Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jonathan Ingram, Charles M.

Bidwell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF

GEORGE MACDONALD

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. 2

CONTENTS.

PARABLES—
  The Man of Songs
  The Hills
  The Journey
  The Tree's Prayer
  Were I a Skilful Painter
  Far and Near
  My Room
  Death and Birth
  Love's Ordeal
  The Lost Soul
  The Three Horses
  The Golden Key
  Somnium Mystici
  The Sangreal
  The Failing Track
  Tell Me
  Brother Artist
  After an Old Legend
  A Meditation of St Eligius
  The Early Bird
  Sir Lark and King Sun
  The Owl and the Bell
  A Mammon-Marriage
  A Song in the Night
  Love's History
  The Lark and the Wind
  A Dead House
  Bell upon Organ
  Master and Boy
  The Clock of the Universe
  The Thorn in the Flesh
  Lycabas

BALLADS—
  The Unseen Model
  The Homeless Ghost
  Abu Midjan
  The Thankless Lady
  Legend of the Corrievrechan
  The Dead Hand

MINOR DITTIES—
  In the Night
  The Giver
  False Prophets
  Life-Weary
  Approaches
  Travellers' Song
  Love is Strength
  Coming
  A Song of the Waiting Dead
  Obedience
  A Song in the Night
  De Profundis
  Blind Sorrow

MOTES IN THE SUN—
  Angels
  The Father's Worshippers
  A Birthday-Wish
  To Any One
  Waiting
  Lost but Safe
  Much and More
  Hope and Patience
  A Better Thing
  A Prisoner
  To My Lord and Master
  To One Unsatisfied
  To My God
  Triolet
  The Word of God
  Eine Kleine Predigt
  To the Life Eternal
  Hope Deferred
  Forgiveness
  Dejection
  Appeal

POEMS FOR CHILDREN—
  Lessons for a Child
  What makes Summer?
  Mother Nature
  The Mistletoe
  Professor Noctutus
  Bird-Songs
  Riddles
  Baby
  Up and Down
  Up in the Tree
  A Baby-Sermon
  Little Bo-Peep
  Little Boy Blue
  Willie's Question
  King Cole
  Said and Did
  Dr. Doddridge's Dog
  The Girl that Lost Things
  A Make-Believe
  The Christmas Child
  A Christmas Prayer
  No End of No-Story

