Lyrics by John B Tabb :: :: University of Virginia Library

It brings my mother back to me,
Thy frail, familiar form to see,
Which was her homely joy;
And strange, that one so weak as thou,
Shouldst lift the veil that sunders now
The mother and the boy.

CHERRY BLOOM.

Frailest, and first to stand
Upon the border-land
From darkness shriven,
In livery of Death
Thou utterest the breath
And light of Heaven.

Tho' profitless thou seem
As doth a Poet's dream,
Apart from thee
Nor limb nor laboring root
May load with ripened fruit
The parent tree.

DAWN.

Behold, as from a silver horn,
The sacerdotal Night
Outpours upon his latest-born
The chrism of the light;
And bids him to the altar come,
Whereon for sacrifice,
(A lamb before his shearers, dumb,)
A victim shadow lies.

ECHO.

O famished Prodigal, in vain—
Thy portion spent—thou seek'st again
Thy father's door;
His all with latest sigh bequeathed
To thee the wanderer—he breathed,
Alas! no more.

MORNING AND NIGHT BLOOM.

A star and a rosebud white,
In the morning twilight gray,
The latest blossom of the night,
The earliest of the day;
The star to vanish in the light,
The rose to stay.

A star and a rosebud white,
In the evening twilight gray,
The earliest blossom of the night,
The latest of the day;
The one in darkness finding light,
One, lost for aye.

EXALTATION.

O leaf upon the highest bough,
The Poet of the woods art thou
To whom alone 't is given—
The farthest from thy place of birth—
To hold communion with the earth,
Nor lose the light of Heaven.

O leaf upon the topmost height,
Amid thy heritage of light
Unsheltered by a shade,
'T is thine the loneliness to know
That leans for sympathy below,
Nor finds what it hath made.

HAZARD.

One step 'twixt loss and gain!
The summit to attain
So near the brink of Pain
Hath joy to go—

So steep the precipice,
So frail the footing is,
'T were death to panting Bliss
To look below.

THE YOUNG TENOR.

I woke; the harbored melody
Had crossed the slumber bar,
And out upon the open sea
Of consciousness, afar
Swept onward with a fainter strain,
As echoing the dream again.

So soft the silver sound, and clear,
Outpoured upon the night,
That Silence seemed a listener
O'erleaning with delight
The slender moon, a finger-tip
Upon the portal of her lip.

FRATERNITY.

I know not but in every leaf
That sprang to life along with me,
Were written all the joy and grief
Thenceforth my fate to be.

The wind that whispered to the earth,
The bird that sang its earliest lay,
The flower that blossomed at my birth,—
My kinsmen all were they.

Ay, but for fellowship with these
I had not been—nay, might not be;
Nor they but vagrant melodies
Till harmonized to me.

MY MESSMATE.

Why fear thee, brother Death,
That sharest, breath by breath,
This brimming life of mine?
Each draught that I resign
Into thy chalice flows.
Comrades of old are we;
All that the Present knows
Is but a shade of me:
My Self to thee alone
And to the Past is known.

“VOX CLAMANTIS.”

O sea, forever calling to the shore
With menace or caress,—
A voice like his unheeded that of yore
Cried in the wilderness;
A deep forever yearning unto deep,
For silence out of sound,—
Thy restlessness the cradle of a sleep
That thou hast never found.

NIAGARA.

Where echo ne'er hath found
A footing on the steep,
Descends, without a sound,
The cataract of sleep.

Like swallows in the spray,
When evening is near,
The thronging thoughts of day
About the brink appear;

Till greets a heaven below
A sister heaven above,
Alike with stars aglow
Of unextinguished love.

THE BRIDGE.

Where, as a lordly dream,
Glides the deep-winding stream
For evermore;
Calm, as in conscious strength,
Bends thy majestic length,
From shore to shore.

Life, in its fevered heat,
Surges, with pulsing feet,
Restless, above;
Doomed, in its anxious flow,
Like the strong tide below,
Onward to move.

Strange is the motley throng!
Hearts yet untaught of wrong,
Thoughtless of pain,
Mingle with souls accurs'd,
Sands in a desert thirst—
Clouds without rain.

While o'er thee and below
Swift the twin currents flow,
Thy form serene,
Still as the shades that sleep
On the reflecting deep
Arches between.

O that, all strife above,
Strong in the strength thereof
Man evermore
Built, with a broader span,
Love for his fellow-man
From shore to shore!

THE STATUE.

First fashioned in the artist's brain,
It stood as in the marble vein,
Revealed to him alone;
Nor could he from its native night
Have led it to the living light,
Save through the lifeless stone.

E'en so, of Silence and of Sound
A twin-born mystery is found,
Like as of death and birth;
Without the pause we had not heard
The harmony, nor caught the word
That Heaven reveals to Earth.

THE SEED.

Bearing a life unseen,
Thou lingerest between
A flower withdrawn,
And—what thou ne'er shalt see—
A blossom yet to be
When thou art gone.

Unto the feast of Spring
Thy broken heart shall bring
What most it craved,
To find, like Magdalen
In tears, a life again
Love-lost—and saved!

THE TREE.

Planted by the Master's hand
Steadfast in thy place to stand,
While the ever-changing year
Clothes, or strips thy branches bare;
Lending not a leaf to hold
Warmth against the winter's cold;
Lightening not a limb the less
For the summer's sultriness;
Nay, thy burden heavier made,
That within thy bending shade
Thankless multitudes, oppressed,
There may lay them down and rest.
Soul, upon thy Calvary
Wait; the Christ will come to thee.

