Songs Old and New :: :: University of Virginia Library

Not for thyself thy motherhood,
Not for thy home that life-stream springs;
For thee then, too, the higher good
Must come through death of lower things.

The village home so sweet to thee
With joys so hallowed and complete,
For Him no Father's House could be,
No limit for thy Saviour's feet.

The will long meekly bowed to thine
Now calmly claims its sovereign place,
And takes a range of love Divine
Thy mortal vision cannot trace.

On us that mild reproof falls cold,—
The words, and not the tone, we hear;
On thee, who knewest Him of old,
It casts no shade of doubt or fear.

For thy meek heart has read Him true,
And, bowing, wins His “rather bless'd;”
“Whate'er He saith unto you, do,”
Embracing as its rule and rest.

Then through earth's ruins heaven shines bright:
The widest sphere, the dearest home,
Save that where Christ is Lord and Light,
Were but at last the spirit's tomb.

Thus, laying down thy special bliss,
Thou winnest joy, all joy above,—
The endless joy of being His,
And sharing in His works of love.

III. —THE MARRIAGE AT CANA.

The Hand that strews the earth with flowers
Enriched the marriage feast with wine;
The Hand once pierced for sins of ours
This morning made the dew-drops shine;

Makes rain-clouds palaces of art,
Makes ice-drops beauteous as they freeze;
The Heart that bled to save,—that Heart
Sends countless gifts each day to please;

Spares no minute refining touch
To paint the flower, to crown the feast;—
Deeming no sacrifice too much,
Has care and leisure for the least;

Gives freely of its very best,
Not barely what the need may be,
But for the joy of making blest.—
Teach us to love and give like Thee!

Not narrowly men's claims to measure,
But question daily all our powers:
To whose cup can we add a pleasure?
Whose path can we make bright with flowers?

IV. —THE CROSS.

“Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother.”

The strongest light casts deepest shade,
The dearest love makes dreariest loss;

And she His birth so blest had made
Stood by Him dying on the cross.

Yet, since not grief but joy shall last,
The day and not the night abide,
And all time's shadows, earthward cast,
Are lights upon the “other side;”

Through what long bliss that shall not fail,
That darkest hour shall brighten on!
Better than any angel's “Hail!”
The memory of “Behold thy Son!”

Blest in thy lowly heart to store
The homage paid at Bethlehem,
But far more blessëd evermore
Thus to have shared the taunts and shame;

Thus with thy pierced heart to have stood
'Mid mocking crowds, and owned Him thine;
True through a world's ingratitude,
And owned in death by lips Divine.

V. —THE CROWN.

Thou shalt be crowned, O mother blest!
Our hearts behold thee crowned e'en now;
The crown of motherhood, earth's best,
O'ershadowing thy maiden brow.

Thou shalt be crowned! More fragrant bays
Than ever poet's brows entwine,
For thine immortal hymn of praise,
First Singer of the Church, are thine.

Thou shalt be crowned! All earth and heaven
Thy coronation pomp shall see;
The Hand by which thy crown is given
Shall be no stranger's hand to thee.

Thou shalt be crowned! But not a queen;
A better triumph ends thy strife:
Heaven's bridal raiment, white and clean,
The victor's crown of fadeless life.

Thou shalt be crowned! But not alone,
No lonely pomp shall weigh thee down;
Crowned with the myriads round His throne,
And casting at His feet thy crown.

MARY MAGDALENE.

I.

Her home lay by that inland sea
Which sacred memories so embalm;
That Magdala and Galilee
Ring like the music of a psalm.

Deep in the lake the far hills glow,
Clear shines each peak and golden spire,
And Hermon lifts his brow of snow
Unsullied to that sky of fire.

From point to point gleamed cities white,
Full of the joyous stir of life,
And o'er the waves boats bounded light;
All was with eager movement rife.

Fresh streams across Gennesaret danced,
Laughing with corn and countless fruits,

And met the quiet waves which glanced
Bathing the oleander roots.

Yet many a calm recess for prayer
Those hills enshrined which circling stood,
Wild steeps which to men's homes brought near
The sanctity of solitude.

But vainly, round her and beneath
Earth poured her wealth, as evermore
Flows Jordan to the Sea of Death,
And leaves it bitter as before.

II.

“Out of whom He cast seven devils.”

No phantoms thus her soul assailed,
It was no vision of the night,
No dim unreal mist, that veiled
The glad reality of light;

No discord of sweet strings unstrung
A skilful touch might tune again,
No jar of nerves too tightly wrung,
No shadows of an o'erwrought brain;

But din of mocking voices rude,
Spirits whose touches left a stain,
Owning no shrine of solitude
Their blasphemies might not profane:

Real as the earth she, hopeless, trod,
Real as the heaven they had lost,
Real as the soul they kept from God,
From torture still to torture tossed.

Thus sleep to her could bring no calm,
No stillness dwelt for her in night;
And human love could yield no balm,
And home no deep and pure delight;

Till light upon that chaos broke,—
Not from unconscious azure skies,—
The morning that her spirit woke
Beamed from the depths of human eyes.

No thunder, with God's vengeance dread,
Scattered that company of hell;
It was a Voice from which they fled,
A Voice they knew before they fell.

Once more she was alone and free,
And silence all her soul possessed;

As the “great calm” the storm-tossed sea
When the same voice commanded rest.

Such solitude a heaven might make,
Such silence had for bliss sufficed;
What was it, then, from hell to wake,
And wake beneath the smile of Christ!

III.

“And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, . . . . which ministered unto Him of their substance.”

He suffered her with Him to stay,—
This crowning joy was not denied,—
To hear His voice from day to day,
And tread this earth still by His side:

Where, with a diadem of snow,
The white-walled cities crowned the rocks,
Or peasants' dwellings far below,
Couched round the fountains like their flocks.

She saw the expressive glance of sight
The dulness of blind eyes replace;
When learning first the joy of light,
For the first sight they saw His face.

She heard the first clear accents pour
From dumb lips, uttering His name;
She saw men's homes from shore to shore
Break into sunshine where He came.

She saw the long possessed set free,
(She knew the anguish and the bliss!)
She saw the baffled Pharisee,
And felt, “Man never spake like this.”

She heard reluctant fiends confess
The Godhead they had fain denied;
She saw the little children press
With fearless fondness to His side.

She saw the speechless joy that day
Light up the widow's face at Nain;
She never saw one sent away,
She never heard one plead in vain.

She saw Him faint and wearied sore,
And toil those gracious eyes bedim,
Thirsting and hungered, homeless, poor,—
She saw and ministered to Him.

She saw His brow its light regain,
And strength reknit each wearied limb,

All to be spent for man again;—
A woman's service succoured Him!

And are those days for ever o'er?
Must earth be of that joy bereft?—
The sights and sounds are here no more,
And yet the very best is left.

Still may we follow in His way,
And tread this earth as by His side;
May see Him work from day to day,
As in His presence we abide:

See Him shed light on darkened eyes,
The bowed and fettered heart set free;
May succour, serve, and sacrifice,
And hear from heaven His “unto Me.”

IV. —DURABLE RICHES.

The meanest creature of His care
Finds some soft nest to greet it made,
The hunted beast has yet its lair;—
He had not where to lay His head.

And scarce a little child that dies
But has its treasured things to share;
Its little store of legacies
Love hoards thenceforth with sacred care.

He left no treasure to divide;
E'en the poor garments which He wore
Were shared by strangers ere He died,
For their own worth, and nothing more.

Yet when the first disciples trod
Vineyards and fields of other men,
Pilgrims beside the Son of God,
Had royal grants enriched them then?

Or when, on His ascension day,
They stood once more on Olivet,
And town and village 'neath them lay,
Gems in their vines and olives set,—

Nor vines or olives, house or lands,
They owned those hills or valleys o'er,
Yet, when Christ lifted up His hands
And bless'd them, were those Christians poor?

If of that world which is His own,
Where every knee to Him shall bow,

Some special acres each had won,
Had they been richer then, or now?

V.

“The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre.”

The Sabbath that could bring no rest,
The weary day at length had fled:
What Sabbath could again be blest
Since He who promised rest was dead?

The guilty world was hushed in gloom,
Night on its sleeping millions lay
Like the “great stone” upon His tomb—
What if it never rolled away!

But o'er her path there fell a shade
No darkness from her heart could hide:—
The tomb in which the Lord was laid
Was near the cross on which He died.

Beneath that cross she stood again:
The tortured form no more she saw;

His murderers were religious men,
Nor dropped one letter of the law;

His cry of agony might smite
Strange discord through their measured prayer;
And who, when death those lips made white,
Could silence the reproaches there?

Thus Earth among the spheres moved on,
And calmly kept her ordered course,
Bearing the cross of God the Son,
And in her heart His lifeless corpse:

Nor yet was blotted out of space,
Nor yet the brand of Cain doth bear;
Because, through His surpassing grace,
That cross pleads not “Avenge,” but “Spare.”

VI.

“They have taken away my Lord.”

“My Lord,” though dead, yet still “my Lord:”
Prophet through love's tenacity,
Powerless to hope, she yet adored,
And felt the truth she could not see.

If He who in Himself had shone
All that God is, all man may be,
Living the truth else guessed by none,
Through years of patient ministry;

He from Whom life and peace she drew,
Whom she had followed day by day,
And worshipped more, the more she knew,
Could fade to cold unconscious clay;

If that pure life of perfect love,
Extinguished, never more should beam,
What joy could endless days above
Bring ever more, not bringing Him?

What were those angel-forms to her,
Their radiant forms and raiment white,
If dead within a sepulchre
He lay, Himself the Life and Light?

Thus when the bridge of faith was rent,
Which could have firmly spanned the gulf,
Love prostrate o'er the chasm leant,
And bridged the dark abyss herself.

VII.

“Jesus saith unto her, Mary She turned herself and saith unto Him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.”

A moment since, a sepulchre
Was all the world she cared to own,
An empty tomb, vain balms and myrrh,
Tears with no heart to shed them on.

And now the living Lord was there,
Immortal, glorious, yet the same;
The voice the fiends once fled in fear
Now spoke the old familiar name.

No language could that bliss have told,
She had no words the joy to greet;
She said but “Master!” as of old,
And rested silent at His feet.

Yet all heaven's choirs could scarcely twine
A music more profound and sweet
Than when, as from His heart to thine,
Thus “Mary!” and “Rabboni!” meet.

VIII.

“Go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen.”

Tell all the world the Lord is risen—
The Easter message, ever new;
The grave is but a ruined prison,—
Invincible, the Life breaks through.

Earth cannot long ensepulchre
In her dark depths the tiniest seed;
When life begins to throb and stir,
The bands of death are weak indeed.

No clods its upward course deter,
Calmly it makes its path to-day;
One germ of life is mightier
Than a whole universe of clay.

Yet not one leaf-blade ever stirred,
Bursting earth's wintry dungeons dim,
But lived at His creative word,
Responsive to the life in Him.

Since, then, the life that He bestows
Thus triumphs over death and earth;

What power of earth or death can close
The Fountain whence all life has birth?

And, as the least up-springing grain
Breathes still the resurrection song,
That light the victory shall gain,
That death is weak, and life is strong;

So, with immortal vigour rife,
The lowliest life that faith has freed
Bears witness still that Christ is life,
And that the Life is risen indeed.

SALOME.

“She saith unto Him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on Thy right hand, and the other on the left, in Thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask.”

She knew not what for them she sought,
At His right hand and left to sit;
How great the glory, passing thought,
How rough the path that led to it.

They knew not what of Him they asked,
But He their deeper sense distilled;
Gently the selfish wish unmasked,
But all the prayer of love fulfilled.

Pride sought to lift herself on high,
And heard but of the bitter cup;
Love would but to her Lord be nigh,
And won her measure full, heaped up:

With vision of His glory blest,
Stood on the mountain by His side,

Leaned at the supper on His breast,
Stood close beneath Him when He died.

One brother shared His cup of woe,
The second of His martyr-band;
One, by His glory smitten low,
Rose at the touch of His right hand.

Thus, when by earth's cross lights perplexed,
We crave the thing that should not be,
God, reading right our erring text,
Gives what we would ask, could we see.

THE WIDOW OF NAIN.

Thy miracles are no state splendours,
Whose pomps Thy daily works excel;
The rock which breaks the stream, but renders
Its constant current audible;

The power which startles us in thunders
Works ever silently in light;
And mightier than these special wonders,
The wonders daily in our sight;

Rents in the veils Thy works that fold,
They let the inner light shine through;
The rent is new, the light is old,
Eternal, never ever new.

And therefore, when Thy touch arrests
The bearers of that bier at Nain,
Warm on unnumbered hearts it rests,
Though yet their dead live not again.

And Thy compassionate “Weep not!”
On this our tearful earth once heard,
For every age with comfort fraught,
Tells how Thy heart is ever stirred.

Nature repeats the tale each year,
She feels Thy touch through countless springs,
And, rising from her wintry bier,
Throws off her grave-clothes, lives and sings.

And when Thy touch through earth shall thrill,
This bier whereon our race is laid,
And, for the first time standing still,
The long procession of the dead

At Thy “Arise!” shall wake from clay,
Young, deathless, freed from every stain;
When Thy “Weep not!” shall wipe away
Tears that shall never come again;

When the strong chains of death are burst,
And lips long dumb begin to speak,
What name will each then utter first?—
What music shall that silence break?

THE SYROPHENICIAN.

“Great is thy faith.”

Content, she takes the lowest place.
He knows what strain her faith will bear;
Low in the valleys flows His grace,
He does but gently lead her there.

Then in the depths to her He comes,
And meets her nothing with His all.
Creation lives upon the crumbs
Which from that Master's table fall;

But thou, O faith, not thus art fed!
For thee the heavenly homes are built;
Thy portion is the children's bread,
And “Be it to thee as thou wilt.”

THE SISTERS OF BETHANY.

I.

“When He had heard, therefore, that he was sick, He abode two days still in the same place where He was.”

What hope lit up those sisters' gloom,
When first they sent His help to crave,
So sure that, hearing, He would come,
And, coming, could not fail to save!

Counting the distance o'er again,
Deeming Him near and yet more near;
Till hope, on heights she climbed in vain,
Lay frozen to a death-like fear:

Watching with twofold strain intent
The expected steps, the failing breath,
Till hope and fear, together spent,
Sank in the common blank of death.

“Beyond this burning waste of hills,
Beyond that awful glittering sea,
Mid those blue mountains lingering still,
Have our faint prayers not reached to Thee?

“Or are the joys and griefs of earth
To Thee, whose eyes survey the whole,
But passing things of little worth,
That should not deeply stir the soul?”

His tears ere long shall hush that fear
For every mourning heart for ever;
And we, who now His words can hear
Beyond the hills, beyond the river,

Know that as true a watch He kept
On those far heights, as at their side,
Feeling the tears the sisters wept,
Marking the hour the brother died.

No faintest sigh His heart can miss;
E'en now His feet are on the way,
With richest counter-weight of bliss
Heaped up for every hour's delay;

That nevermore should hope deferred
Make sick the heart which trusts in Him.
But, nourished by His faithful Word,
Grow brighter still as sight grows dim.

II.

“She hath done what she could. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.”

Mary, the only glory sweet
To any Christian's heart is thine!
Hidden beside the Master's feet,
Lost in that dearer light to shine;

Whilst evermore the heart obeys
The sermon of thy listening looks,
Learning religion from thy gaze
Better than from a thousand books.

Thy silence is His sweetest psalm,
While from His lips thy name distils,
And, dropping like thy precious balm,
Ever His house with fragrance fills.

III.

“Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

What joy to live beneath the eyes
Which looked the spirit “through and through,”
Which penetrated each disguise,
And would not let us be untrue;

Yet through the thickest veil descried
The little spring of good below,
And pierced the icy crust of pride,
That happy, humble tears might flow;

Rending each soft disguise, which spares
The evil thing by gentle name,—
For sinners founts of pitying tears,
But for the sin unquenchëd flame;

That saw the very spot within
On which to lay the healing touch;
That had no pity for the sin,
Because for those who sinned so much;

That marked through Peter's boast his dread,
Yet, by his curses unperplexed,
Looked through them to the light, and read
The traces of the earlier text;

Beneath the black, “I know Him not,”
“Thou know'st I love Thee” still could trace,
In graven characters inwrought,
No darkest stains could quite efface;

That knew, through all vibrations fixed,
The true direction of the will,—
Saw self with Martha's service mixed,
And love in Mary's sitting still.

Those eyes still watch us, not from far,
Still pitying “look us through and through,”
And through the broken sketch we are,
Foresee the heavenly likeness true;

Through all its soft and silken dress
The creature of the dust descry,
Yet 'neath the shapeless chrysalis
The Psyche moulding for the sky.

THE UNNAMED WOMEN.

I.

The hand that might have drawn aside
The veil, which from unloving sight
Those shrinking forms avails to hide,
With tender care has wrapped it tight.

He would not have the sullied name
Once fondly spoken in a home,
A mark for strangers' righteous blame,
Branded through every age to come.

And thus we only speak of them
As those on whom His mercies meet,—
“She whom the Lord would not condemn,”
And “She who bathed with tears His feet.”

Trusted to no evangelist,
First heard where sins no more defile,

Read from the Book of Life of Christ,
And consecrated by His smile.

II.

“And stood at His feet behind Him weeping, and began to wash His feet with tears.”

She bathed His feet with many a tear,
Feet wearied then for us so oft;
She wiped them with her flowing hair,
Embalmed with reverent touches soft.

She knew not of the bitter way
Those sacred feet had yet to tread,
Nor how the nails would pierce one day
Where now her costly balms were shed.

She read the pity in His eyes,
To peace transmuting her despair;
She could not read what agonies
Must cloud the heaven she gazed on there.

He praised her love, her sacrifice,
But breathed not what His own must be,

Nor hinted what must be the price
Which made her pardon flow so free.

Then if her love and gifts were such,
Who little knew the depths of His;
If then indeed she “loved” Him “much,”
How, since she knows Him as He is?

III.

“He turned to the woman.”

“He turned to her.” All eyes beside,—
All other eyes of righteous men,—
Avoided hers with virtuous pride,
Nor could she meet their gaze again.

Nor could she deem their coldness wrong;
That virtue of the Pharisee,
Only in its negations strong,
Ceasing to freeze might cease to be.

And human virtues can but be
As tender flowers a touch may kill,
Scorched if winds breathe too fervently,
Nipped if they chance to blow too chill.

But His were of another sphere
That never stain nor change could know,
No earth-born flowers, however fair,
But the pure light which made them grow;

No ice pure only till it melt,
But streams most fresh in freest flow;
The living love, whose pureness dwelt
Not in its coldness but its glow.

IV.

She hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. . . . This woman, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. . . . Hath anointed my feet with ointment. . . . She loved much.”

He prized her love, He held it dear,
He felt each ministering touch,
He marked each gift she offered there,
He cared that she should love Him “much.”

His pity was no careless alms
The happy to the wretched fling;
He prized her love, her tears, her balms,
Then life was yet a precious thing;

Precious the love He held of price,
Precious each moment which might bring
Some privilege of sacrifice,
Some vase to break in offering.

And God gives evermore like this,
Gives by His measure, not by ours;
By life means not mere being, but bliss,
Free exercise of joyful powers.

The freedom with which He makes free
Is freedom of His home above;
Not merely liberty to be,
But liberty to serve and love.

V.

“Thy sins are forgiven thee”

“Forgiveness may then yet be mine,
The sinless lips have said ‘Forgiven;’
Pardon is then a right Divine,
And love indeed the law of heaven.

“But can the sullied snow grow white?
What spell can seal the memory fast?

What has been ever must have been,
The Almighty cannot change the past.

“His eyes, though piercing as the light,
In pity may refuse to see;
But what can make my memory white?
What veil can hide myself from me?”

Oh! raise thy downcast eyes to His,
And read the blessed secret there;
The pardoning love from guilt that frees,
By loving thee shall make thee fair.

Love's deepest depth of saving woe
Has yet to be to thee revealed;
Blood from that tender heart must flow,
And thus thy bitter streams be healed.

Thy guilt and shame on Him must lie:
Then search the past thy guilt to see;
Instead, this sight shall meet thine eye,—
Thy Saviour on the cross for thee!

VI.

“Go in peace.”

He clothes thy soul in spotless dress,
In bridal raiment white and clean,
The spirit's bridal robe of peace,
Sign of the inward grace unseen.

The love that sweeps thy spirit o'er,
Effacing every stain of sin,
Flows through thy spirit evermore,
A well of heavenly life within.

Thus, hallowed names, forgotten long,
Familiar names which once were thine,
With all the old attraction strong,
Embrace thy soul from lips Divine.

Soft from a Father's house above
Floats down on thee the name of child,
From love beyond the mother's love
Which on thy guiltless childhood smiled.

And when the age its circuit ends,
And the great marriage-day is there,
And from the heavens a Bride descends,
Thou, clothed in white, the bliss shalt share.

THE TWO ALABASTER BOXES.

I.

“A woman in the city, which was a sinner, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and anointed His feet.”

“Being in Bethany, there came a woman, having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on His head.”

When Thou, in patient ministry,
Didst pass a stranger through Thy land,
Two costly gifts were offered Thee,
And each was from a woman's hand.

To Thee, who madest all things fair,
Twice fair and precious things they bring;—
Pure sculptured alabaster clear,
Perfumes for earth's anointed King.

Man's hasty lips would both reprove,—
One for the stain of too much sin,

One for the waste of too much love;
Yet both availed Thy smile to win.

The saint who listened at Thy feet,
The sinner sinners scorned to touch,
Adoring in Thy presence meet,
Both pardoned and both loving much.

Thus evermore to all they teach,
Man's highest style is “much forgiven;”
And that earth's lowest yet may reach
The highest ministries of heaven.

They teach that gifts of costliest price
From hearts sin beggared yet may pour;
And that love's costliest sacrifice
Is worth the love, and nothing more.

II.

Love is the true economist,
Her weights and measures pass in heaven;
What others lavish on the feast,
She to the Lord Himself hath given.

