 | Gathered in the gloaming |  |
11
MINIATURE ODES.
(Japanese fashion.)
The Burden of the Sea.
I
From deep mid-ocean, in the solemn night,No wandering sail abroad, no shore in sight,
What voice goes up, sonorous through the spheres,
And what its burden that God only hears?
II
The burden of the Sea! that infinite woeOf ages, endless as its ebb and flow—
Endless and hopeless—hark the mystic song!
“How long”—it seems to moan—“O Lord, how long!”
12
In Heaven.
Heaven! 'tis the seeking, in God's alien places,Our loves of earth, our wept and vanished faces.
'Mid seraph songs, what strain will fill our ears?
The plaintive minor of our vale of tears.
May-time.
“Hey!” shrills the skylark, peering down belowFrom middle ether, “Earth is white with snow.”
“Joy!” pipes the linnet, on the hawthorn spray,
“Earth's white with snow, but all the snow is May.”
Marsh-Marigolds.
It frames your portrait, the marsh-marigold—We culled it, with our love; and now, I see
In spring-time, when its yellow buds unfold,
Your face look out from each, and smile at me.
Compensation.
The nightingales desert their haunts of old,Desert my garden, widowed of their song.
I preach contentment—blackcaps manifold
Flock in, at least, and warble all day long.
13
Fidelity.
Do some forget? Oh, my beloved, not I!Hear me across the gulphs. God lets my cry
O'ertake thee. I am faithful. Love, I wait
Thine advent, stedfast at the Eternal Gate.
Migration.
A gathering, fluttering, flitting through the sky.Hey for the South!—On yonder mountain fork,
Falls the first snow, and hark! with clash and cry,
Swift, through the windy tumult, whirls the stork.
Spring.
Spring leaped up in the hollows. What a raceI ran with him o'er meadow and green height!
But when I paused, exulting in my pace,
Spring laughed from windy woodlands out of sight.
Illusions.
I count the dead loves of my fickle youth,But, constant grown, lift unremorseful eyes:
Nay, not so many loves . . but three, in sooth—
“Four,” moans the living love, and moaning . . dies.
14
Flowers.
Flowers of the Spring, how lavishly has GodScattered your beauty over bank and sod!
Twin flowers are mine, that blossom on God's sward,
In God's own garden, but . . . the gate is barred.
On the Verge.
Nay, not so far, great Angel, not so far!Faint and more faint grows earth's receding star.
Here, on Heaven's verge, in sight of either home,
Great Angel, let me tarry . . till they come.
Philomel.
Once, his sweet strain the Eden noontides filled,Now, under midnight skies his notes are trilled.
Poor bird! perchance he takes each twinkling star
For light of Eden lattice, left ajar.
The Nile—Esne.
I paused at Esne—weird the syrens' tune.My Nile-crew slept the pillared palms among.
“On, on!” the River muttered 'neath the moon;—
“Nay, tarry, tarry yet!”—the Almehs sung.
15
Sea-Anguish.
I listen to the moaning of the Sea—A moan upon each wave that shoreward rolls,
As 'twere the murmur of all griefs that be,
The confluent anguish of all stricken souls.
June Wisdom.
Enough of solemn lore! my mood rebels—I toss the tome aside—here's merry June,
The time of roses—life and love in tune—
To-day, the wisdom that wears cap and bells!
Apples.
To sage, 'neath orchard branches, it may hapTo gather wisdom from an apple's fall.
Child, which is wisest, he, or I withal,
That pile the golden apples in thy lap?
| Gathered in the gloaming | |