THE SISTERS.

The waves forever move;
The hills forever rest:
Yet each the heavens approve,
And Love alike hath blessed
A Martha's household care,
A Mary's cloistered prayer.

THE GOSSIP.

So near me dwells my neighbor Death
That e'en what Silence pondereth
He catches word for word,
And promises, some future day,
To visit me upon his way,
And tell what he has heard.

THE TOLLMEN.

Lo, Silence, Sleep, and Death
Await us on the way,
To take of each the tribute breath
That God himself did pay.

Nor Solomon's as great,
Nor Cæsar's strong control,
As his who sits beside his gate
To take of each the toll.

THE PINE-TREE.

With whispers of futurity
And echoes of the past,
Twin birds a shelter find in thee
Against the wintry blast,—
The fledgling Hope, that preens her wing,
Too timorous to fly,
And Memory, that comes to sing
Her coranach, and die.

TRANSFIGURED.

Throughout the livelong summer day
The Leaf and twinborn Shadow play
Till Leaf to Shadow fade;
Then, hidden for a season brief,
They dream, till Shadow turn to Leaf
As Leaf was turned to Shade.

ANONYMOUS.

Anonymous—nor needs a name
To tell the secret whence the flame,
With light, and warmth, and incense, came
A new creation to proclaim.

So was it when, His labor done,
God saw His work, and smiled thereon:
His glory in the picture shone,
But name upon the canvas, none.

MIDNIGHT.

A flood of darkness overwhelms the land;
And all that God had planned,
Of loveliness beneath the noonday skies,
A dream o'ershadowed lies.

Amid the universal darkness deep,
Only the Isles of Sleep,
As did the dwellings of the Israelite
In Egypt, stem the night.

INSOMNIA.

E'en this, Lord, didst thou bless—
This pain of sleeplessness—
The livelong night,
Urging God's gentlest angel from thy side,
That anguish only might with thee abide
Until the light.
Yea, e'en the last and best,
Thy victory and rest,
Came thus to thee;
For 't was while others calmly slept around,
That thou alone in sleeplessness wast found,
To comfort me.

PAIN.

I am a gardener to weed
And dig about the heart:
To plant therein the pregnant seed,
And watch, with many a smart,
The stem and leaf and blossom rise,
Alternate to supply
The victims for the sacrifice,
And, for the fruit, to die.

SYMPATHY.

Lo! of gladness or regret
Teardrops in the violet
Weeping till her leaves are wet,
Dewdrops in mine eyes beget!

Mirrored in each lucid sphere,
Highest heaven to earth is near;
Closer sympathies are here
'Twixt the dewdrop and the tear.

MEMORY.

Lo, the Blossom to the Bee
Yields not more than thou to me—
Food for Love to live upon
When the summer days are gone,
Poorer than they came, to find
What was sweetest, left behind.

LIVERY.

Old-fashioned raiment suits the Tree:
Tho' flouting winds are fain
To strip the foliage, presently
He pattern's it again;
Fastidious of chivalry,
Rejecting as in scorn
All other than the panoply
His ancestors have worn.

SLUMBER-SONG.

Sleep! the spirits that attend
On thy waking hours are fled.
Heaven thou canst not now offend
Till thy slumber-plumes are shed;
Consciousness alone doth lend
Life its pain, and Death its dread;
Innocence and Peace befriend
All the sleeping and the dead.

THE SUPPLIANT.

“O dewdrop, lay thy finger-tip
Of moisture on my fevered lip,”
The noonday Blossom cries.
“Alas, O Dives, dark and deep
The gulf impassable of Sleep
Henceforth between us lies!”

RELEASED.

Go, bird, and to the sky
Pour forth what thou and I
Have suffered here:
Thou, for thy mate removed,
And I, for faith disproved
In one as dear.

Farewell; and if again
Thou find for prison-pain
Felicity,
Be this thy glad release
A prophecy of peace,
Dear bird, for me!

WRECKED.

Deep in the forest glades,
Where leafy welcomes wooed our wandering way,
Once blent our shadows in the dallying shades
That round us lay.

Thenceforth, of fate estranged,
Each day beholds our widowed forms apart:
The word, the glance, the gesture, coldly changed,
As heart to heart.

But cometh night to hide
Life-wrecks, far drifted in the noonday sun,
And lo, our shadows, in the sombre tide,
Again are one!

GONE.

The sunshine seeks thee, and the day,
Without thee, lonely, wears away:
And where the twilight shadows pass,
And miss thy footprints on the grass,
They weep; whereat the breezes sigh,
And, following to find thee, die.

AGAINST THE SKY.

See, where the foliage fronts the sky,
How many a meaning we descry
That else had never to the eye
A signal shown!

So we, on life's horizon-line,
To watchers waiting for a sign,
Perchance interpret Love's design,
To us unknown.

ILLUSION.

As yonder circling heavens define
The limits of the sea,
And Death on Time's horizon-line
Shuts out Eternity;
So, while in banishment apart
Our widowed lives appear,
Still holds each love-encompassed heart
The centre of the sphere.

SUNSET AT SEA.

Lo, where he sinks from sight,
The day forgets her light;
Nor breathes a wave
To break the silence sweet,
Where sky and ocean meet
Above his grave.

INTERPRETED.

Lo, eastward o'er the billows white,
Faint-smiling wakes the Child of Night
From dreams all rosy with delight:—
What means, O Sea, thy moaning?