Love is the true economist,
She through all else to Him hath sped,
And unreproved His feet hath kissed,
And spent her ointments on His head.

Love is the true economist,
She breaks the box, and gives her all;
Yet not one precious drop is missed,
Since on His head and feet they fall.

In all her fervent zeal no haste,
She at His feet sits glad and calm;
In all her lavish gifts no waste,—
The broken vase but frees the balm.

Love is the truest providence,
Since beyond time her gold is good;
Stamped for man's mean “three hundred pence,”
With Christ's “She hath done what she could.”

Love is the best economist
In what she sows and what she reaps;
She lavishes her all on Christ,
And in His all her being steeps.

1858.

Songs of Many Seasons.

THE BIRD, THE CHORISTER, AND THE ANGELS.

I.

Singing, singing, in the April copses
Brimful of delight.
For his joy the bird found day too narrow,—
Poured it into night.

Till the music lavishly o'erflowing
For one little nest,
Filling all the region with its sweetness,
Floated East and West.

And the wondering city thronged to listen,
Dullest hearts were stirred;—
Hidden in his own light-sphere of rapture
Little recked the bird.

In his solitude of joy enfolded,
Rapturously alone,

Thousand thousands gathering round might listen,
He but sang for one.

II.

Singing, singing, in the great Cathedral,
Clothed within with joy,
As without in whitest raiment festal,
Carolled, glad, the boy.

Through the floods of many waters choral
Rose that one pure voice,
Clear as church-bells through a city's murmurs
Pealed “Rejoice, rejoice!”

Soaring, soaring through the soaring arches
Free as any bird,
Raining thence in showers of rapturous music,—
Dullest hearts were stirred.

Till from far and wide the people gathered,
In a spell-bound throng.
While the child sang praise to God Eternal
Men but praised the song.

III.

Weeping, weeping, on his bed at even,
Weary sobbed the boy,
“All the joy is gone from all my singing,
All the old, free joy!
Like a roof of stone, the people's praises
Shut me from the light!
Take, oh take the praise away, and give me,
Give the lost delight!
Soars my voice, my heart can soar no longer,
Now no longer free!
Like a discord grating through Thy praises
Jars the praise of me!
Oh! that like a little bird unnoticed,
I might sing to Thee!”

IV.

Weeping, weeping in his lone cell lowly
Till to sleep he wept!
Loving, loving, watched above the angels
Smiling as he slept.

(Never roof of stone, or stars, the Godhead
From their vision kept!)

Down the night on him from Choirs Celestial
Song and glory swept.

Singing, singing songs that speak Creation's
Speechless ecstasy,
All the worlds were looking up to listen,
He looked up to see.

Following upward songs and looks of angels
In his dream, the boy
Drank for one unutterable moment
Of the Well of Joy,

Gazed one moment on the Face whose Beauty
Wakes the world's great hymn,
Felt it, one unutterable moment
Bent in love o'er him;
In that look felt heaven, earth, men, and angels
Distant grow and dim;
In that look felt heaven, earth, men, and angels
Nearer grow in Him.

V.

On the morrow in the great Cathedral
Sang he, glad and free,

With the freedom of the bird who findeth
Worlds within one tree,
With the freedom of the holy angels
The face of God who see.

Singing, singing 'midst a wondering City
Rapturously alone!
Thousand thousands to the Song might listen,
He but sang for One!

In His joy, as in a light-sphere folded,
By His love made free;
Singing thus for One, for all was singing,
Lifting all to Thee!

THE ALPINE GENTIAN.

She 'mid ice mountains vast
Long had lain sleeping,
When she looked forth at last,
Timidly peeping.

Trembling she gazed around,
All round her slept;
O'er the dead icy ground
Cold shadows crept.

Wide fields of silent snow,
Still, frozen seas—
What could her young life do
'Mid such as these?

Not a voice came to her,
Not a warm breath;
What hope lay there for her
Living 'midst death?

Mournfully pondering
Gazed she on high;
White clouds were wandering
Through the blue sky.

There smiled the kindly sun,
Gentle beams kissed her;
On her the mild moon shone
Like a saint sister.

There twinkled many a star,
Danced in sweet mirth;
The warm heavens seemed nearer far
Than the cold earth.

So she gazed steadfastly
Loving on high;
Till she grew heavenly,
Blue as the sky.

And the cold icicles
Near which she grew,
Thawed in her skyey bells
Fed her with dew.

And the tired traveller
Gazing abroad,

Fixing his eyes on her,
Thinketh of God;

Thinks how, 'mid life's cold snow.
Hearts to God given
Breathe out where'er they go
Summer and heaven.

1849.

THE OLD STONE CRUCIFIX AT ROMSEY ABBEY.

[_]

Its characteristic is an open hand, reaching down out of the clouds above the Cross. This is said to be unique.

It stands in a quiet corner
Close to the old church door
And by the common pathway,—
Appealing evermore.

Low, that the dimmest vision
The features need not miss;
Low, that the lips of the children
May reach the feet to kiss.

That humble, simple Image
Wrought by the hands of old,—
(Good hands which so many ages
Have helpless grown and cold,)

That blessed, sacred Image
Born of the heart of old,

Which through the endless ages
Shall never more grow cold.

In the common stone rude carven
By no great artist's touch,—
Yet search the wide world over,
You will find no other such.

You may search the wide world over
From freezing to burning zone,
You will never find another
Quite like this only one.

Deep, deep the nails are driven
In the hands they crucified,
So deep you scarcely see them
But only the arms stretched wide,—

Wide, all God's will accepting,
Though it seem in lightnings hurled,
Wide as the sin HE beareth,
Wide to embrace the world.

And over the Head so weary,
Bowing itself to die,

An open Hand down reaching
Forth from the clouded sky.

The torturers' hands have finished,
HIS hands are nailëd fast,—
“Into Thy hands My spirit,
Father, Thy hands!”—at last!

Lord, ere Thou call our spirit
Within Thy hands to be,
Give us some such dear likeness
To leave behind of Thee.

A humble, simple Image
Cut in the common stone,
Poor, yet our best, we pray Thee
Our best and our very own.

Good Lord! our hearts grow bolder,
We dare to ask much more,
Knowing, the more we ask Thee,
Thou art but pleased the more.

Give us to be that Image,
By the common paths, like this;

Low, that the dimmest vision
The features may not miss;
Low, that the lips of the children
May reach to cling and kiss.

That the nails to the Cross which fix us
So deep in the wounds may hide,
That men see no more the anguish,
But only the arms stretched wide.

A humble, simple Image
Cut in the common stone;
Like Thee, yet like no other,
Because Thy very own.

ON A VASE OF ORIENTAL ALABASTER ILLUMINATED FROM WITHIN.

Look as thou may'st when dies the inward glow
All unillumined in the common day,
We know thee now, and evermore shall know,
Rose-alabaster, and no common clay.

The light within thee did not make thee fair,
It did but show thee as thou ever art,
The purple depths, the rose of dawn are there,
The glow and beauty of the fervent heart.

O Love, who ever in our lov'd dost rest,
Ever anoint our eyes that we may see;
The best we see in those we love the best,
They ever are, indwelling Love to Thee.

The best we see in those we love the best,
They ever are, O patient Love to Thee,
Who through each lingering pain and fiery test
Art making us what Thou wouldst have us be.

At Cobham Hall.

THE POET OF POETS.

We know there once was One on earth
Who penetrated all He saw,
To whom the lily had its worth,
And Nature bared her inmost law.
And when the mountain side He trod,
The universe before Him shone,
Translucent in the smile of God,
Like young leaves in the morning sun,
Glory which Phidias never won
To consecrate his Parthenon.

Had He but uttered forth in song
The visions of His waking sight,
The thoughts that o'er His soul would throng
Alone upon the hills at night;
What poet's loftiest ecstasies
Had stirred men with such rapturous awe
As would those living words of His,
Calm utterance of what He saw!

All earth had on those accents hung,
All ages with their echoes rung.

But He came not alone to speak,—
He came to live, He came to die;
Living a long lost race to seek;
Dying to raise the fallen high.
He came, Himself the living Word,
The Godhead in His person shone;
But few, and poor, were those who heard,
And wrote His words when He was gone;
Words children to their hearts can clasp
Yet angels cannot fully grasp.

But where those simple words were flung,
Like rain-drops on the parched green,
A living race of poets sprung,
Who dwelt among the things unseen;
Who loved the fallen, sought the lost,
Yet saw beneath earth's masks and shrouds;
Whose life was one pure holocaust,
Death but a breaking in the clouds;
His volume as the world was broad,
His Poem was the Church of God.

THE POET'S DAILY BREAD.

The Poet does not dwell apart, enshrined in golden beams;
He is not mailed from Time's rude blows in a panoply of dreams.

No Pegasus bears him aloft in pathways 'mid the clouds;
But he must tread the common earth, mingling in common crowds.

He dwells not in fair solitudes, a still and lone recluse;
But he must handle common tools to his diviner use.

He does not list in magic caves the music of life's ocean;
Borne freely on its winds and waves he feels their every motion.

The glory which around him shines is no fictitious ray;
It is the sun which shines on all, the light of common day.

But he has won an open eye to see things as they are,
A glory in God's meanest works which passeth fiction far.

His ear is open to discern stirrings of angel wings,
And angel whispers come to him from mute and common things.

And Nature ever meeting him with the same radiant face,
And filling still her daily round with the old quiet grace,

Is fresh and glorious as at first, and mightier far to bless,
His youth's strong passion growing ripe in deep home-tenderness.

And truths to which his childhood clung, like songs repeated often
By the sweet voice of one we love, do but the surer soften.

One thing he scorns with bitter scorn, the lived or spoken lie;
Yet knowing what a labyrinth life, how dim the inward eye,

Is slow to brand his fellow-man as false, or base, or mean,
Or aught which has fed human hearts as common or unclean.

Nature prepares no royal food for this her royal guest,
No special banquet is for him at life's full table dressed.

But all life's honest impulses, home joys, and cares, and tears,
The shower of cordial laughter which the clouded bosom clears;

All earnest voices of his kind, calm thoughts of solitude,
All of the world that is not husks,—this is the poet's food.

God's living poem speaks to him, God-like in every line;
Not all man's hackneyed renderings can make it less Divine.

TWO MEANINGS OF FAME.

I.

To be hunted by curious thousands
As something that ought to be seen,
A Crowned Head, without the sentries
Which vexatiously fence a Queen;
A foreign untamable creature,
Which will not be stared at, through bars,
By the eyes which pursue the meteors,
But heed not the steadfast stars.

To be set (some say by a Tempter,
Two thousand years wiser grown,)
On a pinnacle of the Temple,
With no power to cast yourself down;
No angels to keep your footsteps;
Human, unshaded, alone,

With a myriad eyes upon you,
And vainly wish yourself stone!

To find the day's labour doubled,
With its strength but as before,
For a soul ever craving perfection,
And a world ever clamouring “more.”

II.

'Tis a place in the homes of thousands
Where your feet will never tread,
Where your name is reverently spoken
As the name of their sacred dead.
'Tis a life in the hearts of thousands
You have struck to a living glow,
Who never hope to see you,
Whose names you will never know;

Who, if they met you to-morrow,
Could not utter their homage true,
Being but of the slow, dumb millions,
Whose thought wakes to music through you;
Who find the world wider and fairer,
Old truths made living and new,

And life in its humblest duties
Nobler for ever through you!

'Tis the living bond of the ages,
Deathless as Beauty and Truth,
As the old world still fondly cons over
The names she loved in her youth;
And finds the Founts of her Eden
Spring fresh, at your touch, as when first
At the rod of her first Diviners
To music and light they burst:

Fresh now when Science their sources
Traces deep in the ages afar,
When she fathoms and spans the Ocean,
And measures and weighs the star,
As when one Ocean-river
Bathed all the lands in its tide;
Since, at last, the world grown wider,
Finds a Poet with vision as wide.

For the Poem all poets interpret
Better known can but seem more fair!
Not light robs the world of its beauty,
But earth-fogs of pride and care!
'Tis a music whose ocean-thunders,
Sound they ever so long and loud,

Are fainter than summer breezes
At the height of a summer cloud.

'Tis a music which wakens echoes
Beyond heaven's farthest sun,
If at length earth's million voices
Die into one “Well done!”

To Lord Tennyson, after a morning at Farringford, April 26, 1867.

THE GOLDEN AGE IN THE PRESENT.

Why sigh we for the times of yore,
The “good old times” that come no more?
The oldest day was once to-day;
Each hour wore in its settled place
As every-day a garb and face
As those which glide from us away.

Nature grows never old;
On every dawning soul she dawns anew,
And grows and ripens with their growth:
Only to spirits which have lost their youth,
The heart of love and sense sincere and true.
Her living forms seem cold.

Sigh not for ancient days with poetry rife,
To poets is the poetic age not fled;
Go, let the dead inter their dead,
For to the living there is always life.

Nature has still fresh founts of art
To pour into the artist's heart;
To eyes fresh bathed in morning dew
The Golden Age shines ever new.

Do ocean billows foam less gladly now
Than when the sea-nymphs danced upon the wave?
Curve they less proudly 'neath the swift ship's prow,
Upheaving from the coral cave?

Sing they a song less syren-sweet,
At noon-tide bathing weary feet,
Languidly smiling,
Softly beguiling,
Like lips that faintly move
Murmuring words of love?

Do forest-streams less freshly well,
Dewing with green the grassy dell,
Giving the thirsty flowers to drink,
Filling their starry eyes with joy,
Shedding cool fragrance on the air,
Than when the wood-nymphs sported there?

Or does the waterfall's robe silver-pale,
Wave in the breeze less lightly
Than when the Naiad's moonlit veil
Streamed through the dark trees brightly?

Has evening a less golden sheen?
Has morning a less rosy glow?
Are noonday's arrowy rays less keen
Than when Apollo strung the bow?

And when at morn in spring
The sun with kisses wakes the earth,
And sun-born showers of golden rain
With floods of melody pour forth,—
Say, are not Light and Music one again?

Sigh not the old heroic ages back,
The heroes were but brave and earnest men;
Do thou but hero-like pursue thy track,
Striving, not sighing brings them back again!

The hero's path is straight, to do and say
God's words and works in spite of toil and shame;

Labours enough will meet thee in thy way,
So thou forsak'st it not to seek for them.

Canst thou no wrong with patient courage bear,
Strength to none weaker than thyself impart?
Rise! kindle in thyself the hero's heart,
And the heroic age is also there.

Sigh not for simple days of old,
The childish days of love and trust;
There never was an Age of Gold,
And faith makes gold of all earth's dust.
The Church's youthful strength grows never gray,
Herself a fadeless youth amidst the world's decay.
Canst thou not love? Has earth no room
For all thy heart would give,
With all the blessed depths of home,
And myriad hearts that weep and strive?
Are there no desolate and poor
To nourish from thy store?
No songs of joy and glowing praise
Thy voice might help to raise?
No heart long left alone
Till it grew stiff and chill
Thy voice might waken with a thrill
Of love long, long unknown?

Is earth too small to hold
The yearnings of thy love?
Is there not heaven above
As near thee as of old?

Does He Who came at Pentecost
His presence now withhold,
That the first works should e'er be lost,
Or the first love grow cold?
Oh, fill thy heart with God, and thou shalt prove
That there is left enough to trust and love!

For what is time past but to-day
Mirrored in still pools peacefully?
The future but the same to-day
Reflected in a heaving sea?
Only the present hour has life,
The home of work, the field of strife.

Choose not thy bride among the dead,
But press the Present to thy breast;
In her, thy soul shall find its bread,
Thy mind its sphere, thy heart its rest;
Till God shall speak another “Let there be,”
And Time, like darkness before light, shall be
Before the Now of His Eternity.

SUGGESTED BY THE PROMETHEUS BOUND.

Thy torturers made no lament,
No pity with their task was blent;
Thy cup of anguish was unmixed,
And human hands Thy hands transfixed,
O Thou who lovedst man!

No ocean beamed Thine eyes before,
With “countless laughter” dimpled o'er,
But heavings of an angry sea
Of human faces mocking Thee,
O Thou who lovedst man!

No “fragrant stir of heavenly wings,”
But mockeries and murmurings;
No depths divine of azure sky,
But darkness dread received Thy cry,
O Thou who lovedst man!

Yet was Thy cry of agony
Earth's first true peal of victory,
Hushing the world-old blasphemy
That God gives good reluctantly,
O God who lovedst man!

Since Thou thus sufferedst to fulfil
Willing the Father's loving will,
And lifting off the load of sin
Let the free tide of love flow in,
O Thou who lovedst man!

The Fount of Fire for us is won,
For Life and Light in Thee are one;
Thy bonds have made the fettered free,
And man unbound Love binds to Thee,
O Thou who lovest man!

THE BETRAYAL OF THE YUCATAN ISLANDERS.

“We have not followed cunningly devised fables.”

“When the Spaniards understood the simple opinion of the Yucatan Islanders concerning the souls of their departed, which, after their sins purged in the cold northern mountains, should pass into the south—to the intent that, leaving their own country of their own accord, they might suffer themselves to be brought to Hispaniola, they did persuade these poor wretches that they came from those places where they should see their parents and children, and all their kindred and friends that were dead, and enjoy all kinds of delights, with the embracement and fruition of all beloved beings. And they, being infected and possessed with these crafty and subtle imaginations, singing and rejoicing, left their country, and followed vain and idle hope. But when they saw that they were deceived, and neither met their parents nor any that they desired, but were compelled to undergo grievous sovereignty and command, and to endure cruel and extreme labour, they either slew themselves, or, choosing to famish, gave up their fair spirits, being persuaded by no reason or violence to take food. So these miserable Yucatans came to their end.” —Quoted in “Short Studies on Great Subjects,” by J. A Froude.

I.

“They came o'er the Eastern Sea;
None had ever seen its shore;
And living things,
With grand white wings,
Those white-limbed strangers bore.

“White wings on the purple sea,
Like the white-winged clouds o'erhead.
We said, ‘They come
From the far-off Home,
Where rest our happy dead.

“‘They know of the far white hills
Where our belovëd go,
Cleansing their souls
Where the thunder rolls
O'er the fields of ice and snow!

“‘They come from the sunlit shore
Where our belovëd rest;
Where they rest in light
All pure and white,
'Neath the morning's golden breast.’

“They landed on our isle,
Our reverent trust they won,
This Royal Race
From the Dawn's own place,
These Children of the Sun.

“Like lightnings flashed their swords;
They held the winds their slaves;

The thunders raged,
In their sea-towers caged;
They rode on the foaming waves.

“We saw they were strong and wise,
We thought they were good and true;
We said, ‘They will tell
Where our lost ones dwell,’
For we thought they all things knew.

“They saw how we yearned for our dead;
They answered grave and slow:—
‘Trust us; we come
From that far-off home;
With us to your Dead ye shall go.’

“We climbed their dread sea-towers,
For we trusted the words they said;
We feared not the thunder,
Caged, sullen, under;
For we went to rejoin our dead.

“Singing and glad we went,
Those treacherous billows o'er,
To those unknown strands,
For a clasp of the hands
We had feared to clasp no more;

“For a sound of the well-known voice
We had feared not to hear again:
For we thought, ‘Even thus
They are watching for us,
Watching across the main.

“‘Will they meet us one by one,
On lonely cliff or shore,
Or with flowers and song
In a festive throng,
To part from us never more?’

“So, singing and glad we went,
Trusting, across the main,
Till we reached the strand,
Where they drove us to land
With laughter, and lash, and chain.

“For the welcomes of our beloved,
The stranger's stripes and jeers;
For the promised Home,
The slave's dark doom,
And toil without time for tears.

“But they will not bind us long;
We are breaking their fetters fast;

No chains can keep
From that long, safe sleep,
Where we join our Dead at last.”

II.

Oh, Thou who camest from far,
From the shores none living know,
And over the sea
Biddest us with Thee
To our belovëd go;

Not Thine the thunder-sign;
Silent Thou trodd'st the wave,
Hushing its strife;
But Thy touch was life,
Death was Thy fettered slave.

His Sea grew a crystal Floor,
When Thou saidst, “Its shore I know;
Trust Me: I come
From that far-off Home;
Follow Me,—to your dead ye shall go.”

Thousands obeyed Thy call,
Left all for Thee, content;

Through fire and sword,
Trusting Thy word,
Singing and glad they went.

What feverish dream of doubt,
What terror of hearts death-cold,
Has raved that from Thee
Such wrong could be
As this base wrong of old!

God, by Thy goodness proved,
Infinite by Thine Heart;
The deeds Thou hast done
A world have won;
We trust Thee for what Thou art!

Little Thy lips have said
Of that mysterious shore;
But we seek not a Place,
We seek Thy face,
And we crave to know no more.

Thou hast promised no stormless course,
Yet singing and glad we go:
Faithful and True
Thou wilt bring us through;
If not, Thou hadst told us so.

1867.

THE PATHWAYS OF THE HOLY LAND.

The pathways of Thy land are little changed
Since Thou wert there;
The busy world through other ways has ranged,
And left these bare.

The rocky path still climbs the glowing steep
Of Olivet;
Though rains of two millenniums wear it deep,
Men tread it yet.

Still to the gardens o'er the brook it leads,
Quiet and low;
Before his sheep the shepherd on it treads,
His voice they know

The wild fig throws broad shadows o'er it still,
As once o'er Thee;

Peasants go home at evening up that hill
To Bethany.

And as when gazing Thou didst weep o'er them,
From height to height
The white roofs of discrowned Jerusalem
Burst on our sight.

These ways were strewn with garments once and palm
Which we tread thus;
Here through Thy triumph on Thou passedst, calm,
To death;—for us!

The waves have washed fresh sands upon the shore
Of Galilee;
But chiselled in the hill-sides evermore
Thy paths we see.

Man has not changed them in that slumbering land,
Nor time effaced;
Where Thou hast stood to heal, we still may stand;
All can be traced.

