Flowers of the Night :: :: University of Virginia Library

When the last laden bee has homeward flown,
And daisies close their curtains on the night,
When only hearts that wake for love's delight
And eyes that seek to shed their tears unknown
Are sleepless,—then are strange, wan blossoms blown,
Children of darkness, so not richly dight
Though sweet perchance to other sense than sight
As they distil their secrets all alone.

And such methought were these sad-coloured rhymes;
They seemed some potent perfume to exhale
While cheating night with their melodious chimes;
And so at dawn I gathered them, to pale
Yet more by day, and with the altered times
In fragrance as all else perchance to fail.

BLOWN SEED OF SONG.

I sat apart upon a hill,
And piped and piped against the wind,
Which drowned the notes it could not still,
Or trampled so that few might find.

The fragrance of the garden rose
No wind-swept flowers of song may own,
But like the hyssop where it grows—
Its rootlets biting on the stone—

It learns how life may best sustain
Itself, how turn each outward wrong
To inward profiting of pain,
And, living hard, may so live long.

And still, my troubled thought to cheat,
I charged my pipe with vital breath,
Till sorrow grew to something sweet,
And death was no more seen as death.

For oft as in my pipe I blew,
The sorry shows men call the “real”
Were pierced, and let the truth look through
By favour of the pure ideal.

And sometimes in the wintry spring,
I, wandering of my pipe forlorn,
Have heard some fresh uprisen thing
Proclaim itself my song new-born,

My wind-blown song at ease from toil
My thought with larger life endowed,
Upspringing in the fruitful soil
Of hearts that grief had newly ploughed.

Or sudden in the waning year,
When hope was low as winter skies,
My lated strains have rung out clear,
And made a way for hope to rise;

Or love itself, love all too fond,
Love all too tender to be tame,
To my complainings would respond,
And dare to make undying claim;

For love that scorns all shallow arts
Of solace in his darker day,
Confronts the power that makes quick hearts
The subjects of its deadly play.

I throw my pipe away, I sing,—
The tongue must speak the hearts unrest,
The heart that faint with wandering
Still scorns each bourne beneath the best.

All ye who at the breasts of Love
Were nursed, whose young unsealëd eyes
Have felt Love's quickening smile above,
And drunk the milk of paradise,

Though weary of the way ye be,
Though dazed with all the dust and bruit,
Throw back on death each falsest fee
Wherewith his servants now recruit;

Throw back the dreams wherewith men dare
To mock the finite human heart
With phantoms vast and vain as air,
And further from its life apart.

In sparks struck out by soul from soul
God's image first was seen of man,
And love that reaches toward the whole,
In nearest tenderness began;

Till in its centrifugal fire
Man's destiny arose sublime,
And love first known as blind desire,
Stood forth the conqueror of Time.

Then Love that was so lowly born,
Uprisen to immortal height,
Smiled down upon the grave in scorn,
And seemed to clasp the infinite.

Love, hold us at the point of praise,
Or leave us lowly as you found,
If you but lead by toilsome ways
To hurl the soul from higher ground!

Self-sated hearts that in the dusk
And dearth of hope decline the strife
With death, may feign in every husk
A germ which ministers to life;

But we, God's “poor,” who still await
Love's further largess, may not dare,
While kneeling lowly at His gate,
To touch those gleanings of despair;

Love's nurselings, we may wander east
And west, but never can decline
From hope of some immortal feast
To crown beginning so divine!

I take my pipe again, I play,
And coldly though the wind may drive,
The breath I blow into my lay
Is that which keeps my soul alive;

And while my strains I would abet
With all that makes the player's part—
The sapient use of stop and fret—
I hold by that which baffles art:

I hold by life that builds on death,
I stand by love, the soul of song,
Its living source and vital breath,
As witnessed by the strains which throng,

The strains which flood the heart of spring,
And shake the happy woods awake,—
The love that though with folded wing,
Sings on and on for love's own sake.

My heart its best of life would share,
So sings but when its hope is high;
My heart would silence its despair,
And die alone, if it must die;

But if when blinded by the mists
I seek in vain the door of day,
My hope is still that light exists,
And purer eyes may find the way.

And if in love of earth and sea,
And love of art, my song began,
I hold it that no song can be
The poorer for the love of man;

And so throughout the lessening days
I meet the angry winds in face,
In hopes to find their castaways
Fast rooted in some silent place.

And piping thus for love alone,
No bitterest breath can do me wrong,
While haply where my notes are blown
Stray souls may gather seed of song.

THE WITCH'S LAST RIDE.

The earth smells dank, the weeds grow rank,
The cold rain drowns the moon,
The old barn-owl has called me thrice,
And I must ride eftsoon.

The brindled cat has spared the rat,
And circles round my seat,
He winds me with his tail as he
Would lift me off my feet.

My every bone is stiff, ohone!
I scarce can grip the broom;
But hist!—the hour has warned, and I
Must mount and meet my doom.

If I should fail upon the gale
To ride o'er tower and town,
And falling headlong through the rift,
Go down, and down, and down!

It was not so awhile ago,
When every turn of spite,—
The fools that fret me dealt by day,
I paid them back at night.

When I aloft o'er roof and croft
Went sailing at my ease,
And sowed my curses on their sleep
As thick as mites in cheese.

Oh, it was rare, high up in air,
To shoot from out the drift,
Or with a gossip cheek by jowl
To spin across the lift;

With but one word to turn to curd
The nursing-mother's milk,
And make a weanling's bones to wind
About your thumbs like silk;

To know that lambs beside their dams
Would sicken as you pass;
To poison all the earing wheat
And blight the meadow-grass!

We mustered from the right and left,
We came from field and alley,
We steered our brooms and dodged the wind
That whistled down the valley;

We saw the gibbet on the height,
We heard the rattling bones,
We lighted on a barren moor
Beside a ring of stones;

We struck live sparks from out the flint,
We lit our brimstone matches,
We blew the embers into flame,
We sung and curst by snatches.

Each brought a sample of her work,
Exchanging gift for gift;—
An adder's fang, a viscous herb
For slow death or for swift.

It gave your curses strength, it warmed
Your bones the coldest night,
To feel you were not all alone
Again the world to fight.

This darkening room smells like a tomb,
Come, Brindle, cease to scold,
We'll make the wind our hobby-horse
As in the nights of old.

It sings so loud of wreckage proud
These pitiless Novembers,
And down the chimney spits the sleet
To sting the dying embers.

Well, let it drive, we'll look alive,
And would though we were dying;
Come, once more o'er the world we'll ride,
And pay off scores outlying.