Full noon: and o'er a cloudless sky
Soft winnowings of fragrance fly:
In all the land no shadows lie:—
What means, O Sea, thy moaning?

Far westward, o'er a dying glow,
Long funeral waves of darkness flow:
Ah, well-a-day! too late I know
What means, O Sea, thy moaning!

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.

With faith ushadowed by the night,
Undazzled by the day,
With hope that plumed thee for the flight,
And courage to assay,
God sent thee from the crowded ark,
Christ-bearer, like the dove,
To find, o'er sundering waters dark,
New lands for conquering Love.

OFF SAN SALVADOR.

It lay to westward—as of old,
An emerald bar across the gold
Of sunset—whence a vision grand
First beckoned to the stranger-land.

And on our deck, uncoffined, lay
A child, whose spirit far away
The wafture of an angel hand
Late welcomed to a stranger-land.

A SIGH OF THE SEA.

“Why is it?” once the Ocean asked,
As on a summer's day,
Basking beneath a cloudless sky,
In musing rest he lay,

“Why is it, that, unruffled still,
The welkin's brow I see,
While mine, with racking wind and tide,
Deep-furrowed oft must be?

“Her richest gems, by night displayed,
Man's filching grasp defy;
But safety for my treasures none,
Though buried deep they lie.

“The hands that from her diadem
In reverence recoil,
Are bold my depths to penetrate
And of their wealth despoil.

“A thousand ships with cruel keel
My writhing waves divide,
But mariner hath never steered
Athwart her tranquil tide.

“Why is it thus, that rest to her
And toil to me is given,—
That she the blessing ever meets,
And I, the curse of Heaven?”

The Ether heard. Through all her depths
A deeper azure spread,
And to the murmuring Ocean thus,
With radiant smile, she said:

“Who cleaveth to the earth, as thou,
Ne'er knows tranquillity;
Naught pulses in my bosom wide
But God, whose own am I.”

SHELL-TINTS.

Sea-shell, whence the rainbow dyes,
Flashing in thy sunset skies?
Thou wast in the penal brine,
When appeared the saving sign.
“Yea; but when the bow was bended,
Hope, that hung it in the sky,
Down into the deep descended
Where the starless shadows lie;
And with tender touch of glory,
Traced in living lines of love,
On my lowly walls, the story
Written in the heavens above.”

THE LOST ANCHOR.

Ah, sweet it was to feel the strain,
What time, unseen, the ship above
Stood steadfast to the storm that strove
To rend our kindred cords atwain!

To feel, as feel the roots that grow
In darkness, when the stately tree
Resist the tempests, that in me
High Hope was planted far below!

But now, as when a mother's breast
Misses the babe, my prisoned power
Deep-yearning, heart-like, hour by hour,
Unquiet aches in cankering rest.

THE SEA-BUBBLE.

Yea; a bubble though I be,
Love, O man, that fashioned thee
Of the dust, created me
Not of earth, but of the sea:
Kindred blossoms then are we—
Time-blooms on eternity.

DE PROFUNDIS.

I heed it all: no more
Than to my listening heart,
Were millions on the shore,
Couldst thou, O Sea, impart.

So, long in silence sealed,
The Word Ineffable
To Mary's heart revealed
E'en all that God could tell.

ALTER IDEM

'T is what thou wast—not what thou art,
Which I no longer know—
That made thee sovereign of my heart,
And serves to keep thee so:

And couldst thou, coming to the throne,
Thy Self, unaltered, see,
Thou mightst the occupant disown,
And scout his sovereignty.

FROM PARADISE.

All else that in the limit lies
Of fleeting time, I see:
The glance, Belovèd, of thine eyes
Alone is lost to me.

And in the self-same interval,
The ever-changing place
Of light's horizon-line is all
That meets thy lonely gaze.

Behold the glimmer of a tear,
The twinkle of a star—
The shadow and the light how near!
And yet, alas, how far!

SELECTION.

Among the trees, O God,
Is there not one
That with unrivalled love
Thou look'st upon?

And of all blessèd birds,
Hath not thy Love
Found for its fittest mate
The homing dove?

Or, mid the flame of flowers
That light the land,
Doth not the lily first
Before thee stand?

So says my soul, O God,
The type of thee.
“In each life-circle, one
Was made for me.”

MAIDEN BLOOM.

Where the youthful rivals meet—
Reddest Rose, and whitest Snow—
From a trysting-place so sweet,
Which will soonest go?
“Hence with life alone I stray,”
Blushed the flower of balmy breath.
“Mine,” the snow-wreath sighed, “to stay
Steadfast e'en in death.”

THE RAIN AND THE DEW.

“Thou hast fallen,” said the Dewdrop
To a sister drop of rain,
“But wilt thou, wedded with the dust,
In banishment remain?”

“Nay, Dewdrop, but anon with thee—
The lowlier born than I—
Uplifted shall I seek again
My native home, the sky.”

THE SHOWER.

Against the royal Blue,
A Mist rebellious flew—
A night-born, wind-uplifted shade
That for an angry moment stayed,
Then wept itself away.

The Earth with moistened eyes
Beholds the sunlit skies
Again: but never to forget
The Cloud whose life-drops mingle yet
With her maternal clay.

RESIGNATION.