Yet we have traces of Thy footsteps far
Truer than these;—

Where'er the poor, and tried, and suffering are,
Thy steps faith sees.

Nor with fond, sad regrets Thy steps we trace;
Thou art not dead!
Our path is onward, till we see Thy face
And hear Thy tread.

And now, wherever meets Thy lowliest band
In praise and prayer,
There is Thy presence, there Thy Holy Land,—
Thou, Thou art there!

WAITING.

[_]

(Suggested by trees bending over a dry water-course near Como.)

It will come, it will not tarry! We shall not wait in vain!
With a burst of sudden thunder, or the trickling of quiet rain.

A tranquil stream of blessing will well around our roots,
And the thrill of life will vibrate to our utmost budding shoots;

Or when all the land is silent, lifeless, and sad, and dumb,
From the snowy mountain-ranges the sound of joy will come,

The shock of the ancient battle (for the storm, not the calm, comes first)
And from the unchained glaciers the river of life will burst;

Ringing new peals of triumph through all the sultry plain;
For the light and the life must conquer, and the dead must live again.

Therefore with loving patience we bend o'er these channels dumb,
Awaiting the vanished Presence, and the Life which is to come.

100

THE POWER OF LIFE.

“The spring is coming apace, Mother,
Yet the old leaves will not fall;
If they do not hasten, the young leaves
Will find no room at all.

“Shall I shake the beech-tree branches
Like the winds in their autumn-play,
Till the dead leaves fall in showers,
Together, all in a day?

“Shall I climb where they are clinging
And pluck them one by one,
That the baby leaves may stretch themselves,
And be glad, and feel the sun?”

“'Twere a weary task to pluck them
Thus singly, my child, away;
'Twould need a stronger arm than thine
To sweep them down in a day.

101

“Maybe since thus they linger,
They've something left to do;
Maybe the poor old withered leaves
Still cradle and shelter the new.”

“But, Mother, the world is waiting,
And the birds on every tree;
Will God send a mighty tempest
To set the young leaves free?”

Be patient, my child, be patient,
The old Earth knows her way;
And the Lord of Life is working,
He is working every day.

He sent His winds in autumn,
He will send them yet again;
The winds, and storms and lightnings,
With the sweeping floods of rain.

They are safe in His hands, the tempests,
In His, but not in ours;
No hand may wield the lightnings
But the hand that folds the flowers.

He is Lord of the winds and thunders,
But has stronger powers than they;

102

And the Lord of Life is working,
He is working every day.

Last year the tiny leaf-bud
Peeped from the old leaf's stalk,
And all through the noisy winter
It heard the wild winds talk.

It heard them fiercely boasting
How they swept the dead away,
But it only kept growing, growing;—
It could wait, it was stronger than they.

For the power of life was stirring
That shielding sheath within,
Growing, silently growing
Through all the storm and din;

Till now one fair spring morning
When the sunbeams all awake,
They will touch it, will softly kiss it,
And its last slight fetters break.

The old leaf will fall, and the leaf-sheath,
The young spread glad and green,

103

And gaze on the sun in his beauty
Without a veil between.

For the Lord of Life is working,
And His strongest force is life;
Ever with death it wageth
Silent, victorious strife.

Ever with death it weaveth
The warp and woof of the world,
The nights when the forces are gathered,
The dawns with their banners unfurled.

And Truth is stronger than Falsehood,
And needs but an open field;
And Love is stronger than Hatred,
And Love will never yield.

For God is love, and He liveth,
And life is His living breath,
And one breath of life is stronger
Than all the hosts of death.

Yes; God is love, and He liveth,
And life is His living breath,
And the pulses of life gain vigour
'Neath the shroud and the sleep of death.

104

THE LAST ENEMY.

An Enemy comes to me,
He is coming before the night;
Ere to-night the battle must be;
It may be while noon is bright.

Some few first morning hours
I knew not this Dread must come;
Then each dewy flower seemed a world
With its sun of joy impearled,
Yet the farthest star a home.

But he came near to me,
And the boundless bounded grew,
The countless stars seemed few;
For I felt the world's cold rim—
I saw where the light grew dim,
And I thought evermore as I went,
“At the next turn of the path,
So familiar, so like the last,

105

Where the old familiar trees,
And the homely thrifty bees,
And the birds to their nests flitting past,
Familiar shadows cast,
This strange new shadow may fall,
His shadow may shadow them all.
And ere I can lift my eyes,
Not only blossom and tree,
But the sun, and the earth, and the sea,
All I can hear or see
Like a shadow behind me lies:
Nor only the things I see;
But ye, beloved, ye!
Ye may grow shadows to me:
And I a shadow to you,
A shadow one hour or two;
Then less than a shadow, a dream,
Less than a dream I may be,—
A dream's faint memory.

“For though I know not the hour,
The end of the Fight I know.
He will conquer, not I;
He will come and lay me low.
To many I knew he drew nigh,
And with all it ended so.

106

Like them I shall fight to the last,
Confront him with hand and eye:
Perhaps I shall hope to the last;
But he will conquer, not I.

“Of all I have seen him strike,
He has stricken not one alike.
To some like a Beast of Prey
He has come in the still noon-day,
From the quiet reeds by the pool,
From the forest calm and cool,
With a sudden spring and a cry,
Swept in a breath away;
Or eagle-like from on high
With a sudden swoop and no cry,
From the calm of a cloudless sky.

“To some like the syren maids
Fabled by those of old,
Lulling them softly to sleep,
Lulling them down to the deep,
To the darkness and the cold.

“He may be now by my side,
As I sit at my work alone.

107

If I turn my head I may see
His terrible eyes on me,—
And my heart may turn to stone.”

Thus I waited and dreaded long.
But I do not dread him now;
I have seen the slave's chain on his hand,
The captive's brand on his brow.

I have felt the touch of the Hand,
The living, loving Hand,
The Hand that holds his chain!
I shall feel it yet again,—
Feel it all fetters burst,—
Only that cold touch first!

I know the look of the Eyes
Those terrible eyes obey;
I have seen them moist with tears,
For the weary, wandering, perplext;
But when I see them next,
They will smile all tears away.

And like a frightened child,
Led up to the shadow it feared,

108

Standing with Him on the height,
The mountain-height at His feet,
Where the earth and the heavens meet,
With His smile for the world's and my light;

Like a shadow, far down, I shall see,
Not the earth and the sea He upholds,
Not you, whom His love enfolds,
But far, far under me,
Like a shadow that flits o'er the sea,
Himself, the Last Enemy.

1867.

109

“TALITHA CUMI!”

“Talitha Cumi!”
The mother spoke;
And lightly from slumber
The child awoke.

In sweet dreams folded
At dawn of day,
As in dew a rosebud,
The maiden lay.

The fair lids rounded
In calm repose;
Long lashes shading
The cheek's soft rose.

The lips half parted,
As though she smiled,

110

When with kisses the mother
Awoke the child.

“Talitha Cumi!”
“Damsel, arise!”
And slowly opened
Those happy eyes.

In deep sleep buried,
At close of day,
Silent and pallid
The maiden lay.

In the heart no beating,
On the cheek no rose;
Placid but rigid
The pale lips close.

No gentle heavings
Of even breath!
And the mother sobbeth,—
“Not sleep, but death!”

No need for hushing
Her anguish now;

111

No wailings will trouble
That placid brow.

No wild lamentings
The mourners make,
No tumult of minstrels
That sleep can break.

Silence those death-wails
Of wild despair!
“Not dead, but sleeping!”
The Life is there.

Gentle His accents,
Mother, as thine;
Yet Galilee's tempests
Know them Divine.

Kingly, He chaseth
The mocking band;
Softly He toucheth
The clay-cold hand.

“Talitha Cumi!”
“Damsel arise!”

112

And slowly open
Those death-sealed eyes.

With a name of endearment
Tender and soft,
(Her mother had waked her
From sleep with it oft,)

He calls her spirit
Beyond the tombs,—
“Talitha Cumi!”
She hears and comes.

And the gates of Hades,
The gates of brass,
Which through the ages
None living pass,

Before those accents
Quake as with thunder,
Quiver like aspens,
And part asunder;

Open like flowers
Touched by the sun;—

113

Yet through the portals
Passeth but one.

Fearless came through them
The soul of the child;
Saw Him who called her,
Knew Him and smiled.

“Talitha Cumi!”
The Saviour spoke;
And as from light slumbers,
The dead awoke.

“Talitha, in the dialect of the people, a term of endearment used towards a young maiden.” —Dean Alford on St. Mark's Gospel.

114

THE CHILD ON THE JUDGMENT-SEAT.

Where hast been toiling all day, sweet heart,
That thy brow is burdened and sad?
The Master's work may make weary feet,
But it leaves the spirit glad.

Was thy garden nipped by the midnight frost,
Or scorched by the mid-day glare?
Were thy vines laid low, or thy lilies crushed,
That thy face is so full of care?

“No pleasant garden-toils were mine!
I have sate on the judgment-seat,
Where the Master sits at eve and calls
The children around His feet.”

How camest thou on the judgment-seat,
Sweet heart? Who set thee there?
'Tis a lonely and lofty seat for thee,
And well might fill thee with care.

115

“I climbed on the judgment-seat myself,
I have sate there alone all day,
For it grieved me to see the children around
Idling their life away.

“They wasted the Master's precious seed,
They wasted the precious hours;
They trained not the vines, nor gathered the fruits,
And they trampled the sweet, meek flowers.”

And what hast thou done on the judgment-seat,
Sweet heart? What didst thou there?
Would the idlers heed thy childish voice?
Did the garden mend by thy care?

“Nay, that grieved me more! I called and I cried,
But they left me there forlorn;
My voice was weak, and they heeded not,
Or they laughed my words to scorn.”

Ah, the judgment-seat was not for thee,
The servants were not thine!
And the eyes which adjudge the praise and the blame
See further than thine or mine.

The Voice that shall sound there at eve, sweet heart,
Will not raise its tones to be heard;

116

It will hush the earth, and hush the hearts,
And none will resist its word.

“Should I see the Master's treasures lost,
The stores that should feed His poor,
And not lift my voice, be it weak as it may,
And not be grievëd sore?”

Wait till the evening falls, sweet heart,
Wait till the evening falls;
The Master is near and knoweth all,
Wait till the Master calls.

But how fared thy garden-plot, sweet heart,
Whilst thou sat'st on the judgment-seat;
Who watered thy roses and trained thy vines,
And kept them from careless feet?

“Nay that is saddest of all to me!
That is saddest of all!
My vines are trailing, my roses parched,
My lilies droop and fall!”

Go back to thy garden-plot, sweet heart!
Go back till the evening falls!
And bind thy lilies, and train thy vines,
Till for thee the Master calls.

117

Go make thy garden fair as thou canst,
Thou workest never alone,
Perchance he whose plot is next to thine
Will see it, and mend his own.

And the next may copy his, sweet heart,
Till all grows fair and sweet;
And when the Master comes at eve,
Happy faces His coming will greet.

Then shall thy joy be full, sweet heart,
In the garden so fair to see,
In the Master's words of praise for all,
In a look of His own for thee!

118

“WHAT THOU WILT, O MY FATHER, AND WHEN.”

Said the roses, long drooping with drought,
Now shaken like snow from the tree,
By the gusts of the boisterous winds
That had learned their rough play on the sea:

“O winds, we are delicate flowers,
Queenly flowers! touch us gently, we pray;
For these light flakes ye scatter in jest
Do not gather again, like the spray.

“The waves break and gather, but we
Once broken, arise not again.”
But the winds frolicked wildly, and said,
“Never fear! we are bringing the rain.”

Said the corn, bending low as they passed,
“Take heed where your revels ye keep;

119

Ye are treading the fair fruitful Earth,
Not the salt barren wastes of the deep.”

But the winds laughed and swept on their way,
And said, “Children, never complain;
We are friends of your mother, the Earth,—
She has cried, and we bring her the rain.”

Said the sick child, in feverish unrest,
While the winds made rough riot about,
Whistling wildly where holes let them in,
Storming fiercely where walls kept them out:

“O winds, stop your gambols awhile,
Ye have frolicked and shouted all day;
Let me sleep, let me sleep in the night,—
Will ye never be tired of your play?”

Then the winds softly sighed, as they said,
“Dost thou too mistake and complain?
For thee we were sent o'er the sea,
For thee we are bringing the rain.”

But the roses still trembled and drooped,
And the sick child still murmured and wept,
Till a sultry calm fell on the land,
And the hushed winds all heavily slept.

120

Then the roses drooped lifeless and pale,
And the shrivelled corn parched as it grew,
And the sick child with burning lips sighed,
Tossing sleepless the sultry night through.

“Oh, why did I murmur and moan?
God sent His kind winds o'er the sea;
He sent them to bring us the rain,
They came for the earth and for me.

“God sent His kind winds o'er the sea,
And I murmured and moaned them away;
Come again! I would welcome you now,
Be your voices as rough as they may!”

Then the winds rose and cheerily sang,
“Fear not; He who sent, sends us still:
Your murmurs have marred your content,
But check not His merciful will.

“We come; He who sent us is good,
To your moans He gave sorrowful heed;
Yet paused not one hour in His care,
To provide you the help that you need.

“Now all things are ready, we come,
We come on his errands again;

121

His fountains are full, and o'erflow,
We have brought, we have brought you the rain!”

Then the showers poured melodiously down,
And the rose-tree drank deep to the roots,
And the parched Earth looked up and was glad,
And laughed through her flowers and her fruits.

And the Love that is stronger than all,
Like the showers of the life-giving rain
Sank deep in the heart of the child,
Till the incense of praise rose again.

And flooding her soul to the brim,
Flowed the calm of the angels' “Amen,”
As with clasped hands she prayed ere she slept,
“What Thou wilt, O my Father, and When.”

July 1865.

122

THE STILL WATERS OF THE VALLEY.

Their source is on the mountains,
The streams of which we drink;
But we must tread the valleys,
If we would reach their brink.
Their source is on the mountains,
Higher than feet can go;
Yet human lips but touch them
In the valleys, still and low.

Beyond the fields and forests,
Beyond the homes of men,
Beyond the wild-goat's refuge,
Beyond the eagle's ken,
Beyond the oldest glaciers,
Beyond the loftiest snows,
Beyond the furthest summit
Where earliest morning glows,

123

Still climbing, ever climbing
To reach the streams we love,
Their music ever with us,
Their source is still above,
Beyond Heaven's heights of glory,
As past earth's heights of snow;
Yet can our lips but taste them
In the valleys, still and low.

Once, when the heavenly voices
Seemed to call me on their track,
I wondered why some hindrance
Still drew my footsteps back;
Some feeble steps to succour,
Some childish feet to lead,
Some wandering lambs to gather,
Some hungered ones to feed;

Some call of lowly duty,
With low, resistless tone;
Some weight of others' burdens,
Some burden of my own.
But now, though heavenly voices
Still bid my spirit soar,
While my feet tread lowly places,
I wonder thus no more.

124

Their source is on the mountains,
The streams of which we drink;
But only in the valleys
Our lips can reach their brink.
Our hearts are on the mountains
Whither our feet shall go;
But our feet are in the valleys
Where the still waters flow.

125

TRIED BY FIRE.

What, what is tried in the fires of God?
And what are the fires that try?—
All, all is tried in the fires of God,
And many the fires that try.

And what is burnt in the fires of God?—
All but the fine, fine gold;
The treasures we offer for praise and pride
Or for pride and self withhold;
And we, as far as our souls are wrapt
In the raiment that waxeth old.

And when will the fires of God be lit?—
They are burning every day;
They are trying us all, within and without,
The gold and the potter's clay.

But what is lost in the fires of God?—
Nothing that is not dross;

126

No tiniest grain of the golden sands,
Or wood of the true, true Cross;

No smallest seed of the lowliest deed
Of faith and hope and love,
The precious things that abide earth's fires,
And for ever abide, above.

Yea, nought is lost in the fires of God
That is not waste or dross—
That we would not choose, could we see, to lose,
And say, this was gain not loss.

127

ON THE GRAVE OF A FAITHFUL DOG.

Three trees which stand apart upon
A sunny slope of meadow ground,
A shadow from the heat at noon,—
And, underneath, a grassy mound.

A little silent, grassy mound:—
And is this all is left of thee,
Whose feet would o'er the meadow bound,
So full of eager life and glee?

Of “thee!” And may I say e'en this
Of what so wholly passed away?
Or can such trust and tenderness
Be crushed entirely into clay?

The voice whose welcomes were so glad,
Feet pattering like summer showers,
The dark eyes which would look so sad
If gathering tears were dimming ours;

128

Those wistful, dark, inquiring eyes,
So fond and watchful, deep and true,
That made the thought so often rise—
What looks those crystal windows through?

Didst thou not watch for hours our track,
And for the absent seem to pine?
And when the well-known voice came back,
What ecstasy could equal thine?

Is it all lost in nothingness,
Such gladness, love, and hope, and trust,
Such busy thought our thought to guess,
All trampled into common dust?

Save memories round our hearts that twine,
Has all for ever passed away,
Like the dear home once thine and mine,
The home now silent as thy clay?

Or is there something yet to come,
From all our science still concealed,
About the patient creatures dumb
A secret yet to be revealed?

129

A happy secret yet behind,
Yet for the mute creation stored,
Which suffers though it never sinned,
And loves and hopes without reward?

1854.

130

TO OUR LITTLE DOG DOT.

O little loving heart
So gently laid asleep;
The traces of thy life in ours
How many and how deep!

The bark of eager glee,
Welcome, reproof, command,
The small foot knocking at the door
Laid gently in the hand.

The tender, answering eyes,
The planning, eager will,
The following steps—without them all
“Dot's house” seems very still.

Worlds of dear memories
Seem in thy grave to lie,

131

Of love and fun, dark days and bright—
We will not let them die!

Playmate “commander,” care,
Our little steadfast friend,
Thy life leaves legacies of love
On to its quiet end.

Loving us all so well,
With different love for each,
Unchanged through absences of years;—
Death wakes thy life to speech!

“Love more and more,” it says,
“For love alone is strong;
You made my little life so bright,
Your longest is not long.”

Such wealth of love behind,
Can nothing lie before?
Or has the future only this,
“Never again,” “no more?”

From darling childish lips
The answer comes to me,
With the sweet wisdom of the babes—
Dear little child of three!

132

“When Dot grows up,” he said,
“Then she will learn to speak.”
Bright vision of the children's heart,—
Further we need not seek!

For love alone is life,
And love alone is strong;
And love lives in eternal worlds
Beyond earth's poor “How long?”

Yes, only love is life,
And love means “thee” and “me,”—
God, who is love, will never let
Love cease to love, or be.

May 9, 1885.

Dot died in her sleep.

The name given to our house by a little girl of three.

133

ST. FRANCIS D'ASSISI'S CANTICUM SOLIS.

Altissimo omnipotente buon Signore, tue son le laudi, la gloria, lo honor e ogni benediction. A te solo se confanno e nullo homo è degno di nominarti.

Laudato sia mio Signore per tutte le creature, specialmente Messer lo Fratre Sole, il quale giorna illumina noi per lui. E alto e bello e radiante con grande splendore. Da Te Signore porta significazione.

Laudato sia mio Signore per Suora Luna e per le stelle le quali in cielo le hai formate chiare e belle.

Laudato sia mio Signore per fratre Vento e per la luce e nuvole e sereno e ogni tempo, per lo quale dai a tutte creature sustentamento.

Laudato sia mio Signore per Suora acqua la quale è molto utile e humile e pretiosa e casta.

Laudato sia mio Signore per Fratre Fuoco per lo quale tu allumini la notte, è bello e jocundo e robustissimo e forte.

Laudato sia mio Signore per nostra Madre Terra la quale ne sostenta, governa, e produce diversi frutte, e coloriti fiori e herbi.

Laudato sia mio Signore per quelli che perdonano per lo tuo amore e sosteneno infirmitade e tribulatione. Beati quelli che sostegneranno in pace che da Te Altissimo saranno incoronati.

I bless Thee, Father, that where'er I go
A brotherhood of blessed creatures goes
With me, and biddeth me God speed. For all
Thy mute and innocent creatures take my thanks;

134

To me they are child-brethren without speech
Or sin.

And first for him, the noblest of them all,
He who brings day and summer, disenchants
The ice-bound streams, and wakes the happy birds,
Pure choristers, to matins; at whose call
The young flowers, startled from their hiding-places,
Peep and laugh; who clothes the earth, and fills
The heavens with joy; and he is beautiful
And radiant with great splendour. Praise to Thee,
O Highest! for our royal Brother Sun;
For bears he not an impress, Lord, of Thee?

And praisëd be my Lord for Sister Moon.
All praise for her our holy white-veiled sister,
Dwelling on high in heavenly purity;
And for the radiant hosts that bear her company,
For they are bright and beautiful.
Praise for the Moon and Stars.

And praisëd be my Lord for Brother Wind,
For light and clouds, for weather fair or dark;
Through all Thou nourishest Thy creatures all.
Praise for our brother Wind; for though his voice
Is rough at times, and in his savage mood

135

He rends the earth, rousing the sea to fury,
Yet at Thy calm rebuke he layeth by
His lion nature, frisketh like a lamb
Beside the streams, and gently crisps with snow
The sapphire waves, and stirs the corn, and wakes
The languid flowers to life, and lays dead blossoms
Softly in their graves: for the strong winds,
The rough but kindly winds, we bless Thee, Lord,

For Sister Water praisëd be my Lord,
Our lowly sister, Water, mountain child
Whose happy feet make music on the hills;
For her who bounds so light from rock to rock,
Yet brings a blessing wheresoe'er she comes.
She spurns all fetters, laughs at all restraint,
Yet scorns no lowliest ministry of love,
Abiding peacefully in roadside wells,
And sparkling welcomes in the peasant's cup.
Nature's sweet almoner! all praise for her!
For she is useful, precious, meek, and chaste.
We bless Thee, Lord, for her.