My broomstick here will help me steer
To where the mist lies pale,
And wraps the village-green and pond,
And whitens all the vale.

Young Daisy there, with yellow hair,
Lies on the cheek so red
I stroked one day till it grew white,
And Daisy turned and fled.

Then to the mill which crowns the hill;—
Ugh! mother's arms are warm,
But can they shut out evil spells
As they can cold and storm?

A mort of pains, of scabs and blains,
Be on their beauties poured,
Or ere their soft young skins like mine
The teeth of Time has scored!

Again aloft o'er roof and croft,
Na—keep your curses ready
To go with mine, you foul-mouthed mate,—
No claws, my deary, steady!

Now one, two, three, we're off, I see
The savage rain and scud,
It beats the smoke into your maw,—
It freezes all your blood.

The rough winds rieve your skirts, and leave
Your legs as clem as stones;
Your arms are weak, your head is faint,
A curse upon old bones!

Awhile ago the wind might blow,—
My veins would prick delighted;
Now, now I grab at weather-cocks,—
So dizzy and affrighted.

They shake, they shake, they bend, they break!
I slide from off the steeple,
I light 'mid new-made graves, I see
The ghosts of long-dead people;

Their hollow eyes in kind surprise
Look hard at me, and tears,
Or something like 'em, dims my sight,
As in the buried years.

My senses reel; what is't I feel
The bed where I lie shaking
Is in the old dark nook, and this
Is just the old dull waking.

Nay, Brindle, nay, stand off, away!
Your eyeballs on me glaring,
Your breath that draws my breath, your purr
Is worse than all your swearing.

Off, off, damned cat! The rat, the rat;
He dares you with his shriek;
Avaunt, or I shall strike; ohone!
Too weak, my arm, too weak!

My limbs are stark,—all dark, so dark;—
The very hell-fire's wink
From out those eyes; beneath some soft
Warm weight I sink, sink, sink.

Can this be sleep? You creep, still creep,
Your mouth to mine so near,—
Your head upon my breast, where once
There lay a head—so dear—

So dear to me! How could that be?
I dream again,—good-night!
No, little one—this starveling breast—
Light! Light is it? What light?

RED OR WHITE?

In a western city new-born from a withering fire,
Fresh as a phœnix that rises renewed from the pyre,
I, musing aloft, far removed from the noise of the street,
Looked down from my window and saw where the palaces spread
In stony files o'er the wigwams of red men dead,—
Ground into dust in the march of the white men's feet.

Then I mixed with the crowd and beheld how the white men strive,
Jostle and fret as the bees ere they swarm from the hive,—

Marked how with weapons newfangled the fight goes on,—
And asked: “What good or to soul or to body's health
Has come of the change?” And the answer was: “Golden wealth,—
Golden each step we have made o'er the red man gone.”

As I looked in the white hatchet faces I half understood
How “gold” was the word which they said when they thought to say “good;”—
They had chaffered away the true scale of the value of life,
They who giving their hand to a brother were 'ware of a thief,

Having sharpened their wits on the whetstone of unbelief,
As for “good” they read gold, they for “peace in possession” saw “strife.”

The red man who out of his tribe nor demanded nor gave
Either quarter or grace, was a child with each brotherly “brave,”
And as simply plighted the word he as simply kept;
He followed the buffalo thundering over the plain
With a fierce delight, ere he feasted upon him slain,—
Toyed with the squaw well content with his leavings, and slept.

Then I laughed: “Dull savage, who fashioned and threw the spear,
Deft-handed, swift-footed, lynx-eyed, keen of scent, fine of ear,—

Whom the white man supplanted as red men supplanted the beast;
Will the red man or white, with his biliary troubles to cheat,
With his advertised nostrums, his blundering fingers and feet,
His sensory slowness, strained nerves, and his hurried heart-beat,
Arise the more lean when they both shall have finished life's feast?

[My true love made a home for me]

My true love made a home for me
Or ever we were wed;
Of chairs we had at first but three,
A table, and a bed;

A tea-set, and a silver spoon,—
The lion shows it true,—
And Bobbie says he knows he soon
Is bound to make it two.

A kettle and an iron pot,
And many a kitchen thing,
We bought together in a lot,
Before he chose the ring.

My Bobbie made and paid for all
With over-hours of work,
So in each piece, however small,
Some virtue seems to lurk.

Beneath the blankets, new and warm,
At night we take our rest,
As near to joy and far from harm
As birds within the nest.

My lord has brought his lady home,
The great house is a sight;
Strange men from over seas have come,
And work there day and night;

It's all so grand, and such a size!
You're dazed and lose your way,
And wicked echoes seem to rise
And mock what you would say.

I wonder if, when unawares,
My lord and lady sit
Together on their satin chairs,
And all those candles lit—

I wonder do they chair and chair
Draw close enough to touch,
And whisper lest the listening air
Should come to know too much.

It must be hard in that big place,
And crowds of servants by,
For folks though living face to face
To seem to come a-nigh.

The great house is a world too fine,
My dear, I think a nest
Like this poor place of yours and mine
For lovers is the best.

PATIENCE.

Poor heart, that wast so proud, how art thou tamed,
Broken to harness in the teem of sorrow,
Taking such mead as falls to thee unclaimed—
Pale, momentary joys that have no morrow.

Where are the once fond hopes so fondly held,
Thy dreams of conquest, and thy glad contriving?
Gone with the frank young spirit that rebelled
And suffered; gone, and so with fate conniving!

And yet withal, poor heart, thou standest firm,
And not too sad, life's puzzle still revolving;
Still facing withered eld, the grave, the worm,—
And all a world of promises dissolving.

Like a blind beggar smiling to the sun,
Patient in need, nor alms nor help demanding,
Thou standest, nought expecting, little done,—
And so, poor heart, poor heart! I leave thee standing.

['Twas lately said in open court]

[_]

[The case here referred to was tried at the Cardiff Spring Sessions in 1887.]

'Twas lately said in open court
By one, the first of legal lights,
That malice with the dead might sport
At will, for “dead men had no rights;”

That were it not from wrong to save
The quick, the body could affirm
No title even to a grave,
If left abandoned to the worm.

The doubting heart within me died;
I thought upon a distant spot,
I thought of two where side by side
Their bodies lay, and they were not.

When suddenly there rose before,
There flashed upon my inward eye,
A face that I shall see no more
In fainter light beneath the sky;

And flickering over all the face
There played a smile, the merry flame
Of such a joy as left no place
For care of earthly name or claim;

A smile of light and life so full,
Its mirth o'erflowed me as it spread,
In frank surprise that men how dull
Soever, could account him dead!