Behold, in summer's parching thirst,
The while the waters pass them by,
The hills, like Tantalus accurst,
In silent anguish lie,
Nor look they to the lowly vale
Wherein their famished shadows glide,
But, with uplifted glances pale,
The will of Heaven abide.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

The sculptor in the marble found
Her hidden from the world around,
As in a donjon keep:
With gentle hand he took away
The coverlet that o'er her lay,
But left her fast asleep.

And still she slumbers; e'en as he
Who saw in far futurity
What now before us lies—
The fairest vision that the stream
Of night, subsiding, leaves agleam
Beneath the noonday skies.

CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP.

“Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?”

Lie thou where Life hath lain,
And let thy swifter pain
His rival prove;
Till, like the fertile Nile,
Death buries, mile for mile,
This waste of Love.

Soft! Soft! A sweeter kiss
Than Antony's is this!
O regal Shade,
Luxurious as sleep
Upon thy bosom deep
My heart is laid.

ADIEU.

God speed thee, setting Sun!
Thy beams for me have spun
Of light to-day
A memory that one
Alone could bring, and none
Can take away.

ASLEEP.

Nay, wake him not!
Unfelt our presence near,
Nor falls a whisper on his dreaming ear:
He sees but Sleep's celestial visions clear,
All else forgot.

And who shall say
That, in life's waking dream,
There be not ever near us those we deem
(As now our faces to the Sleeper seem)
Far, far away?

IN SOLITUDE.

Like as a brook that all night long
Sings, as at noon, a bubble-song
To Sleep's unheeding ear,
The Poet to himself must sing,
When none but God is listening
The lullaby to hear.

UNHEEDED.

Ye heavens so cold and clear
Above me weeping here,
Where every blossom sheds a tear
My grief to see;
No wonder, free from stain,
Untroubled ye remain;
The vapors gendering the rain
Are all with me!

ALL IN ALL.

One heaven above;
But many a heaven below
The dewdrops show—
God's tenderness
Subdued in every teardrop to express
The whole of Love.

THE DEWS.

We come and go, as the breezes blow,
But whence or where
Hath ne'er been told in the legends old
By the dreaming seer.
The welcome rain to the parching plain
And the languid leaves,
The rattling hail on the burnished mail
Of the serried sheaves,
The silent snow on the wintry brow
Of the aged year,
Wends each his way in the track of day
From a clouded sphere:
But still as the fog in the dismal bog
Where the shifting sheen
Of the spectral lamp lights the marshes damp,
With a flash unseen
We drip through the night from the starlids bright,
On the sleeping flowers,
And deep in their breast is our perfumed rest
Through the darkened hours:
But again with the day we are up and away
With our stolen dyes,
To paint all the shrouds of the drifting clouds
In the eastern skies.

THE LIFE-TIDE.

Each wave that breaks upon the strand,
How swift soe'er to spurn the sand
And seek again the sea,
Christ-like, within its lifted hand
Must bear the stigma of the land
For all eternity.

ONSET.

Lo, where the routed shadows pass,
Upon each lifted blade of grass
The tokens of a fray—
Pale life-drops from the heart of Night,
Mute witnesses of sudden flight
Before the host of Day.

TO A BLIND BABE, SLEEPING.

Are thy dreams dark? or is the light
Alone denied thy waking sight,
While softer stars their vigils keep
Within thy hemisphere of sleep?

Yea: haply, as noon-blinded beams
Awake in darkness, o'er thy dreams
The pity that begets our tears,
A kindling radiance appears.

FORESHADOWED.

Swallow, with the spring returning,
In thine absence change hath been:
Dost thou mark the lonely places
Where no more my Love is seen?
Never maiden welcomed thee
Home with lighter heart than she.

Flitting in the golden sunshine
Oft thy shadow o'er us strayed.
Still we smiled, nor recked the warning
Of a life-dividing shade,
Now, alas, the world to me
Mourns that doomful prophecy.

SUSPENSE.

Breathless as the blue above thee
Where a pausing vapor lies;
Here, the hearts on earth that love thee,
There, the souls in Paradise—
Host for host expectant of thee!
Who shall win the prize?

IMMORTALITY.

E'en now the spirit moves
In visions yet to be,
Whereof the present proves
A dream and prophecy.
For still, the shadows gone,
With light forever new,
Behold, another dawn
Proclaims the promise true.

SECURITY.

The Noonday smiles to hear
The oft-repeated tale
Of shadows lurking near
Her sunbeams to assail:

Nor heeds the placid Night
A prophecy of doom
To drown her stars in light
As fathomless as gloom.

PILGRIMS.

Unto the fane of Silence come,
Love-led from alien lands,
Pale pilgrim Prayers with upward glance,
And falling tears, and lifted hands,
And lips with stanched emotion dumb,
To ask for utterance.

There, shadow-like, with folded wings,
In reverence apart,
They wait till lingering Time hath brought,
In words or music to the heart,
What Spring to wintry Nature brings,—
Release for prisoned Thought.

IN THE DEATH CHAMBER.

Still upon the vacant wall
Doth the silver phantom fall,
Like a glory in the gloom
Of the long-deserted room.

Soul departed, can it be
Thou, death-laurelled majesty,
Mingling, in the moon's disguise,
With our midnight reveries?

THE DEPARTED.

They cannot wholly pass away,
How far soe'er above;
Nor we, the lingerers, wholly stay
Apart from those we love:
For spirits in eternity,
As shadows in the sun,
Reach backward into Time, as we,
Like lifted clouds, reach on.

THE FOUNDLING.

