ignorance out.

But while we know all things are miracles,
And that we cannot set
An ear of corn, nor tell a blade of grass
The way to grow, our vanity o'erswells
The limit of our wisdom, and we yet
Audaciously o'erpass
This narrow promontory
Of low, dark land, into the unseen glory,
And with unhallowed zeal
Unto our fellow-men God's judgments deal.

157

Sometimes along the gloom
We meet a traveler, striking hands with whom,
Maketh a little sweet and tender light
To bless our sight,
And change the clouds around us and above
Into celestial shapes,—and this is love.

Morn cometh, trailing storms,
Even while she wakes a thousand grateful psalms
And with her golden calms
All the wide valley fills;
Darkly they lie below
The purple fire,—the glow,
Where, on the high tops of the eastern hills,
She rests her cloudy arms.

And we are like the morning,—heavenly light
Blowing about our heads, and th' dumb night
Before us and behind us; ceaseless ills
Make up our years; and as from off the hills
The white mists melt, and leave them bare and rough,
So melt from us the fancies of our youth
Until we stand against the last black truth
Naked and cold, and desolate enough.

THIS IS ALL.

Trying, trying—always trying—
Falling down to save a fall;
Living by the dint of dying,—
This is all!

Giving, giving—always giving—
Gathering just abroad to cast;
Dying by the dint of living
At the last!

Sighing, smiling—smiling, sighing—
Sun in shade, and shade in sun;
Dying, living—living, dying—
Both in one!

Hoping in our very fearing,
Striving hard against our strife;
Drifting in the stead of steering,—
This is life!

Seeming to believe in seeming,
Half disproving, to approve;
Knowing that we dream, in dreaming,—
This is love!

Being in our weakness stronger,—
Living where there is no breath;
Feeling harm can harm no longer,—
This is death.

IN VAIN.

Down the peach-tree slid
The milk-white drops of th' dew,
All in that merry time of th' year
When the world is made anew.

The daisy dressed in white,
The paw-paw flower in brown,
And th' violet sat by her lover, th' brook,
With her golden eyelids down.

Gayly its own best hue
Shone in each leaf and stem,—
Gayly the children rolled on th' grass,
With their shadows after them.

I said, Be sweet for me,
O little wild flowers! for I
Have larger need, and shut in myself,
I wither and waste and die!

Pity me, sing for me!
I cried to the tuneful bird;
My heart is full of th' spirit of song,
And I cannot sing a word!

Like a buried stream that longs
Through th' upper world to run,
And kiss the dawn in her rosy mouth,
And lie in th' light of th' sun;

So in me, is my soul,
Wasting in darkness the hours,
Ever fretted and sullen and sad
With a sense of its unused powers.

In vain! each little flower
Must be sweet for itself, nor part
With its white or brown, and every bird
Must sing from its own full heart.

158

BEST, TO THE BEST.

The wind blows where it listeth,
Out of the east and west,
And the sinner's way is as dark as death,
And life is best, to the best.

The touch of evil corrupteth;
Tarry not on its track;
The grass where the serpent crawls is stirred
As if it grew on his back.

To know the beauty of cleanness
The heart must be clean and sweet;
We must love our neighbor to get his his love,—
As we measure, he will mete.

Cold black crusts to the beggar,
A cloak of rags and woe;
And the furrows are warm to the sower's feet,
And his bread is white as snow.

Can blind eyes see the even,
As he hangs on th' days' soft close,
Like a lusty boy on his mother's neck,
Bright in the face as a rose?

The grave is cold and cruel,—
Rest, pregnant with unrest;
And woman must moan and man must groan;
But life is best, to the best.

THORNS.

I do not think the Providence unkind
That gives its bad things to this life of ours;
They are the thorns whereby we, travelers blind.
Feel out our flowers.

I think hate shows the quality of love,—
That wrong attests that somewhere there is right:
Do not the darkest shadows serve to prove
The power of light?

On tyrannous ways the feet of Freedom press;
The green bough broken off, lets sunshine in;
And where sin is, aboundeth righteousness,
Much more than sin.

Man cannot be all selfish; separate good
Is nowhere found beneath the shining sun:
All adverse interests, truly understood,
Resolve to one!

I do believe all worship doth ascend,—
Whether from temple floors by heathen trod,
Or from the shrines where Christian praises blend,—
To the true God,

Blessed forever: that His love prepares
The raven's food; the sparrow's fall doth see;
And, simple, sinful as I am, He cares
Even for me.

OLD ADAM.

The wind is blowing cold from the west,
And your hair is gray and thin;
Come in, old Adam, and shut the door,—
Come in, old Adam, come in!
“The wind is blowing out o' the west,
Cold, cold, and my hair is thin;
But it is not there, that face so fair,
And why should I go in?”

The wind is blowing cold from the west;
The day is almost gone;
The cock is abed, the cattle fed,
And the night is coming on!
Come in, old Adam, and shut the door,
And leave without your care.
“Nay, nay, for the sun of my life is down,
And the night is everywhere.”

The cricket chirps, and your chair is set
Where the fire shines warm and clear:

159

Come in, old Adam, and you will forget
It is not the spring o' the year.
Come in! the wind blows wild from the west,
And your hair is gray and thin.
“'T is not there now, that sweet, sweet brow,
And why should I go in?”

SOMETIMES.

Sometimes for days
Along the fields that I of time have leased,
I go, nor find a single leaf increased;
And hopeless, graze
With forehead stooping downward like a beast.

O heavy hours!
My life seems all a failure, and I sigh,
What is there left for me to do, but die?
So small my powers
That I can only stretch them to a cry!

But while I stretch
What strength I have, though only to a cry,
I gain an utterance that men know me by:
Create, and fetch
A something out of chaos,—that is I.

Good comes to pass
We know not when nor how, for, looking to
What seemed a barren waste, there starts to view
Some bunch of grass,
Or snarl of violets, shining with the dew.

I do believe
The very impotence to pray, is prayer;
The hope that all will end, is in despair,
And while we grieve,
Comfort abideth with us, unaware.

[Too much of joy is sorrowful]

Too much of joy is sorrowful,
So cares must needs abound;
The vine that bears too many flowers
Will trail upon the ground.

THE SEA-SIDE CAVE.

“A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings tell the matter.”

At the dead of night by the side of the Sea
I met my gray-haired enemy,—
The glittering light of his serpent eye
Was all I had to see him by.

At the dead of night, and stormy weather
We went into a cave together,—
Into a cave by the side of the Sea,
And—he never came out with me!

The flower that up through the April mould
Comes like a miser dragging his gold,
Never made spot of earth so bright
As was the ground in the cave that night.

Dead of night, and stormy weather!
Who should see us going together
Under the black and dripping stone
Of the cave from whence I came alone!

Next day as my boy sat on my knee
He picked the gray hairs off from me,
And told with eyes brimful of fear
How a bird in the meadow near

Over her clay-built nest had spread
Sticks and leaves all bloody red,
Brought from a cave by the side of the Sea
Where some murdered man must be.

THE MEASURE OF TIME.

A breath, like the wind's breath, may carry
A name far and wide,
But the measure of time does not tally
With any man's pride.

'T is not a wild chorus of praises,
Nor chance, nor yet fate,—
'T is the greatness born with him, and in him,
That makes the man great.

160

And when in the calm self-possession
That birthright confers,
The man is stretched out to her measure,
Fame claims him for hers.

Too proud too fall back on achievement,
With work in his sight,
His triumph may not overtake him
This side of the night.

And men, with his honors about them,
His grave-mound may pass,
Nor dream what a great heart lies under
Its short knotty grass.

But though he has lived thus unprospered,
And died thus, alone,
His face may not always be hid by
A hand-breadth of stone.

The long years are wiser than any
Wise day of them all,
And the hero at last shall stand upright,—
The base image fall.

The counterfeit may for a season
Deceive the wide earth,
But the lie, waxing great, comes to labor.
And truth has its birth.

IDLE FEARS.

In my lost childhood old folks said to me,
“Now is the time and season of your bliss;
All joy is in the hope of joy to be,
Not in possession; and in after years
You will look back with longing sighs and tears
To the young days when you from care were free.”
It was not true; they nurtured idle fears;
I never saw so good a day as this!

And youth and I have parted: long ago
I looked into my glass, and saw one day
A little silver line that told me so:
At first I shut my eyes and cried, and then
I hid it under girlish flowers, but when
Persuasion would not make my mate to stay,
I bowed my faded head, and said, “Amen!”
And all my peace is since she went away.

My window opens toward the autumn woods;
I see the ghosts of thistles walk the air
O'er the long, level stubble-land that broods;
Beneath the herbless rocks that jutting lie,
Summer has gathered her white family
Of shrinking daisies; all the hills are bare,
And in the meadows not a limb of buds
Through the brown bushes showeth anywhere.

Dear, beauteous season, we must say good-bye,
And can afford to, we have been so blest,
And farewells suit the time; the year doth lie
With cloudy skirts composed, and pallid face
Hid under yellow leaves, with touching grace,
So that her bright-haired sweetheart of the sky
The image of her prime may not displace.

[Do not look for wrong and evil]

Do not look for wrong and evil—
You will find them if you do;
As you measure for your neighbor
He will measure back to you.

Look for goodness, look for gladness,
You will meet them all the while;
If you bring a smiling visage
To the glass, you meet a smile.

[Our unwise purposes are wisely crossed;]

Our unwise purposes are wisely crossed;
Being small ourselves, we must essay small things:
Th' adventurous mote, with wide, outwearied wings
Crawling across a water-drop, is lost.

161

HINTS.

Two thirsty travelers chanced one day to meet
Where a spring bubbled from the burning sand;
One drank out of the hollow of his hand,
And found the water very cool and sweet.