TO A MOUNTAIN STREAMLET.

Bright burn, that flings itself or flows
Among the blooming heather,
Here let me for a space repose
While we discourse together.

Your converse, be it grave or gay,
Flows freshly from its fountain;
Your style in some sweet wordless way
Still savours of the mountain.

Below I'll listen by and bye
To petty care and ailment
Of fellow men whose style is dry,
And sorely needs curtailment,

Where in our Inn we day by day
Effect our dull exchanges
Of speech that in our Island way
The speakers still estranges.

But for the nonce I, to be brief,
Am longing at this season,
For change, for solace, and relief,
To hear a word of reason;

And though your answers should be nought,
My questions over-tasking,
A welcome stir of deeper thought
Is felt but in the asking.

Are you through every change the same,
Or do you only seem it?
Am I myself in more than name,
Or do I only dream it?

Nay, at the outset, both are dumb,
You careless, I unknowing,
We neither guess from whence we come,
Or whither we are going;

Still less if what we seem to be
We are in vital union,
Or but as forces that agree
To travel in communion.

You weave some fable bright as day
When bright the sun is shining,
And fall when trouble bars your way
To musical repining;

And still you are but what you are
By grace of those diurnal
And fleeting shows which foul or fair
Are still to you external.

Though should I chance this way again,
Your voice would give me greeting,
Would aught that now you are remain
At any future meeting!

No, not so much as one bright bead
That settles round my finger;
As well beseech the bursting seed
Upon its course to linger;

And I, what more were left of me?
The state from which I borrow
Some threads which seem to bind, will be
But memory to-morrow.

And still these facts are hard to learn,
My faith is still persistent;
You'd be to me the self-same burn,
I should be still existent;

And sure I am that I shall find,
From this day forth for ever
Your image from my mortal mind
It will be hard to sever;

And thus I hope some vaster fount
Of life, some eye all-seeing
Will hold me of the like account,
And keep me still in being.

Now fair befall you, little stream!
To-day among the heather
Your song is bright as is the beam,
And breezy as the weather;

My time is up, but I shall go
The lighter for this season
Of interchange, and overflow,—
Of reason or unreason.

A THRENODY.

“Woman, what is't you bury here
In earth which is not consecrate,
And rising, leave without a tear?”

“I bury love more fierce than hate,
Love that has murdered joy and sleep,
Love that at last has met his fate.”

“And can you hold dead love so cheap,
That having slain him you fare free,
Nor pause beside his grave to weep?”

“Nay, love is slain, but not by me;
God knoweth I have fought a fight
To keep him, but it could not be.

“God knoweth how, by day and night,
I've feared to meet his truth in face,—
I could not trust its saving light.

“In vain I laboured to abase
The upward glance of love's proud eyes
That dared not look on his disgrace.

“Long years I fed sick love with lies,
I was so loth from him to part;
He dieth hard, but still he dies.

“And so I cast him from my heart,
That lightened of his weary weight,
Rises as wakened with a start.

“I look around; the hour is late,
But on my life a nameless peace
Has fallen, and my poor estate

“Is changed, all changed with love's surcease;
Gone the long shame that bowed my head;—
Truth to my soul has brought release.

“And now I have no tears to shed,
They fell so fast on dying love
That none are left to weep love dead.”

IN THE INN PARLOUR.

Returning in the autumn days
From what to us were unworn ways,
Enriched for life by many a prize
Of beauty taken by the eyes,

I in a waiting moment brought
The scenes together in my thought,
And as in memory they glowed,
And as with joy my heart o'erflowed,

I longed to tell how good our life
Had been, at ease from toil and strife,
And tell it to the ears my boast
Of happiness would gladden most.

Then suddenly, it seemed to me
Not one sate waiting there, but three,—
My longing to my side had led
The best-beloved of all my dead.

As silently they sate in place,
Each dear, familiar, long-lost face
Bent patiently to hear the praise
Bestowed upon these autumn days,—

One drinking in each lightest word
With lowered lids that hardly stirred;
One on each faded lineament
Dwelling with motherly content;—

I strove to fix the pictures fair,
To make my lost ones breathe the air
And see the light, and taste once more
The old earth's gladness as of yore;—

I thought to lead them by the stream
Where Time stands glassed as in a dream,
Or let them share more keen delight
In gazing from some Alpine height;—

I sought to make their spirits range
Refreshed as mine from change to change,
And show to them the golden signs
Of knowledge in new-opened mines;—

Grown eloquent, I tried to take
Them forward with me in the wake
Of much that had been learnt or guessed
Since quietly they lay at rest—

I paused;—and lo, to my surprise
Saw gentle pity in their eyes.
What might I from their lips have heard?
They smiled, and went without a word.

[Though Death you once came near me]

Though Death you once came near me,
I feared thee not, nor fear thee;
But I misdoubt thee eld!—
Thy poverty and 'plaining,
Thy little strength still waning,
Thy hope for ever quelled.

Sad dimming of the glory,
Poor climax to the story,
Vain end of toil and teen,—
To live to the effacement
Of ourselves, and the abasement
Of all that we have been.

This doom still hanging o'er us,
Grey childhood still before us,
Nought made or meant to last,
If, tost upon the ocean,
We but felt through the commotion
God held a purpose fast!

LINES TO CLUNY WATER.

You are singing, always singing,
As I heard you long ago,
You are ringing, always ringing
On that note that well I know;
And I lie awake and hearken
In my chamber overhead,
Where the shadows crowd and darken
As I weary on my bed.

I have met you on the mountain
At the moment of your birth,
When you rose from some deep fountain
In the hidden heart of earth,

And with many a youthful sally
Made the ancient hills rejoice,
Ere you gladdened all the valley
With the music of your voice.

Now I know for all your singing
That your doom awaits you here;
That each hurried leap is bringing
In the end, and it is near;
That in merry mood or troubled
You are making for the Dee,
And your life, one moment doubled,
Will be swallowed by the sea.

Still you sing, and still I hearken,
While the crowding shadows throng;
Through the chamber that they darken
Sweeps your sylvan voice, and strong;

And to me it brings releasing
From the labour and the strife
Of the weary work of piecing
This dark puzzle of our life.

You have turned some stubborn angles
With the magic of your song,
You have seemed to loose the tangles
From the ravelled skein of wrong;
As when tost upon the boundless
Some deep harmony divine
Will sound for us the soundless
With immeasurable line.