A THREEFOLD CORD—
  Dedication
  The Haunted House
  In the Winter
  Christmas Day, 1878
  The New Year
  Two Rondels
  Rondel
  Song
  Smoke
  To a Certain Critic
  Song
  A Cry
  From Home
  To My Mother Earth
  Thy Heart
  0 Lord, how Happy
  No Sign
  November, 1851
  Of One who Died in Spring
  An Autumn Song
  Triolet
  I See Thee Not
  A Broken Prayer
  Come Down
  A Mood
  The Carpenter
  The Old Garden
  A Noonday Melody
  Who Lights the Fire?
  Who would have Thought?
  On a December Day
  Christmas Day, 1850
  To a February Primrose
  In February
  The True
  The Dwellers Therein
  Autumn's Gold
  Punishment
  Shew us the Father
  The Pinafore
  The Prism
  Sleep
  Sharing
  In Bonds
  Hunger
  New Year's Eve: A Waking Dream
  From North Wales: To the Mother
  Come to Me
  A Fear
  The Lost House
  The Talk of the Echoes
  The Goal
  The Healer
  Oh that a Wind
  A Vision of St. Eligius
  Of the Son of Man
  A Song-Sermon
  Words in the Night
  Consider the Ravens
  The Wind of the World
  Sabbath Bells
  Fighting
  After the Fashion of an Old Emblem
  A Prayer in Sickness
  Quiet Dead
  Let your Light so Shine
  Triolet
  The Souls' Rising
  Awake
  To an Autograph-Hunter
  With a Copy of "In Memoriam"
  They are Blind
  When the Storm was Proudest
  The Diver
  To the Clouds
  Second Sight
  Not Understood
  Hom II. v. 403
  The Dawn
  Galileo
  Subsidy
  The Prophet
  The Watcher
  The Beloved Disciple
  The Lily of the Valley
  Evil Influence
  Spoken of several Philosophers
  Nature a Moral Power
  To June
  Summer
  On a Midge
  Steadfast
  Provision
  First Sight of the Sea
  On the Source of the Arve
  Confidence
  Fate
  Unrest
  One with Nature
  My Two Geniuses
  Sudden Calm
  Thou Also
  The Aurora Borealis
  The Human
  Written on a Stormy Night
  Reverence waking Hope
  Born of Water
  To a Thunder-Cloud
  Sun and Moon
  Doubt heralding Vision
  Life or Death?
  Lost and Found
  The Moon
  Truth, not Form
  God in Growth
  In a Churchyard
  Power
  Death
  That Holy Thing
  From Novalis
  What Man is there of You?
  O Wind of God
  Shall the Dead praise Thee?
  A Year-Song
  Song
  For where your Treasure is, there will your Heart be also
  The Asthmatic Man to the Satan that binds him
  Song-Sermon
  Shadows
  A Winter Prayer
  Song of a Poor Pilgrim
  An Evening Prayer
  Song-Sermon
  A Dream-Song
  Christmas, 1880
  Rondel
  The Sparrow
  December 23, 1879
  Song-Prayer
  December 27, 1879
  Sunday, December 28, 1879
  Song-Sermon
  The Donkey in the Cart to the Horse in the Carriage
  Room to Roam
  Cottage Songs—
    1. By the Cradle
    2. Sweeping the Floor
    3. Washing the Clothes
    4. Drawing Water
    5. Cleaning the Windows
  The Wind and the Moon
  The Foolish Harebell
  Song
  An Improvisation
  Equity
  Contrition
  The Consoler
  To ———.
  To a Sister
  The Shortest and Sweetest of Songs

SCOTS SONGS AND BALLADS—
  Annie she's Dowie
  O Lassie ayont the Hill!
  The bonny, bonny Dell
  Nannie Braw
  Ower the Hedge
  Gaein and Comin
  A Sang o' Zion
  Time and Tide
  The Waesome Carl
  The Mermaid
  The Yerl o' Waterydeck
  The Twa Gordons
  The Last Wooin
  Halloween
  The Laverock
  Godly Ballants—
    1. This Side an' That
    2. The Twa Baubees
    3. Wha's my Neibour?
    4. Him wi' the Bag
    5. The Coorse Cratur
  The Deil's Forhooit his Ain
  The Auld Fisher
  The Herd and the Mavis
  A Lown Nicht
  The Home of Death
  Triolet
  Win' that Blaws
  A Song of Hope
  The Burnie
  Hame
  The Sang o' the Auld Fowk
  The Auld Man's Prayer
  Granny Canty
  Time
  What the Auld Fowk are Thinkin
  Greitna, Father
  I Ken Something
  Mirls

PARABLES

THE MAN OF SONGS.

"Thou wanderest in the land of dreams,
  O man of many songs!
To thee what is, but looks and seems;
  No realm to thee belongs!"

"Seest thou those mountains, faint and far,
  O spirit caged and tame?"
"Blue clouds like distant hills they are,
  And like is not the same."

"Nay, nay; I know each mountain well,
  Each cliff, and peak, and dome!
In that cloudland, in one high dell,
  Nesteth my little home."

THE HILLS.

Behind my father's cottage lies
  A gentle grassy height
Up which I often ran—to gaze
  Back with a wondering sight,
For then the chimneys I thought high
  Were down below me quite!

All round, where'er I turned mine eyes,
  Huge hills closed up the view;
The town 'mid their converging roots
  Was clasped by rivers two;
From, one range to another sprang
  The sky's great vault of blue.

It was a joy to climb their sides,
  And in the heather lie!
A joy to look at vantage down
  On the castle grim and high!
Blue streams below, white clouds above,
  In silent earth and sky!