The other waited for a smith to beat
And fashion for his use a golden cup;
And while he waited, fainting in the heat,
The sunshine came and drank the fountain up!

In a green field two little flowers there were,
And both were fair in th' face and tender-eyed:
One took the light and dew that heaven supplied,
And all the summer gusts were sweet with her.

The other, to her nature false, denied
That she had any need of sun and dew,
And hung her silly head, and sickly grew,
And frayed and faded, all untimely died.

A vine o' th' bean, that had been early wed
To a tall peach, conceiving that he hid
Her glories from the world, unwisely slid
Out of his arms, and vainly chafing, said:

“This fellow is an enemy of mine,
And dwarfs me with his shade:” she would not see
That she was made a vine, and not a tree,
And that a tree is stronger than a vine.

TO A STAGNANT RIVER.

O river, why lie with your beautiful face
To the hill? Can you move him away from his place?
You may moan,—you may clasp him with soft arms forever,—
He will still be a flinty hill,—you be a river.

'T is willful, 't is wicked to waste in despair
The treasure so many are dying to share,
The gifts that we have, Heaven lends for right using,
And not for ignoring, and not for abusing.

Let the moss have his love, and the grass and the dew,—
By God's law he cannot be mated with you.
His friend is the stubble, his life is the dust,
You are not what you would,—you must be what you must.

If into his keeping your fortune you cast,
I tell you the end will be hatred at last,
Or death through stagnation; your rest is in motion;
The aim of your being, the cloud and the ocean.

Love cannot be love, with itself set at strife;
To sin against Nature is death and not life.
You may freeze in the shadow or seethe in the sun,
But the oil and the water will not be at one.

Your pride and your peace, when this passion is crossed,
Will pay for the struggle whatever it cost;
But though earth dissolve, though the heavens should fall,
To yourself, your Creator, be true first of all.

[Apart from the woes that are dead and gone,]

Apart from the woes that are dead and gone,
And the shadow of future care,
The heaviest yoke of the present hour
Is easy enough to bear.

162

COUNSEL.

Seek not to walk by borrowed light,
But keep unto thine own:
Do what thou doest with thy might,
And trust thyself alone!

Work for some good, nor idly lie
Within the human hive;
And though the outward man should die,
Keep thou the heart alive!

Strive not to banish pain and doubt,
In pleasure's noisy din;
The peace thou seekest for without
Is only found within.

If fortune disregard thy claim,
By worth, her slight attest;
Nor blush and hang the head for shame
When thou hast done thy best.

What thy experience teaches true,
Be vigilant to heed;
The wisdom that we suffer to,
Is wiser than a creed.

Disdain neglect, ignore despair,
On loves and friendships gone
Plant thou thy feet, as on a stair,
And mount right up and on!

LATENT LIFE.

Though never shown by word or deed,
Within us lies some germ of power,
As lies unguessed, within the seed,
The latent flower.

And under every common sense
That doth its daily use fulfill,
There lies another, more intense,
And beauteous still.

This dusty house, wherein is shrined
The soul, is but the counterfeit
Of that which shall be, more refined,
And exquisite.

The light which to our sight belongs,
Enfolds a light more broad and clear;
Music but intimates the songs
We do not hear.

The fond embrace, the tender kiss
Which love to its expression brings,
Are but the husk the chrysalis
Wears on its wings.

The vigor falling to decay,
Hopes, impulses that fade and die,
Are but the layers peeled away
From life more high.

When death shall come and disallow
These rough and ugly masks we wear,
I think, that we shall be as now,—
Only more fair.

And He who makes his love to be
Always around me, sure and calm,
Sees what is possible to me,
Not what I am.

HOW AND WHERE.

How are we living?
Like herbs in a garden that stand in a row,
And have nothing to do but to stand there and grow?
Our powers of perceiving
So dull and so dead,
They simply extend to the objects about us,—
The moth, having all his dark pleasure without us,—
The worm in his bed!

If thus we are living,
And fading and falling, and rotting, alas!—
Like the grass, or the flowers that grow in the grass,—
Is life worth our having?
The insect a-humming—
The wild bird is better, that sings as it flies,—
The ox, that turns up his great face to the skies,
When the thunder is coming.

Where are we living?
In passion, and pain, and remorse do we dwell,—
Creating, yet terribly hating, our hell?
No triumph achieving?
No grossness refining?

163

The wild tree does more; for his coat of rough barks
He trims with green mosses, and checks with the marks
Of the long summer shining.

We 're dying, not living:
Our senses shut up, and our hearts faint and cold:
Upholding old things just because they are old;
Our good spirits grieving,
We suffer our springs
Of promise to pass without sowing the land,
And hungry and sad in the harvest-time stand,
Expecting good things!

THE FELLED TREE.

They set me up, and bade me stand
Beside a dark, dark sea,
In the befogged, low-lying land
Of this mortality.

I slipped my roots round the stony soil
Like rings on the hand of a bride,
And my boughs took hold of the summer's smile
And grew out green and wide.

Crooked, and shaggy on all sides,
I was homeliest of trees,
But the cattle rubbed their speckled hides
Against my knotty knees;

And lambs, in white rows on the grass,
Lay down within my shade;
So I knew, all homely as I was,
For a good use I was made.

And my contentment served me well;
My heart grew strong and sweet,
And my shaggy bark cracked off and fell
In layers at my feet.

I felt when the darkest storm was rife
The day of its wrath was brief,
And that I drew from the centre of life
The life of my smallest leaf.

At last a woodman came one day
With axe to a sharp edge ground,
And hewed at my heart till I stood a-sway,
But I never felt the wound.

I knew immortal seed was sown
Within me at my birth,
And I feel without a single groan,
With my green face to the earth.

Now all men pity me, and must,
Who see me lie so low,
But the Power that changes me to dust
Is the same that made me grow.

A DREAM.

I dreamed I had a plot of ground,
Once when I chanced asleep to drop,
And that a green hedge fenced it round,
Cloudy with roses at the top.

I saw a hundred mornings rise,—
So far a little dream may reach,—
And spring with summer in her eyes
Making the chiefest charm of each.

A thousand vines were climbing o'er
The hedge, I thought, but as I tried
To pull them down, for evermore
The flowers dropt off the other side!

Waking, I said, these things are signs
Sent to instruct us that 't is ours
Duly to keep and dress our vines,—
Waiting in patience for the flowers.

And when the angel feared of all
Across my hearth its shadow spread,
The rose that climbed my garden wall
Has bloomed the other side, I said.

WORK.

Down and up, and up and down,
Over and over and over;
Turn in the little seed, dry and brown,
Turn out the bright red clover.
Work, and the sun your work will share,
And the rain in its time will fall;
For Nature, she worketh everywhere,
And the grace of God through all.

164

With hand on the spade and heart in the sky,
Dress the ground, and till it;
Turn in the little seed, brown and dry,
Turn out the golden millet.
Work, and your house shall be duly fed;
Work, and rest shall be won;
I hold that a man had better be dead
Than alive, when his work is done!

Down and up, and up and down,
On the hill-top, low in the valley;
Turn in the little seed, dry and brown,
Turn out the rose and lily.
Work with a plan, or without a plan,
And your ends they shall be shaped true;
Work, and learn at first hand, like a man,—
The best way to know is to do!

Down and up till life shall close,
Ceasing not your praises;
Turn in the wild white winter snows,
Turn out the sweet spring daisies.
Work, and the sun your work will share,
And the rain in its time will fall;
For Nature, she worketh everywhere,
And the grace of God through all.

COMFORT.

Boatman, boatman! my brain is wild,
As wild as the stormy seas;
My poor little child, my sweet little child,
Is a corpse upon my knees.

No holy choir to sing so low,
No priest to kneel in prayer,
No tire-woman to help me sew
A cap for his golden hair.

Dropping his oars in the rainy sea,
The pious boatman cried,
Not without Him who is life to thee
Could the little child have died!

His grace the same, and the same His power,
Demanding our love and trust,
Whether He makes of the dust a flower,
Or changes a flower to dust.

On the land and the water, all in all,
The strength to be still or pray,
To blight the leaves in their time to fall,
Or light up the hills with May.

FAITH AND WORKS.

Not what we think, but what we do,
Makes saints of us: all stiff and cold,
The outlines of the corpse show through
The cloth of gold.

And in despite the outward sin,—
Despite belief with creeds at strife,—
The principle of love within
Leavens the life.

For, 't is for fancied good, I claim,
That men do wrong,—not wrong's desire;
Wrapping themselves, as 't were, in flame
To cheat the fire.

Not what God gives, but what He takes,
Uplifts us to the holiest height;
On truth's rough crags life's current breaks
To diamond light.

From transient evil I do trust
That we a final good shall draw;
That in confusion, death, and dust
Are light and law.

That He whose glory shines among
The eternal stars, descends to mark
This foolish little atom swung
Loose in the dark.

But though I should not thus receive
A sense of order and control,
My God, I could not disbelieve
My sense of soul.

For though, alas! I can but see
A hand's breadth backward, or before,
I am, and since I am, must be
For evermore.

THE RUSTIC PAINTER.

His sheep went idly over the hills,—
Idly down and up,—

165

As he sat and painted his sweetheart's face
On a little ivory cup.

All round him roses lay in the grass
That were hardly out of buds;
For sake of her mouth and cheek, I knew
He had murdered them in the woods.

The ant, that good little housekeeper,
Was not at work so hard;
And yet the semblance of a smile
Was all of his reward:

And the golden-belted gentleman
That travels in the air,
Hummed not so sweet to the clover-buds
As he to his picture there.

The while for his ivory cup he made
An easel of his knee,
And painted his little sweetheart's face
Truly and tenderly.