Through my brain your song is ringing,
I am nothing but an ear;
All my soul is in your singing,
Be it dark, I still can hear;

Let me share with you, glad river,
In the blindness of your trust,
In the Taker as the Giver,—
In the just or the unjust!

[Take but my song upon your lips, my love]

Take but my song upon your lips, my love,
And my faint hope that is at point of death
Some answering chord within your breast may move,
When it is made to soar on such sweet breath.

Yes, breathe upon my poor words, passion-pale,
And all the fire that in them doth abide
Will kindle into flame, and all that tale
Of love be told whereof my song has died.

A LAMENT.

Joy of waves that topple o'er
Breaking, lost upon the shore;
All the swift delights of spring
Caught but only on the wing;
Withered leaves we treasure up
From the rose's shattered cup;
Blushes on a virgin's cheek
Gone ere praise of them may speak;
Moments on love's height supreme
Known—but only in a dream;
Words from love's own heart that fail
Faint as spices on the gale;
All things exquisite and dear
Are to death or heart-break near;

All things joyous, tender, blest,
Live transformed or taste of rest.
Give, oh, give me but the wings
Of my joys and happy springs!
What avails this hapless I
That must suffer and not die?

SONG.

Why art thou silent when each bird
And every freshet sings?
Poor heart, hast thou alone no word
To mingle with the spring's?

No faintest word; the spring that gives
But gladdens whom it dowers;
On every tree there come young leaves,
To every field fresh flowers.

Spring gives to every flower a bee,
For every flower is fair;
But spring has now no gift for me,
And dumb is my despair.

AN AWAKENING.

The sweet June night but half withdrawn,
The watchful stars grown hardly pale,
While dews slept lightly on the lawn,
And mists hung dreaming in the vale,
I waked, and with me woke the dawn,—
Thy voice had called us, nightingale!

Thou flutedest at my window-pane,
And while I shed remorseful tears,
Spendthrift! I seemed to hear thee rain
In one rapt song the long arrears
Of all the passion I in vain
Had hoarded through the loveless years.

The pale dawn flushed the while I heard
Thee pour from some deep fount divine
Such joy, such pain as heart of bird
Could hardly hold. That song of thine
Which all my slumbering being stirred—
Could any part in it be mine?

Dear prophet! If thou hast foreshown
My future in that wondrous tale
Be half the high portent thine own;
For love so fervid to avail
Love's depths to sound, its heights to scale,
Some form seraphic should enthrone
Thy sleepless heart, O nightingale!

SONG.

Eyes, mine eyes, you are bright
Since my true love's on you shone;
Your beams are the pale moonlight
From the sun of my true love's own.

Lips, my lips, you are sweet,
Still sweet from my true love's kiss,
As you daintily part but to meet
With a touch of that foregone bliss.

His from the glad new light
Of the eyes, to the blithe footfall,—
His and uplift to the height
Of his love, the creator of all;

His from the innermost hold
Of the heart which his love has warmed;
His from the outermost fold
Of the flesh by his love transformed.

Glad as the summer to-day
A woman winsome and fair,—
Take but my love's love away,—
I am gone, to the gold in my hair!

Say that the beauty so made
Shadow of change came a-nigh,—
Say he could see me to fade—
Liefer he left me to die!

SONG.

UNDER THE ROSE.

In these June bowers not all in vain
I tell the secret of my woes,
For sweeter seems my murmured pain
Beneath the rose, beneath the rose.

I tell of love by Time bereft,
Of beauty that discrownëd goes,
And dare to weep the cruel theft
Beneath the rose, beneath the rose.

And moaning over hope that dies,
And love that like a beggar shows,
Still balmy grow my very sighs
Beneath the rose, beneath the rose.

ANY HUSBAND TO MANY A WIFE.

I scarcely know my worthless picture,
As seen in those soft eyes and clear;
But oh, dear heart, I fear the stricture
You pass on it when none are near.

Deep eyes that smiling give denial
To tears that you have shed in vain;
Fond heart that summoned on my trial,
Upbraids the witness of its pain.

Eyes, tender eyes, betray me never!
Still hold the flattered image fast
Whereby I shape the fond endeavour
To justify your faith at last.

I WANDER IN THE MONTH OF MAY.

Spring sends young fishes to the sea,
Young fledglings to the air;
The jocund fishes frolic free,
The happier fledglings pair.

I wander in the month of May,
I see the world a-bloom,
But know its garlands overlay
The secrets of the tomb.

For while the robins build and sing,
To me the breath of flowers
As captives to the memory bring
The ghosts of vanished hours.

And 'mid these forms of dead delight
To mine own self I seem
A phantom wandering in the night,—
A woman in a dream.

IN THE RIVIERA.

The rose's leaves are red
Upon the April blue,
No single leaflet shed
Of all the sun shines through;

The rose's self is white,
Her stem is lithe and tall,
Where languid with delight
She overlooks the wall.

I am not like the rose,—
My May and June are past,
And every wind that blows
Takes leaves that are my last,

And yet, I know not why,
No gladdest, greenest thing
So inly feels as I
The passion of the spring.

[June has once more brought the rose]

June has once more brought the rose,
Fair beyond all praise
I was bold to speak in those
Richer bygone days.

On the rose I gaze my fill,—
Gaze, and let her be,
Lest though I adore her still,
She no more know me.

[Dear Joy, what have I done thee]

Dear Joy, what have I done thee,
That thou shouldest flout or shun me?
I who have said and taught
That but for thee and thine
No promise were divine,
And all fulfilment nought;

That this vast universe
Were meaningless, or worse,
Unlighted by thy smile;
And every seeming end
An open trap, to lend
Force to some wile;

That Nature's self were just
A wanton, in her lust
Engendering life accurst,—
To wreck upon a sea
Of bootless change, and be
The sport of cureless thirst.

Yea, that in heaven above
God who is very Love
Would dwell forlorn of light;
Breathing out fatal breath
To quench in kindly death
Through one unending night!

Withhold from me your scorn,
And I as one new-born,
A child of Love and thee,—
Will live as not to shame thee,—
Dear Joy, do not disclaim me,
For few thy children be!

I'll learn to laugh and jest,
Or singing, sing my best,
And for each doleful ditty
Wherewith I seek to drain
The poison from my pain,
Turn stanzas wise or witty.

Yes, I could still be gay
As any child at play,
If thou wouldest stand me by!
And having gladly lived,—
My fall from thee retrieved,—
I then could gladly die.

THE HIGHLAND WIDOW'S LAMENT.