What time the wandering mother Night
Made ready to depart,
A new-born, trembling Dream of Light
She laid upon my heart.
“Keep it,” she sighed, and bending low
Wept o'er it where it lay;
Then, suddenly as April snow,
Went vanishing away.

RETROSPECT.

The heavens that seemed so far away
When old-time grief was near,
Beyond the vista seen to-day,
Close o'er my life appear;
For there, in reconcilement sweet,
The human and divine,
The loftiest and the lowliest, meet
On love's horizon-line.

REFLECTION.

Stars that with a softer glow
Waken in the wave below,
All the stars above you grow
Wiser for the beams ye throw—
Light whereby alone they know
Why we mortals love them so.

COMMUNION.

Once when my heart was passion-free
To learn of things divine,
The soul of nature suddenly
Outpoured itself in mine.

I held the secrets of the deep,
And of the heavens above;
I knew the harmonies of sleep,
The mysteries of love.

And for a moment's interval
The earth, the sky, the sea—
My soul encompassed, each and all,
As now they compass me.

To one in all, to all in one—
Since Love the work began—
Life's ever widening circles run,
Revealing God and man.

TRANSFIGURATION.

The cloud unto its parent stream
That rushes to the sea
Reveals a far-reflected dream
Of heaven's tranquillity;
And unto faith's adoring sight
A mystery appears,—
A cloud transfigured of the light
In every tide of tears.

BREAD.

Still surmounting as I came
Wind and water, frost and flame,
Night and day, the livelong year,
From the burial-place of seed,
From the earth's maternal bosom,
Through the root, and stem, and blossom,
To supply thy present need,
Have I journeyed here.

SAND.

Sterile sister though I be,
Twinborn to the barren Sea,
Yet of all things fruitful we
Wait the end; and presently,
Lo, they are not! then to me
(Children to the nurse's knee)
Come the billows fresh and free,
Breathing Immortality.

THE MARSH.

The woods have voices, and the sea,
Her choral-song and threnody:
But thou alike to sun and rain
Dost mute and motionless remain.

As pilgrims to the shrine of Sleep,
Through all thy solemn spaces creep
The Tides—a moment on thy breast
To pause in sacramental rest;
Then, flooded with the mystery,
To sink reluctant to the sea,
In landward loneliness to yearn
Till to thy bosom they return.

BEACON LIGHTS.

Sister Blossoms, ye have kept
So near the Master while ye slept
That, as upon the Martyr's face,
His light celestial we trace
In yours, revealing dreams that He,
Asleep upon the stormy sea,
Beheld, as though your light alone
His beacon in the darkness shone.

OUTSPEEDED.

To-night the onward-rushing train
Would bear thee far from me;
But, winged with swifter dreams, again
My spirit flies to thee.

Nay, speeding far beyond thee, waits
To welcome thee anew,
Where Dawn is opening the gates
To let the darkness through.

THE SIREN STREAM TO THE OUTCAST.

Come, for my waves what I can never know
Of calm bestow;
And thou, alas, like them, hast wandered far!
Come, erring star—
Aweary now—come take thy fill of rest
Upon my breast.

Come, for they call thee. Lean thy listening ear
And thou shalt hear
How soft the sigh that woos thee to the deep
Of endless sleep,
Wherein the past and all its passion seem
A vanished dream.

Behold, I cleanse whate'er of soilure clings
To drooping wings:
Whate'er abides of dust or cleaving clay,
I purge away;
Like fire, refining, but apart from pain,
All dross and stain.

The fever-flame that through thy being burns,
My bosom yearns
To quench. Behold, the ripples run to meet
A sister's feet,
With murmurs, not of scorn, but tenderness,
To soothe and bless.

AT LAST.

How full of phantoms are the days
That shorten as they go!
Along the once frequented ways,
Alas, are none I know!
Lone relic of reality,
I too a phantom fain would be.

THE PILGRIM.

When, but a child, I wandered hence,
Another child—sweet Innocence,
My sister—went with me:
But I have lost her, and am fain
To seek her in the home again
Where we were wont to be.

MY GUIDE.

Lift up thine eyes, my child,
That I may see
The innocence that smiled
In one like thee—
Thy mother gone.

Scarce older than thou art,
With maiden power
She won a wayward heart,
That till that hour
Had worshipped none.

Swift as a bird of Spring
In joyous flight,
That cleaves with shadeless wing
The sea of light,
Our morning fled.

When, sudden gloom—and lo!
A troubled sky—
A wail of stifled woe—
An agony—
And hope was dead.

Then, as a crystal tear
Of sorrow born,
Didst thou, pale star, appear,
Like me forlorn
In cheerless night.

I wept, and weeping turned
To gaze on thee,
And through the mist discerned
A beam for me,
Lit of her light.

GIULIO.

“Father!”—the trembling voice betrayed
The troubled heart. “Be not afraid.”
I softly answered: “Woe is me!
Dead unto all but misery!
And yet, a child of innocence
Is mine—a son unknowing whence
His origin—whom, unaware,
As with an angel's watchful care,
Thy gentle hand hath guided. Now
He waits the consecrating vow
Of priesthood, and to-morrow stands
A Levite, with uplifted hands
To bless thee. May a mother dare
To look upon that face, and share,
Unseen, the blessing of her son?
Deny me not. So be it done
To thee in thy last agony,
As now thou doest unto me!”

She had her will. Secluded there
Within a cloistered place of prayer,
We saw, and wept; then, all unknown,
Shrunk back into the world, alone.