Thus we are marking on all our work
Whatever we have of grace;
As the rustic painted his ivory cup
With his little sweetheart's face.

ONE OF MANY.

I knew a man—I know him still
In part, in all I ever knew,—
Whose life runs counter to his will,
Leaving the things he fain would do,

Undone. His hopes are shapes of sands,
That cannot with themselves agree;
As one whose eager outstretched hands
Take hold on water—so is he.

Fame is a bauble, to his ken;
Mirth cannot move his aspect grim;
The holidays of other men
Are only battle-days to him.

He locks his heart within his breast,
Believing life to such as he
Is but a change of ills, at best,—
A crossed and crazy tragedy.

His cheek is wan; his limbs are faint
With fetters which they never wore;
No wheel that ever crushed a saint,
But breaks his body o'er and o'er.

Though woman's grace he never sought
By tender look, or word of praise,
He dwells upon her in his thought,
With all a lover's lingering phrase.

A very martyr to the truth,
All that 's best in him is belied;
Humble, yet proud withal; in sooth
His pride is his disdain of pride.

He sees in what he does amiss
A continuity of ill;
The next life dropping out of this,
Stained with its many colors still.

His kindliest pity is for those
Who are the slaves of guilty lusts;
And virtue, shining till it shows
Another's frailty, he distrusts.

Nature, he holds, since time began
Has been reviled,—misunderstood;
And that we first must love a man
To judge him,—be he bad or good.

Often his path is crook'd and low.
And is so in his own despite;
For still the path he meant to go
Runs straight, and level with the right.

No heart has he to strive with fate
For less things than our great men gone
Achieved, who, with their single weight,
Turned Time's slow wheels a century on.

His waiting silence is his prayer;
His darkness is his plea for light;
And loving all men everywhere
He lives, a more than anchorite.

O friends, if you this man should see,
Be not your scorn too hardly hurled,
Believe me, whatsoe'er he be,
There be more like him in the world.

THE SHADOW.

One summer night,
The full moon, 'tired in her golden cloak,

166

Did beckon me, I thought; and I awoke,
And saw a light,

Most soft and fair,
Shine in the brook, as if, in love's distress,
The parting sun had shear'd a dazzling tress.
And left it there.

Toward the sweet banks
Of the bright stream straightly I bent my way;
And in my heart good thoughts the while did stay,
Giving God thanks.

The wheat-stocks stood
Along the field like little fairy men,
And mists stole, white and bashful, through the glen,
As maidens would.

In rich content
My soul was growing toward immortal height,
When, lo! I saw that by me, through the light,
A shadow went.

I stopped, afraid:
It was the bad sign of some evil done:
That stopping, too, right swiftly did I run;
So did the shade.

At length I drew
Close to the bank of the delightful brook,
And sitting in the moonshine, turn'd to look;
It sat there too.

Ere long I spied
A weed with goodly flowers upon its top;
And when I saw that such sweet things did drop
Black shadows, cried,—

Lo! I have found,
Hid in this ugly riddle, a good sign;
My life is twofold, earthly and divine,—
Buried and crown'd.

Sown darkly; raised
Light within light, when death from mortal soil
Undresses me, and makes me spiritual;—
Dear Lord, be praised.

THE UNWISE CHOICE.

Two young men, when I was poor,
Came and stood at my open door;

One said to me, “I have gold to give;”
And one, “I will love you while I live!”

My sight was dazzled; woe 's the day!
And I sent the poor young man away;

Sent him away, I know not where,
And my heart went with him, unaware.

He did not give me any sighs,
But he left his picture in my eyes;

And in my eyes it has always been:
I have no heart to keep it in!

Beside the lane with hedges sweet,
Where we parted, never more to meet,

He pulled a flower of love's own hue,
And where it had been came out two!

And in th' grass where he stood, for years,
The dews of th' morning looked like tears.

Still smiles the house where I was born
Among its fields of wheat and corn.

Wheat and corn that strangers bind,—
I reap as I sowed, and I sowed to th' wind.

As one who feels the truth break through
His dream, and knows his dream untrue,

I live where splendors shine, and sigh,
For the peace that splendor cannot buy;

Sigh for the day I was rich tho' poor,
And saw th' two young men at my door!

167

PROVIDENCE.

“From seeming evil, still educing good.”

The stone upon the wayside seed that fell,
And kept the spring rain from it, kept it too
From the bird's mouth; and in that silent cell
It quickened, after many days, and grew,
Till, by-and-by, a rose, a single one,
Lifted its little face into the sun.

It chanced a wicked man approached one day,
And saw the tender piteous look it wore:
Perhaps one like it somewhere far away
Grew in a garden-bed, or by the door
That he in childish days had played around,
For his knees, trembling, sunk upon the ground.

Then, o'er this piece of bleeding earth, the tears
Of penitence were wrung, until at last
The golden key of love, that sin for years
In his unquiet soul had rusted fast,
Was loosened, and his heart, that very hour.
Opened to God's good sunshine, like a flower.

THE LIVING PRESENT.

Friends, let us slight no pleasant spring
That bubbles up in life's dry sands,
And yet be careful what good thing
We touch with sacrilegious hands.

Our blessings should be sought, not claimed,—
Cherished, not watched with jealous eye;
Love is too precious to be named,
Save with a reverence deep and high.

In all that lives, exists the power
To avenge the invasion of its right;
We cannot bruise and break our flower,
And have our flower, alive and bright.

Let us think less of what appears,—
More of what is; for this, hold I,
It is the sentence no man hears
That makes us live, or makes us die.

Trust hearsay less; seek more to prove
And know if things be what they seem;
Not sink supinely in some groove,
And hope and hope, and dream and dream.

Some days must needs be full of gloom,
Yet must we use them as we may;
Talk less about the years to come,—
Live, love, and labor more, to-day.

What our hand findeth, do with might;
Ask less for help, but stand or fall,
Each one of us, in life's great fight,
As if himself and God were all.

THE WEAVER'S DREAM.

He sat all alone in his dark little room,
His fingers aweary with work at the loom,
His eyes seeing not the fine threads, for the tears,
As he carefully counted the months and the years
He had been a poor weaver.

Not a traveler went on the dusty highway,
But he thought, “He has nothing to do but be gay;”
No matter how burdened or bent he might be,
The weaver believed him more happy than he,
And sighed at his weaving.

He saw not the roses so sweet and so red
That looked through his window; he thought to be dead
And carried away from his dark little room,

168

Wrapt up in the linen he had in his loom,
Were better than weaving.

Just then a white angel came out of the skies,
And shut up his senses, and sealed up his eyes,
And bore him away from the work at his loom
In a vision, and left him alone by the tomb
Of his dear little daughter.

“My darling!” he cries, “what a blessing was mine!
How I sinned, having you, against goodness divine!
Awake! O my lost one, my sweet one, awake!
And I never, as long as I live, for your sake,
Will sigh at my weaving!”

The sunset was gilding his low little room
When the weaver awoke from his dream at the loom,
And close at his knee saw a dear little head
Alight with long curls,—she was living, not dead,—
His pride and his treasure.

He winds the fine thread on his shuttle anew,
(At thought of his blessing 't was easy to do,)
And sings as he weaves, for the joy in his breast,
Peace cometh of striving, and labor is rest:
Grown wise was the weaver.

NOT NOW.

The path of duty I clearly trace,
I stand with conscience face to face,
And all her pleas allow;
Calling and crying the while for grace,—
“Some other time, and some other place:
Oh, not to-day; not now!”

I know 't is a demon boding ill,
I know I have power to do if I will,
And I put my hand to th' plough;
I have fair, sweet seeds in my barn, and lo!
When all the furrows are ready to sow,
The voice says, “Oh, not now!”

My peace I sell at the price of woe;
In heart and in spirit I suffer so,
The anguish wrings my brow;
But still I linger and cry for grace,—
“Some other time, and some other place:
Oh, not to-day; not now!”

I talk to my stubborn heart and say,
The work I must do I will do to-day;
I will make to the Lord a vow:
And I will not rest and I will not sleep
Till the vow I have vowed I rise and keep;
And the demon cries, “Not now!”

And so the days and the years go by,
And so I register lie upon lie,
And break with Heaven my vow;
For when I would boldly take my stand,
This terrible demon stays my hand,—
“Oh, not to-day: not now!”

CRAGS.

There was a good and reverend man
Whose day of life, serene and bright,
Was wearing hard upon the gloom
Beyond which we can see no light.

And as his vision back to morn,
And forward to the evening sped,
He bowed himself upon his staff,
And with his heart communing, said:

From mystery on to mystery
My way has been; yet as I near
The eternal shore, against the sky
These crags of truth stand sharp and clear.

Where'er its hidden fountain be,
Time is a many-colored jet
Of good and evil, light and shade,
And we evoke the things we get.

The hues that our to-morrows wear
Are by our yesterdays forecast;
Our future takes into itself
The true impression of our past.

169

The attrition of conflicting thoughts
To clear conclusions, wears the groove;
The love that seems to die, dies not,
But is absorbed in larger love.

We cannot cramp ourselves unharmed,
In bonds of iron, nor of creeds;
The rights that rightfully belong
To man, are measured by his needs.

The daisy is entitled to
The nurture of the dew and light;
The green house of the grasshopper
In his by Nature's sacred right.

MAN.

In what a kingly fashion man doth dwell:
He hath but to prefer
His want, and Nature, like a servitor,
Maketh him answer with some miracle.

And yet his thoughts do keep along the ground,
And neither leap nor run,
Though capable to climb above the sun;
He seemeth free, and yet is strangely bound.

What name would suit his case, or great or small?
Poor, but exceeding proud;
Importunate and still, humble and loud;
Most wise, and yet most ignorant, withal.