And praise for Brother Fire!—fearful is he
When he goes forth exulting in his strength,
And all things quail and fly before his face!
Yet he will sit a patient minister

136

Of blessings on our hearth, and through the night
He cheers us. He is joyous, bold, robust,
And strong. Praise, Lord, for him!

And praisëd be my Lord for Mother Earth.
Our faithful mother Earth, who feedeth us
With such unwearied love, and strews our paths
With rainbow-tinted flowers and healing herbs;
Our gentle, generous, most beautiful,
And ever youthful mother.

And ever blessed be my Lord for those,
The blessed, who for Thy dear love forgive,
And for Thy love sustain weakness and woe.
Blessed are they who thus endure in peace;
For they by Thee, O Highest, shall be crowned.
Thus, blessed Christ, all praise to Thee for these
Thy creatures. They are all Thy ministers,
And to Thy reconciled speak nought but peace.
Children and servants are we in our household,
Dwelling before Thee in sweet harmony.
O bless us all! Father! we all bless Thee!

137

In Memoriam et Spem Aeternam.

139

HOW DOTH DEATH SPEAK OF OUR BELOVED?

“The rain that falls upon the height,
Too gently to be called delight,
In the dark valley reäppears
As a wild cataract of tears;
And love in life should strive to see
Sometimes what love in death would be.”
Coventry Patmore's Angel in the House.

How doth death speak of our beloved
When it has laid them low,
When it has set its hallowing touch
On speechless lip and brow?

It clothes their every gift and grace
With radiance from the holiest place,
With light as from an angel's face;

Recalling with resistless force,
And tracing to their hidden source
Deeds scarcely noticed in their course,—

140

This little, loving, fond device,
That daily act of sacrifice,
Of which too late we learn the price;

Opening our weeping eyes to trace
Simple unnoticed kindnesses,
Forgotten tones of tenderness,

Which evermore to us must be
Sacred as hymns in infancy
Learnt listening at a mother's knee.

Thus doth death speak of our beloved
When it has laid them low.
Then let love antedate the work of death
And speak thus now.

How does death speak of our beloved
When it has laid them low,
When it has set its hallowing touch
On speechless lip and brow?

It sweeps their faults with heavy hand
As sweeps the sea the trampled sand,
Till scarce the faintest print is scanned.

141

It shows how such a vexing deed
Was but a generous nature's weed,
Or some choice virtue run to seed;

How that small fretting fretfulness
Was but love's over-anxiousness,
Which had not been had love been less;

This failing at which we repined
But the dim shade of day declined,
Which should have made us doubly kind.

Thus does death speak of our beloved
When it has laid them low,
When it has set its hallowing touch
On speechless lip and brow.

How does death speak of our beloved
When it has laid them low,
When it has set its hallowing touch
On speechless lip and brow?

It takes each failing on our part,
And brands it in upon the heart
With caustic power and cruel art.

142

The small neglect that may have pained,
A giant stature will have gained
When it can never be explained;

The little service which had proved
How tenderly we watched and loved,
And those mute lips to smiles had moved;

The little gift from out our store
Which might have cheered some cheerless hour
When they with earth's poor needs were poor.

It shows our faults like fires at night;
It sweeps their failings out of sight;
It clothes their good in heavenly light.

O Christ, our life, foredate the work of death,
And do this now;
Thou who art love thus hallow our beloved,
Not death but Thou!

143

SWEET IS THE LIGHT!

“Souvent la vie et la mort nous apparaissent comme deux maux dont nous ne savons quel est le moindre. Quant à l'apôtre, elles lui apparaissent comme deux biens immenses dont il ne sait quel est le meilleur.” —Adolphe Monod, Les Adieux.

I.

“Sweet is the light!” they sang,
First Singers of our race,—
On each familiar thing,
On each beloved face!
The mighty, conquering light,
Arrowy, keen, and strong!
The dear, familiar light,
Waking the world to song!
Light on the purple seas—
Light in the golden sky;
“Sweet is the light!” they sang;
“And therefore dire to die!”

144

II.

To die! and leave the light,
Shadows among the glooms;
Groping 'mid ghosts of joys
For dawn that never comes;
Far from all homely things,
And all familiar ways;
Whilst o'er us, morn by morn,
Still shine the old glad rays,
Waking the fresh green earth
With songs to greet the sky:
“Sweet is the light!” they sang;
“And therefore dire to die!”

III.

Sweet is the light—all light—
O Fount of light! we sing,—
On each beloved face,
On each familiar thing!
Thy mighty, probing light,
Keen to part right from wrong!
Thy dear, familiar light,
Waking Thy worlds to song!

145

Light on Thy crystal sea—
Light in Thy sapphire sky;
“Sweet is the light!” we sing;
And therefore sweet to die!

IV.

To die! and find the light,
And never lose it more;
Light on Life's troubled waves,
Where much was dark before,—
The little stormy course
Which tossed us to Thy shore;
Light on the ceaseless storms
Wherein our race is whirled,—
The blindness, battles, sins,
And chaos of the world;
Light on Thy countless worlds,
The order through the strife;—
The Life that moves the Law,
The Love that moves the Life.
Thy mighty conquering light,
Life-giving, keen, and strong!
Thy kind, familiar light,
Proved step by step so long!

146

Light in the Father's House,
Holy and homelike glow,—
The Home where, one by one,
Our best and dearest go.
Sweet is the light! we sing;
O Light, in Whom we see!
No darkness waiteth us,—
No darkness is in Thee.
Sweet is the light, we sing,
Where Thou art known, on high!
Not darkly—Face to face:
Sweet, therefore, sweet to die!

New Year's Day, 1871.

147

SERREZ LES RANGS!

When of old first we heard the war-thunder
Roll round us, above us, and under,
In our ranks those dread chasms were torn
As the hailstorm sweeps paths in the corn,
When those terrible gaps first we felt,
Felt like snow-flakes our men from us melt,
Like a ghostly cry, piercing and clear
Rang the word of command on the ear,
“Close the ranks.”

Through each heart the resistless words thrilled,
Not knowing whose places we filled,
Obedient, together we pressed,
In serried ranks charging abreast,
Still shoulder to shoulder were ranged,
Though the comrades be mournfully changed;—
Closed the ranks.

148

Not an instant the march must be stayed,
For no pity the battle delayed,
On we pressed, in close ranks o'er our dead,
Left our wounded where, fallen, they bled;
For the day's work had yet to be wrought,
For our dead and our wounded we fought,
For their sakes not a pause might we dare,
For their sakes lying helplessly there,
For their sakes on we pressed on our way,
Closed the ranks, sped the charge, won the day.

And now, in the battle of life,
In the thick of the old ceaseless strife,
When those terrible gaps come again,
On the heart fall the blank and the pain,
And we know, in our anguish, too well
What we lost when thus stricken they fell,
Still that Word of Command on the ear
Through the blank and death-silence rings clear,
“Close the ranks!”

For the sake of the comrades who died,
Press on where they fell, side by side;
For their sakes of whose stay we're bereft,
Press closer to those who are left,

149

The charge still pursuing abreast,
In unbroken lines faithfully pressed,
Not a moment the charge must be stayed,
For no tears be the battle delayed;
For their sakes not the feeblest despairs,
The fight and its triumphs are theirs;—
Press forward where they led the way,
Close the ranks, speed the charge, win the day.

150

HOME BECAUSE NOT HOME.

I need not call it home!
'Tis but a ship at sea;
I look across the waves and foam,
I press across to Thee.

I press across to Thee,
As on the prow I stand,
Trusting Thy glorious Face to see
In the beloved land;

In the beloved land
Where our beloved are,
Where, ever, near to Thee they stand
And watch us, not from far.

This Earth, in every clime,
Speeds through the skies apace,
Measuring the ceaseless flow of time
By her swift whirl through space.

151

And we, in Time or Space,
Abide not still one day;
I need not, then, call home the place
Wherein we cannot stay!

Wherein we need not stay,
Uncabled, launched, and free,
And cleaving through the seas our way
To our beloved and Thee.

This rest-house by the way,
I need not call it home;
'Tis but Thy guest-house, night and day,
Where pilgrims go and come;

Where pilgrims come and go,
Welcomed and sped by Thee:
I need not build a home below;
Thy guest-house let it be!

For it is Thine, not mine,
And therefore 'tis no care;
Yet I must do my best with Thine
To make it bright and fair;

To make it bright and sweet
For Thee and Thine alway;

152

A resting-place for weary feet,
To speed them on Thy way:

Thy ship upon Thy deep,
Steered to Thy shore by Thee;
Thy guest-house which for Thee I keep,
And therefore home to me.

153

IN MEMORIAM ET SPEM ÆTERNAM.

The best of earth's best things would I have won thee,
In richest store;
But my fond hands were weak, belov'd, to crown thee,
My treasures poor!
Now God has given thee His best things, belovëd,
And they are more.
Service the loftiest this earth can render
Thou shouldst have won,
Such honour, here, as all who knew felt due thee,
Who claimedst none!
God gives thee service now to which earth's highest
Were low and poor,
Crowns with the crown of His “Well done,” for ever;
And that is more.

From patient toiling here and little reaping
God called thee home;

154

Just when the harvest of thy toil was ripening
He bid thee come.—
The path thou lovedst closed to thee in boyhood,
Yet lov'd life-long.
Bravely thou tookest up the yoke laid on thee,
Patient and strong;
Content and earnest as in paths self-chosen
Pursu'dst thy way,
Toiledst thy thirty patient years for others,
From day to day,
And when thy reaping-time at last seemed coming
Wert called away.
From all the bright, ripe fields before thee widening
God called thee hence;—
He would not give one portion of thy guerdon
In earth's poor pence;
Thy hands are full, belovëd, now of God's own riches
Fadeless and fair;
Thou passedst Time in Time's best work of sowing,
And reapest there!

Yet dare I speak, e'en here, of little reaping,
Lest I repine?
Nor fear to mar with fond words of complaining
The peace of thine?

155

Nor fear to soil the glory of thy meekness
With praise of mine?
Unconscious of the beauty of thy living
Thou passedst on,
Shining unconscious as God's best and truest
Ever have shone.
Thou reapedst in the light thy life shed round thee,
The trust it won.
(Thank God, we saw it as we walked beside thee,
Not first, too late,
In all the anguish of this blank and darkness
Left desolate!)
Thou reapedst in the deep peace of thy dying,
All conflicts o'er,
Thy last step into heaven but one of thousands
Which went before,
Abundant entrance, opening for one moment
On us heaven's door!
Thou reapedst in the heritage thou leavest,
Prayers of the poor,—
The Master's likeness on our hearts engraven
For evermore.

I dare not speak, e'en here, of little reaping
In earth's poor store;

156

Thou reapedst here in God's best things, belovëd,
And they are more.
A heart made glad with God's own wealth of gladness,
Calm to the core;
A heart made full as human love could fill it,
And peace Divine;
That on this earth which was to thee the dearest,
Entirely thine;—
Nay, e'en on earth in earth's best things thou reapedst,
Earth's richest store!
Thou reapest now in God's best things, belovëd,—
And they are more.

June, 1868.

157

REFLECTED LIGHT.

The suffering and the loss are mine!
The pain, the death are all for me!
'Tis fond delusion makes them thine,
Transferring my regrets to thee.

It is not true, it is not true,
That thou, reluctant, hurried hence,
On all the good we hoped to do
Look'st back with wistful longings thence;

On fields unreaped together sown,
On holy hopes all unfulfilled!
The shattered hopes are mine alone,
Thine in the well of life are stilled;

Stilled, and made strong for higher flight,
Fulfilled, and freed for wider range,
From height to height of fuller light,
From stage to stage of growth and change.

158

The loss, the close, the death are mine;
Mine only! Thine no more! no more!
Fulfilment, joy, expansion, thine!
Winged by thy joy my soul can soar;

A fulness of Divine content
Silently fills and floods my heart,
As with long gaze, enrapt, intent,
I see thee blessed as thou art.

And in thy gladness I am glad;
My weakness in thy strength grows strong,—
I know thy very heavens were sad
If thou couldst think I suffered wrong.

For if, e'en on this sinful earth,
And lonely, thus bereft of thee,
Love makes thy joy amidst my dearth
A banquet of delight to me,—

Thou who on earth wast never known
To drink of selfish pleasure's cup,
But laid'st thine ease and comfort down
To take thy brother's burden up,—

There more thyself thou art, not less,
Fulfilled, not lost in God's great will;

159

The home thy presence here could bless
In heaven is sacred to thee still.

Not less thou lov'st in heaven, but more,—
And therefore, (or thou wert not blest!)
Thou know'st this anguish deep and sore
Works e'en for me God's very best.

Thus, through the love and bliss in thee,
Belov'd, who seest the Face of God,
His smile, reflected, shines on me,
Draws me to His and thine abode.

Westminster, 1869.

160

NOT DRIFTING; PILOTED.

At noontide, on a sunny sea,
Serene and open, bright and free.

Small choice to us in near or far,
Heaven and home where'er we are.

No sameness same, no changes strange;
All home where we together range.

No cloud, no storm on sky or deep,
Only one huge wave's tidal sweep;

One steady, dark, devouring wave,
O'er-arching in its deadly cave.

Hand clasped in hand, in one frail bark
Swept underneath that rush of dark!

Alone! upon the other side;
Still sweeping, on, that steady Tide!

161

Alone! no guide, no helm, no oar;
All tracks alike; no port, no shore.

Still drifting on; no change in change,
All shores, all seas, alike; all strange.

A Hand! firm guiding through the sea;
A Face! a Face! regarding me.

Guiding, regarding, all the while
Commanding Hand! Most pitying smile!

Not drifting! steered for evermore
By wisest tracks that ocean o'er.

Following those Eyes that look before,
Lit by that smile, a shore! the Shore!

The Shore! the Home! across the sea,
And oh! what faces waiting me.

1869.

162

THE BEAUTIFUL GATE OF THE TEMPLE.

Little familiar gate!
Gate of the home by the way!
Hour for which daily to wait,
Hour at the close of the day!

Hand in hand close pressed,
Arm never trusted in vain,
Hearts in each other at rest,
Home all home again!

Gate through which all must pass,
Gate at the end of the way;—
Men call it a Gate of Brass,
A prison-gate, they say.

They think it can only divide,
Pitiless, heavy, and strong;
But we who have looked inside
Know they have named it wrong:

163

Know it not strong but weak,
Its bars all shattered and slight,
Mere bars of shadow that streak
And prove the inner light;
Gate where all bonds shall break,
All severed hearts unite.

Terrible, Beautiful Gate!
Gate of the Temple of God!
Well through the day we may wait
Till it open for us our abode.

Hands in hands close pressed,
Hearts past all parting and pain,
In God and each other at rest,
Home all home again!

Beautiful Gate of Life!
Gate at the end of the way!
Well worth day's toil and strife
For that hour at the end of the day.

164

SPRINGING INTO LIFE.

“Sie hat ihren Sprung gethan.
Ach! wollt' Gott ich hätt' auch den Sprung gethan!
Ich wollt' mich nicht sehr hernieder sehnen.”
Dr. Martin Luther.

Say not they sank to rest
As a wave whose force is spent,
As a weary child on its mother's breast,—
So it seemed, but not thus they went.

Not thus it seemed to those
Who watch by our side alway,
And through the calm of the last repose
See the dawn of the endless day.

Say, rather, they sprang to life!
Strong and free to life they sprang;
As the warrior sprang to the strife
When the clarion's summons rang;

165

As a stream the frosts enchain
By the touch of spring set free,
Vocal and strong bounds forth again,
Springs forth to meet the sea;

As a bird of some sunny land,
Caged in the darkness long,
Freed by the touch of a friendly hand
Springs into light and song.

Say not they sank to rest!
They sprang to life and song!—
As a waking child to its mother's breast,
Refreshed and glad and strong

166

AT EVENTIDE IT SHALL BE LIGHT.

Forth to thy work from morn till night,
Through fog and din thy path would be;
While I at home upon the height
Would work, and rest, and wait for thee.

But now along the way of life
Through dust and din my path must be,
Whilst thou above all mists and strife
Waitest at Home, on high, for me.

I will not call these “weary ways;”
No murmur ever left thy lips;
I will not sigh o'er “dreary days,”
Though darkened by thy light's eclipse.

A Presence wraps me everywhere,
The Presence in which thou art blest;
The Face, the Sun of worlds, is there,—
Yet bright to us the glistening vest.

167

The work is good, the way is right;—
But yet, I think, an hour shall be
At evening on the homelike height
Which will be morn to thee and me.

168

THE TOMB AND THE TEMPLE.

Sleeping! my heart was sleeping
With the sleep of one turned to stone,—
With my changeless burden of sorrow,
Alone, for ever alone;
On the grave no larger than others,
For other eyes to see,
Which has made all earth and heaven
One vaulted grave to me.

Sleeping! my heart was sleeping
On the stone of that sacred tomb
Which needs no seal to seal it
Close till the Day of Doom,—
On the stone no friendly angel,
No earthquake shall roll away,
Till the friendly hands shall move it
For me, on my resting-day.

169

Waking! my heart is waking,
And nevermore alone!
Awake, in a vast Cathedral,
But not one built of stone.
Deep are its strong foundations;—
They have pierced through the bars of death
By the force of a Life Immortal
Inspired by a dying breath.

The worlds have no measure to mete it,
Its span is too high and broad;
None know how high it towereth,
For within is the Throne of God.
Each stone and each note of its music
Are the spoils of a mortal strife;
Its every song is a Triumph,
Its every stone a life.

Its feeblest song is a Triumph,
Though it seem to men but a moan;
For it presseth through anguish victorious
To God, to God alone;—
Till low at His feet it sobbeth,
“Father! Thy will be done!”
And He asketh no higher music
From the angels around His Throne.

170

The hymns through its vast roofs pealing
Are from more than a single Choir;
And though diverse the tones of its music,
They are fused in one inward fire.
The singers are all immortal,
One life inspires them through;
But some have their dying over,
And some have it yet to do.

The choirs on these lower ranges
Are broken and weak and few,
To the glorious hosts above us,
Just hidden from our view.
For daily our best rise thither;
Soon He will call us too,
Even us, when He sees we are ready,
To Himself, belov'd, and to you!

Soon, not too soon by a moment,
Till our work is done below,—
Till the lessons are learnt more truly
We are careless to learn, and slow,—
Till the likeness is formed that only
Through frosts and fires can grow;
Soon, not too late by a moment,
For He knows how we long to go.

171

We need not depart from this Temple,
We may serve there, night and day,
Its life and its music around us
In all our work and way.
For grand as it is and holy,
Eternal and Divine,
It is simple, homelike, human,
As a home of thine and mine.

Its music is all home-music,
It haunts us where'er we roam;
For the Father's House is the Temple,
And the Temple the children's Home.

Westminster, 1869.

172

THE CRYPT.

“Buried with Him.”

Utmost moans of agony,
Moaning, moaning ceaselessly,
“Earth is all one grave to me,
Sweetest fields but churchyard turf,
Sunniest seas but deadly surf,
Fairest skies one vaulted tomb,
Death in all homes most at home.”

Saddest moans of agony,
Back from far they come to me,
Echoed from the Crystal Sea
In a chant of victory;
From that Sea's translucent verge
Back in triumphs peals the dirge:

“Earth is all one grave to thee?
What besides can earth now be,

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Since He died upon the Tree,
Since He died on earth for thee,
Since beneath it He lay, dim,
Cold and still each tortured limb.
Buried are His own with Him,
Yet the dirge is all a hymn.

“Would'st thou take the crypt's chill damps
And its dim sepulchral lamps
For His Temple spaces high,
For His depths of starry sky?
Wouldest thou? Not so would they
Who one moment breathe His day!
Earth has light for earth's great strife,—
Where He liveth, there is life!

“Earth is all one grave to thee?
Yet lift up thine eyes and see!
For the stone is rolled away
And He standeth there to-day,
Patiently by thee will stay
Till thy heart ‘Rabboni’ say!
He will not desert the clay,
Thine, nor theirs, by night nor day.

“That Rabboni, faint through fears,
Sobbed through agony of tears,

174

That alone thy heart can clear
Those far-off Amens to hear;
That alone can tune thy heart
In those songs to take its part.

“Then thy cry of agony,
‘Earth is all one grave to me,’
Echoed, shall come back to thee
In a chant of victory,
Echoed from the Crystal Sea
From the living victors free,
Ransomed everlastingly.”

1869.

175

RESURRECTION.

“Risen with Him.”

Not alone the victors free
Standing by the Crystal Sea
Sing the song of victory!
Buried are Thine own with Thee,
Risen are Thine own with Thee!
We may chant it, even we!

One our life with those above,
One our service, one our love;
Not at death that life begins,
Though a fuller strength it wins,
Freed from all that bounds its flight,
Freed from all that cramps its might.

We upon these lower slopes
Dim with fears and fitful hopes,
They upon the eternal heights
Glorious in undying lights,

176

Radiant in the cloudless sun;
Yet their life and ours is one,
E'en on us their Sun hath shone,
E'en for us their Day begun.

And these lowly paths we tread
Are the same where they were led;
Very sacred grown and sweet,
Trodden by immortal feet,—
Trodden once, oh best of all!
By the Feet at which they fall.

And each service kind and true
Which to any here we do,
Linked in one immortal chain
Makes their service live again,—
Brings us to the service nigh
Which they render now, on high;
For the highest heavens above
Nothing higher know than love.

1869.

177

IN MEMORY OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

[_]

(December, 1861.)

Silently springing upward, as grow the things of God,
His life grew up among us, and cast its shade abroad;

Silently, as the sapling grows to the forest oak;
As the Temple on the Hill of God, profaned by no rude stroke.

Silently, as the sunlight deepens through all the air,
Till scarcely thinking whence it comes, we feel it everywhere;

Yet only as he leaves us, we gaze upon the sun,
And as we say, “How beautiful!” he sets and day is done.