And now, where'er my feet may roam,
  At sight of stranger hill
A new sense of the old delight
  Springs in my bosom still,
And longings for the high unknown
  Their ancient channels fill.

For I am always climbing hills,
  From the known to the unknown—
Surely, at last, on some high peak,
  To find my Father's throne,
Though hitherto I have only found
  His footsteps in the stone!

And in my wanderings I did meet
  Another searching too:
The dawning hope, the shared quest
  Our thoughts together drew;
Fearless she laid her band in mine
  Because her heart was true.

She was not born among the hills,
  Yet on each mountain face
A something known her inward eye
  By inborn light can trace;
For up the hills must homeward be,
  Though no one knows the place.

Clasp my hand close, my child, in thine—
  A long way we have come!
Clasp my hand closer yet, my child,
  Farther we yet must roam—
Climbing and climbing till we reach
  Our heavenly father's home.

THE JOURNEY.

I.

Hark, the rain is on my roof!
Every murmur, through the dark,
Stings me with a dull reproof
Like a half-extinguished spark.
Me! ah me! how came I here,
Wide awake and wide alone!
Caught within a net of fear,
All my dreams undreamed and gone!

I will rise; I will go forth.
Better dare the hideous night,
Better face the freezing north
Than be still, where is no light!
Black wind rushing round me now,
Sown with arrowy points of rain!
Gone are there and then and now—
I am here, and so is pain!

Dead in dreams the gloomy street!
I will out on open roads.
Eager grow my aimless feet—
Onward, onward something goads!
I will take the mountain path,
Beard the storm within its den;
Know the worst of this dim wrath
Harassing the souls of men.

Chasm 'neath chasm! rock piled on rock!
Roots, and crumbling earth, and stones!
Hark, the torrent's thundering shock!
Hark, the swaying pine tree's groans!
Ah! I faint, I fall, I die,
Sink to nothingness away!—
Lo, a streak upon the sky!
Lo, the opening eye of day!

II.

Mountain summits lift their snows
O'er a valley green and low;
And a winding pathway goes
Guided by the river's flow;
And a music rises ever,
As of peace and low content,
From the pebble-paven river
Like an odour upward sent.

And the sound of ancient harms
Moans behind, the hills among,
Like the humming of the swarms
That unseen the forest throng.
Now I meet the shining rain
From a cloud with sunny weft;
Now against the wind I strain,
Sudden burst from mountain cleft.

Now a sky that hath a moon
Staining all the cloudy white
With a faded rainbow—soon
Lost in deeps of heavenly night!
Now a morning clear and soft,
Amber on the purple hills;
Warm blue day of summer, oft
Cooled by wandering windy rills!

Joy to travel thus along
With the universe around!
Every creature of the throng,
Every sight and scent and sound
Homeward speeding, beauty-laden,
Beelike, to its hive, my soul!
Mine the eye the stars are made in!
Mine the heart of Nature's whole!

III.

Hills retreating on each hand
Slowly sink into the plain;
Solemn through the outspread land
Rolls the river to the main.
In the glooming of the night
Something through the dusky air
Doubtful glimmers, faintly white,
But I know not what or where.

Is it but a chalky ridge
Bared of sod, like tree of bark?
Or a river-spanning bridge
Miles away into the dark?
Or the foremost leaping waves
Of the everlasting sea,
Where the Undivided laves
Time with its eternity?

Is it but an eye-made sight,
In my brain a fancied gleam?
Or a faint aurora-light
From the sun's tired smoking team?
In the darkness it is gone,
Yet with every step draws nigh;
Known shall be the thing unknown
When the morning climbs the sky!

Onward, onward through the night
Matters it I cannot see?
I am moving in a might
Dwelling in the dark and me!
End or way I cannot lose—
Grudge to rest, or fear to roam;
All is well with wanderer whose
Heart is travelling hourly home.

IV.