Weary wi' roamin', I sit in the gloamin',
I sit on my ain door-stane;
The flocks i' the fauld nestle close frae the cauld,
I sit an' I sigh here my lane.

The bent trees are groanin', the sad wind is moanin',
The shadow creeps over the hill,
The burn as it flows tells the tale of its woes,
But I as the shadow am still.

The road at its turnin', my dim eye discernin',
I mark where he cam wi' the kye,
Whan the day's wark was done, at the set o' the sun,
In the season forever forbye.

Fond hope that deceived me, cauld death that bereaved me,
My gudeman he left me sae young,
That, old and forlorn, he might hold me in scorn
Should I take his dear name on my tongue.

Still I oft by my gleamin' lone hearth fall a dreamin',
And think o' that season of auld,
Of a love was sae near, of a love was sae dear,
It has gared every ither seem cauld.

Should the grave in undoin' once bring me renewin',
More bonny for sairly tried truth,
I wad dare them to name you, my Donald, an' claim you,
Nae longer sae fashed by your youth.

A CONFESSION.

“Whaur hae ye gotten that glisterin' ring,
Ower fine to be o' worth?”

“I hae gotten the ring frae a fremit chiel,
O' gentle speech an' birth.”

“Wha is it gie ye that Judas kiss
Has brunt your bonny cheek?”

“I hae gotten the kiss whaur I gat the ring,
It wasna far to seek.”

“How hae ye come by that fauter look
Wha's glint was aye sae proud?”

“Wi' the weight o' that fremd chiel's partin' gift
My vera soul is bowed.

“His ways were fause as his words were fair,
Siccan oath as he made me,
Sae fleechin' saft it a'most had wiled
The young leaves frae the tree.

“Wae worth his kiss that brunt my cheek,
Wae worth his ring sae bright,
An' the load he leaves me to bear my lane
Whiles he fares forth sae light!”

THE SONSY MILKMAID.

Now gie me back my milkin' stool,
An' leave me to my work,
Ye neither kenned me in the school
Nor ken me in the kirk;

It's clear to me there isna place
Aneath a coo for twa,
If that your lips must touch my face,
Then swear ye never saw.

The milkin' trick's no in yer way,
Ye needna try again,
Ye'd pinch my fingers a' the day,
An' wadna git a drain;

They arena like my lady's sma',
But nane that had his wits
Wad grip an' squeeze them thumbs an' a',
An' think them Crumles' teats!

So up an' leave me wi' the coo,
Syne in your Sunday claes
Ye ken not me, I ken not you,
My lord o' workadays.

A REMONSTRANCE.

Wee Cluny, you're deleerit quite
Ramfeezlin a' this part
Wi' dancin', singin' day an' night
Frae vera joy of heart;

Leave ringin' o' your marriage chimes,
Leave off to laugh an' leap,
You fill my head wi' routh o' rhymes
When I wad liefer sleep.

Nae doubt but with the lordly Dee
You will be wedded soon,
But natheless moderate your glee
Beneath the maiden moon,

Or else go rouse the girls and boys
Who sleep an' may not know it;
But p'rhaps you only make this noise
In hearin' of a Poet.

OUTLAWED:

A RHYME FOR THE TIME.

What is this power maleficent,
Wherefrom the Knights of St. Stephen's are bent
To deliver the souls of the innocent?

They had done with the Highlander's feather bonnet,
Having spoken weightily upon it;
A fever due to our luckless trade
With Madagascar had been allayed;
But not at the call of the purse or the feather
The Knights, all one-minded, were banded together
Oblivious of party; not even the Bill
For giving their own with a flourish to wives

Had sufficed with such generous ardour to fill
Their speeches, or knit them in word and in will,
As this question which clearly cut into their lives.

This is no frivolous matter,—a topic
Which touches them nearer than the Tropic,—
Nearer than houses, dearer than lands;
Here are their little ones thrown on their hands
To guard from the ravage or something most savage;
To save from some truculent claimant that stands
And faces the man with its shameless demands;
That has crouched by the hearth
And sprung up on the path,
That would suddenly open its reptile jaws,
That would stealthily seize in its cat-like claws;
Some lurking evil, some hooded snake
That watches the hour and the moment to slake
Its wrath on the man and his motherless brood
Having no part in either.

I stood,
I waited, I watched as they took up the word,
And I deemed it some tale of romance that I heard,—
Some olden story
Of dragon hoary,—
Of fabulous monster that over-bold
Had come from despoiling the lambs in the fold
To threaten the lambs with the tender blue eyes,
The tearful blue eyes and the fleeces of gold;
But I saw that the speakers believed in their cries,
Were sure that some monster was lying in wait
For the children of men, and were keen to abate
Of this power perverse the inordinate claim—
To hush and to crush and expose it to shame,
Or to bone it, and render invertebrate.

What is this terror, this name of fear
That they shun to pronounce, that I tremble to hear?

The name of this vampire that fastens and thrives
On the tender young lives
Of the children,—this foe whose mere shadow appals,—
The name of this Spoiler for justice that calls,
And that justice, as such, has no choice but to smother,
To stamp out the life of, or build up in walls?—
God comfort the children—this fiend is—their Mother!

Yes, they give up its title, but publish no deed
Of the malice supernal wherefor it must bleed.
What are the crimes that have cost so dear?
You have shown much panic, but little proof;
There are voices that speak on the woman's behoof;—
Knights of St. Stephen's, is it clear
That your foe is more than a shadowy fear?

If so dim and dateless the woman's crime,
Let us find her track on the path of time.

She has come from far, she has journeyed slowly,
Her lot was hard, her state was lowly;
Though she stands to-day and asks in her pride
For an equal place by her partner's side,—
Though she claims that none have a right to wrest
The child from the freehold of her breast,—
Holding the larger human need,
The need of an infant for a mother,
The woman who bore it and no other,
More than all niceties of creed,—
This fair pretender has been a squaw
With little to hope or of love or of law,
Has served in the ruder times as a beast
Of burthen, and still in the sun-stricken East
Is kept in a cage, being rated as yet
Little more than a bird, or a marmozet;

She has come on her way through much dishonour,
Hers the pity, not hers the blame,
Hers the sorrow, but whose the shame
If she bear some marks of the slave upon her?

As pilgrim of progress the woman is late,
But her tardy arrival is due to the weight
Of the treasure consigned to her tenderer care,
Of the scorn of her efforts which bade her despair;—
Though the scorn be lived down, still the cost of endeavour
The high trust of nature must double for ever.