178

Silently pressing onward, as work the men of God,
The lowly path of duty on the lonely heights he trod,—

Gifted with powers which meaner men with fadeless bays had crowned,
With a poet's sense of beauty in hue and form and sound:

Steadfastly as for life or fame, yet not for self he wrought,
But royally for others spent strength and time and thought;

In guiding other men to fame, showing what fame should be;
Inspiring other men to do, and training them to see;

Lightening the heart of genius from the crippling load of care;
Making poor men's homes more homelike, and all men's homes more fair;

Bringing beauty like the sunlight into common things and small;
Ennobling toil for working men, ennobling life for all;

179

In lowly self-forgetful works none but the noblest do,
Till few among the mighty have left a fame so true:

Living a life so meekly great beside an Empire's throne,
That the humblest man among us by it might mould his own;

Dying to bind a nation as only tears can bind,
For once, with all its myriad aims, one heart, one soul, one mind;

Crowned by an Empire's sorrow, mourning from end to end;
Wept silently in countless homes, as each had lost a friend.

Thus silently God took him, early ripened, in his prime,
From the echoes and the shadows of these dim shores of Time;

To the Song which wakes the echoes broken here by din and strife,
To the Light which casts the shadows, the Light in Whom is life;

180

To the Throne for us abandoned once for the Cross and shame and pain,
To Him who sits there evermore, “the Lamb that has been slain;”

To the living, loving Fountain of all great and good and fair,
To dwell with Him for ever and be made perfect there!

And e'en from such a home as his, where all earth's best was blent,
Can we doubt, when God thus called him, that willingly he went?

But for that perfect home his loss has left so desolate,
And for that woe made matchless by years of joy so great!

Thy people would have shed their blood this woe from thee to keep,
But now what can thy nation do, our Queen! for thee, but weep!

Yet surely God has balms for pain nothing on earth can still;
Love which can soothe its bitterness, Duty its void to fill.

181

First folding to One boundless Heart of ever-present Love
The weeping children wandering here, and those at home above;

Then when the sharp new anguish, now so keen and quick and strange,
Has sunk into the slow dull pain, the blank that cannot change,

With the sacred tones of Duty, Love wakes the heart again,—
“Life is no empty barren waste, and grief is not in vain.”

Empty for none; and least of all, Mother and Queen, for thee!
Could tears but tell thee what thou art to us, and still shalt be;

What it has been to England, through years of storm and gloom,
To honour in her highest place, for a chair of state,—a home!

Couldst thou but know the healing dews of honest, loving tears,
Which flow for thee from eyes long dried by the dull weight of cares;

182

Or how the love thy life has won through all thy happy years,
Deepened to tenderest reverence, now soars to heaven in prayers,—

Oh, would not all the track of life which seems so long to grief,
Filled with such service for thy land, even to thee seem brief?

183

THE QUEEN'S WREATH ON THE PRESIDENT'S BIER.

Still westward through the night in silence sweeping,
Wife of a hero, watching by thy dead;
On through a nation round thee, silent, weeping!
—Thou weepest not until thy task be sped.

They meet thee still in city after city,
To honour and to mourn their dead and thine,
With bared heads kneeling, hushed in awe and pity
For crime inhuman met with grace divine;

Saluting ever with restrained emotion
One bier, and on it laid one Funeral Wreath,
Borne from the mother land beyond the Ocean;—
The hand of Love above the hand of Death.

All hearts thus owning as with one pulse beating
Goodness and truth,—the eternal and unseen;—

184

The hearts of two great kindred nations meeting
Through the true heart of one true widowed Queen.

Oh, Queen! 'tis not thy Crown of Empire only,
Thy crown of sorrow hallows thee to this!
And thou, new mourner! fear not to be lonely,
Since of such woe is born earth's saving bliss.

Once more “the veil grows thin” the heavens effacing!
One triumph more through paths in anguish trod;
Two nations through two women's hearts embracing,
One People bowing low before one God!

Alluding to President Garfield's speech on adjourning Congress after President Lincoln's assassination.

185

IN MEMORY OF THE LADY AUGUSTA STANLEY.

Oh blessed life of service and of love,
Heart wide as life, deep as life's deepest woe!
His servants serve Him day and night above,—
Thou servedst day and night we thought, below.

Hands full of blessings lavished far and wide,
Hands tender to bind up hearts wounded sore;
Stooping quite down earth's lowest needs beside,
“Master, like Thee!” we thought, and said no more.

Oh, nerves and heart racked to their utmost strain,
Hands stretched in helplessness to serve no more,—
Dulled by no slumber to their deepest pain,—
“Master, like Thee!” we wept, and said no more.

186

We o'er all sorrow would have raised thee up,
Crowned with life's choicest blossoms night and morn;
God made thee drink of His Beloved's cup,
And crowned thee with the Master's crown of thorn.

Looking from thee to Him once wounded sore,
We learned a little more His face to see;
Then looking from the cross for us He bore
To thine, we almost understood for thee.

Till, now, again, we gaze on thee above,
Strong and unwearied, serving day and night;
Oh blessed life of service and of love!
Master, like Thee, and with Thee, in Thy light!

March 9, 1876—her funeral-day.

187

IN MEMORY OF ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, DEAN OF WESTMINSTER.

[_]

(Westminster Abbey, July 25, 1881.)

Not this, not this, O Friend, thy funeral day!
Five long years since, for thee, that passed away,
When she was borne from thee, thy joy and stay;

And bowed and patient here we saw thee stand,
The children she so loved in either hand,
Thy home “unroofed,” a stranger in thy land.

Lost the dear presence of that perfect wife,
Still to fulfil, alone, the double life,
Alone to bear the burden and the strife,—

188

Shed benedictions from a smitten heart,
Food to the hungered from thy dearth impart,
Dying, still blessing, from thine own to part.

Till now, at last, thy double task is done;
Fought the last fight, the victory fully won;
Thou'rt gone from this small world beneath the sun.

Gone to the vision of the Crucified,
The Master loved so long, trusted and tried;
Gone where the blest who enter in abide;

Gone to the Mother City of the free,
Where mercy with the Merciful shall be,
The pure in heart the face of God shall see.

And in the many mansions fair and wide,
Adoring now for ever by her side,
Serene thou dwellest and art satisfied.

Alluding to the Dean's pronouncing the Benediction himself at his wife's funeral, and after receiving the Sacrament for the last time.

189

THE SCHOOL AND THE HOME.

Why do we moan, and wonderingly complain,
And murmur, O mysterious ways of God!
When the fine gold whence beams His image plain
Is stored within His innermost abode?

It were mysterious if the Master's Hand
Lavished its skill some choice work to prepare,
And then unfinished, cast it on the strand,
To perish incomplete and broken there.

But when the last completing touch is given,
The master-touch that all the rest inspires,
And the rich colours and the gold of heaven,—
Enamelled in the last of many fires,—

Shine forth at length to full perfection wrought,
A vessel meet the Master's House to grace,

190

A picture breathing with the Master's thought,
A portrait beaming back the Master's Face;—

What wonder if His treasure thence He take,
Where earthly damps the burnished gold might dim,
Where careless hands the gracious form might break—
Take to the Father's House, within, with Him?

What wonder, when the training of the schools
Has done such work as schools and lessons can,—
When through the discipline of tasks and rules
The boy compacts,—expands,—into the man,—

If to the Field the Father bids him come,
Where manhood's earnest standards are unfurled?
Is not the school an exile from the home?
Is not the school the threshold of a world?

Who wonders when the finished gem is borne
Its light upon the Sovereign's brow to yield?
Who would not wonder if the ripened corn
Were left to wither on the harvest-field?

Yet we who wander o'er the leafless land
Where golden sheaves waved musical and fair,

191

On us fall heavily, as thus we stand,
The blank and silence of the falling year.

Still at the school we miss the brother's eye
Whose working near us made us work our best,
Whose generous smile still drew our aims on high,
Whose ripe achievement shamed self-soothing rest.

We mourn, “O God! we needed him so much!
Here are so many tangling coils to loose,
So many hearts that need the tenderest touch,
So few hands trained like his to finest use!

“And hast Thou thus through blows and fires,” we sigh,
“And subtlest touches, shaped this instrument
For choicest work, only to rest on high?”
But swift the answer smites our discontent:

“This earth is but for learning and for training,
Earth's highest work but such as children do;
The workmen here their priceless skill are gaining,
The true life-work is yonder, out of view.”

Lord! we would bow, while faith our grief controls,
And thank Thee for the liberating blow

192

Which breaks these chains wherewith we cramp our souls
To little rounded dreams of life below,—

Which shows this life doth but our life begin,
Is but outside, the Porch of the Abode;
And death the going home, the entering in,
The stepping forth on the wide world of God.

In memory of the Rev. J. D. Burns.

193

THE SHADOW OF DEATH AND “THE SHADOW OF DYING.”

“‘There are many shadows of death.’ There are calamities, bereavements, desolations which, for the moment, sunder you from earth much the same as if you were absent from the body; and fierce diseases which come so near to dissolution that you ask, ‘Tell me, my soul, can this be death?’ But if these are shadows of death, on the other hand the believer's dissolution is but the shadow of dying. The light of the gospel penetrates far in, and the glory about to be revealed shines clear and bright beyond.” —A Morning by the Lake of Galilee, by Dr. Hamilton.

Whilst in breathless repose thou art lying,
Thy words still breathe forth living breath;
To thee but “the shadow of dying,”
On us rests “the shadow of death.”

The barrier changed to a portal,
The glory on thee through hath shined;
Thou hast passed from its shadow, immortal,
And left all the shadows behind.

194

But on us still the shadow is resting;
The shadow is all we can see;
Earth with heavier darkness investing,
By all the sweet light lost with thee;—

With the mind ever fearlessly moving
To welcome all light from all sides;
With the heart which by force of its loving
Swept all ice-blocks away in its tides;

With that lowliness, gentlest, serenest,
Like a glory around thee which shone,
Who couldst stoop to give love to the meanest,
But stoop to seek honour from none;

With the wide-seeing glance of the sages,
And the glad, simple trust of the child;—
Spirit radiant as e'er through the ages
Loved to drink of the well undefiled!

We count it thy joy to be taken,
Thou countedst it ours to be left;
Still earth's sleep with the Glad News to waken,
Nor quite of thy presence bereft.

In one Church Universal abiding
(No narrower Home e'er was thine),

195

In one God and Father confiding,
One Lord ever human, divine;

On one Strength, in one service, relying,
Embreathed by one Spirit's life-breath;
In the light of Him living whose dying
Has made but a shadow of death.

Monday, November 24, 1867.

In memory of the Rev. James Hamilton, D.D.

196

TO ONE AT REST.

And needest thou our prayers no more, safe folded 'mid the Blest?
How changed art thou since last we met to keep the day of rest!
Young with the youth of angels, wise with the growth of years;
For we have passed since thou hast gone a week of many tears,
And thou hast passed a week with Christ, a week without a sin,
Thy robes made white in Jesus' blood, all glorious within.

We shall miss thee at a thousand turns along life's weary track,
Not a sorrow or a joy, but we shall long to call thee back;

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Yearn for thy true and gentle heart, long thy bright smile to see,
For many dear and true are left, but none are quite like thee!
And evermore to all our life a deeper tone is given,
For a playmate of our childhood has entered into heaven.

How wise and great and glorious thy gentle soul has grown,
Loving as thou art loved by God, knowing as thou art known!
Yet in that world thou carest yet for those thou lov'dst in this;
The rich man did in torments, and wilt not thou in bliss?
For sitting at the Saviour's feet, and gazing in His face,
Surely thou'lt not unlearn one gentle human grace.
Human and not angelic the form He deigns to wear;
Of Jesus, not of angels the likeness thou shalt bear.

At rest from all the storms of life, from its night watches drear,
From the tumultuous hopes of earth, and from its aching fear;

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Sacred and sainted now to us is thy familiar name;
High is thy sphere above us now, and yet in this the same,
Together do we watch and wait for that long-promised day,
When the Voice that rends the tombs shall call, “Arise and come away,
My Bride and my Redeemed; winter and night are past,
And the time of singing and of light has come to thee at last;”
When the Family is gathered and the Father's House complete,
And we and thou, beloved, in our Father's smile shall meet.

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IT IS NO DREAM.

Was it a dream? such gladness with it bringing,
That life whose dawn with such deep joy we hailed,—
Those loving baby arms so fondly clinging,
Those eyes whose smiles so soon in death were veiled?

Alas! no dream had left such life-long traces,
Such silence as that little life has left,—
The blank no other presence e'er replaces;—
It is no dream which leaves us thus bereft.

It is no dream! thy spirit dieth never!
That little star through endless time shall beam;
Heaven shall be brighter for thy light for ever,
And gladder for thy voice. It is no dream!

It is no dream! By God that life was given;
Man may repent his gifts; God deals not thus:

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A new immortal joy is ours in heaven,
And He who gave will give thee back to us.

It is no dream that Paradise immortal
Where He who blessed the babes has welcomed thee;
Fearless the infants pass its solemn portal,
Borne in His arms, His face alone they see.

Yet Father! who for us in love most tender
Didst yield to death Thy Son, Thine only Son,
Thou knowest all the cost of such surrender;
Help us to say with Him, Thy will be done!

Till looking back with this our child beside us,
On all the way through which our feet were brought,
We sing, “It was no dream by which God tried us,—
No dream the weight of glory it has wrought!”

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A TRUE DREAM.

I dreamt we danced in careless glee,
With hearts and footsteps light and free,
That one so dearly loved and I,
As in the childish days gone by
For ever.

I felt her arms around me fold,
I heard her soft laugh as of old;
Her eyes with smiles were brimming o'er—
Eyes we may meet on earth no more
For ever.

Then there came mingling with my dreams
A sense perplexed of loss and change—
An echo dim of time and tears,
Until I said, “How long it seems
Since thus we danced! Is it not strange?
Do you not feel the weight of years?

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Or dread life's coming shadows cold?
Or mourn to think we must grow old?”
Wondering, she paused a little while,
Then answered, with a radiant smile,
“No! never!”

Wondering, as if to her I told
The customs of some foreign land;
Or spoke a tongue she knew of old,
But could no longer understand,
Till o'er her face that sunshine broke,
And with that radiant smile she spoke
That “Never!”

But not until the dream had fled
I knew the sense of what she said;
Young with immortal truth and love,
Child in the Father's House above
For ever.

We echo back thy words again,
They smite us with no grief or pain;
We journey not towards the night,
But to the breaking of the light,
Together

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Our life is no poor cisterned store
The lavish years are draining low;
But living streams that, welling o'er,
Fresh from the living Fountain flow
For ever.

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“ALL LIVE UNTO HIM.”

Thy voice is not hushed, darling, though to me its tones are still,
And have left a silence in my home no music e'er can fill:

There is a place within God's world where thou art heard, my boy;
And thy words are words of praise, and thy tones are tones of joy.

Thine eyes are not closed, darling, though they are closed to me,
And half the light is gone with them from all the sights I see;

They have but opened on the day, the day that needs no rest,
And they shine like happy stars in the heaven of the Blest.

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Thy spirit has not passed away, no sleep its vision shrouds;
It has but passed into the light, the light beyond the clouds.

Thou art not lonely, darling, though so lone thou hast left me;
Thousands of happy spirits love and rejoice with thee;

And He who loved the little ones and tenderly caressed
Has laid thee in His arms, darling, and clasped thee to His breast.

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Hymns.

209

THE PROMISE OF THE PRESENCE.

“Lo, I am with you alway, [all the days,] even unto the end of the world.”

The elder days, the morning days,
With thousand promises have rung:
They sparkled o'er the dewy ways
When Earth, and Time, and Man were young.

To us the promise is but one,
One light-point gathers all the rays:
To us He speaketh through the Son,
“Lo! I am with you all the days.”

Health, peace, and ample heritage,
Homes full of life, and life of bliss,
Long life with silver crowns of age,—
To us is promised none of this.

Yet we are richer far than they;
Their thousand were but stars at night,

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But “I am with you every day,”
Is Day itself, is life and light.

No promise what the days shall bring,—
Some must be dark with storm and haze,
To each its measured load will cling;
But “I am with you all the days.”

No promise what the days shall be;
They led Thee through no easy ways,
And our true path is following Thee;
But “Thou art with us all the days.”

Not “As thy day thy strength shall be,”—
Still deeper hopes to us belong;
We may be blind, but Thou canst see;
We may be weak, but Thou art strong!

To-day, to-morrow, on and on;
No day shall come and not bring Thee;
No night shall come and find Thee gone,—
Thou Who hast taught in Galilee;—

Thou Who hast healed in Galilee,
And prayed upon the lone hillside:

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Thou Who hast known Gethsemane,
And on the cross for us hast died;

Not only the life's History;
Thou Who hast lived it, even Thou!
Not only the great Memory;
The living Presence, here and now!

Not only rules, though of Thy choice,
Or principles, though all Divine;
The Master Hand, the living Voice;
Thyself: not only what is Thine!

With us, our Light, from morn to night;
With us, our Strength, from youth to age;
Oh, Just and True! oh, Love and Might!
Our Sovereign and our Heritage!

No cistern, emptied, late or soon;—
The fulness of the living Source!
No lighted lamp, no mirror moon;—
The Sun, the Fount of life and force!

With us at morning to inspire
Fresh work, with ever-freshened zest;

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At noon-tide, that we may not tire;
At evening, to restore and rest.

With us, our Master, to command,
Making it well worth while to live
With daily tasks fresh from Thy hand;—
With us our Saviour, to forgive!

Yes, all the days, and all the day,
To guide, restrain, correct, inspire;
Moulding our wills, Thy willing clay,
Kindling our hearts, Thy kindred fire.

Days of fulfilment; raising these
To types and seeds of higher things:
Dark days of loss; Thy touch but frees
The shattered seed to spread its wings.

The day when Thou Who hast the key
Openest to our beloved Thy door;—
They enter to Thy joy with Thee;
And we are left, bereft and poor,

Outside; yet still Thou hast the keys!
A living touch our spirit stays:

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Thou sufferest not the heart to freeze;
For “Thou art with us all the days.”

The day which like the rest begins,
With “Fear not; I am still with thee;”
And ends, beyond the clouds and sins,
With “Evermore His Face they see.”

With us through each bewildering maze,
Each step of the untrodden way;
With us all day, and all the days,
Till days and nights dawn to Thy Day!

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VEILED ANGELS.

Unnumbered blessings, rich and free,
Have come to us, our God, from Thee.

Some came with open faces bright
Aglow with heaven's own living light.

And some were veiled, trod soft and slow
And spoke in voices grave and low.

Veiled angels, pardon! if with fears
We met you first, and many tears.

We take you to our hearts no less;
We know ye come to teach and bless.

We know the Love from which ye come;
We trace you to our Father's Home.

We know how radiant and how kind
Your faces are, those veils behind.

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We know those veils, one happy day,
In earth, or heaven shall drop away;

And we shall see you as ye are,
And learn why thus ye sped from far.

But what the joy that day shall be
We know not yet; we wait to see.

For this, O angels, well we know,
The way ye came, our souls shall go;

Up to the Love from which ye come;
Back to our Father's blessed Home.

And bright each face unveiled shall shine,
Lord! when the veil is rent from Thine!

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THE CRUSE THAT FAILETH NOT.

“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Is thy cruse of comfort failing? haste its scanty drops to share,
And through all the years of famine, thou shalt still have drops to spare.

Love Divine will fill thy storehouse, or thy handful still renew;
Scanty fare for one will often make a royal feast for two!

For the heart grows rich in giving; all its wealth is living grain,
Seeds which mildew in the garner, scattered, fill with gold the plain.

Is thy burden hard and heavy? do thy steps drag wearily?
Help to bear thy brother's burden; God will bear both it and thee.

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Numb and weary on the mountains, wouldst thou sleep amidst the snow?
Chafe that frozen form beside thee, and, together, both shall glow.

Art thou stricken in life's battle? Many wounded round thee moan;
Lavish on their wounds thy balsams, and that balm shall heal thine own.

Is the heart a well left empty? None but God its void can fill;
Nothing but a ceaseless fountain can its ceaseless longings still.

Is the heart a living power? Self-entwined, its strength sinks low;
It can only live in loving, and by serving love will grow.

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GETHSEMANE.

“Now is my soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.”
“The Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world.”

Sin hardens, all the heart with ice encrusting,
And narrowing its current evermore;
Therefore, O Saviour, loving, pitying, trusting,
Thy heart no ice of sin had crusted o'er,

Was tenderer to feel each pang that tried Thee
Than any heart that ever broke or bled;
The timid love that followed yet denied Thee,
The selfish fear that kept far off, or fled.

But sin must ever weaken while it hardens,—
Enfeebling to endure, or act, or dare;
Till nothing save the balm of heavenly pardons
Can nerve the heart again to do or bear.

Then must Thy heart be stronger far to suffer
Than any sinful heart that ever beat;

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And if Thy path than any path be rougher,
Yet hast Thou tenfold strength its woes to meet.

What tide of grief, then, Mightiest! o'er Thee rushes,
Thus tasking all Thy patience and Thy trust?
What woe beyond all woe Thy spirit crushes,
Bowing Thee, sinless, spotless, to the dust?

Martyrs for Thee have gone to meet their anguish
Singing glad psalms still with their dying breath;
Not all their tortures causing once to languish
The hope that led them forth for Thee to death.

Thy Stephen's face shone like a happy angel's,
Uplifted, 'midst the stones, towards Thy skies,
Beaming from radiant brows Thine own evangels,
And glowing with the welcome in Thine eyes.

Yet Thou, Lord, liftest not Thy face to heaven,
But bowest prostrate on the dewy sod,
Thy soul exceeding sorrowful, death-riven,
Thy sweat of anguish as great drops of blood.

What storm is this in which Thou all but sinkest,
Whose arm has borne so many through the flood?

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What bitter cup is this from which Thou shrinkest,
Strength of all martyrs, patient Lamb of God?

The sin of all the world whose throne Thou claimest,
Hadst made so fair; so fallen, loved and sought:
The sin of all Thine own to whom Thou camest;
Thou camest and Thine own received Thee not.

The sin of all the saved, who dying blessed Thee,
Who from the sting of death hadst set them free;
The sin of all Thy martyrs who confessed Thee,
And died rejoicing that they went to Thee.