Days passed. A winter's cheerless morn
With summons came. A soul forlorn

Craved help in danger imminent;
And, Christlike, on his mission went
The new anointed.
“Strange,” he said,
“The gleams, like inspiration, shed
Upon the dying! There she lay,
Poor reprobate! life's stormy day
In clouds departing. Suddenly,
As from a trance, beholding me,
‘Giulio! hast thou come?’ she cried,
And with her arms about me, died.”

He wondered; and I turned away,
Lest tears my secret should betray.

BETRAYED.

When first, a new-born babe, he smiled,
Ere yet a name was given,
We knew not if the stranger child
Were more of earth or heaven.

His eyes, twin dewdrops, took the light
Of noonday's perfect blue:
His cheeks, young apple-blossoms white,
To warmer blushes grew.

His lips,—a rosy oracle,
And fragrant as a flower's,—
Like breathing petals, seemed to tell
Of sweeter thoughts than ours.

His name?—It is a balmy word
Of sound and silence wove;
We caught it when an Echo stirred
In sleep, and whispered—“Love.”

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL.

The Fir-tree felt it with a thrill
And murmur of content;
The last dead Leaf its cable slipt
And from its moorings went;

The selfsame silent messenger
To one the shibboleth
Of Life imparting, and to one
The countersign of Death.

AN INTERVIEW.

I sat with chill December
Beside the evening fire.
“And what do you remember,”
I ventured to inquire,
“Of seasons long forsaken?”
He answered in amaze,
“My age you have mistaken:
I 've lived but thirty days.”

ANTICIPATION.

The master scans the woven score
Of subtle harmonies, before
A note is stirred;
And Nature now is pondering
The tidal symphony of Spring,
As yet unheard.

THE TRYST OF SPRING.

Stern Winter sought the hand of Spring,
And, tempered to her milder mood,
Died leafless on the budding breast
He fondly wooed.

She wept for him her April tears,
But, from the shadows wandering soon,
Dreamed of a warmer love to come
With lordly June.

He scatters roses at her feet,
And sunshine o'er her queenly brow,
And through the listening silence breathes
A bridal vow.

She answers not; but, like a mist
O'er-brimmed and tremulous with light,
In sudden tears she vanishes
Before his sight.

ONE APRIL MORN.

Twin violets amid the dew
Unfolded soft their petals blue
To find the winter's dream come true,
One April morn.

Two warmer, softer, violet eyes,
Beneath the selfsame April skies,
Fulfilled a dream of paradise,
One April morn.

Dawn-blossoms of a changeful day,
Ye would not till the twilight stay,
But, ere the noontide, sped away,
One April morn.

AN APRIL PRAYER.

Lord, to thy signal-light the trees
In leaf and flower reply:
Let not my heart, more dull than these,
Alone unwakened lie.

AN AUTUMN LEAF.

A nursling of the under-green,
A tethered wing I poised between
A heaven above and heaven below—
Twin Sisters, mirrored in the glow
Of limpid waters—where the breeze,
Blind comrade of the listening trees,
Came wakening with soft caress
The shadows dumb and motionless.

There once, at summer's close, a flame
Of fire and song, a Redbird came,
And, perched upon my parent limb,
Outpoured his soul. From joy abrim,
The bubbling vintage of his brain,
I quaffed, the while each fibre-vein,
Deep-reddening with emotion, stirred.
Alas! he heeded not nor heard!
But when he ceased, and flew away,
A panting prisoner I lay,
Close-fettered, till the kindred fire
Of frost lit up the autumn pyre:
Then, suddenly, the tidal swell
Of sap receded, and I fell.

MATER DOLOROSA.

Again maternal Autumn grieves,
As blood-like drip the maple leaves
On Nature's Calvary,
And every sap-forsaken limb
Renews the mystery of Him
Who died upon a Tree.

INDIAN SUMMER.

No more the battle or the chase
The phantom tribes pursue,
But each in its accustomed place
The Autumn hails anew:
And still from solemn councils set
On every hill and plain,
The smoke of many a calumet
Ascends to heaven again.

OCTOBER.

Behold, the fleeting swallow
Forsakes the frosty air;
And leaves, alert to follow,
Are falling everywhere,
Like wounded birds, too weak
A distant clime to seek.

And soon, with silent pinions,
The fledglings of the North
From winter's wild dominions
Shall drift, affrighted, forth,
And, phantom-like, anon
Pursue the phantoms gone.

FROM THE UNDERGROUND.

Behold, before the wintry gale,
Across the sea of Night,
How many a fragrant blossom-sail
Comes drifting to the light!

Whence are they? Who hath piloted
Their journey from afar?
The self-same miracle that led
The Magi and the Star.

100

THE SNOWDROP.

Behold, from winter's sleeping side,
The sacramental power
Of Nature fashioneth a bride
As fair as Eden's flower.

101

WIND-FLOWERS.

As whispers for a moment rest
Upon the brink of sound,
Here fragrant breezes blossom-drest,
Half-visible are found.

102

AN APRIL BLOOM.

Whence art thou? From what chrysalis
Of silence hast thou come?
What thought in thee finds utterance
Of dateless ages dumb—
Outspeeding in the distance far
The herald glances of a star
As yet unseen?

Wast thou, ere thine awakening here,
In other realms a-bloom?
Or swathed in seamless cerements
Of immemorial gloom,
Till now, as Nature's pulses move,
Thou blossomest, a breath of Love,
Her lips between?

103

PEACH BLOOM.

A dream in fragrant silence wrought,
A blossoming of petaled thought,
A passion of these April days,—
The blush of Nature now betrays.