The world that lieth in the golden air,
Like a great emerald,
Knoweth the law by which she is upheld,
And in her motions keepeth steady there.

But in his foolishness proud man defies
The law, wherewith is bound
The peace he seeks, and fluttering moth-like round
Some dangerous light, experimenting, dies.

And all his subtle reasoning can obtain
To tell his fortune by,
Is only that he liveth and must die,
And dieth in the hope to live again.

TO SOLITUDE.

I am weary of the working.
Weary of the long day's heat;
To thy comfortable bosom,
Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet?

Weary of the long, blind struggle
For a pathway bright and high,—
Weary of the dimly dying
Hopes that never quite all die.

Weary searching a bad cipher
For a good that must be meant;
Discontent with being weary,—
Weary with my discontent.

I am weary of the trusting
Where my trusts but torments prove;
Wilt thou keep faith with me? wilt thou
Be my true and tender love?

I am weary drifting, driving
Like a helmless bark at sea;
Kindly, comfortable spirit,
Wilt thou give thyself to me?

Give thy birds to sing me sonnets?
Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss?
And thy mossy rocks to stand for
The memorials of our bliss?

I in reverence will hold thee,
Never vexed with jealous ills,
Though thy wild and wimpling waters
Wind about a thousand hills.

THE LAW OF LIBERTY.

This extent hath freedom's ground,—
In my freedom I am bound
Never any soul to wound.

Not my own: it is not mine,
Lord, except to make it thine,
By good works through grace divine.

Not another's: Thou alone
Keepest judgment for thine own;
Only unto Thee is known

170

What to pity, what to blame;
How the fierce temptation came:
What is honor, what is shame.

Right is bound in this—to win
Good till injury begin;
That, and only that, is sin.

Selfish good may not befall
Any man, or great or small;
Best for one is best for all.

And who vainly doth desire
Good through evil to acquire,
In his bosom taketh fire.

Wronging no man, Lord, nor Thee
Vexing, I do pray to be
In my soul, my body, free.

Free to freely leave behind
When the better things I find,
Worser things, howe'er enshrined.

So that pain may peace enhance,
And through every change and chance,
I upon myself, advance.

MY CREED.

I hold that Christian grace abounds
Where charity is seen; that when
We climb to Heaven, 't is on the rounds
Of love to men.

I hold all else, named piety,
A selfish scheme, a vain pretense;
Where centre is not—can there be
Circumference?

This I moreover hold, and dare
Affirm where'er my rhyme may go,—
Whatever things be sweet or fair,
Love makes them so.

Whether it be the lullabies
That charm to rest the nursling bird,
Or that sweet confidence of sighs
And blushes, made without a word.

Whether the dazzling and the flush
Of softly sumptuous garden bowers,
Or by some cabin door, a bush
Of ragged flowers.

'T is not the wide phylactery,
Nor stubborn fast, nor stated prayers,
That make us saints: we judge the tree
By what it bears.

And when a man can live apart
From works, on theologic trust,
I know the blood about his heart
Is dry as dust.

OPEN SECRETS.

The truth lies round about us, all
Too closely to be sought,—
So open to our vision that
'T is hidden to our thought.

We know not what the glories
Of the grass, the flower, may be;
We needs must struggle for the sight
Of what we always see.

Waiting for storms and whirlwinds,
And to have a sign appear,
We deem not God is speaking in
The still small voice we hear.

In reasoning proud, blind leaders of
The blind, through life we go,
And do not know the things we see,
Nor see the things we know.

Single and indivisible,
We pass from change to change,
Familiar with the strangest things,
And with familiar, strange.

We make the light through which we see
The light, and make the dark:
To hear the lark sing, we must be
At heaven's gate with the lark.

THE SADDEST SIGHT.

As one that leadeth a blind man
In a city, to and fro,
Thought, even so,
Leadeth me still wherever it will
Through scenes of joy and woe.

I have seen Lear, his white head crowned
With poor straws, playing King;
And, wearying
Her cheeks' young flowers “with true-love showers,”
I have heard Ophelia sing.

171

I have been in battles, and I have seen
Stones at the martyrs hurled,—
Seen th' flames curled
Round foreheads bold, and lips whence rolled
The litanies of the world.

But of all sad sights that ever I saw,
The saddest under the sun,
Is a little one,
Whose poor pale face was despoiled of grace
Ere yet its life begun.

No glimpse of the good green Nature
To gladden with sweet surprise
The staring eyes,
That only have seen, close walls between,
A hand-breadth of the skies.

Ah, never a bird is heard to sing
At the windows under ground,
The long year round;
There, never the morn on her pipes of corn
Maketh a cheerful sound.

Oh, little white cloud of witnesses
Against your parentage,
May Heaven assuage
The woes that wait on your dark estate,—
Unorphaned orphanage.

THE BRIDAL HOUR.

“The moon's gray tent is up: another hour,
And yet another one will bring the time
To which, through many cares and checks, so slowly,
The golden day did climb.

“Take all the books away, and let no noises
Be in the house while softly I undress
My soul from broideries of disguise, and wait for
My own true love's caress.

“The sweetest sound will tire to-night; the dewdrops
Setting the green ears in the corn and wheat,
Would make a discord in the heart attuned to
The bridegroom's coming feet.

“Love! blessed Love! if we could hang our walls with
The splendors of a thousand rosy Mays,
Surely they would not shine so well as thou dost,
Lighting our dusty days.

“Without thee, what a dim and woeful story
Our years would be, oh, excellence sublime!
Slip of the life eternal, brightly growing
In the low soil of time!”

IDLE.

I heard the gay spring coming,
I saw the clover blooming,
Red and white along the meadows;
Red and white along the streams;
I heard the bluebird singing,
I saw the green grass springing,
All as I lay a-dreaming,—
A-dreaming idle dreams.

I heard the ploughman's whistle,
I saw the rough burr thistle
In the sharp teeth of the harrow,—
Saw the summer's yellow gleams
In the walnuts, in the fennel,
In the mulleins, lined with flannel,
All as I lay a-dreaming,—
A-dreaming idle dreams.

I felt the warm, bright weather;
Saw the harvest,—saw them gather
Corn and millet, wheat and apples,—
Saw the gray barns with their seams
Pressing wide,—the bare-armed shearers,—
The ruddy water-bearers,—
All as I lay a-dreaming,—
A-dreaming idle dreams.

The bluebird and her nestling
Flew away; the leaves fell rustling,
The cold rain killed the roses,
The sun withdrew his beams;

172

No creature cared about me,
The world could do without me,
All as I lay a-dreaming,—
A-dreaming idle dreams.

GOD IS LOVE.

Ah, there are mighty things under the sun,
Great deeds have been acted, great words have been said,
Not just uplifting some fortunate one,
But lifting up all men the more by a head.

Aye, the more by the head, and the shoulders too!
Ten thousand may sin, and a thousand may fall,
And it may have been me, and it yet may be you,
But the angel in one proves the angel in all.

And whatever is mighty, whatever is high,
Lifting men, lifting woman their natures above,
And close to the kinship they hold to the sky,
Why, this I affirm, that its essence is Love.

The poorest, the meanest has right to his share—
For the life of his heart, for the strength of his hand,
'Tis the sinew of work, 't is the spirit of prayer—
And here, and God help me, I take up my stand.

No pain but it hushes to peace in its arms,
No pale cheek it cannot with kisses make bright,
Its wonder of splendors has made the world's storms
To shine as with rainbows, since first there was light.

Go, bring me whatever the poets have praised,
The mantles of queens, the red roses of May,
I'll match them, I care not how grandly emblazed,
With the love of the beggar who sits by the way.

When I think of the gifts that have honored Love's shrine—
Heart, hope, soul, and body, all mortal can give—
For the sake of a passion superbly divine,
I am glad, nay, and more, I am proud that I live!

Fair women have made them espousals with death,
And through the white flames as through lilies have trod,
And men have with cloven tongues preached for their faith,
And held up their hands, stiff with thumb-screws, to God.

I have seen a great people its vantage defer
To the love that had moved it as love only can,
A whole nation stooping with conscience astir
To a chattel with crop ears, and calling it man.

Compared, O my beautiful Country, to thee,
In this tenderest touch of the manacled hand,
The tops of the pyramids sink to the sea,
And the thrones of the earth slide together like sand.

Immortal with beauty and vital with youth,
Thou standest, O Love, as thou always hast stood
From the wastes of the ages, proclaiming this truth,
All peoples and nations are made of one blood.

Ennobled by scoffing and honored by shame,
The chiefest of great ones, the crown and the head,
Attested by miracles done in thy name
For the blind, for the lame, for the sick and the dead.

173

Because He in all things was tempted like me,
Through the sweet human hope, by the cross that He bore,
For the love which so much to the Marys could be,
Christ Jesus the man, not the God, I adore.

LIFE'S MYSTERIES.

Round and round the wheel doth run,
And now doth rise, and now doth fall:
How many lives we live in one,
And how much less than one, in all!

The past as present as to-day—
How strange, how wonderful! it seems
A player playing in a play,
A dreamer dreaming that he dreams!

But when the mind through devious glooms
Drifts onward to the dark amain,
Her wand stern Conscience reassumes,
And holds us to ourselves again.

Vague reminiscences come back
Of things we seem, in part, to have known.
And Fancy pieces what they lack
With shreds and colors all her own.

Fancy, whose wing so high can soar,
Whose vision hath so broad a glance,
We feel sometimes as if no more
Amenable to change and chance.

And yet, one tiny thread being broke—
One idol taken from our hands,
The eternal hills roll up like smoke,
The earth's foundations shake like sands!