This is the weight of agony unspoken
Which Thee, O Highest, thus so low hath laid!
The curse of all the law mankind had broken,
The sin of all the world which Thou hadst made.

Earth's serried woes and crimes in one compressing
Thou buriest all within Thy single breast;
And changest thus our every curse to blessing,
Giving us life through death,—in labour Rest.

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LAST TOUCHES, LAST STEPS, LAST WORDS.

St. Luke xxiv. 39, 40.

Oh, torn and nailëd hands,
Yet by no nails held fast;
Only by force of dear, Divine commands,
And love, on to the last!

Oh, healing hands and strong,
By love and pain held fast!
Ere to this torture yielded up so long,
What was it they did last?

They took the festal cup,
Gave it to drink to all,
And with the wine of God they filled it up—
Drops from Thy heart that fall.

They took the Paschal bread,
But common bread before;

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And one High Feast for all the ages spread,
Which faileth never more.

They washed the way-worn feet,
(Master in ministry!)
Washed off the common dust of path and street
From feet which followed Thee!

They healed the wounded foe,
(One touch, as in the past,)
Healing the foe, though friends had struck the blow;
'Twas this those hands did last.

Oh, blessed feet, to tread
No more for us Earth's round!
What were the latest willing steps they sped
Ere piercëd thus, and bound?

Three times they went one way
In dark Gethsemane;
Thou badest Thy beloved watch and pray,—
Watch but one hour with Thee!

Three journeys, all in vain,
To see what watch they keep;

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Craving one touch of sympathetic pain,
And finding all asleep!

Oh, lips now parched and white
In death, what said they last?
Ere on them, through the tumult of that night,
Majestic silence passed.

For the disciples' sake,
What was the last they said?
“Let not your heart be troubled,” (Thine must break!)
“Nor let it be afraid.”

Shepherd! in mortal pain,
Still caring for the sheep!
We know no word nor touch of Thine were vain:
All in our depths sink deep.

E'er since that dread night's strain
Some fail not watch to keep;
Oh, come and see, and try us once again,
And find us not asleep!

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NOLI ME TANGERE.

“Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended.”

Not touch Thee! Are they over, then, for ever,
Those human ministries so sweet of old?
Further than starry distances can sever,
Severed by these Thy words, so starlike cold:
Thy “Touch Me not; I am not yet ascended.”

Once, owned and welcomed 'mid the scoffs and scorning,
The tears and kisses fell upon Thy feet;
Now, on Thy rapturous Resurrection morning,
May no adoring touch Thy triumph greet?
Nay, “Touch Me not; I am not yet ascended.”

Thy lips the old familiar name have spoken,
Are the old needs of earth for ever fled?
Is the last vase of alabaster broken?
Were the last balms outpoured upon Thee dead?
Yet “Touch Me not; I am not yet ascended.”

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Not touch Thee now, while earth may still detain Thee,
Thy feet still linger by the well-known ways?
How, when the heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee,
High o'er the narrow light of our dim days,
Still “Touch Me not; I am not yet ascended.”

Yet, on her heart that Easter joy first tasting,
Those grave words struck no discord of surprise;
Glad from Thy Presence on Thine errands hasting,
What strange sweet secret read she in Thine eyes,
Solving Thy “Touch Me not; not yet ascended.”

Ascended to My Father and your Father,
The highest heavens, the lowly heart to fill;
Earth's “Blest” transfiguring to Heaven's “Blest rather;”—
She touched Thee when she left to do Thy will:
We touch Thee ever; for Thou art ascended!

“My and your Father,” “brother, sister, mother,”
“Ye did it unto Me in these My least;”
Henceforth we touch Thee, serve Thee in each other,
Receive, adoring in each Eucharist:
We touch Thee ever; for Thou art ascended.

We touch Thee when the gospel of Thy pardons
Heals and revives the heart from sin to cease;

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Melting the doubt that chills, the fear that hardens,
In the great calm and sunshine of Thy peace:
We touch Thee ever; for Thou art ascended.

We touch Thee in each service we can render,
Feel in each sacrifice Thine “Unto Me;”
Thy heavens to us are no dim far-off splendour;
Thy heavens enfold us, centering in Thee,
Who fillest all, high over all ascended,

Embracing earth, because to Heaven ascended;
Death of our death, since we with Thee have died;
Life of our life, spirit with spirit blended,
Thy Spirit breathing ever through Thy Bride.
Thy works she works, because Thou art ascended,

Still stretching out, through Thee, pierced hands of healing,
Filled with the fulness of the Incarnate Son;
From age to age Thee through the Night revealing,
Until the Day reveals that we are one,
And from the heavens the spotless Bride descendeth.

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THE WINTER SOLSTICE.

(ST. THOMAS' DAY.)

The long descent is o'er,
The stair of light is won;
Earth sunward climbs once more,—
We turn to Thee, our Sun!

From downward steeps of doubt
Saints once in anguish trod,
Darkness within, without,
To Thee, our Lord, our God!

Earth's darkest day is o'er;
Love conquers on Thy Cross,
And there and evermore
Wins all by willing loss;

No honours owns, or craves,
Save scars of saving pain;

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Her crown the lives she saves,
To love and save again.

The victory is won;
Light has an open field,
And slowly, one by one,
The gates of hell shall yield.

Light in Thy light we see,
Self's shadow falls behind;
Turning from all to Thee,
All, all, with Thee we find.

Slow, slow, the upward way
Where step by step we press;
Yet longer grows each day,
And every night is less;

Till Eve embraces Morn,
Glowing from shore to shore,
And Day of Night is born,
And night shall be no more.

Slow, slow, the upward way,
Yet shall the heights be won;
For summer dawns the day
Earth turns towards the Sun.

“For what is our crown? Are not even ye?” —St. Paul to the Thessalonians.

229

HOLIEST NIGHT!

Holiest night! happiest night!
Midnight is bright as with noon-day light;
Angels find their heaven on earth,
Hailing with hymns the marvellous birth,
The Babe, the Redeemer is near.

Stormy night! perilous night!
Winds and waves with the frail bark fight;
Over the waves walks a human form,
Human accents arrest the storm—
The Saviour, the Master is here.

Radiant night! glorious night!
Shrined in the cloud on the mountain height,
His raiment as sunshine, his face as the sun,
Prophets adoring, and glory begun—
Jesus transfigured is here!

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Dreariest night! deadliest night!
Midnight falls on the noon-day light;
Night on the noon, and earthquake, and strife,
Death on the heart whence the worlds draw life—
Jesus in anguish is here!

Lingering night! vanishing night!
Watch and pray till the morn dawns bright;
Singing and shining, in vigil stand—
“The night is far spent, the day is at hand”—
Jesus the Day-star is near!

To the melody of a Tyrolese Christmas Hymn.

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MARRIAGE HYMN.

[_]

(For July 26, 1881.)

PRELUDE.

Thy types are no mere pictured forms;
The sun which witnesses of Thee,
A world itself, gives life and warms,
Is what it figures Thee to be;
No lifeless glass Thy mirrors are,—
The living stream, the luminous star.

Thou livest in Thy Sacraments,
And thus,—through them we live in Thee;
Each what it pictures still presents,
And this great marriage-mystery,
This sacred one of man and wife,
Brings Christ the Life into our life.

MARRIAGE HYMN.

From henceforth no more twain but one,
Yet ever one through being twain,

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As self is ever lost and won
Through love's own ceaseless loss and gain,—
And both their full perfection reach,
Each growing the true self through each.

Two in all worship glad and high,
All promises to praise and prayer,
“Where two are gathered, there am I.”
Gone half the weight from all ye bear,
Gained twice the force for all ye do,
The sacred, ceaseless Church of two.

One in all lowly ministry,
One in all priestly sacrifice,
Through love which makes all service free,
And finds or makes all gifts of price;
All love that made life rich before,
Through this great central love grown more.

And so together journeying on
To the Great Bridal of the Christ,
When all the life His love has won
To perfect Love is sacrificed,
And the New Song, beyond the sun,
Peals “Henceforth no more Twain but One.”

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And in that perfect Marriage-day
All earth's lost love shall live once more,
All lack and loss shall pass away,
And all find all not found before,—
Till all the worlds shall live and glow
In that great Love's great overflow.

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ON A BAPTISM.

“The waves of this troublesome world.”

Near the shore the bark lay floating, by the sunny waves caressed,
With the darling we were watching cradled in a dreamy rest.

But, borne o'er that heaving ocean, wilder sounds our gladness check,
Stormy winds and human wailings; ah! that sea bears many a wreck.

Fear not! hopes no strength could warrant to the feeblest faith are given;
Looking forward strains the eyesight; looking upward opens heaven.

Deeper than that Ocean's tempests, softer than its murmurs be,
Breathes a Voice, a Voice thou knowest,—“Trust thy little one to Me.”

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Thou hast brought thy babe to Jesus; He hath seen her, He hath blest;
In His arms thy faith hath laid her, and He bears her on His breast.

Gently on thy sleeping darling, eyes, the light of heaven, shine;
Mother, by the love thou knowest, measure His,—it passeth thine!

236

ORDINATION OF PRIESTS.

“Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister.” “A royal priesthood.”

Whose are the Hands in consecration laid
To-day, upon each bowed and reverent brow?
They are the Father's Hands. The Hands that made
Are consecrating evermore and now.
Ever life-giving as they consecrate,
He only consecrates Who can create.

The Saviour's Hands, which seal and which reveal,
Which healed the leper, woke blind eyes to sight;
Touches which ever, as they hallow, heal;—
The Hands which washed the faithful feet that night,

237

And then hung pierced and helpless on the Cross,
And pierced and helpless saved the world from loss.

Those Hands which measuring still by love's own price,
Lead, as He went, through service to the Cross;
Sweet service first, then costly sacrifice;
First gifts, then burdens which may seem but loss.
Love but to deeper love can consecrate;
The Priesthood follows the Diaconate.

Whose are the Holy Hands that consecrate?
The Hands which shall receive the soul at last,
Mighty to save, patient to train and wait,
Tender to welcome, when the Floods are past,
And stretched across the waters, through the dark
They fold the weary dove within the Ark.

St. Paul's Cathedral, Trinity Sunday, 1880.

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THE GOSPEL IN THE EUCHARIST.

No Gospel like this Feast
Spread for Thy Church by Thee;
Nor prophet nor evangelist
Preach the glad news so free.

Picture and Parable!
All Truth and Love Divine,
In one bright point made visible,
Hence on the heart they shine.

All our Redemption cost,
All our Redemption won;
All it has won for us, the lost,
All it cost Thee, the Son.

Thine was the bitter price,—
Ours is the free gift given;
Thine was the blood of sacrifice,—
Ours is the wine of heaven.

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For Thee the burning thirst,
The shame, the mortal strife,
The broken heart, the side transpierced;—
To us the Bread of Life.

To Thee our curse and doom,
Wrapped round Thee with our sin,
The horror of that midday gloom,
The deeper night within;—

To us Thy Home in light,
Thy “Come, ye blessed, come!”
Thy bridal raiment, pure and white,
Thy Father's welcome home.

Here we would rest midway,
As on a sacred height,
That darkest and that brightest Day
Meeting before our sight;

From that dark depth of woes
Thy love for us hath trod,
Up to the heights of bless'd repose
Thy love prepares with God;

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Till, from self's chains released,
One sight alone we see,
Still at the Cross as at the Feast,
Behold Thee, only Thee!

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AROUND A TABLE, NOT A TOMB.

Around a Table, not a Tomb,
He willed our gathering-place to be;
When, going to prepare our home,
Our Saviour said, “Remember Me.”

We kneel around no sculptured stone,
Marking the place where Jesus lay;—
Empty the tomb, the angels gone,
The stone for ever rolled away.

Nay! sculptured stones are for the dead!
Thy three dark days of death are o'er;
Thou art the Life, our living Head,
Our living Light for evermore!

Of no fond relics, sadly dear,
Oh, Master! are Thine own possest;
The crown of thorns, the cross, the spear,
The purple robe, the seamless vest.

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Nay! relics are for those who mourn
The memory of an absent friend;
Not absent Thou, nor we forlorn!—
“With you each day until the end!”

Thus round Thy Table, not Thy Tomb,
We keep Thy sacred Feast with Thee;
Until within the Father's Home
Our endless gathering-place shall be.

October 1862.

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NEVER FURTHER THAN THY CROSS.

Never further than Thy Cross!
Never higher than Thy feet!
Here earth's precious things grow dross;
Here earth's bitter things grow sweet.

Gazing thus, our sin we see;
Learn Thy love while gazing thus!
Sin which laid the Cross on Thee,
Love which bore the Cross for us.

Here we learn to serve and give,
And rejoicing self deny;
Here we gather love to live,
Here we gather faith to die.

Symbols of our liberty
And our service here unite;

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Captives by Thy Cross set free,
Soldiers of Thy Cross we fight.

Pressing onward as we can,
Still to this our hearts shall tend;
Where our earliest hopes began,
There our last aspirings end;

Till amidst the hosts of light,
We, in Thee redeemed, complete,
Through Thy Cross made pure and white,
Cast our crowns before Thy feet.

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THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

Thou art the Way!
All ways are thorny mazes without Thee;
Where hearts are pierced, and thoughts all aimless stray:
In Thee the heart stands firm, the life moves free;
Thou art our Way.

Thou art the Truth!
Questions the ages break against in vain
Confront the spirit in its untried youth;
It starves, while sifting poison from the grain:
Thou art the Truth!

Thou art the Light!
Earth beyond earth no faintest ray can give;
Heaven's shadeless noontide blinds our mortal sight;
In Thee we look on God, and love, and live:
Thou art our Light!

246

Thou art the Rock!
Doubts none can solve heave wild on every side,
Wave meeting wave of thought in ceaseless shock;
On Thee the soul rests calm amidst the tide:
Thou art our Rock!

Thou art the Life!
All ways without Thee paths that end in death;
All life without Thee with death's harvest rife;
All truths dry bones, disjoined, and void of breath:
Thou art our Life!

For Thou art Love!
Our Way and End! the way is rest with Thee!
O living Truth, the truth is life in Thee!
O Life essential, life is bliss with Thee!
For Thou art Love!

247

THE FOLD AND THE PALACE.

THE FOLD.

There is a fold, once dearly bought,
But opened now to all,
Reaching from regions high as thought,
Low as our race can fall:

Far up among the sunny hills,
Where breaks the earliest day;
Down where the deepest shadow chills
The wanderer's downward way.

There some have seen a Shepherd stand,
Who guards it day and night;
Mightier than all, His gentle hand,
His eyes the source of light.

I know, the feeblest that have e'er
Entered those precincts blest

248

Find everlasting safety there,
Freedom and life and rest.

But I have wandered far astray,
Blinded and wearied sore;
How can I find the plainest way,
Or reach the nearest door?

The silence with a voice is fraught—
When did I hear that tone?—
Awful as thunder, soft as thought,
Familiar as mine own.

“I am the Door,” those words begin;
I press towards that voice,
And, ere I know it, am within,
And all within rejoice.

THE PALACE.

There is a Palace vast and bright;
Athwart the night's cold gloom
Stream its soft music and warm light,—
A Palace, yet a Home.

249

The guests who are invited there
Are called therein to dwell;—
“Laden with sin, oppressed with care,”
The calling suits me well.

They say none ever knocked in vain,
Yet I have often tried,
And scarce have strength to try again,
Will one, then, be denied?

Again that voice my spirit thrills,
So strange, yet so well known;
Divine, as when it rent the hills,
Yet human as my own.

The golden portals softly melt,
Like clouds around the sun,
And where they stood, and where I knelt,
Behold that matchless One!

He pleads for me, He pleads with me,
He hears ere I can call;
Jesus! my first step is to Thee,
And Thy first gift is all!

250

ONCE AND FOR EVER.

Jesus! what once Thou wast,
For evermore Thou art:
Each moment of the sacred past
Lives in the sacred Heart.

Thy “yesterday” on earth,
And Thy “to-day” above,
Thy Godhead, manhood, death, and birth,
One through eternal love.

Babe that a mother bore,
Child on the mother's knee;
Child for the children evermore,
Only the childlike see.

The Lamb of God below,
Mute 'neath the mortal pain,
Still on the throne the Lamb we know,
Still “as it had been slain.”

251

Nailed to the cross of old,
We still Thy wounds may greet;
Hear Thy “Come hither, and behold”
The piercëd hands and feet.

Yes, all Thou ever wast,
For evermore Thou art:
Each moment of the living past
Lives in the loving Heart.

252

FIRST AND LAST.

Thy “little lamb” once more,
My Lord, my Life, my Rest!
Borne in Thine arms the wide world o'er—
A lamb upon Thy breast.

Thy sheep across the waste
Were wandering far and wide,
And after them my heart would haste,
To bring them to Thy side.

Thy lambs were weak and faint;
I could but give my best:
Feebly I sought to still the plaint,
And bear them on my breast.

Great Shepherd of the sheep!
The sheep are Thine, not mine:

253

Thou Thy great flock wilt surely keep,
And each one lamb of Thine.

Ever the wide waste o'er,
A lamb upon Thy breast;
Thy lost Thou seekest evermore:
I seek, with Thee, and rest.

A lamb upon Thy breast,
Still learning what Thou art—
Our Lord, our Life, our Strength, our Rest!—
Borne on Thy changeless Heart.

Thy “little lamb” once more,
My Lord, my Life, my Rest!
Borne in Thine arms the dark flood o'er—
A lamb upon Thy breast!

254

REST FOR THE HEAVY-LADEN.

“Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” —St. Matt. xi. 28.

Silence in heaven and earth!
The hush of love or fear!
His voice the Highest sendeth forth,
The still small voice is here.
The world's hoarse murmurs under,
Its loudest din above,
It speaketh not in thunder,
But in words, and the tone is love.
It calls, and a gift it offers;
To whom are those words addressed?
“Come, ye that are heavy-laden,
And I will give you rest.”

Ye that have toiled in vain
Till strength and hope have fled,
And lavished the years that come not again
For that which is not bread;

255

Ye who are toiling now,
Weary in heart and limb,
With a strength each day more low,
And a hope each day more dim;
Weary in soul and spirit,
Toiling with hearts oppressed;
“Come to Me all that labour,
And I will give you rest.”

Is guilt unpardoned there
With heavy hand and strong,
The weight in the air of measureless fear,
Or of hope deferrëd long?
The sorrow which freezeth tears
With the force of a sudden blow,
The long, dull pressure of weary years
Bowing you silently low?
Many the burdens and hard
Wherewith the heart is pressed:
“Come all that are heavy-laden,
And I will give you rest.”

The world has many a promise
To beguile the blithe and young;
But to you the world is honest,
It has ceased to promise, long.

256

Wealth, pleasures, fame, successes,
The world has store of these,—
For you it no cure professes,
It offers you no ease.
But Christ has an arm almighty
And a balm for the faintest breast:
“Come, ye that are heavy-laden,
And I will give you rest.”

Would ye fain among the sleepers,
In dust your tired heads bow?
The rest He gives is deeper,
And He will give it now.
No dull oblivious pain
In the lull of pain repressed,
But all your hearts to steep
In perfect and conscious rest,—
Rest that shall make you strong
To serve among the blest:
“Come, all that are heavy-laden,
And I will give you rest.”

The rest of a happy child
Led by the Father on,
Feeling His smile, and reconciled
To all that He has done;

257

Of one who can meekly bend
'Neath the yoke of the Lord who died;
Of a soldier who knows how the fight will end
With a Leader true and tried;
The rest of a subject heart,
Of its best desires possessed:
“Come, ye that are heavy-laden,
And I will give you rest.”

Rest from sin's crushing debt
In the blood which Christ has shed;
From the pang of vain regret
In the thought that He has led.
Rest in His perfect love,
Rest in His tender care;
Rest in His presence for you above,
In His presence with you here.
Rest in Him, slain and risen,
The Lamb, and the Royal Priest:
“Come all that are heavy-laden,
And I will give you rest.”

258

“HITHER TO ME!”

O King of men, when thousands thronging,
Gathered to Thee;
The thousand streams in one stream meeting—
The thousand hearts with one throb beating,
Hanging on Thee, hanging on Thee;

No pomp of state that crowd repelling,
All pressed to Thee!
Thou royally the throng addressing,
Divinely calledst each to blessing,
“Hither to Me! hither to Me!

“With labour worn and heavy laden,
Hither to Me!
The hardest yoke is easy near Me,
With Me is rest for all the weary,
Hither to Me! hither to Me!”

259

Royal command and God-like promise—
“Hither to Me!”
O words whose links death cannot sever!
O balm for all life's ills for ever!—
“Hither to Me! hither to Me!”

Through nights of sorrow falling softly—
“Hither to Me!”
Earth's thousand noises piercing keenly,
O'er wildest storms they float serenely—
“Hither to Me! hither to Me!”

We hear them still, we hear them ever—
“Hither to Me!”
We hear them daily clearer, dearer,
Drawing us ever higher, nearer—
“Hither to Me! hither to Me!”

March 1863.

To a Melody of Mendelssohn's.

Luke xix. 48, v. margin.

260

THE TWO ACCUSATIONS.

Across stands black against the last pale glow
Of that dread day that twice was veiled in night;
The form that quivered there when noon was high
Rests low amidst the shrouds and spices now,
And reverent hands have wiped the thorn-crowned brow.
But where it bowed at noon, death-dewed and white,
The Roman's accusation meets my sight,
Earth's homage rendered in her own despite,
Proclaiming in three tongues thy Right Divine!

Yet as I gaze my heart discovers there
Another accusation black and clear;
These were the crimes that slew Thee!—They are mine!
But it is torn, and stained with sacred blood;
No more a sentence, but a pardon sealed by God.

July 1862.

261

THE TWO REPROACHES.