104

MIGNONETTE.

Give me the earth, and I might heap
A mountain from the plain;
Give me the waters of the deep,
I might their strength restrain;
But here a secret of the sod
Betrays the daintier hand of God.

105

CLOVER.

Little masters, hat in hand,
Let me in your presence stand,
Till your silence solve for me
This your threefold mystery.

Tell me—for I long to know—
How, in darkness there below,
Was your fairy fabric spun,
Spread and fashioned, three in one.

Did your gossips gold and blue,
Sky and Sunshine, choose for you,
Ere your triple forms were seen,
Suited liveries of green?

Can ye—if ye dwelt indeed
Captives of a prison seed—
Like the Genie, once again
Get you back into the grain?

Little masters, may I stand
In your presence, hat in hand,
Waiting till you solve for me
This your threefold mystery?

106

IMMORTELLES.

“They toil not, neither do they spin”—
The blossom-Thoughts that here within
The garden of my soul arise,
Alike unheeding wintry skies;
Or sun or rain, or night or day,
And never hence to pass away.

107

SONG OF THE MORNING-GLORIES.

We wedded each a star,—
A warrior true,
That plighted faith afar
In drops of dew.

But comes the cruel Dawn:
The dew is dry;
And we, our lovers gone,
Lamenting, die.

108

“CONSIDER THE LILIES.”

'T is not the radiant star above
That breathes for me the lore of love
As doth the dewy censer sweet
That Heaven enkindles at my feet.

Yea, more for me of tenderness
Is uttered in the mute caress
Upon these moistened petals found,
Than e'er was wedded unto sound.

109

TO A WOOD-VIOLET.

In this secluded shrine,
O miracle of grace,
No mortal eye but mine
Hath looked upon thy face.

No shadow but mine own
Hath screened thee from the sight
Of Heaven, whose love alone
Hath led me to thy light.

Whereof—as shade to shade
Is wedded in the sun,—
A moment's glance hath made
Our souls forever one.

110

A LOTUS BLOOM.

Was the dream thou wovest me,
But a blossom-fantasy?
When it faded from my brain,
Flushed it into flower again?

When thy blossom withereth—
When the fairer flower of Death
Weaves its vision—shall the dream
Mine or thine, returning, seem?

111

A RUBRIC.

The aster puts its purple on
When flowers begin to fall,
To suit the solemn antiphon
Of Autumn's ritual;

And deigns, unwearied, to stand
In robes pontifical,
Till Indian Summer leaves the land,
And Winter spreads the pall.

112

THE SNOW-BIRD.

When snow, like silence visible,
Hath hushed the summer bird,
Thy voice, a never-frozen rill
Of melody, is heard.

But when from winter's lethargy
The buds begin to blow,
Thy voice is mute, and suddenly
Thou vanishest like snow.

113

TO THE WOOD-ROBIN.

The wooing air is jubilant with song,
And blossoms swell
As leaps thy liquid melody along
The dusky dell,
Where Silence, late supreme, foregoes her wonted spell.

Ah, whence, in sylvan solitudes remote,
Hast learned the lore
That breeds delight in every echoing note,
The woodlands o'er;
As when, through slanting sun, descends the quickening shower?

Thy hermitage is peopled with the dreams
That gladden sleep;
Here Fancy dallies with delirious themes
Mid shadows deep,
Till eyes, unused to tears, with wild emotions weep.

We rise, alas, to find our visions fled!
But thine remain.
Night weaves of golden harmonies the thread,
And fills thy brain
With joys that overflow in Love's awakening strain.

114

Yet thou, from mortal influence apart,
Seek'st naught of praise;
The empty plaudits of the emptier heart
Taint not thy lays:
Thy Maker's smile alone thy tuneful bosom sways.

Teach me, thou warbling eremite, to sing
Thy rhapsody;
Nor borne on vain ambition's vaunting wing,
But led of thee,
To rise from earthly dreams to hymn Eternity.

115

THE DEAD THRUSH.

Love of nest and mate and young,
Woke the music of his tongue,
While upon the fledgling's brain
Soft it fell as scattered grain,
There to blossom tone for tone
Into echoes of his own.

Doth the passion wholly die
When the fountainhead is dry?
Nay: as vapor from the sea,
Lives the dream eternally;
Soon the silent clouds again
Melt in rhapsodies of rain.

116

CHRISTMAS.

The womb of Silence bears the Eternal Word,
And yet no sound is heard:
The womb of Mary, Virgin undefiled,
Mothers the Heaven-born Child.

117

THE LAMB-CHILD.

When Christ the Babe was born,
Full many a little lamb
Upon the wintry hills forlorn
Was nestled near its dam;

And, waking or asleep,
Upon His mother's breast,
For love of her, each mother-sheep
And baby-lamb He blessed.

118

THE ANGEL'S CHRISTMAS QUEST.

“Where have ye laid my Lord?
Behold, I find Him not!
Hath He, in heaven adored,
His home forgot?
Give me, O sons of men,
My truant God again!”

“A voice from sphere to sphere—
A faltering murmur—ran,
‘Behold, He is not here!
Perchance with Man,
The lowlier made than we,
He hides His majesty.’”

Then, hushed in wondering awe,
The spirit held his breath,
And bowed: for, lo, he saw
O'ershadowing Death,
A Mother's hands above,
Swathing the limbs of Love!

119

RESTRAINT.