Ah! how the colder pulse still starts
To think of that one hour sublime,
We hugged heaven down into our hearts,
And clutched eternity in time!

When love's dear eyes first looked in ours.
When love's dear brows were strange to frowns,
When all the stars were burning flowers
That we might pluck and wear for crowns.

We cannot choose but cry and cry—
Oh, that its joys we might repeat!
When just its mutability
Made all the sweetness of it sweet.

Close to the precipice's brink
We press, look down, and, while we quail
From the bad thought we dare not think,
Lift curiously the awful vail.

We do the thing we would not do—
Our wills being set against our wills,
And suffer o'er and o'er anew
The penalty our peace that kills.

Great God, we know not what we know
Or what we are, or are to be!
We only trust we cannot go
Through sin's disgrace outside of thee.

And trust that though we are driven in
And forced upon the name to call
At last, by very strength of sin,
Thou wilt have mercy on us all!

[We are the mariners, and God the Sea]

We are the mariners, and God the Sea,
And though we make false reckonings, and run
Wide of a righteous course, and are undone,
Out of his deeps of love we cannot be.

For by those heavy strokes we misname ill,
Through the fierce fire of sin, through tempering doubt,
Our natures more and more are beaten out
To perfecter reflections of his will!

[The best man should never pass by]

The best man should never pass by
The worst, but to brotherhood true,
Entreat him thus gently, “Lo, I
Am tempted in all things as you.”

Of one dust all peoples are made,
One sky doth above them extend,

174

And whether through sunshine or shade
Their paths run, they meet at the end.

And whatever his honors may be,—
Of riches, or genius, or blood,
God never made any man free
To find out a separate good.

PLEDGES.

Sometimes the softness of the embracing air,
The tender beauty of the grass and sky,
The look of still repose the mountains wear,
The sea-waves that beside each other lie
Contented in the sun—the flowery gleams
Of gardens by the doors of cottages,
The sweet, delusive blessedness of dreams,
The pleasant murmurs of the forest trees
Clinging to one another—all I see,
And hear, and all that fancy paints,
Do touch me with a deep humility,
And make me be ashamed of my complaints.
Then, in my meditations, I resolve
That I will never, while I live, again
Ruffle the graceful ministries of love
With brows distrustful, or with wishes vain.
Then I make pledges to my heart and say
We two will live serener lives henceforth;
For what is all the outward beauty worth,
The golden opening of the sweetest day
That ever shone, if we arise to hide,
Not from ourselves, but from men's eyes away,
The last night's petulance unpacified!

PROVERBS IN RHYME.

Time makes us eagle-eyed:
Our fantasies befriend us in our youth,
And build the shadowy tents wherein we hide
Out of the glare of truth.

Make no haste to despise
The proud of spirit: ofttimes pride but is
An armor worn to shield from insolent eyes
Our human weaknesses.

Be slow to blame his course
Or name him coward who disdains to fight:
Courage is just a blind impelling force,
And often wrong as right.

Condemn not her whose hours
Are not all given to spinning nor to care:
Has not God planted every path with flowers
Whose end is to be fair?

Think not that he is cold
Who runneth not your proffered hand to touch:
On feeling's heights 't is wise the step to hold
From trembling overmuch;

And though its household sweets
Affection may through daily channels give,
The heart is chary, and ecstatic beats
Once only while we live.

FAME.

Fame guards the wreath we call a crown
With other wreaths of fire,
And dragging this or that man down
Will not raise you the higher!
Fear not too much the open seas,
Nor yet yourself misdoubt;
Clear the bright wake of geniuses,
Then steadily steer out.
That wicked men in league should be
To push your craft aside,
Is not the hint of modesty,
But the poor conceit of pride.

GENIUS.

A cunning and curious splendor,
That glorifies commonest things—
Palissy, with clay from the river,
Moulds cups for the tables of kings.

175

A marvel of sweet and wise madness,
That passes our skill to define;
It clothes the poor peasant with grandeur,
And turns his rude hut to a shrine.

Full many a dear little daisy
Had passed from the light of the sun,
Ere Burns, with his pen and his ploughshare,
Upturned and immortalled that one.

And just with a touch of its magic
It gives to the poet's rough rhyme
A something that makes the world listen,
And will, to the ending of time.

It puts a great price upon shadows—
Holds visions, all rubies above,
And shreds of old tapestries pieces
To legends of glory and love.

The ruin it builds into beauty,
Uplifting the low-lying towers,
Makes green the waste place with a garden,
And shapes the dead dust into flowers.

It shows us the lovely court ladies,
All shining in lace and brocade;
The knights, for their gloves who did battle,
In terrible armor arrayed.

It gives to the gray head a glory,
And grace to the eyelids that weep,
And makes our last enemy even,
To be as the brother of sleep.

A marvel of madness celestial,
That causes the weed at our feet,
The thistle that grows at the wayside,
To somehow look strange and be sweet.

No heirs hath it, neither ancestry;
But just as it listeth, and when,
It seals with its own royal signet
The foreheads of women and men.

IN BONDS.

While shines the sun, the storm even then
Has struck his bargain with the sea—
Oh, lives of women, lives of men,
How pressed, how poor, how pinched ye be!

It is as if, having granted power
Almost omnipotent to man,
Heaven grudged the splendor of the dower,
And going back upon her plan,

Mortised his free feet in the ground,
Closed him in walls of ignorance,
And all the soul within him bound
In the dull hindrances of sense.

Hence, while he goads his will to rise,
As one his fallen ox might urge,
The conflict of the impatient cries
Within him wastes him like a scourge.

Even as dreams his days depart,
His work no sure foundation forms,
Immortal yearnings in his heart,
And empty shadows in his arms!

It is as if, being come to land,
Some pestilence, with fingers black,
Loosed from the wheel the master hand
And drove the homesick vessel back;

As if the nurslings of his care
Chilled him to death with their embrace;
As if that she he held most fair
Turned round and mocked him to his face.

And thus he stands, and ever stands,
Tempted without and torn within;
Ashes of ashes in his hands,
Famished and faint, and sick with sin.

Seeing the cross, and not the crown;
The o'erwhelming flood, and not the ark;
Till gap by gap his faith throws down
Its guards, and leaves him to the dark.

And when the last dear hope has fled,
And all is weary, dreary pain,
That enemy, most darkly dread,
Grows pitiful, and snaps the chain.

176

NOBILITY.

True worth is in being, not seeming,—
In doing each day that goes by
Some little good—not in the dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There 's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.

We get back our mete as we measure—
We cannot do wrong and feel right,
Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure,
For justice avenges each slight.
The air for the wing of the sparrow,
The bush for the robin and wren,
But alway the path that is narrow
And straight, for the children of men.

'T is not in the pages of story
The heart of its ills to beguile,
Though he who makes courtship to glory
Gives all that he hath for her smile.
For when from her heights he has won her,
Alas! it is only to prove
That nothing 's so sacred as honor,
And nothing so loyal as love!

We cannot make bargains for blisses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
And sometimes the thing our life misses,
Helps more than the thing which it gets.
For good lieth not in pursuing,
Nor gaining of great nor of small,
But just in the doing, and doing
As we would be done by, is all.

Through envy, through malice, through hating,
Against the world, early and late,
No jot of our courage abating—
Our part is to work and to wait.
And slight is the sting of his trouble
Whose winnings are less than his worth;
For he who is honest is noble.
Whatever his fortunes or birth.

TO THE MUSE.

Phantoms come and crowd me thick,
And my heart is sick, so sick;
Kindness no more refresh
Brain nor body, mind nor flesh.
Good Muse, sweet Muse, comfort me
With thy heavenly company.

Thieves beset me on my way,
Day and night and night and day,
Stealing all the lovely light
That did make my dreams so bright.
Good Muse, sweet Muse, hide my treasures
High among immortal pleasures.

Friendship's watch is weary grown,
And I lie alone, alone;
Love against me flower-like closes,
Blushing, opening toward the roses.
Good Muse, sweet Muse, keep my friend
To the sad and sunless end.

Oh, the darkness of the estate
Where I, stript and bleeding, wait,
Torn with thorns and with wild woe,
In my house of dust so low
Good Muse, sweet Muse, make my faith
Strong to triumph over death.

Rock me both at morns and eves
In a cradle lined with leaves—
Light as winds that stir the willows
Stir my hard and heavy pillows.
Good Muse, sweet Muse, rock me soft,
Till my thoughts soar all aloft.

Seal my eyes from earthly things
With the shadow of thy wings,
Fill with songs the wildering spaces,
Till I see the old, old faces,
Rise forever, on forever—
Good Muse, sweet Muse, leave me never.

[Her voice was sweet and low; her face]

Her voice was sweet and low; her face
No words can make appear,
For it looked out of heaven but long enough
To leave a shadow here.

And I only knew that I saw the face,
And saw the shadow fall,
And that she carried my heart away
And keeps it; that is all.

177

NO RING.

What is it that doth spoil the fair adorning
With which her body she would dignify,
When from her bed she rises in the morning
To comb, and plait, and tie
Her hair with ribbons, colored like the sky?

What is it that her pleasure discomposes
When she would sit and sing the sun away—
Making her see dead roses in red roses,
And in the downfall gray
A blight that seems the world to overlay?

What is it makes the trembling look of trouble
About her tender mouth and eyelids fair?
Ah me, ah me! she feels her heart beat double,
Without the mother's prayer,
And her wild fears are more than she can bear.

To the poor sightless lark new powers are given,
Not only with a golden tongue to sing,
But still to make her wavering way toward heaven
With undiscerning wing;
But what to her doth her sick sorrow bring?

Her days she turns, and yet keeps overturning,
And her flesh shrinks as if she felt the rod;
For 'gainst her will she thinks hard things concerning
The everlasting God,
And longs to be insensate like the clod.