Thy voice made rocks Thy fountains; ocean waves
A wall around Thy chosen; desert caves
Their temples; flames their car of victory.
Thy touch made lepers pure as infancy.
Thy word lulls storms to sleep, like babes at play;
Or, as they rage, bids them white chrisoms lay
For flowers. Thy smile makes tears of sinful men
The joy of angels. Shall we wonder, then,
That blinded hate, and envy masked in scorn,
Twining for Thee the crown of sharpest thorn,
But wove a wreath of glory for Thy brow?
And broken hearts, which sins and sorrows bow,
Scanning through all the heaven of Thy Word
Some special guiding-star of hope to see;
And angels, searching tributes for their Lord,
Finding these words of those that hated Thee,
“This Man receiveth sinners,” and again
(Written in blood earth's darkest record o'er),
“He savëd others,” pause and search no more;—
Both finding all they sought, gaze and adore.

262

“HE SAVED OTHERS.”

When scorn, and hate, and bitter envious pride
Hurled all their darts against the Crucified,
Found they no fault but this in Him so tried?
“He saved others!”

Those hands, thousands their healing touches knew;
On withered limbs they fell like heavenly dew;
The dead have felt them, and have lived anew:
“He saved others.”

The blood is dropping slowly from them now;
Thou canst not raise them to Thy thorn-crown'd brow,
Nor on them Thy parched lips and forehead bow:
“He saved others!”

That Voice from out their graves the dead hath stirred;
Crushed, outcast hearts, grew joyful as they heard;
For every woe it had a healing word:
“He saved others!”

263

For all Thou hadst deep tones of sympathy—
Hast Thou no word for this Thine agony?
Thou pitiedst all; doth no man pity Thee?
“He saved others!”

So many fettered hearts Thy touch hath freed,
Physician! and Thy wounds unstanched must bleed;
Hast Thou no balm for this Thy sorest need?
“He saved others!”

Lord! and one sign from Thee could rend the sky,
One word from Thee, and low those mockers lie;
Thou mak'st no movement, utterest no cry,
And savest us.

264

HAGAR'S WELL.

“And God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”

Wronged Hagar, on the desert sands low lying,
Broken at last the spirit once so high,
From thine own child in maddening anguish flying;
Thy only prayer, “Let me not see him die!”

Once, weeping by the desert well, the angel
Came, and such joyful promise brought to thee,
Thy lips new named it, thenceforth, an Evangel,
“The well of Him who lives and seeth me.”

Did anything of that glad promise fail thee?
Thirsting, ay dying! still the son is there!
And hark! by name, once more, from heav'n they hail thee,
Calling thee back, through duty, from despair.

265

Back to thy child the loving angel sends thee:
“Lift up the lad and hold him in thy hand.
What ails thee? God hath heard.” All heaven befriends thee,
Folding love's promise in love's sweet command.

Slave and forsaken! of their Heavenly City,
The angels (always serving) make thee free;
They see, (or how could Heaven bear the pity?)
They know, they see the Fountain hid from thee.

Yet not the angels can reveal the fountains,
However close beside our paths they be;
Wells in all deserts, springs upon all mountains,
But only God can open eyes to see.

Oh, lonely heart, with helpless anguish bursting,
The water in the cup man filled “all spent;”
The well is there, the well for which we're thirsting,
For every need some well, foreseen, and meant.

Oh, blinded heart, in lonely anguish bursting,
The well is there, the child is by its brink;
We find the well in lifting up the thirsting,
Our thirst is quenched in giving them to drink.

266

For no new wells we ask, no new revealing:
The well is there (for all, for thee, for me);
Only, O God, Thy touch our eyes unsealing,
The old wells, day by day, afresh to see!

Wells in all deserts, springs on every mountain,
Our deepest thirst is still for Thee, for Thee!
Light of all eyes, and Fount of all our fountains,
Open our eyes, each day, Thyself to see!

St. Michael and All Angels', 1885.

267

MARAH AND ELIM.

Three long days of desert sunshine, toiling 'neath those scorching beams;
Three long nights of heavy silence, gladdened by no sound of streams.

Hear the waters now around us! see them sparkling in the sun!
Surely now our trial ceaseth! surely now our goal is won!

Lips long parched and sealed in silence press the joyous waves to kiss;
Eyes whose tears were dried by anguish overflow with tears of bliss.

Toil-worn men, themselves untasting, lift to dearer lips the prize,
Drinking draughts of deeper pleasure from the smile of grateful eyes.

268

But a moment! but a moment may the rapturous dream remain;
But a moment! from the nation bursts a sob of wildest pain.

Children dash the bitter waters from them with a moaning cry;
Mothers by the mocking fountains lay their little ones to die.

Hearts which bore the trial bravely with this shattered hope have burst;
Streams for which we prayed and waited, bitter streams, but mock our thirst.

Was it but for this the ocean, parting, bent our feet to kiss,
Fiercely then our foes o'erwhelming? Were our first-born spared for this?

Better to be slaves in Egypt! better to have perished there!
Better ne'er a hope have tasted than to sink in this despair!

269

Israel! Israel! hush thy murmurs, hide thy guilty head in dust!
He Who is the joy of heaven feeleth grief in thy distrust.

Gently to thy wails He answers, “I am He that healeth thee;”
E'en to-day the streams thou loathest shall thy best refreshment be.

And to-morrow, but to-morrow, He thy sins so often grieve,
Trains thee for, and storeth for thee, joys thy heart can scarce conceive.

Coolest waters leaping, gushing, 'neath the shade of many a palm!
Let no memory of murmurs mar for thee that blessed calm.

So thy Marah shall be Elim, and thy Elim know no fears;
For the fount of deepest gladness springeth near the place of tears.

270

MY STRENGTH AND MY HEART FAILETH.

In weakness at Thy feet I lie,
Thine eye each pang hath seen;
Scarce can I lift my heart on high,
Yet, Lord, on Thee I lean;

Lean on Thy sure, unfailing word,
Thy gentle, “It is I:”
For Thou, my ever-living Lord,
Knowest what it is to die.

Thou wilt be with me where I go,—
Thy life my life in death;
For in the lowest depths, I know
Thine arms are underneath.

'Tis not the infant's feeble grasp
Which holds the mother fast;
It is the mother's gentle clasp
Around her darling cast.

271

Just so Thy child would cling to Thee,
Knowing Thy pity, long;
For feeble as my faith may be,
The hand I clasp is strong.

272

“COME AND SEE.”

“Rabbi, where dwellest thou? Come and see.”

Master! where abidest Thou?
Lamb of God, 'tis Thee we seek;
For the wants which press us now
Other aid is all too weak.
Canst Thou take our sins away?
May we find repose in Thee?
From the gracious lips to-day
As of old, breathes “Come and see.”

Master! where abidest Thou?
We would leave the past behind;
We would scale the mountain's brow,
Learning more Thy heavenly mind.
Still, a look is all our lore,
The transforming look to Thee;
From the Living Truth once more
Breathes the answer, “Come and see.”

273

Master! where abidest Thou?
How shall we Thine image best
Stamp in light upon our brow,
Bear in love upon our breast?
Still a look is all our might;
Looking draws the heart to Thee,
Sends us from the absorbing sight
With the message, “Come and see.”

Master! where abidest Thou?
All the springs of life are low;
Sin and grief our spirits bow,
And we wait Thy call to go.
From the depths of happy rest
Where the just abide with Thee,
From the Voice which makes them blest
Falls the summons, “Come and see.”

Christian! tell it to thy brother
From life's dawning to its end;
Every hand may clasp another,
And the loneliest find a friend;
Till the veil is drawn aside,
And from where her home shall be
Bursts upon the enfranchised Bride
The triumphant “Come and see.”

274

“IT IS I; BE NOT AFRAID.”

Tossed with rough winds, and faint with fear,
Above the tempest, soft and clear
What still small accents greet mine ear?—
'Tis I; be not afraid.

'Tis I, who washed thy spirit white;
'Tis I, who gave thy blind eyes sight;
'Tis I, thy Lord, thy Life, thy Light;
'Tis I; be not afraid.

These raging winds, this surging sea,
Have spent their deadly force on Me;
They bear no breath of wrath to thee;
'Tis I; be not afraid.

This bitter cup, I drank it first;
To thee it is no draught accurst,
The hand that gives it thee is pierced;
'Tis I; be not afraid.

275

Mine eyes are watching by thy bed,
Mine arms are underneath thee spread,
My blessing is around thee shed;
'Tis I; be not afraid.

When on the other side thy feet
Shall rest, 'mid thousand welcomes sweet,
One well-known Voice thy heart shall greet;
'Tis I; be not afraid.

276

EUREKA.

Come and rejoice with me!
For once my heart was poor,
And I have found a treasury
Of love, a boundless store.

Come and rejoice with me!
I was so sick at heart,
Have met with One Who knows my case,
And knows the healing art.

Come and rejoice with me!
For I was wearied sore,
And I have found a mighty arm
Which holds me evermore.

Come and rejoice with me!
My feet so wide did roam,
And One has sought me from afar,
And beareth me safe home.

277

Come and rejoice with me!
For I have found a Friend
Who knows my heart's most secret depths,
Yet loves me without end.

I knew not of His love,
And He had loved so long,
With love so faithful and so deep,
So tender and so strong.

And now I know it all,
Have heard and known His Voice,
And hear it still from day to day,—
Can I enough rejoice?

278

“SUMMER IN THE SOUL.”

Autumn was on the earth
When Summer came to me,
The “Summer in the soul,”
And set the life-springs free.

Darkness was on my life,
A heavy weight of night,
When the Sun arose within,
And filled my heart with light.

Ice lay upon my heart,
Ice-fetters still and strong,
When the living spring gushed forth,
And filled my soul with song.

That Summer shall not fade,
That Sun, it setteth never;
The Fountain in my heart
Springs full and fresh for ever.

279

Since I have learned Thy love,
My Summer, Lord, Thou art;
Summer to me, and Day,
And life-springs in my heart.

Since I have learned Thou Art,
Thou livest, and art Love,
Art Love, and lovest me,—
Fearless I look above!

Thy blood can cleanse from sin,
Thy love casts out my fear;
Heaven is no longer far,
Since Thou, its Sun, art near.

280

NEW YEAR'S HYMN.

What marks the dawning of the year
From any other morn?
No festal garb doth Nature wear
Because a Year is born.

The sky is not more full of light,
The air more full of song,
And silent from the caves of night
Glide the gray hours along.

And I, to whose awakened eyes
So fair this morn appears,—
How know I where to-morrow lies?
God grants not life by years.

Father! to-day upon my head
Thy hand in blessing lay;
Give us this day our daily bread,
Renew our hearts to-day.

281

Our Lord and Saviour! all we ask
Is that, through Thee, forgiven,
To us each day our daily task,
Our daily strength be given:

That when at last Thy morning, come,
Floods its full light abroad,
We, glad within Thy heavenly home,
May keep the Day of God.

282

SUNDAY EVENING HYMN.

Another day of heavenly rest
And angels' work is ended,
And to the chorus of the Blest
The last hymn has ascended.
Tranquil as an infant's sleep
Shadows eve the meadow;
Let Thy peace with calm as deep
The wearied spirit shadow.

As of old the Apostle Band
All their labours bore Thee,
Lowly at Thy feet we stand,
Lay our work before Thee.
Pardon Thou the imperfect deed,
Crown the weak endeavour;
Prosper Thou the heavenly seed,
Work Thou with us ever.

283

Thou know'st how sin and error e'er
In all our efforts mingle;
How seldom mortal eye is clear,
Or human purpose single.
Let Thy blood, O dying Lord,
Blot out all our evil;
Let Thy touch, O Living Word,
All our errors shrivel.

Let Thy lambs we sought to feed
By Thy hand be nourished;
Let them be Thy lambs indeed,
In thy bosom cherished.
To the griefs we cannot reach
Breathe Thou consolation;
To the hearts we cannot teach
Bring Thou Thy salvation.

May the tone of this day's prayers
Vibrate through the seven,—
Sabbaths, work-days, pleasures, tears,
Mould us, all, for heaven.
That taking thus each joy and woe
As Thy gifts parental,
To us life's daily bread may grow
Viands sacramental.

To a German melody.

284

EARLY RISING HYMN.

Wake! the costly hours are fleeting;
Wake, arise!
Wake, and let thy joyous greeting
Pierce the skies!
God to thee an angel sendeth,
From the azure heavens descendeth
Fresh as May
The new-born Day.

On her head a crown she weareth,
With blessings rife;
In her hand a cup she beareth,
A cup of life.
Every drop of its full measure
Is a pearl of heavenly treasure:
Haste; arise!
Claim the prize!

285

Let some drops in free libation
First be poured,
Poured in lowly adoration
To thy Lord!
To Him who bore such anguish for thee,
Him who, risen, watcheth o'er thee,
Wake and raise
Songs of praise!

Where the watch thou should'st be keeping?
Child of Day,
Saints are weeping, sinners sleeping,
Rise and pray!
Think what Night is deepening o'er thee,
Think what Morning lies before thee,
Child of Day,
Rise and pray!

Saviour, rouse me, nerve me, bless me
With strength divine;
Wholly let Thy love possess me,—
Me and mine.
Let each moment soar above
Laden with some work of love,
Till we rise
To Thy skies.

286

That, thus knit in blessed union,
Lord, to Thee!
Every act may be communion,
Lord, with Thee!
And Thy presence ever near us
May o'er each temptation cheer us
Thus to rise—
Thus to rise!

287

The Three Wakings, And Other Early Songs.

289

“THE THREE WAKINGS.”
[_]

Among the ancient Laplanders magic was an hereditary art. There were, however, some magicians of a higher character, to whom, in three supernatural sicknesses or trances—one in childhood, one in youth, and one in manhood—the spirits themselves taught the secrets of the invisible world. These were honoured by the whole nation as seers. —Mone Geschichte des Heidenthums.

Argument.

—The poet-child plays on the margin of the river of Life. There the First Trance overpowers him. He awakens from it to the wonderful beauty of the universe. The magic boat bears him away from the broad stream of life to the regions of fancy. There the Second Trance overshadows him. In it he is aroused to the sense of duty and the necessity of work. He girds himself for the strife. In the flush of the triumph which succeeds it, he is overcome by the Third Trance. In it are revealed to him the grace of God, redemption, and the free service of love.

I.

Beside the ancient river
The infant poet played;
The grave old rocks above him
Laughed at the mirth he made.

The boat that bore him thither
Lay idle on the shore,

290

His pearly boat that fast could float
Without or sail or oar.

The fresh young leaves on the hoar old trees
Quivered and fluttered in glee,
And the merry rills from the mighty hills
Shouted as loud as he.

The birds poured joyous welcomes,
For they deemed him one of them;
And the snowdrop laughed in her quiet joy,
Till she shook on her delicate stem.

Broad is that ancient river,
And its depths no sailor knows;
It comes from a place no foot can trace,
'Mid the clouds and the ancient snows;

And on its breast is bounding
Many a gallant bark;—
(Do they know that at last o'er a chasm vast
It leaps into the dark?)

But to the child its waters
Were his playmates glad and sweet,

291

Chasing each other merrily
To bathe his snowy feet;

The starry hosts above him
Were the flowers of the sky,—
Too high, perhaps, to gather,
But too beautiful to die;

The world with all its wonders,
Its heavens and its sea,
Was his play-room, full of play-mates,
Each one as glad as he.

But as he laughed and gambolled
Strange languor o'er him stole;
His eyes grew dim, and faint each limb,
And dark the sunny soul,

Till the green earth in pity
Folded him to her breast,
And birds and waves and breezes
Lulled him to quiet rest.

292

II.

Sweet Spring the earth was treading
When he broke that magic trance,
Rose from the ground, and gazed around
With a new and rapturous glance.

Had the bright earth and heavens
Expanded as he slept,
That such a tide of light and joy
Around his senses swept?

Not a leaf nor a wing could quiver—
Not a breeze the waters moved,
But it thrilled through sense and spirit,
Like the voice of one beloved.

The sun in his robes of glory
From his depths of light on high—
Each lowly flower from its dewy bower,—
Beamed like a loving eye.

He sate at the feet of Nature
In love and wonder meek;

293

Had he then learned to listen,
Or had she learned to speak?

The world was a royal palace,
And no stranger guest was he:
As the silvery fish in the silvery brook
Leaps in its wanton glee,

As the lark in the air and sunshine
When the early mists are curled,—
His spirit bathed and revelled
In the beauty of the world.

He sought not his joy to utter
He was content to see;
It was enough to listen—
It was enough to be!

He had rejoiced for ever
In this Eden to abide,
But the pearly boat began to float
Languidly down the tide.

It left the ancient river
Where the great navies lay,

294

And glided up a quiet stream
From the din and strife away.

The waves its prow disparted
Made music as it went,
Like lyres and lutes and silvery flutes,
In sweet confusion blent;

Till they came through a rocky portal
Roofed with many a gem,
(But one of the countless number
Had graced a diadem);

Into a world of wonders,
Where reigned nor sun nor moon,
But a magic light as still as night,
And warm as the softest noon.

Onward and onward gliding
By those shores of wondrous things,
'Mid the murmur of dreamy voices,
And the waving of viewless wings;

Beneath Aladdin's palace,
Where the gems lay thick as flowers,

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And the languid day trickled away
Like the fountain 'midst leafy bowers;

Amidst the tangled woodland,
Where, in the chequered glade,
With wild but tuneful laughter,
The fairy people played;

Beneath the cliffs he glided,
And the unclouded sky,
Where the stately Attic temple
Reared its white shafts on high;

And kingly men and women,
The brave and wise and strong,
Earth's loftiest and sweetest souls,
Lived and made life a song;

Beneath the Northern forest,
Where the thunderbolts were made,
And spirits and gods and mighty men
Met in the mystic shade.

And the hero and the poet
Smiled brotherly on him;

296

But again that languid slumber
Crept over soul and limb.

The weight of a first sorrow
Lay heavy on his breath,
And the fair world was shadowed o'er
With a darkness as of death;

And he longed for familiar voices
And the light of the common day,
And the common air on his fevered brow,
And the fields of his childish play;

Till by a lonely islet
The vessel moored at last,
And he stept on the bank, and languidly sank
'Mid the graves of the great that were past.

III.

He woke. The world of faëry,
With its soft and gorgeous light,

297

Was dissolved and gone, and he lay alone,
Beneath the solemn night;

Beneath the hosts of heaven
In their grand reality;
'Mid the shadowy glooms of many tombs,
On the shores of a heaving sea.

A suit of polished armour
Lay glittering by his side;
Breastplate and casque and girdle,
And a sword of temper tried.

Furrows of inward conflict
On his brow were dented deep;
And he woke to a steadfast purpose
From the night of that awful sleep;

For a strange and solemn Visitant
Beside his couch had been,
Clad in the old prophetic garb
And stern with the prophet's mien.

“What dost thou here?” she murmured;
“What is outshines what seems;

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Earth has no room for idlers;
Life has no time for dreams.

“Seest thou nought of suffering?
Knowest thou nought of sin?
Hast thou not heard the groans without,
Or felt the sting within?

“Thy brethren die in prisons,—
Thy brethren toil in chains;
The body is racked by hunger,
And the heart has sharper pains.

“Gray heads 'neath the weight of labour
Are sinking into the grave;
And tender hearts are growing hard
For the want of a hand to save.

“Thousands of men, thy brethren,
Are perishing around;
And thou pourest out thy cup of life
Upon the barren ground.

“Rise, gird thee for true labour;
Rise, arm thee for the fight;

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Go forth to earth's old battle-field;
Strike boldly for the right!

“Rise, cast thy dreamings from thee;
Rise, clothed with vigour new:
This fallen earth is no place for mirth;
Arise, go forth and do!”

A thrill of fervent purpose
Through all his nature ran,
And from that sleep of visions deep
The Boy awoke a Man.

He trod with a steadfast aspect
Through beauty and weal and ill,
And his eyes were lit, and his frame was knit
By the strength of a fixëd will.

And the sun to his strong purpose
Was but the lamp of life;
The abounding earth, in her beauty and mirth,
But the field of the mortal strife.

Where the nations lay cold and torpid,
'Neath ages of wrong and shame,

300

With the patience of love the poet toiled
Till life to the stiff limbs came.

In the thick of the ancient battle,
Where the strong bear down the weak,
With the flaming swords of living words,
He fought for the poor and meek.

Wherever were wrongs to be righted,
Or sick to be soothed and upheld;
Or a generous deed lay hidden,
Or a generous purpose quelled;

Or a noble heart lay sinking,
For the want of a cheering word;—
The music of his earnest voice
Above the din was heard;

Till the sneer of scorn was silenced,
And the tongue of envy hushed,
And a tumult of wild, exulting praise
Throughout the nations rushed.

And they hailed him King and Hero,
And hasted his steps to greet;

301

And they crowned him with a golden crown,
And bowed beneath his feet.

But yet once more the shadow
Over his soul was thrown,
And he on the height of his human might
Lay desolate and lone;

Till, in his helpless anguish,
His spirit turned on high,
And he called on the God of his childhood
With a loud and bitter cry:

“O God, they call me Hero,
And bow the reverent knee;
But I am not God, nor a godlike man,
That thus they kneel to me.

“They call me Lord and Master;
They call me just and good;
And I cannot stay my failing breath,
Nor do the things I would.

“They cry on me for succour,
But in me is no might to save;

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They hail me as one immortal,
And I sink into the grave.

“Thou—only Thou—art Holy;
With Thee, with Thee, is might;
O stay me with Thy love and strength,
O clothe me with Thy light!”

IV.

It was no spell of slumber
Which came upon him then,
No fitful gleams of a land of dreams
Which burst on his dazzled ken;

But he stood upon the borders
Of the land which we see afar,
Where earth's firmest ground dissolves away,
And men see things as they are.

He saw a young child standing
In a famine-stricken land,

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Intrusted with a bounteous store,
The gifts of a gracious hand.

He saw it scatter its treasures
In idle and thankless waste;
And when from its idlesse startled,
It gave away the rest,

And the grateful people hastened
To garland its guilty head,—
It took the homage as its due,
Then cried like the rest for bread.