Pause while thine eyes are alien to the scene
That lies before thee. Let the Fancy range,
As yet she may, sole sovereign of the strange
Uncharted region of that wide demesne
Where Truth the tyrant never yet hath been.
He, once supreme, as in a narrowed grange
Thenceforth abides forever—Chance and Change
Foregone his guarded barriers between.
Pass not: before the all-discerning Light
The angels veil their faces. To the wise
The tree of Knowledge in their Eden stands
Untasted, lest the Death that in it lies
Prevail, the bud of Innocence to blight,
And cloud the glimpse of ever-widening lands.

120

GLORIA IN EXCELSIS.

'T is Christmas night! Again—
But not from heaven to earth—
Rings forth the old refrain
“A Saviour's Birth!”

Nay, listen: 't is below!
A song that soars above,
From human hearts aglow
With heavenly love!

121

ON CALVARY.

In the shadow of the rood
Love and Shame together stood;
Love, that bade Him bear the blame
Of her fallen sister Shame;
Shame, that by the pangs thereof
Bade Him break His heart for Love.

122

TO THE CRUCIFIX.

Day after day the spear of morning bright
Pierces again the ever-wounded side,
Pointing at once the birthspring of the Light,
And where for Love the Light Eternal died.

123

STABAT MATER.

The star that in his splendor hid her own,
At Christ's Nativity,
Abides—a widowed satellite—alone,
On tearful Calvary.

124

EASTER EVE.

Lo, now His deadliest foes prevail!
And where His bleeding footsteps fail,
Like wolves upon a victim's trail,
They gloat, in purple mockery, “Hail!”

O cloud! O regal vesture torn!
O shadow on the shoulders borne!
O diadem!—one starry thorn
Shall blossom into Easter morn!

125

EASTER MORNING.

Behold, the night of sorrow gone,
Like Magdalen the tearful Dawn
Goes forth with love's anointing sweet,
To kiss again the Master's feet!

126

EASTER FLOWERS.

We are His witnesses; out of the dim,
Dank region of Death we have risen with Him.
Back from our sepulchre rolleth the stone,
And Spring, the bright Angel, sits smiling thereon.

We are His witnesses. See, where we lay
The snow that late bound us is folded away;
And April, fair Magdalen, weeping anon,
Stands flooded with light of the new-risen Sun!

127

GOD.

I see Thee in the distant blue;
But in the Violet's dell of dew,
Behold, I breathe and touch Thee too.

128

TENEBRÆ.

Whate'er my darkness be,
'T is not, O Lord, of Thee:
The light is Thine alone;
The shadows, all my own.

129

DEUS ABSCONDITUS.

My God has hid Himself from me
Behind whatever else I see;
Myself—the nearest mystery—
As far beyond my grasp as He.

And yet, in darkest night, I know,
While lives a doubt-discerning glow,
That larger lights above it throw
These shadows in the vale below.

130

GOD'S LIKENESS.

Not in mine own, but in my neighbor's face,
Must I Thine image trace:
Nor he in his, but in the light of mine,
Behold thy Face Divine.

131

MY MEDIATOR.

“None betwixt God and me?”
“Behold, my neighbor, thee,
Unto His lofty throne
He makes my stepping-stone.”

132

THE SONG OF THE MAN.

“The woman gave, and I did eat.”
Whereof gave she?
“'T was of the garden fruitage sweet—
A portion fair to see;
She plucked and ate, and I did eat,
And lost alike are we;
God saith,
Ye die the death!

“The woman gave, and I did eat.”
Whereof gave she?
“'T was of her womb a Burden sweet—
But sad, alas, to see;
She took and ate, and I did eat,
And saved alike are we;
God saith,
So dieth Death!”

133

CHARITY

If but the world would give to Love
The crumbs that from its table fall,
'T were bounty large enough for all
The famishing to feed thereof.

And Love, that still the laurel wins
Of Sacrifice, would lovelier grow,
And round the world a mantle throw
To hide its multitude of sins.

134

FULFILMENT.

No bloom forgotten! but upon each face
The dews baptismal, and the selfsame sign
Of Night's communion, that the fervid gaze
Of Paschal Morning changes into wine.

135

ON SEA AND LAND.

One sobbing wave, above her fellows blest,
His feet caressed:
One homeless heart—the lone, unbidden guest—
Her God confessed.

136

STILLING THE TEMPEST.

'T was all she could:—The gift that Nature gave,
The torrent of her tresses—did she spill
Before His feet: and lo, the troubled wave
Of passion heard His whisper, “Peace, be still!”

137

THE POSTULANT.

In ashes from the wasted fires of noon,
Aweary of the light,
Comes Evening, a tearful novice, soon
To take the veil of night.

138

PURGATORY.

How long, O Lord, how long
These penal fires among?
—Till love with fiercer flame
The strength of torture tame.

139

BETTER.

Better for Sin to dwell from Heaven apart
In foulest night,
Than on its lidless eyeballs feel the dart
Of torturing Light.
Better to pine in floods of sulphurous fire,
Than far above
Behold the bliss of satisfied desire,
Nor taste thereof.
Yea, Love is Lord, e'en where the Powers of Pain
Undying dwell:
Defiled, in spotless glory to remain
Were deeper hell.

140

LONE-LAND.

Around us lies a world invisible,
With isles of Dreams, and many a continent
Of Thought, and isthmus Fancy; where we dwell
Each as a lonely wanderer intent
Upon his vision; finding each his fears
And hopes encompassed by the tide of Tears.