Sweet Heaven, be pitiful! rain down upon her
The saintly charities ordained for such;
She was so poor in everything but honor,
And she loved much—loved much!
Would, Lord, she had thy garment's hem to touch.

Haply, it was the hungry heart within her,
The woman's heart, denied its natural right,
That made her the thing men call sinner,
Even in her own despite:
Lord, that her judges might receive their sight!

TEXT AND MORAL.

Full early in that dewy time of year
When wheat and barley fields are gay and green,
And when the flag uplifts his dull gray spear,
And cowslips in their yellow coats are seen,
And every grass-tuft by the common ways
Holdeth some red-mouthed flower to give it praise:

Just as the dawn was at that primal hour
That brings such tender golden sweetness in,
Ere yet the sun had left his eastern bower
And set upon the hills his rounded chin,
I heard a little song—three notes—not more—
Plained like a low petition at my door.

And all that day and other days I heard
The same low asking note, and then I found
My beggar in the likeness of a bird.
Surely, I said, she hideth some deep wound
Under the speckled beauty of her wing,
That she doth seem to rather cry than sing.

Haply some treacherous man, and evil-eyed,
Hath spoiled her nest or snared her lovely mate,

178

But while I spoke, a bird unharmed I spied
High in the elm-top, all his heart elate,
And splitting with its joy his shining bill,
Unmindful of that low, sad “trill-a-trill!”

At sunset came my boys with cheeks ablush,
And fairly flying on their arms and legs,
To tell that they had found within a bush
A bird's-nest, lined with little rose-leaf eggs!
Then, inly musing, I renewed my quest
Knowing that no bird singeth on her nest.

And still, the softest morns, the sweetest eves,
And when from out the midnight blue and still,
The tender moon looked in between the leaves,
That little, plaining, pleading trill-a-trill!
Would tremble out, and fall away, and fade,
And so I mused and mused, until I made

A text at last of the melodious cry,
And drew this moral (was it fetched too far?)
Life's inequalities so underlie
The things we have, so rest in what we are,
That each must steadfast to his nature keep,
And one must soar and sing, and one must weep.

TO MY FRIEND.

If we should see one sowing seed
With patient care and toil and pain,
Then to some other garden speed
And sow again;

And so right on from day to day,
And so right on through months and years,
Watering the furrows all the way
With rain of tears;

Ne'er gladdened by the yellowing top
Of harvest, nor of ripened rose,
Till suddenly the plough should stop,—
The work-day close;

Should we not, as hte day ran by,
Wonder to see him take no ease,
And cry at nightfall, “Vanity
Of Vanities!”

And yet 't is thus, my friend, the hours
And days go by, with you and me.
We, too, are sowing seeds of flowers
We never see.

Sometimes we sow in soil of sin;
Sometimes where choking thorns abound;
And sometimes cast our good seed in
Dry, stony ground.

Our stalks spring up and fade and die
Under the burning noontide heat,
And hopes and plans about us lie
All incomplete;

And as the toilsome days go by
Unrespited with flowery ease,
Angels may cry out, “Vanity
Of Vanities!”

Oh, when, fruitionless, the night
Descends upon our day of ills,
God grant we find our harvests white
On heavenly hills.

ONE OF MANY.

Because I have not done the things I know
I ought to do, my very soul is sad;
And furthermore, because that I have had
Delights that should have made to overflow
My cup of gladness, and have not been glad.

All in the midst of plenty, poor I live;
My house, my friend, with heavy heart I see,
As if that mine they were not meant to be;

179

For of the sweetness of the things I have
A churlish conscience dispossesses me.

I do desire, nay, long, to put my powers
To better service than I yet have done—
Not hither, thither, without purpose run,
And gather just a handful of the flowers,
And catch a little sunlight of the sun.

Lamenting all the night and all the day
Occasion lost, and losing in lament
The golden chances that I know were meant
For wiser uses—asking overpay
When nothing has been earned, and all was lent.

Keeping in dim and desolated ways,
And where the wild winds whistle loud and shrill
Through leafless bushes, and the birds are still,
And where the lights are lights of other days—
A sad insanity o'ermastering will.

And saddest of the sadness is to know
It is not fortune's fault, but only mine,
That far away the hills of roses shine—
And far away the pipes of pleasure blow—
That we, and not our stars, our fates assign.

LIGHT.

Be not much troubled about many things,
Fear often hath no whit of substance in it,
And lives but just a minute;
While from the very snow the wheat-blade springs.
And light is like a flower,
That bursts in full leaf from the darkest hour.
And He who made the night,
Made, too, the flowery sweetness of the light.
Be it thy task, through his good grace, to win it.

TRUST.

Sometimes when hopes have vanished, one and all,
Soft lights drop round about me in their stead,
As if there had been cast across Heaven's wall
Handfuls of roses down upon my bed;
Then through my darkness pleasures come in crowds,
Shining like larks' wings in the sombre clouds,

And I am fed with sweetness, as of dew
Strained through the leaves of pansies at day dawn;
But not the flowery lights that overstrew
The bed my weary body rests upon,
Is it that maketh all my house so bright,
And feedeth all my soul with such delight.

Nay, ne'er could heavenly, veritable flowers
Make the rude time to run so smoothly by,
And tie with amity the alien hours,
As might some maiden, with her ribbon, tie
A bunch of homely posies into one,
Making all fair, when none were fair alone.

But lying disenchanted of my fear,
'Neath the gold borders of my “coverlid”
So overstrown, I feel my flesh so near
Things lovely, that, my body being hid
Out of the sunshine, shall not harm endure,
But mix with daisies, and grow fair and pure.

Oh, comfortable thought! yet not of this
Get I the peace that drieth all my tears;
For, wrapped within this truth, another is
Sweeter and stronger to dispel my fears:

180

If through its change my flesh shall death defy
Surely my soul shall not be left to die.

Our God, who taketh knowledge of the flowers
Making our bodies change to things so fine,
Knoweth the insatiate longings that are ours,
For fadeless blooms and suns that always shine.
His name is Love, and love can work no ill;
Hence, though He slay me, I will trust Him still.

LIFE.

Solitude—Life is inviolate solitude—
Never was truth so apart from the dreaming
As lieth the selfhood inside of the seeming,
Guarded with triple shield out of all quest,
So that the sisterhood nearest and sweetest,
So that the brotherhood kindest, completest.
Is but an exchanging of signals at best.

Desolate—Life is so dreary and desolate—
Women and men in the crowd meet and mingle,
Yet with itself every soul standeth single,
Deep out of sympathy moaning its moan—
Holding and having its brief exultation—
Making its lonesome and low lamentation—
Fighting its terrible conflicts alone.

Separate—Life is so sad and so separate—
Under love's ceiling with roses for lining.
Heart mates with heart in a tender entwining.
Yet never the sweet cup of love filleth full—
Eye looks in eye with a questioning wonder,
Why are we thus in our meeting asunder?
Why are our pulses so slow and so dull?

Fruitless, fruitionless—Life is fruitionless—
Never the heaped up and generous measure—
Never the substance of satisfied pleasure—
Never the moment with rapture elate—
But draining the chalice, we long for the chalice,
And live as an alien inside of our palace,
Bereft of our title and deeds of estate.

Pitiful—Life is so poor and so pitiful—
Cometh the cloud on the goldenest weather—
Briefly the man and his youth stay together—
Falleth the frost ere the harvest is in,
And conscience descends from the open aggression
To timid and troubled and tearful concession,
And downward and down into parley with sin.

Purposeless—Life is so wayward and purposeless—
Always before us the object is shifting.
Always the means and the method are drifting,
We rue what is done—what is undone deplore—
More striving for high things than things that are holy.
And so we go down to the valley so lowly
Wherein there is work, and device never more.

Vanity, vanity—all would be vanity,
Whether in seeking or getting our pleasures—
Whether in spending or hoarding our treasures—
Whether in indolence, whether in strife—
Whether in feasting and whether in fasting,
But for our faith in the Love everlasting—
But for the life that is better than life.

181

PLEA FOR CHARITY.

If one had never seen the full completeness
Of the round year, but tarried half the way,
How should he guess the fair and flowery sweetness
That cometh with the May—
Guess of the bloom, and of the rainy sweetness
That come in with the May!

Suppose he had but heard the winds a-blowing,
And seen the brooks in icy chains fast bound,
How should he guess that waters in their flowing
Could make so glad a sound—
Guess how their silver tongues should be set going
To such a tuneful sound!

Suppose he had not seen the bluebirds winging,
Nor seen the day set, nor the morning rise,
Nor seen the golden balancing and swinging
Of the gay butterflies—
Who could paint April pictures, worth the bringing
To notice of his eyes?

Suppose he had not seen the living daisies,
Nor seen the rose, so glorious and bright,
Were it not better than your far-off praises
Of all their lovely light,
To give his hands the holding of the daisies,
And of the roses bright?

O Christian man, deal gently with the sinner—
Think what an utter wintry waste is his
Whose heart of love has never been the winner,
To know how sweet it is—
Be pitiful. O Christian, to the sinner.
Think what a world is his!

He never heard the lisping and the trembling
Of Eden's gracious leaves about his head—
His mirth is nothing but the poor dissembling
Of a great soul unfed—
Oh, bring him where the Eden-leaves are trembling,
And give him heavenly bread.

As Winter doth her shriveled branches cover
With greenness, knowing springtime's soft desire,
Even so the soul, knowing Jesus for a lover,
Puts on a new attire—
A garment fair as snow, to meet the Lover
Who bids her come up higher.

SECOND SIGHT.