And stung with shame and anguish,
He cried, “It is I; it is I;
Father, forgive, forgive my sin!”
And he cried with a bitter cry.

That cry reached the heart of the Father:
Once more he looked on high,
And in the depths of heaven,—
In the calm of the upper sky,—

He saw 'midst the sea of glory,—
A glory surpassing bright,

304

One crowned with a Crown of Inheritance,
Clad in unborrowed light.

He saw Him leave the glory,
And lay aside the crown,
And to that land of famine
Come, touched with pity, down;

And gird Himself for service,
And minister to all:
No service was for Him too mean,
No care of love too small.

But men paid Him no homage,
They crowned Him with no crown;
And the dying bed they made for Him
Was not a bed of down.

What more then met his vision
Falls dimly on mortal ears;
The angels were mute with wonder,
And the poet with grateful tears.

The rebel will was broken,
The captive heart was free,—

305

“O Lord of all, who servedst all,
Let me Thy servant be!”

He woke: once more he found him
In the home where he played a child;
His mother held his feverish hand,
His sisters wept and smiled.

He loved them more than ever,
With a pure and fervent love;
He loved God's sun and earth and skies,
Though his home lay far above.

His poet's crown lay near him
Fused to a golden cup;
It would carry water for parched lips,
So he thankfully took it up.

He went in the strength of dependence
To tread where his Master trod,
To gather and knit together
The family of God:

Awhile as a heaven-born stranger
To pass through this world of sin,

306

With a heart diffusing the balm of peace
From the place of peace within;

With a conscience freed from burdens,
And a heart set free from care,
To minister to every one
Always and everywhere.

No more on the heights of glory
A lonely man he stood;
Around him gathered tenderly
A lowly brotherhood.

They spent their lives for others,
Yet the world knew them not;
It had not known their Master,—
And they sought no higher lot.

But the angels of heaven knew them,
And He knew them Who died and rose;
And the poet knew that the lowest place
Was that which the Highest chose.

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THE THREE TRANCES.

(ANOTHER READING OF THE VISIONS OF THE NORTHERN SEER.)

I was a glad and sunny child,
And in the fount of life
Which, gushing from its hidden cave
In many a clear and sparkling wave,
Each with sweet music rife,
Wells in the morning sunlight up
E'en to its stony brim,
Dropping into each flowery cup
That trembles on the rim,
Thence trickling through the long soft grass
That springs up green where'er it pass,
(E'en from the stones it lives among
Ringing a clear and hearty song,
Each joyous chime and merry burst
As fresh and glad as 'twere the first),
I bathed, and quenched my healthy thirst,
Until my heart grew wild.

308

I bounded o'er the bounding turf,
I shouted to the shouting surf,
I laughed with the merry streams;
My playmates were the birds and bees,
The noisy wind, the whispering breeze,
And changeful summer gleams.

And in the still and sultry hours,
When Nature drooped and was sad,
Weary with thirst and heat,
The tread of my light feet
Was cool and musical,
As when, at evening, fall
Drop by drop in lonely pools the summer showers,
And the desert looked up and was glad.
I strove with the maddened storm,
I leapt the crag with the waterfall;
For the blood in my veins was warm,
And storms, and streams, and gleams, and all
The mighty creatures of the wild,
In their fierce exulting play,
They welcomed me
To their company,
And they laughed to see a little child
As strong and as glad as they.

309

Then a shadow came before my eyes,
And a weight upon my heart,
And my breath came slow,
Laden with heavy sighs;
And one I did not know
Ever to me
Clung wearily,
And whispered that we never more should part.

And on the crags where I was wont to stand
He dragged me downward with a heavy hand;
And on the mountains, where I used to be
As mountain breezes free,
He came, and then my steps fell heavily.
And in the forest glad and lone,
Where winds and ancient trees,
And the torrent and the breeze,
Had talked to me as to a fellow of their own,
His heavy breath my voice would choke,
His wings would cloud my spirit o'er,
I could not answer when they spoke,
And I was of their fellowship no more.
The waters laughed—I could not laugh;
In their ancient dwelling
Nature's founts were welling,
Life-giving as of old, but not for me to quaff.

310

For ever he would bide
By my side,
And 'neath his heavy tread the springs were dried.

From crag to crag the torrent sprung,
Ever young.
My step had lost its spring,
The young winds sang their wonted song
The flowers among,
A song I might not sing.

The ocean and the stormy winter weather
Played their wild play together
As of old.
I could not play, and grew to dread the storm,—
The blood in Nature's veins was warm,
Mine ran cold.

And when in noontide hours of weariness
Nature had laid her down to sleep
In the solitude,
My step no more awoke the wilderness,
My voice no more her parchëd heart could steep
With life and good,
Like fountains gushing in a thirsty place;
Nature no more was glad to see my face,
For I was faint and sad as she,

311

And wheresoe'er my steps I bent,
Ever with me that Dark One went
With heavy footsteps wearily.
He drank my cup of life till it was dry,
He weighed upon my heart till it grew cold;
He touched my eyelids hot and heavily,
And nothing smiled as it had smiled of old.

I laid me down upon a woodland bank,
Where the breath of spring came slow in languid sighs,
And smiles on me
Beamed tearfully
From out the tender depths of violet eyes;
My heart within me sank.
I laid me down upon the bank and wept;
A sleep, which was not sleep, came o'er my soul:
Men mourned to see my light of life thus fade;
They knew not that the Ancient One
That shadow o'er my soul had thrown,
That He might commune with me in the shade.
That cloud of sleep around my sense did roll,
That He might come to me in visions as I slept.
They knew not that my sleep had dreams—
Dreams to which all that seem most real beside

312

Are but as lights in restless waves that glide,
The changeful image of most changeful gleams.

For life is one long sleep,
O'er which in gusts do sweep
Visions of heaven;
The body but a closëd lid,
By which the real world is hid
From the spirit slumbering dark below;
And all our earthly strife and woe,
Tossings in slumber to and fro;
And all we know of heaven and light
In visions of the day or night
To us is given.

I talked with the Ancient One
In that mysterious seeming slumber;
Nor yet with Him alone,
But blessed spirits without number,
Who crowd around His throne,
And loud and clear the tide of praises swell;—
Nor only in that lofty sphere they dwell,
But round His children throng,
Invisibly ever,
And pour their glorious song,
Though audible never,

313

Save when at evening, in the solitude,
When not a breeze has stirred,
A quiver thrills through all the silent wood;
Can it have heard?
O what a drunkenness of joy my soul doth steep
With thought of the unuttered visions of that sleep!

And I have been since then
A prophet amongst men:
They honour me as one whose eyes
Have looked upon the mysteries
Of the true world where spirits dwell,
To whom the great book is unrolled.
O! if thus reverently they deem
Of the poor fragments of that dream
Which can in human words be told,
What would they think of that I cannot tell?

And when that awful slumber broke,
He who so long of late
Was my associate
No longer closely in my pathway stood,
But in the sky,
Heavily,

314

Like a thunder-cloud with dusky wings did brood,
And to something of my former life I woke.

The sunny laugh, the spring-tide sigh,
The blood-full vein,
The bounding step, the beaming eye,
Came not again;
Joys that too quickly came and fled,
To find a name.
The tears that started in my eye,
I knew not whence,
And ere I could have questioned why
Were from hence,—
The heart that danced amongst the forms of spring,
Like them a joyous growing thing,—
These came not; yet to me were brought
A thousand joys too deep for thought:
For unto the suffering one
God sent a joy of His own;
And the storm and the solitude
Again unto my soul were good,
For ever in the silence and the din
The unseen spirits talked to mine within.

Yet on my pathway evermore
That heavy cloud doth darkly lower,
Like thunder-laden air,

315

Damping each transient thought of mirth,
Weighing my energies to earth,
A burden hard to bear.

And sometimes when I've seen
My brothers dancing round
With strength's exulting bound,
Impatiently my heart would pray
That I might be even as they,
Even as I had been;
But then some gentle sprite would hover by,
And breathe a high and cheering word,
Such as the heart's deep waters stirred,
And all my grief would melt in ecstasy.
Nor only 'neath the cloud,
By suffering, is my spirit bowed,
But with too great a weight of glory,
As with long years my head is hoary,
This feeble frame dissolves away,
Before the blaze of that full day;
Life, breathing with too strong a breath,
Will crush this body into death.

And twice again that wondrous guest
Hath come close to my side as of old;
Hath laid his heavy hand upon my breast,
Until my blood ran cold;

316

Hath hid with stifling breath again
The light of life from me;
Hath bound me with a threefold chain
That draggeth heavily,—
All my raptured soul to steep
In the sleep which is not sleep.
To me he is no more unknown,
His face has all familiar grown,
And dearer than the blessed sun,
For with him comes the Ancient One.

O, come to me once more!
Shadow my spirit o'er.
Three times thy hand hath been on me
Heavily;
Come with yet heavier grasp, and crush
This frame to dust.
Three times thy breath hath dimmed my light
Into night;
Come and breathe on it mightily,
Till it die.
Three times the cloud of sleep o'er my soul
Thou didst roll;
Come now, and fix the shadow there,
Let me sleep e'er,

317

That I may dream those visions o'er
Evermore.
Nay; with loud voice this slumber break,
That I may wake,
And be with the Ancient One
By His throne.
Come now, and with no feeble hand,
Strain thy band,
Until this heavy veil be riven,
Which shuts my spirit from the light;
Come, Strong One, bear my soul to heaven,
And crush this lid which shrouds my sight;
I care not what the anguish be,
So I be free;
Come, choke this slow and labouring breath,
And I will bless thee, Death.

1845.

The old Lapland appellation for God.

318

THE FORGET-ME-NOT.

She dwelt in the greenwood,
A spring gushing near,
No fairy queen could
Queenlier fare.

Bees knew her caskets;
Bold friars gray
Filling their baskets,—
“For the convent,” said they.

Butterfly vagrants
Gossiped there long;
Winds brought her fragrance,
Birds brought her song.

Leaves rustling o'er her
Let the light through;
The blithe stream would pour her
Draughts of sweet dew.

319

O'er her so clearly
The warm heavens smiled;
They all loved her dearly,
The forest's fair child.

Thus passed her childhood
Dreamily by,
By the fount in the wild wood,
'Neath the blue sky.

The kind sun above her,
Stream, bird, and wind,
She knew not they loved her,
Knew they were kind.

Till one day gazing
In the fount pure and cold,
A vision amazing
She saw there unfold.

A blue eye soft beaming
Met her blue eye,
A golden star gleaming,
A miniature sky.

Calm the waves under
The fair vision lay;

320

Lost in sweet wonder,
She gazed there all day:

Saw not the heaven,
Heard not the breeze.
Till the soft even
Shadowed the trees.

The stars still were shining,
But they seemed far,
While she lay pining
For her lost star.

The gentle leaves rustling,
The night-winds' soft stir,
Seemed harsh and bustling,
Strange voices to her.

Not heaven's smile moved her,
Nor the stream's old kind tone;
'Mid so many that loved her,
She wept there alone:

Till, the shadows dispersing,
The Sun rose anew,
The high forest piercing,
Pierced her heart through.

321

Her dewy eyes raising,
He met them and smiled,
The eye of heaven gazing
On her, heaven's child.

For the lost dream was given
The Truth brighter far,
The blue loving heaven,
The Sun for the star.

Then all voices moved her:
The trees grave and tall,
The deep sky above her,
The blithe insects small,
She loved them each one,
For they all loved the Sun,
And the Sun loved them all.

322

MAY SONG.

All the world is up and stirring,
Birds are warbling, insects whirring,
Striving in harmonious strife
Which can catch and drink the more
Of the crystal fount of life
Which around is bubbling o'er.

For May came by upon a day
When the Earth, spell-bound in sleep,
Like the Sleeping Beauty lay,
Sunk in magic slumbers deep;
Came and kissed her marble cheek,
And the icy spell was broken:
Words which ages could not speak
In this burst of life are spoken;
And the Palace, still so long,
Breaks into a flood of song.

Air around and skies above
Seem one flood of life and love;

323

Every flower and leaf a sense,
Drinking life and rapture thence:
Nature all one glorious Psalm,
We all nerve responsive thrilling;
She a tree of Gilead's balm,
Into weary hearts distilling;
She all light and melody,
We all sense to hear and see.

With a fresh and happy sound
Forth the infant river wells,
Striking on the pebbles round
Merry peals of fairy bells;
Leaping up in showers of spray,
Parts the pure uncoloured light
Into many a threadlet bright;
Broidering its garments white,
Flashing gems from every ray.
Perfumes fresh and soft and clear
Sail along the limpid air;
Birds are singing, fish are springing,
Grass is growing, water flowing,
All the world awake and stirring;
And shall I be idly hearing,
While my heart thus glows with love,
And my soul o'erflows with life,

324

And my spirit yearns to prove
She could bravely strive her strife?
Music only in my heart;
Lord, give me some choral part!
Give this lisping heart a word—
Word that may be felt and heard;
I would rise and praise thee too—
Lord, let me go forth and do!

Then an answer silver clear
Fell upon my inward ear:—
“Hush, impatient heart, be still;
Restless waters break the light,
Shivering faith's deep mystery
Into fancy's prisms bright;
Breaking that by which we see
To a show for vulgar sight.
See that deep blue violet flower
Bend the quickening waters o'er;
Eagerly they sparkle up,
Dropping in her open cup,
While she in her quiet eye
Drinks the colours of the sky.
Such the faithful heart should be,
Feeding on Nature silently,

325

Drinking her spring-tide light and song;
That holy food shall make it strong—
On earth a heavenly star to shine,
True mirror of the life divine.
So thy life shall be a voice,
Speaking words best heard above,
Bidding weary souls rejoice,
Waking palsied hearts to love.”

May 1846.

326

THE NORTHERN SPRING.

Mighty Thor has gone to battle
With the giants of the Frost;
In his god-like strength contending,
Single-handed, 'gainst a host.

Heard ye not the clash and clamour,
Wind with wind in deadly stife;
Battle-cries and roar of conflicts,
Where the Dark Ones fought for life?

Heard ye not the great Miölner
Thundering o'er the din of war;
Striking lightning from the storm-cloud?—
Dreadful in his wrath is Thor!

Then the strong ones fled in terror;
Henceforth fear we not their worst;
For their giant strength is broken,
And their icy chains are burst.

327

Joy to all! great Thor hath triumphed;
Victory and light are won;
And the victor doffs his armour,
Girding robes of triumph on.

Hail him in the joy of triumph,
Gazing in his love and pride
Where, in trembling mists infolded,
Beams his own enfranchised bride!

And the streams his blows unfettered,
Greet him with the dance and song:
Beautiful is Thor in triumph,
As in battle he is strong.

Beautiful art thou, O Nature!
Glorious art thou, O Sun!
Many are the names we call you,
Yet the homage is but one.

Hearts o'erflowing into worship,
With the sense that ye are fraught
With a Presence and a Purpose
Passing human word or thought;

Thinking of the Hand that made you,
Makes and keeps you so divine;

328

Every stone becomes an altar,
Every blade of grass a shrine;

Worlds of art in every insect,
Miracles in every clod:
For beyond man's master-pieces
Is the simplest work of God.

1846.

329

A JOURNEY ON THE SOUTH-DEVON RAILWAY.

The young oak casts its delicate shadow
Over the still and emerald meadow;
The sheep are cropping the fresh spring grass,
And never raise their heads as we pass;
The cattle are taking their noon-day rest,
And chewing the cud with a lazy zest,
Or bathing their feet in the reedy pool
Switch their tails in the shadows cool;
But away, away, we may not stay,
Panting and puffing, and snorting and starting,
And shrieking and crying, and madly flying,
On and on, there's a race to be run and a goal to be won ere the set of the sun.

Two white clouds are poised on high,
Sunning their wings in the azure sky;
Two white swans float to and fro
Languidly in the stream below;

330

As it sleeps beneath a beechwood tall,
Clouds, and swans, and trees, and all,
Image themselves in the quiet stream,
Passing their lives in a sunny dream;
But away, away, we may not stay,
Panting and puffing, and snorting and starting,
And shrieking and crying, and madly flying,
On and on, there's a race to be run and a goal to be won ere the set of the sun.

Under the tall cliffs, green and deep
The ocean rests in its mid-day sleep;
The waves are heaving lazily
Where the purple sea-weeds float;
Sunbeams cross on the distant sea,
Specked by the sail of the fisher's boat;
But away, away, we may not stay,
Panting and puffing, and snorting and starting,
And shrieking and crying, and madly flying,
On and on, there's a race to be run and a goal to be won ere the set of the sun.

Into the deep dell's still retreat,
Where the river rushes beneath our feet,
Skirting the base of moorland hills,
By the side of rocky rills,

331

Where the wild-bird bathes and plumes its wing,
Where the fields are fresh with the breath of spring,
Where the earth is hushed in her noon-day prayer,
No place so secret but we come there.
On nature's mid-day sleep we break,
And are miles away ere her echoes wake;
We startle the wood-nymphs in their play,
And ere they can hide are away, away!
Away, away, we may not stay,
Panting and puffing, and snorting and starting,
And shrieking and crying, and madly flying,
On and on, there's a race to be run and a goal to be won ere the set of the sun.

332

BABY ALICE.

Baby Alice, Baby Alice,
Is thy soul a beam of light,
That it twinkleth through thy dark eyes
So witching and so bright?

Our song-bird, and our rosebud,
Our sunshine every day;
One such flower makes a summer,
One such bird makes a May.

Our fairy-queen of frolic,
Whose smiles are magic treasures;
Our singing-tree and talking-bird,
Our golden fount of pleasures.

Our rose, our pearl, our dew-drop,
Our dayspring, and our star;
All sweet names on thee we lavish,
And find thee sweeter far.

333

What sound can have such music
As thy sudden laughter bright?
What words can have such meaning
As thy murmurs of delight?

Baby Alice, Baby Alice,
Better than beams of light
Is thy spirit, for it cometh
From the Fountain of all light.

May Christ be with thee, darling,
Hallowing thy youth's glad feast,
Thy cup of life transforming
To a Blessed Eucharist.

He will be with thee, darling,
Guarding from sins and harms;
For He blessed all they brought to Him,
And we laid thee in His arms.

334

TO OUR AMERICAN COUSINS.

One people in our early prime,
One in our stormy youth;
Drinking one stream of human thought,
One spring of heavenly truth;

One language at our mother's knee,
One in our Saviour's prayer,—
One glorious heritage is ours;
One future let us share.

The heroes of our days of old
Are yours, not ours alone;
Your Christian heroes of to-day,
We love them as our own.

There are too many homeless lands,
Far in the wild free West,
To be subdued for God and man,
Replenished and possest;—

335

There are too many fallen men,
Far in the ancient East,
To be won back to truth and God,
From cramping bonds released;

There is too much good work to do,
And wrong to be undone;
Too many strongholds from the foe
Yet must be forced and won;—

That we whom God hath set to be
The vanguard of the fight,
To bear the standard of His truth,
And to defend the right,

Should leave the mission of our race,
So high, and wide, and great,
On petty points of precedence
To wrangle and debate;—

That blustering words of little men
(With poisonous venom rife),
Who must be angry to be heard,
Should stir us up to strife.

Nay! side by side in East and West,
In wild or heathen lands,

336

One prayer upon our hearts and lips,
One Bible in our hands.

One in our earliest home on earth,
One in our heavenly home,
We'll fight the battles of our King,
Until His kingdom come.

March 1862.

337

ITALY.

1848.

Italia! a thousand eyes rest eagerly on thee,
A thousand hearts beat freer in the thought that thou art free;
Because thou hast no common name, and thy dwelling is on high,
And folded in thy fate the fates of many nations lie.

Time set a royal signet indelibly on thee,
And as the lot of common men thy lot can never be.
Three kingdoms have been thine by turns, three sceptres graced thy hand,
Three times the mighty ones of earth have bowed to thy command!

When from thy cold and languid grasp the World's wide sceptre glides,
One moment thou seem'st lost amid the fierce barbaric tides;

338

When curbed, as if by magic, back from thy throne they roll,
And thou risest 'mid the tempest calm Empress of the Soul.

Then when half Europe roused her might, and rent her from thy sway,
And for a space, as in a trance, thy passive image lay,
A fragrant breath of Beauty and of Melody divine,
Floated around thee sleeping, as around a saintly shrine.

And for the throne of Empires they throned thee Queen of Art,
For the homage of the knee they gave the worship of the heart.
Godlike Art and godlike Nature circling thee with magic powers,
For a dead crown of gold entwined a living crown of flowers.

“Widow of nations” shall no more be written on thy land,
Mother of heroes! girt about with thy true-hearted band!—

339

As the maiden in the Northern Tale started from slumbers deep
Roused by the kiss of Freedom, thou hast burst thy spell of sleep;

And the ruins of thy glory are no more that glory's tomb,
For o'er the ruins bound the feet of a new and nobler Rome.
O'er the fountain of the glorious past a morning radiance flits,
By the brink of its still waters a living spirit sits;

No more the dead leaves float there in the gray autumnal glooms,
No more the death-wind stirs it with echoes from the tombs:
For a mighty hand has rolled away the stone from off its brink,
And living beings come once more of its quickening waves to drink;

Then nerved with all the vigour of the old heroic life,
Go forth with tempered courage to the ancient field of strife;—

340

Not the old barbaric battles where swords clashed fierce with swords,
Nor the jar of vain polemics and the clang of hollow words;

But to the spirit-combat, with the arms of Work and Thought,
Where on the widest battle-field the oldest fight is fought;
Meeting ignorance with patience and tyranny with light,
And wrong and falsehood with the force of wisdom and of right.

So speed thee to thy lofty work, heroic, calm, and free,
That the tyrant and the scoffer may learn with shame from thee
That Freedom is no empty boast, no prate for boys at school,
No ladder by which those who serve may climb on high to rule;

But a field for holy labours, and a gate for heavenly light,
Freedom to utter truth, do good, and help the wronged to right;
And they who still pine hopelessly in paralyzing thrall
May learn of thee how well 'tis worth to venture all for all.

THE END.