What share is this claimant's in those whom the state
Would guard from a love it holds direr than hate?
Is she here but to fashion and bring to the birth
The seed of man's sowing,—to bear, like the earth,
Which needs not the pity we give to the brute,
Being haply insensate—her perilous fruit?

Not so, for she suffers; dear God, she can feel!
And the bone of her bone which you take, and appeal
To your man-mongered statutes, is hers in a sense
Which can never be known save for this thing alone:
The child which is borne at her body's expense.

A growing burthen is thus her share,
Present labour, and after care;
The prodigal need to give of her best,
To squander herself through the live-long hours;
A sacrifice of perennial birth,
A bondage binding her soul to earth,
Keeping it down with a chain of flowers;
A swift life-current that sets to her breast
And leaves her happy, and dispossessed,
With fading beauty and 'minished powers;

A tender torment, a priceless pain,
A very passion of fond unrest,—
Such is the loss, and such the gain
Of the woman whom love has crowned and blest.

This her portion; and what is assigned
To the abler body, the master mind?
What unto hers his share in the plan
Which nature, our mother,
Like many another
Who favours her sons, has required of the man?

A moment from memory even to pass
As the dew from the flower, the breath from the glass;
He loves, and love changes in nothing his state,
He is free to depart, he is clogged by no weight;
Love wears not for him the stern aspect of Fate.

Then speak; what evil beneath the sun
Has your life's co-partner, the woman, done,
That you take possession
By brute aggression
Of that which is in a sense unknown
To all things else the woman's own?
Hers by a rule which goes beyond
All other rule: a nature-bond
Compared with which the titled wealth
Of men is as the merest stealth.
Why for her must there be no right
But the man's gloved hand in its feudal might?
Why on this shore where breath so free
Is drawn 'neath the cincture of the sea,
Should the mother's tender heart and hands
Alone be subject to cruel bands?
How with a human right at stake
Should an old world code still dare to break

The word of Life, with its holy trust
In woman, and by an act unjust
Wrest from the stainless wife and mild,
When forced from love of life at peace
From shameless wrong to seek release,
Her more than equal share in the child?
Why in this land of even measure
Must only the woman hold a treasure
Nursed into life beneath her heart
And of her dearest self a part,
As granted at a tyrant's pleasure
And subject to unrighteous seizure?

Such wrong has moved to manful shame
Some judges fit to bear the name,
Who boldly dare to find a flaw
Where right may creep within the law!

All ye who sit in close debate,
Who hold and still withhold our fate

While wearily we stand and wait,
Why take the law yourselves, and place
Your needier partners under grace?
Ye fervent advocates of light,
Retained to vindicate the right,—
With nothing proven but your fears,
No witnesses but women's tears,
Why have you seized upon and hurled
This woman's charter in the dust,
How dared from out the pale to thrust
And so to outlaw half the world!

Knights of St. Stephen's, are you met
Your bond upon the sea to set?
Think you with overmastering pride
To turn from us the rising tide
Of justice and of liberty?
You will not turn it, valiant knights,
Whose fathers wrung their chartered rights

From wrongful hands at Runnymead;
Our rights to us stand far more near,
And love for them will cast out fear;
Not profitless our hearts will bleed
For ever, love shall make us free!
Your faith is ours, and yours our creed;
Your mothers, sisters, mates are we!

Think of it well, ye men of might,
Who sit and watch by day and night
The signs of coming change, and see
Through that which is, what is to be.
You note the part and not the whole,
You scorn our impact overmuch,
And do not feel the finer touch
Which helps the future to control.

Nor are you wise to circumvent
The friends of custom and of rule,

While rashly leaving to their bent
The lawless, the incontinent,
The weak and too-confiding fool.

Behold the wife constrained to part
Her life in twain; in legal bands
Idly eating her busy heart,
Vainly wringing her empty hands;
Wearing out in prayer the knees
Which should have been her children's lap,
Spoiled of all but her rueful ease,
A moaning creature in a trap;
Sighing that hers had been the state
Of the mother who never knew married mate,
So free to cherish and eke provide
For the infant by whom her hands are tied;—
Free if the milk should fail in her breast,
And she and the child be too hard prest,
To hurry it into the grave to rest!

O ye who loose, O ye who bind,
Your tender mercies are not kind!

Who breaks must pay; that law is just,
And she who breaks the double trust
Of man and nature, needs must feel
The double pang which both can deal;
The Christ could write her sin in dust,
And make her judges share her shame,
But not the Christ Himself could heal
The wounds with which the woman slays
The faith of men whom she betrays;
Annulled for her the common claim;
Unless high pity make appeal
Her heart must break upon the wheel.

But, think you that the love whose root
In woman's heart has borne for fruit
All that we strive for, know, or feel
Of best, will bear the bruising heel

For ever, or that deep and pure,
Knowing itself, it will endure
To hold no part in love secure,
But just the portion of the brute?

There stands a cloud, a little cloud
Upon the brink of coming time,
Its morning presence scarce avowed,
But gathering to the noonday prime;
No bigger than a man's closed hand,
It darkens still, and still it grows,
And it in opening on the land,
As time its fulness shall disclose,
Will flood the world in every part,
Grown to the size of woman's heart.

With no vain-glorious defiance
She comes to claim her human right,—
With heart to feel, no heart to fight,
Or hand to wring enforced compliance;

Only the noblest love a space
Will haply seek some safer place,
Which while the altars, bright of old
With purest flame, will languish cold,—
The waves of passion turn, and roll
A deviate current, to the pole;
The baffled mother instinct use
Its means to wider ends, diffuse
Its benedictions in a sphere
Where larger love, and not so near,
Will cost the human heart less dear.

This woman's love released, unbound,
Turned thankless out from home and hearth,
May reach of earth the farthest bound,
May lighten many an unknown path;
But not unfelt will be the cost
Of that hard dealing which has lost

From homely use but for a day
The best of love, and sent away
To sublimate itself in space
The force which should sublime the race.

Knights of St. Stephen's, mark the cloud,
The little cloud which shows on high,—
No thunder pealing long and loud,
No flash electric cleaves the sky;
But still the cloud which means the storm,
The little cloud that takes the form
Of man's closed hand, grows dark and dense,
And weighted with a leaden sense
Of wrong endured through silent years—
The force of disregarded tears.

With what slight creatures will you wive
In coming days, O men of pride,
When those of us who greatly strive
Are driven homeless from your side?

