Lyrics by John B Tabb | ||
141
QUATRAINS.
143
WOMAN.
Shall she come down, and on our level stand?Nay; God forbid it! May a mother's eyes—
Love's earliest home, the heaven of Babyland—
Forever bend above us as we rise.
144
OPPORTUNITY.
Once only did the Angel stirThe pool, whereat She paused in pain:
Another step outspeeded her;
The waters ne'er have moved again.
145
LIFE.
The Power that lifts the leaf aboveAnd sends the root below,
Sustains the heart in brother-love
And makes it heavenward grow.
146
DEATH.
So sweet to tired mortality the nightOf Life's laborious day,
That God himself, o'erwearied of the light,
Within its shadow lay.
147
RELEASE.
So long am I a prisonerAs Time and Thought surround me here:
When Time is dead, and Memory
Deserts the ramparts, I am free.
148
LIGHT.
We know thee not, save that when thou art gone,Thy sister, Beauty, follows in thy train,
Leaving the soul in exile till the dawn
Come with the gift of franchisement again.
149
IN DARKNESS.
Dumb Silence and her sightless sister SleepGlide, mistlike, through the deepening Vale of Night;
Waking, where'er their shadowy garments sweep,
Dream-voices and an echoing dream of light.
150
SILENCE.
A sea wherein the rivers of all soundTheir streams incessant pour,
But whence no tide returning e'er hath found
An echo on the shore.
151
FANCY.
A boat unmoored, wherein a dreamer lies,The slumberous waves low-lisping of a land
Where Love, forever with unclouded eyes,
Goes, wed with wandering Music, hand in hand.
152
FAME.
Their noonday never knowsWhat names immortal are:
'T is night alone that shows
How star surpasseth star.
153
TIME'S LEGACY.
The night so long to Grief,The day to Joy so brief,
What shall Eternity
To each, unaltered, be!
154
A CRISIS.
O leaf, against the twilight seen,Move not; for at thy side
Gleams, trembling lest thou intervene,
My hope, my star, my guide.
155
THE CYNOSURE.
So let me in thy heaven of thought appear,As doth a twilight star—
The harbinger of tenderest hopes anear,
And memories afar.
156
RESISTANCE.
Resistance to its pinions lightUplifts the bird in airy flight;
Resistance to the wingèd soul
Uplifts it to the lofty goal.
157
THE BILLOWS.
Of tribes that in the desert fellThe wandering souls are we—
Wind-scattered seed of Ishmael
Upon the sterile sea.
158
THE VOYAGER.
Columbus-like, I sailed into the night,The sunset gold to find:
Alas! 't was but the phantom of the light!
Life's Indies lay behind!
159
ADRIFT.
The calm horizon circles only me,The centre of its measureless embrace,—
A bubble on the bosom of the sea,
Itself a bubble in the bound of space.
160
DEEP UNTO DEEP.
Where limpid waters lie between,There only heaven to heaven is seen:
Where flows the tide of mutual tears
There only heart to heart appears.
161
VESTIGES.
Upon the Isle of Time we traceThe signs of many a vanished race:
But on the sea that laps it round,
No memory of man is found.
162
THE MID-DAY MOON.
Behold, whatever wind prevail,Slow westering, a phantom sail—
The lonely soul of Yesterday—
Unpiloted, pursues her way.
163
TO AN EVENING SHADE.
O pilgrim, ever yearning for the East,What fate before thee lies?
“The spouse of Night, and, from the wedding feast,
The Morning's sacrifice.”
164
HEROES.
Against the night, a champion bright,The glow-worm, lifts a spear of light;
And, undismayed, the slenderest shade
Against the noonday bares a blade.
165
LANIER'S FLUTE.
When palsied at the pool of ThoughtThe Poet's words were found,
Thy voice the healing Angel brought
To touch them into sound.
166
POE-CHOPIN.
O'er each the soul of Beauty flungA shadow mingled with the breath
Of music that the Sirens sung,
Whose utterance is death.
167
TO AN EXILE.
As still upon the prophet shoneA light, when God himself was gone,
So lives, unbanished from thine eyes,
The splendor of thy native skies.
168
TO A DYING BABE.
O bubble, break! All heaven thou hastUnsullied in thy heart!
Ere Time its shadow on thee cast
Love calls thee to depart.
169
MY SECRET.
'T is not what I am fain to hide,That doth in deepest darkness dwell,
But what my tongue hath often tried,
Alas, in vain, to tell.
170
IN ABSENCE.
All that thou art not, makes not up the sumOf what thou art, beloved, unto me:
All other voices, wanting thine, are dumb;
All vision, in thine absence, vacancy.
171
A REMONSTRANCE.
Sing me no more, sweet warbler, for the dartOf joy is keener than the flash of pain:
Sing me no more, for the re-echoed strain
Together with the silence breaks my heart.
172
NEW AND OLD.
New blossoms from the selfsame earth,Beneath the selfsame skies;
New hope with dawn's perennial birth,
The selfsame heaven supplies.
173
THE FIG-TREE.
First go-between in fallen man's defence,To shield, or share his blame.
Christ-like, to lend the robe of innocence
Wherewith to hide his shame.
174
THE BEE AND THE BLOSSOMS.
Why stand ye idle, blossoms bright,The livelong summer day?
“Alas! we labor all the night
For what thou takest away!”
175
BONE-CASTANETS.
Apart, of death and silence we,The fittest emblems found,
Together, mad with minstrelsy,
Leap into life and sound.
Lyrics by John B Tabb | ||