My thoughts, I fear, run less to right than wrong,
And I am selfish, sinful, being human;
But yet sometimes an impulse sweet and strong
Touches my heart, for I am still a woman;
And yesterday, beside my cradle sitting,
And broidering lilies through my lullabies,
My heart stirred in me, just as if the flitting
Of some chance angel touched me, and my eyes
Filled all at once to tender overflowing,
And my song ended—breaking up in sighs;
I could not see the lilies I was sewing
For the hot tears, thick coming to my eyes.

The unborn years, like rose-leaves in a flame,
Shriveled together, and this vision came,
For I was gifted with a second seeing:

182

'T was night, and darkly terrible with storms,
And I beheld my cherished darling fleeing
In all her lily broideries from my arms—
A babe no longer. Wild the wind was blowing,
And the snows round her soddened as they fell;
And when a whisper told me she was going
That way wherein the feet take hold on hell,
I could not cry, I could not speak nor stir,
Held in mute torture by my love of her.

We make the least ado o'er greatest troubles;
Our very anguish doth our anguish drown;
The sea forms only just a few faint bubbles
Of stifled breathing when a ship goes down.

'T was but a moment—then the merry laughter
Of my sweet baby on the nurse's knee
Rippled across the mists of fantasy;
And sunshine, stretching like a golden rafter
From cornice on to cornice o'er my head,
Scattered the darkness, and my vision fled.

Times fall when Fate just misses of her blows,
And, being warned, the victim slips aside;
And thus it was with me—the idle shows,
The foolish pomp of vanity and pride,
The work of cunning hands and curious looms,
Shining about my house like poppy-blooms,
Like poppy-blooms had drowsed me, heart and brain;
And all the currents of my blood were setting
To that bad dullness that is worse than pain.
The moth will spoil the garment with its fretting
Surer and faster than the work-day wear.
The quickening vision came—not all too late:
I saw that there were griefs for me to share,
And the poor worldling missed the worldling's fate.

There was my baby—there was I, the mother,
Broidering my lilies by the golden gleam
Of the glad sunshine; but was there no other
Fleeing, as fled the phantom in my dream?
Were there no hearts, because of their great loving,
Bound to the wheel of torture past all moving?
No storms of awful sorrow to be stemmed?
Yea, out of my own heart I stood condemned.

Leaving the silken splendor of my rooms,
The sunshine stretching like a golden rafter
From cornice on to cornice, and the laughter
Of my sweet baby on the nurse's knee,
Calling me back, and almost keeping me—
Leaving my windows bright with flowery blooms,
I passed adown my broad emblazoned hall,
Along the soft mats, tufted thick across—
Scarlet and green, like roses grown with moss;
And parting from my pleasures, one and all,
Threaded my way through many a narrow street,
From whose low cellars, lit with scanty embers,
Came great-eyed children, with bare, shivering feet,
And wondered at me, through the doors gaped wide,
Till they were crowded back, or pushed aside,

183

By some lean-elbowed man, or flabby crone,
Upon whose foreheads discontent had grown,
As grows the mildew on decaying timbers.

“All thine is mine,” came to me from the fall
Of every beggar's footstep, and the glooms
That hung around held yet this other call:
“Who to himself lives only is not living;
He hath no gain who does not get by giving.”
And so I came beneath the cold gray wall
That shapes the awful prison of the Tombs.
Humility had been my gentle guide—
I saw her not, a heavenly spirit she—
And when the fearful door swung open wide
I heard her pleasant steps go in with me.

Oh for a tongue, and oh! for words to tell
Of the young creature, masked with sinful guise,
That stood before me in her narrow cell
And dragged my heart out with her pleading eyes.

I shook from head to foot, and could not stir—
Afraid, but not so much afraid of her
As of myself—made like her—of one dust,
And holding an immortal soul in trust
The same as she—perhaps not even so good,
Tempted with her temptations. Was 't for me
To hold myself apart and call her sinner?
Not so; and silent, face to face we stood,
And as some traveler in the night belated
Waits for the star he knows must rise, so I
Patient within the prison darkness waited,
Trusting to see the better self within her
Rise from the ruins of her womanhood.

Nor did I wait in vain. At last, at last,
Her eager hand reached forth and held me fast,
And drawing just a little broken breath,
As if she stood upon that narrow ground
That lies a-tremble betwixt life and death,
Her yearning, fearful soul expression found:

“I'm dying—dying, and your dewy hand
Is like the shadow to the sickly plant
Whose root is in the dry and burning sand.
Pity, sweet Pity—that is what I want.
You bring it—ah! you would not, if you knew.
I clasped her closer: “Friend, dear friend, I do!
I know it all—from first to last,” I said.
“'T was but a blind, mistaken search for good;
Premeditated evil never led
To this sad end.” As one entranced she stood,
And I went on: “Nay, but 't is not the end:
God were not God if such a thing could be—
If not in time, then in eternity,
There must be room for penitence to mend
Life's broken chance, else noise of wars
Would unmake heaven.

The shadows of the bars
That darkened the poor face like devils' fingers
Faded away, and still in memory lingers
The look of tender, tearful, glad surprise
That brought the saint's soul to the sinner's eyes.

Life out of death; it seemed to me as when
The anchor, clutching, holds the driven ship,

184

And to the cry scarce formed upon her lip,
“Lord God be praised!” I answered with “Amen.”

LIFE'S ROSES.

When the morning first uncloses,
And before the mists are gone,
All the hills seem bright with roses,
Just a little farther on!

Roses red as wings of starlings,
And with diamond dew-drops wet;
“Wait,” says Patience, “wait, my darlings—
Wait a little longer yet!”
So, with eager, upturned faces,
Wait the children for the hours
That shall bring them to the places
Of the tantalizing flowers.

Wild with wonder, sweet with guesses,
Vexed with only fleeting fears;
So the broader day advances,
And the twilight disappears.
Hands begin to clutch at posies,
Eyes to flash with new delight,
And the roses, oh! the roses,
Burning, blushing full in sight!

Now with bosoms softly beating,
Heart in heart, and hand in hand,
Youths and maids together meeting
Crowd the flowery harvest land.
Not a thought of rainy weather,
Nor of thorns to sting and grieve,
Gather, gather, gather, gather,
All the care is what to leave!

Noon to afternoon advances,
Rosy red grows russet brown;
Sad eyes turn to backward glances,
So the sun of youth goes down.
And as rose by rose is withered,
Sober sight begins to find

Many a false heart has been gathered,
Many a true one left behind.
Hands are clasped with fainter holding,
Unfilled souls begin to sigh
For the golden, glad unfolding
Of the morn beyond the sky.

SECRET WRITING.

From the outward world about us,
From the hurry and the din,
Oh, how little do we gather
Of the other world within!
For the brow may wear upon it
All the seeming of repose
When the brain is worn and weary,
And the mind oppressed with woes:
And the eye may shine and sparkle
As it were with pleasure's glow,
When 't is only just the flashing
Of the fires of pain below.
And the tongue may have the sweetness
That doth seem of bliss a part,
When 't is only just the tremble
Of the weak and wounded heart.
Oh, the cheek may have the color
Of the red rose, with the rest,
When 't is only just the hectic
Of the dying leaf, at best.

But when the hearth is kindled,
And the house is hushed at night—
Ah, then the secret writing
Of the spirit comes to light!
Through the mother's light caressing
Of the baby on her knee,
We see the mystic writing
That she does not know we see—
By the love-light as it flashes
In her tender-lidded eyes,
We know if that her vision rest
On earth, or in the skies;
And by the song she chooses,
By the very tune she sings,
We know if that her heart be set
On seen, or unseen things.

Oh, when the hearth is kindled—
When the house is hushed—'t is then
We see the hidden springs that move
The open deeds of men.
As the father turns the lesson
For the boy or girl to learn,
We perceive the inner letters
That he knows not we discern.
For either by the deed he does,
Or that he leaves undone,
We find and trace the channels
Where his thoughts and feelings run.
And often as the unconscious act,
Or smile, or word we scan,
Our hearts revoke the judgments
We have passed upon the man.

185

Sometimes we find that he who says
The least about his faith,
Has steadfastness and sanctity
To suffer unto death;
And find that he who prays aloud
With ostentatious mien,
Prays only to be heard of men,
And only to be seen.
For when the hearth is kindled,
And the house is hushed at night—
Ah, then the secret writing
Of the spirit comes to light.

DREAMS.

Often I sit and spend my hour,
Linking my dreams from heart to brain,
And as the child joins flower to flower,
Then breaks and joins them on again,

Casting the bright ones in disgrace,
And weaving pale ones in their stead,
Changing the honors and the place
Of white and scarlet, blue and red;

And finding after all his pains
Of sorting and selecting dyes,
No single chain of all the chains
The fond caprice that satisfies;

So I from all things bright and brave,
Select what brightest, bravest seems,
And, with the utmost skill I have,
Contrive the fashion of my dreams.

Sometimes ambitious thoughts abound,
And then I draw my pattern bold,
And have my shuttle only wound
With silken threads or threads of gold.

Sometimes my heart reproaches me,
And mesh from cunning mesh I pull,
And weave in sad humility
With flaxen threads or threads of wool.

For here the hue too brightly gleams,
And there the grain too dark is cast,
And so no dream of all my dreams
Is ever finished, first, or last.

And looking back upon my past
Thronged with so many a wasted hour,
I think that I should fear to cast
My fortunes if I had the power.

And think that he is mainly wise,
Who takes what comes of good or ill,
Trusting that wisdom underlies
And worketh in the end—His will.

MY POET.

Ah, could I my poet only draw
In lines of a living light,
You would say that Shakespeare never saw
In his dreams a fairer sight.

Along the bright crisp grass where by
A beautiful water lay,
We walked—my fancies and I—
One morn in the early May.