You do not well to make the gate
Of entrance to your halls so strait,
That access to the heaven within
The highest hearts no more may win;
You are not wise to rest your hope
On natures of a narrower scope,
And leave the souls which like your own
Aspire, to find their way alone,
And go down childless to their graves,
The while you get your sons of slaves.

See March 27, 1884. Debate on Mr. Bryce's Infants' Bill, in the course of which it was made clear that the House generally regarded children as having but one parent; that one, not the woman to whose guardianship children are primarily committed by nature, but the man who frames the law by which the case between the parents, when it arises, is adjudged.

SONNETS.

A PRAYER TO ATHENA.

From the shores of the blue mid-sea, for the Jubilee of the King of Greece.

Athena! I, whom love did once embolden
To worship in that temple which hath been
The crown of the world,—thy suppliant, O Queen,
Hear me again from this far shore, in olden
Days of thy glory thine. Thou who hast holden
Achilles by the hair, Wisdom serene,
Stand now by King and Counsellors, unseen
As in the dear dim dawn, by song made golden.

Athena! Queen of the Air, maiden divine,—
Of all things on the subject earth, most free,—
Guard with thy sovereign strength the faint new breath
Of freedom drawn in this loved land of thine,
Where for long years in fierce despite of thee
It has been strangled in the arms of death.

OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

[_]

On the picture of Christ supporting a little child, one of the subjects of His “kingdom.” Painted by W. Goodal, R.A.

Unfathomed depths of pure humanity
Speak in that face, and those enfolding hands
Laid lightly on the clinging child who stands
As child protected, as Thy subject, free.
In Thy still gaze the calm infinity
Of selfless sorrow, conquers, and commands
Our lesser griefs to loose their temporal bands,
Or bind in closer brotherhood to Thee.

For “Man of Sorrows” to those eyes of Thine
The eyes we lift, with gathering tears are wet;
The pathos of that face but half divine
Subdues us, for such passion no man yet
Has known as that whereof the royal sign:
Sovereign compassion on Thy brow is set.

DEATH AND CHANGE.

No. I.

Pale Death, of thy sole self how art thou fair!
Fair when thou lightest on some half-blown flower,
Fair when thou comest at life's final hour,
Calm even in the noontide heat and glare,
Yea, and more kingly-proud beyond compare
When thou hast overthrown, whole as a tower,
Some lusty toiler in his day of power,
And from his seething brow uncoiled the care.

Not death but change, the shadow of Death, that creeps
And closes on us, causes our dismay;
The spoiler of our hope who neither sleeps
Nor rests, continuing “never in one stay;”
The wanton thief who while he nothing keeps,
Filches the sunshine from the youngest day.

No. II.

So it is Life not Death that still decreeth
The weary doom that we must wax and wane
In ceaseless change, and know no ease from pain,
No rest from toil but such as death agreeth.
This life is then the shadow which so fleeth—
The shadow we would seek to stay in vain,—
And from this shadow, of all joy the bane,
It is not Life, but Death itself that freeth.

But though in such surcease we see the door
To further change, the Being that has past
Forth from this house of Life we know no more;
Life is to us a shadow first and last;
Only this truth stands firmer than before:
Substance exists; else were no shadow cast.

THE GOD OF THE LIVING.

“God is the God of the living, not of the dead.”

Stern nature is the all-unmindful mother
Who first affiliates our souls to Thee,
O God, then sends them prayerless from her knee
To learn which love to cherish, which to smother,
Show us or in her name, or in some other
Not bound like her by harsh necessity,
What of man's hope hath taught the lips most free,
His first, God's chosen Son, and man's best brother.

Thus He declares the Father's mind, He saith:
“God is the God of faithful spirits fled,
But near His heart as when they still drew breath;
God is He of the living, not the dead!”
Take comfort, lovers, mourning dear love lost,
How dream you God would love at such a cost?

TO A DEAD QUEEN OF SONG.

High-hearted queen, and woman sweet and strong!
As queen above the tyranny of fear,
As woman changeless in a changing sphere,
Holding a title of the wavering throng
Calmly as if no breath could do thee wrong;—
Farewell! Maybe some notes to us unclear
Of this thy life, in entering at God's ear,
Ring there as true as on the earth thy song.

Titiens, in conscious royalty thy soul
Proclaimed itself that hour when it uprose
To hail a rival with a joy serene;
Stood back to give her place upon the roll
Of newer fame, and, pure of envious throes,
Greeted with kindred kiss a sister queen.

It is told of Titiens that on the night of Adelina Patti's first appearance, she waited at the wings to hail her triumph with a sisterly embrace.

A NOTICE SERVED.

It is not thou, my soul, that, sick and pale,
Shrinkest inept from every loud-tongued wrong;
I think of thy sole self thou couldest be strong
If that thy habitation did not quail.
Some flesh is doomed of mere excess to fail,—
Owning too many chords too highly strung,
Too many paths to lose the way among;—
Too perfect service simply to avail.

But howsoe'er my soul is ill at ease
In this her house, and would be free of it;
She cannot work her will if not in peace,
Or live in any place whence love would flit;
So Love, of my sad life obtain release,
Get better terms for me, or leave to quit.

100

HEART-LONELINESS.

Alone, alone! Life's bitterest loss or gain
Is this: that journeying on ward through the years
We find in all the world no place for tears;
That heart to heart may lean and beat in vain,
And asking, guard the secret of its pain,
Bound in its silent prison by its fears
To waken eyes that see not, rouse deaf ears
That hope of comfort have aforetime slain.

Who has not yearned in such lone agony
To summon back to life some spirit fled?
Deeming in that dear presence he were free
His soul's contemnëd anguish to outspread;
But vain, still vain; it would not, could not be;—
Our worst of woe we tell but to the dead.

101

LOVE THE ARBITRATOR.

I am thy servant, Love, and bear thy sign,
Which is to suffer; would, O Love, that thou
To my forlorn estate wouldst deign to bow,
And looking on me with those eyes of thine,
And calling me by this poor name of mine,
Win me my secret sorrow to avow,
Saying: “My servant, who doth wrong thee now,
Whom I to work thy pleasure may incline?”

And I, for thou art very Love, will make
Confession of my griefs; and thou, for I
Am what I cannot choose but be, will take
The part against me as our case you try,
Proving me guilty for my weak heart's sake;
Well knowing it must either love or die.

102

TO THE MARCHIONESS OF DUFFERIN ON HER DEPARTURE FROM INDIA.

Thou who hast carried thy benignant smile
To distant regions owning England's sway,
Thy mother-land is proud of thee to-day—
Foremost of women, scorning with base wile
For private ends through passion to beguile,
Yet claiming priestly right pure hands to lay
Upon the ark of progress, and to stay
It haply from such fall as would defile.

Meseems of many tears at parting wrung
From eyes so kind, their sorest would be wept
For those grown children to your skirts who clung,
Having through custom's fruitless jungle crept
Before that sob which burst as from one breast
Shook the Zenanas from their age-long rest.

See the farewell address of Indian ladies to the Marchioness of Dufferin, as published in the Times of last December.

103

CHRISTMAS 1888.

Dear day, of all the high-days of the year
Most blest, being that which mostly brings release
From all such thoughts as are the foes to peace,—
How have I schooled my heart to hold thee clear
Of sorrow for the dead, however dear,
How made vain longings and regrets to cease,
And leave their places to the sweet increase
Of love that lives to bless us now, and here.

Yet must I lose thee with all else, in vain
My strivings; like a child who stands before
A lighted window in the cold and rain
Eying the cates within, thought hungers o'er
Dear faces in bright homes which not again
May lend their light to mine for evermore.

105

1889.

107

PERJURED SPRING.

Harsh, perjured Spring, most dead to me
When most I feel your living breath,
We thought on you as Life to be,
And now I find you only Death.

False Spring, that promised us your grace
To build our faltering hope upon,
You dare to come with smiling face—
To come to me when he is gone!

To come in state where he is not,
O heart of me! what will befall
When suddenly in some green spot
Alone I hear the cuckoo call!

108

A HYMN OF PRAISE TO DEATH.

Beautiful Death! I sing thee as one has sung
Whose song like mine from the depths of his being was wrung;
I sing thee as I have seen thee behind the cloud
Which folds thee from hourly sight as a corpse in its shroud;
I sing thee, veiled one, because of thy face, unknown
To many, the beauty benignant to me has been shown.
Angel of change and of progress, Angel of peace,
Who bringest God's order in time for the soul's release;
Shadowy presence that turning Love's day to night
Gives us a glimpse of the starry infinite

109

Angel of Hope and Revealing, God's minister,
Silent and secret in service that knows not to err;
Though from their side thou hast taken the life of their life,
Folded in sleep, there have been who have rested from strife,
Yielded their all at the last to thy tenderer care,
Sought not a word or a sign of farewell for their share;
Followed thee, gentle one, gone with thee into the night,
Followed thee, holy one, come with thee into the light,
Thinking it may be by tardy submission to earn
Grace of sweet Death for themselves in a kindly return;
Take when thou wilt from my singing lips the breath,
I laud thee, because I love thee, beautiful Death!

Merciful Death! by thy lovers perceived as birth,
Dread is thy shape as it silently travels the earth;

110

Palled in the cloud that is adverse to mortal sight,
Radiant on high though it sweep in the central light.
Death! be thou good to the hearts thou hast all but slain,
Lead them together with Love o'er the cloud-darkened plain,
Set them, though trembling and strange for awhile on the mount,
Give them a glimpse of their love at its infinite fount,
Show it them, pure of self-pity and earthly alloy,
One in its intimate essence for ever with joy!

Love, that has laboured and suffered, the mother mature
Of all that is highest in hope and has claim to endure;
Love, that has quickened in darkness and grown to its height,
Leapt into fulness of life in the womb of the night;

111

Love in Ascendant, so ruling our life as a star
Clear in the still depths of sorrow,—of near or of far;
Knowing no more in that light than of doubt or of fear,
Finding its home in the infinite now and here,—
How had it been with thee, Love, had'st thou known but of birth,
Gladdened the morning of life and made fruitful the earth?
How had it been if thy proud eyes had ever been bent
Low on the furrows of life in a grovelling content?
How had it been with the soul that of Death had been left,
Lapsed from God's whole in a part,—of His presence bereft?

Born into Time as thou wert in such lowly degree,
Love, thou art one with the Highest; I sing not of thee!

112

I sing not of Love but of Death, the strong nurse of the soul.
Love, when too young as at first, its own life to control,—
Young for the depths of its being as yet to be stirred,—
Strengthened itself in the earth only; thine then the word,
Thine then the signal that taughtest young Love to aspire,
Thine then the voice that awakened Love's dormant desire,
Thine the soft breast we reclined on when done was the day,
Thine the deep rest that we found from our work or our play,
Thine the strong hand, O dread Death! that upbearing our dead,
Lifted'st the veil o'er the face of the infinite spread,

113

Letting the gleam of God's glory, the voice of His praise,
Flash out to plenish the darkness and silence of days,
Void of the voice and the vision, and dull with amaze,
At the heart that could beat when the heart of that other was still!
Death, with sealed orders, who worketh God's ultimate will,
Blinded with weeping, it may be, and bending beneath
The weight of thy largess, we praise thee still, bountiful Death!

Vain is the promise of Life in the ear of our youth,
Thou, holding office of Him of whose essence is truth,
Art alone the unfailing, consummate one; never thy word
Has been broken to man, or thy coming unduly deferred;

114

Though in impatience of sorrow we weary and wait,
None from their lost ones are cut off for ever in state;
What our belovëds are now, that we surely shall be,
None that draw breath upon earth are forgotten of Thee.
Vain as the promise of Life is our mortal endeavour,
Thine and Thine only, the pledge that betrayeth us never!

True that Thou comest as creditor, claiming in tears
All the usurious sum of Love's grievous arrears,
All the dire cost of the joy of the blessed spent years;
Yet when destrained of our treasure, left starving and bare,
Thou in the house of our sorrow and blankest despair
Lifting the curtain, hast shown us a golden stair,

115

Signed to us, holding our dead in Thy tender embrace,
Suffered us, close as we clung to Thee, found us a place
High on some mount of prevision to breathe for a space;
Led us and left on Thy way to a heaven unknown,
Entered the gate through which light travelled down from the throne,
Entered, and left us,—to find our way earthward alone.

Would it were given me, helpful of others' essay,
Faintly to picture the glory, to hint at the way
Hither and thither; I only may witness to this:
The path has been trodden; a stairway and glory there is.
Aid us, O Father, for none may now serve us but Thee;—
Open the eyes of the spirit that craveth to see,
Hasten the birth of the being that yearneth to BE!

116

Nothing is sure to the heart as its pleasure or pain;
Nothing is true to the thought as its loss or its gain;
Firmest of all things the facts that can conquer the might
Of imperious sorrow, and show it transfigured in light.
This hast Thou done for us, won for us, while we have breath,
This we up-raise Thee for, praise Thee for, Angel of death!