And there, betwixt the water sweet
And the gay and grassy land,
I found the print of two little feet
Upon the silvery sand.

These following, and following on,
Allured by the place and time,
I, all of a sudden, came upon
This poet of my rhyme.

Betwixt my hands I longed to take
His two cheeks brown with tan,
To kiss him for my true love's sake,
And call him a little man.

A rustic of the rustics he,
By every look and sign,
And I knew, when he turned his face to me,
'T was his spirit made him fine.

His ignorance he had sweetly turned
Into uses passing words:
He had cut a pipe of corn, and learned
Thereon to talk to the birds.

And now it was the bluebird's trill,
Now the blackbird on the thorn.
Now a speckle-breast, or tawny-bill
That answered his pipe of corn,

And now, though he turned him north and south,
And called upon bird by bird,
There was never a little golden mouth
Would answer him back a word.

186

For all, from the red-bird bold and gay,
To the linnet dull and plain,
Had fallen on beds of the leafy spray,
To listen in envious pain.

“Ah, do as you like, my golden quill;”
So he said, for his wise share;
“And the same to you, my tawny-bill,
There are pleasures everywhere.”

Then his heart fell in him dancing so,
It spun to his cheek the red,
As he spied himself in the wave below
A-standing on his head.

Ah, could I but this picture draw,
Thus glad by his nature's right,
You would say that Shakespeare never saw
In his dreams a fairer sight.

WRITTEN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1864.

Once more, despite the noise of wars,
And the smoke gathering fold on fold,
Our daisies set their stainless stars
Against the sunshine's cloth of gold.

Lord, make us feel, if so thou will,
The blessings crowning us to-day,
And the yet greater blessing still,
Of blessings thou hast taken away.

Unworthy of the favors lent,
We fell into apostasy;
And lo! our country's chastisement
Has brought her to herself, and thee!

Nearer by all this grief than when
She dared her weak ones to oppress,
And played away her States to men
Who scorned her for her foolishness.

Oh, bless for us this holiday,
Men keep like children loose from school,
And put it in their hearts, we pray,
To choose them rulers fit to rule.

Good men, who shall their country's pride
And honor to their own prefer;
Her sinews to their hearts so tied
That they can only live through her.

Men sturdy—of discerning eyes,
And souls to apprehend the right;
Not with their little light so wise
They set themselves against thy light.

Men of small reverence for names,
Courageous, and of fortitude
To put aside the narrow aims
Of factor, for the public good.

Men loving justice for the race,
Not for the great ones, and the few,
Less studious of outward grace
Than careful to be clean all through.

Men holding state, not self, the first,
Ready when all the deep is tossed
With storms, and worst is come to worst,
To save the Ship at any cost.

Men upright, and of steady knees,
That only to the truth will bow;
Lord, help us choose such men as these,
For only such can save us now.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

FOULLY ASSASSINATED, APRIL, 1865.—INSCRIBED TO PUNCH.

No glittering chaplet brought from other lands!
As in his life, this man, in death, is ours;
His own loved prairies o'er his “gaunt gnarled hands”
Have fitly drawn their sheet of summer flowers!

What need hath he now of a tardy crown,
His name from mocking jest and sneer to save?
When every ploughman turns his furrow down
As soft as though it fell upon his grave.

He was a man whose like the world again
Shall never see, to vex with blame or praise;
The landmarks that attest his bright, brief reign
Are battles, not the pomps of gala-days!

187

The grandest leader of the grandest war
That ever time in history gave a place;
What were the tinsel flattery of a star
To such a breast! or what a ribbon's grace!

'T is to th' man, and th' man's honest worth,
The nation's loyalty in tears upsprings:
Through him the soil of labor shines henceforth
High o'er the silken broideries of kings.

The mechanism of external forms—
The shrifts that courtiers put their bodies through,
Were alien ways to him—his brawny arms
Had other work than posturing to do!

Born of the people, well he knew to grasp
The wants and wishes of the weak and small;
Therefore we hold him with no shadowy clasp—
Therefore his name is household to us all.

Therefore we love him with a love apart
From any fawning love of pedigree—
His was the royal soul and mind and heart—
Not the poor outward shows of royalty.

Forgive us then, O friends, if we are slow
To meet your recognition of his worth—
We 're jealous of the very tears that flow
From eyes that never loved a humble hearth.

SAVED.

No tears for him! his light was not your light;
From earth to heaven his spirit went and came,
Seeing, where ye but saw the blank, black night,
The golden breaking of the day of fame.

Faded by the diviner life, and worn,
Dust has returned to dust, and what ye see
Is but the ruined house wherein were borne
The birth-pangs of his immortality.

Hither and thither drifting drearily,
The glory of serener worlds he won,
As some strange shifting column of the sea
Catches the steadfast splendor of the sun.

What was your shallow love? or what the gleam
Of smiles that chance and accident could chill,
To him whose soul could make its mate a dream,
And wander through the universe at will?

When your weak hearts to stormy passion woke,
His from its loftier bent was only stirred,
As is the broad green bosom of the oak
By the light flutter of the summer bird.

His joys, in realms forbidden to you, he sought,
And bodiless servitors, at his commands,
Hovered about the watchfires of his thought
On the dim borders of poetic lands.

The times he lived in, like a hard, dark wall,
He grandly painted with his woes and wrongs—
Come nearer, friends, and see how brightly all
Is joined with silvery mortises of songs.

Weep for yourselves bereft, but not for him;
Wrong reaches to the compensating right,

188

And clouds that make the day of genius dim,
Shine at the sunset with eternal light.

SPENT AND MISSPENT.

Stay yet a little longer in the sky,
O golden color of the evening sun!
Let not the sweet day in its sweetness die,
While my day's work is only just begun.

Counting the happy chances strewn about
Thick as the leaves, and saying which was best,
The rosy lights of morning all went out,
And it was burning noon, and time to rest.

Then leaning low upon a piece of shade,
Fringed round with violets and pansies sweet,
My heart and I, I said, will be delayed,
And plan our work while cools the sultry heat.

Deep in the hills, and out of silence vast,
A waterfall played up his silver tune;
My plans lost purpose, fell to dreams at last,
And held me late into the afternoon.

But when the idle pleasure ceased to please,
And I awoke, and not a plan was planned,
Just as a drowning man at what he sees
Catches for life, I caught the thing at hand.

And so life's little work-day hour has all
Been spent and misspent doing what I could,
And in regrets and efforts to recall
The chance of having, being, what I would.

And so sometimes I cannot choose but cry,
Seeing my late-sown flowers are hardly set—
O darkening color of the evening sky,
Spare me the day a little longer yet!

LAST AND BEST.

Sometimes, when rude, cold shadows run
Across whatever light I see;
When all the work that I have done,
Or can do, seems but vanity;

I strive, nor vainly strive, to get
Some little heart's ease from the day
When all the weariness and fret
Shall vanish from my life away;

For I, with grandeur clothed upon,
Shall lie in state and take my rest,
And all my household, strangers grown,
Shall hold me for an honored guest.

But ere that day when all is set
In order, very still and grand,
And while my feet are lingering yet
Along this troubled border-land,

What things will be the first to fade,
And down to utter darkness sink?
The treasures that my hands have laid
Where moth and rust corrupt, I think.

And Love will be the last to wait
And light my gloom with gracious gleams;
For Love lies nearer heaven's glad gate,
Than all imagination dreams.

Aye, when my soul its mask shall drop,
The twain to be no more at one,
Love, with its prayers, shall bear me up
Beyond the lark's wings, and the sun.

University of Virginia Library

POEMS OF THOUGHT AND FEELING.

ON SEEING A DROWNING MOTH.

GOOD AND EVIL.

STROLLER'S SONG.

A LESSON.

[He spoils his house and throws his pains away]

ON SEEING A WILD BIRD.

RICH, THOUGH POOR.

[Still from the unsatisfying quest]

[The glance that doth thy neighbor doubt]

SIXTEEN.

PRAYER FOR LIGHT.

THE UNCUT LEAF.

THE MIGHT OF TRUTH.

TWO TRAVELERS.

THE BLIND TRAVELER.

MY GOOD ANGEL.

CARE.

MORE LIFE.

CONTRADICTORY.

THIS IS ALL.

IN VAIN.

BEST, TO THE BEST.

THORNS.

OLD ADAM.

SOMETIMES.

[Too much of joy is sorrowful]

THE SEA-SIDE CAVE.

THE MEASURE OF TIME.

IDLE FEARS.

[Do not look for wrong and evil]

[Our unwise purposes are wisely crossed;]

HINTS.

TO A STAGNANT RIVER.

[Apart from the woes that are dead and gone,]

COUNSEL.

LATENT LIFE.

HOW AND WHERE.

THE FELLED TREE.

A DREAM.

WORK.

COMFORT.

FAITH AND WORKS.

THE RUSTIC PAINTER.

ONE OF MANY.

THE SHADOW.

THE UNWISE CHOICE.

PROVIDENCE.

THE LIVING PRESENT.

THE WEAVER'S DREAM.

NOT NOW.

CRAGS.

MAN.

TO SOLITUDE.

THE LAW OF LIBERTY.

MY CREED.

OPEN SECRETS.

THE SADDEST SIGHT.

THE BRIDAL HOUR.

IDLE.

GOD IS LOVE.

LIFE'S MYSTERIES.

[We are the mariners, and God the Sea]

[The best man should never pass by]

PLEDGES.

PROVERBS IN RHYME.

FAME.

GENIUS.

IN BONDS.

NOBILITY.

TO THE MUSE.

[Her voice was sweet and low; her face]

NO RING.

TEXT AND MORAL.

TO MY FRIEND.

ONE OF MANY.

LIGHT.

TRUST.

LIFE.