Joy! O joy! the dawning sea
Answers to the dawning sky,
Foretaste of the coming glee
When the sun will lord it high!
See the swelling radiance growing
To a dazzling glory-might!
See the shadows gently going
'Twixt the wave-tops wild with light!

Hear the smiting billows clang!
See the falling billows lean
Half a watery vault, and hang
Gleaming with translucent green,
Then in thousand fleeces fall,
Thundering light upon the strand!—
This the whiteness which did call
Through the dusk, across the land!

See, a boat! Out, out we dance!
Fierce blasts swoop upon my sail!
What a terrible expanse—
Tumbling hill and heaving dale!
Stayless, helpless, lost I float,
Captive to the lawless free!
But a prison is my boat!
Oh, for petrel-wings to flee!

Look below: each watery whirl
Cast in beauty's living mould!
Look above: each feathery curl
Dropping crimson, dropping gold!—
Oh, I tremble in the flush
Of the everlasting youth!
Love and awe together rush:
I am free in God, the Truth!

THE TREE'S PRAYER.

Alas, 'tis cold and dark!
The wind all night hath sung a wintry tune!
Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moon
Beat, beat against my bark.

Oh! why delays the spring?
Not yet the sap moves in my frozen veins;
Through all my stiffened roots creep numbing pains,
That I can hardly cling.

The sun shone yester-morn;
I felt the glow down every fibre float,
And thought I heard a thrush's piping note
Of dim dream-gladness born.

Then, on the salt gale driven,
The streaming cloud hissed through my outstretched arms,
Tossed me about in slanting snowy swarms,
And blotted out the heaven.

All night I brood and choose
Among past joys. Oh, for the breath of June!
The feathery light-flakes quavering from the moon
The slow baptizing dews!

Oh, the joy-frantic birds!—
They are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!
Aha, the billowy odours! and the bees
That browse like scattered herds!

The comfort-whispering showers
That thrill with gratefulness my youngest shoot!
The children playing round my deep-sunk root,
Green-caved from burning hours!

See, see the heartless dawn,
With naked, chilly arms latticed across!
Another weary day of moaning loss
On the thin-shadowed lawn!

But icy winter's past;
Yea, climbing suns persuade the relenting wind:
I will endure with steadfast, patient mind;
My leaves will come at last!

WERE I A SKILFUL PAINTER.

Were I a skilful painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear,
And who would blame me then?—
Fear of the tide of darkness
That floweth fast behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.

Were I a skilful painter,
What should I paint for thee?—
A tiny spring-bud peeping out
From a withered wintry tree;
The warm blue sky of summer
O'er jagged ice and snow,
And water hurrying gladsome out
From a cavern down below;

The dim light of a beacon
Upon a stormy sea,
Where a lonely ship to windward beats
For life and liberty;
A watery sun-ray gleaming
Athwart a sullen cloud
And falling on some grassy flower
The rain had earthward bowed;

Morn peeping o'er a mountain,
In ambush for the dark,
And a traveller in the vale below
Rejoicing like a lark;
A taper nearly vanished
Amid the dawning gray,
And a maiden lifting up her head,
And lo, the coming day!

I am no skilful painter;
Let who will blame me then
That I would teach thee hope and fear
With my plain-talking pen!—
Fear of the tide of darkness
That floweth fast behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.

FAR AND NEAR. [The fact which suggested this poem is related by Clarke in his Travels.]

I.

Blue sky above, blue sea below,
  Far off, the old Nile's mouth,
'Twas a blue world, wherein did blow
  A soft wind from the south.

In great and solemn heaves the mass
  Of pulsing ocean beat,
Unwrinkled as the sea of glass
  Beneath the holy feet.

With forward leaning of desire
  The ship sped calmly on,
A pilgrim strong that would not tire
  Or hasten to be gone.

II.

List!—on the wave!—what can they be,
  Those sounds that hither glide?
No lovers whisper tremulously
  Under the ship's round side!

No sail across the dark blue sphere
  Holds white obedient way;
No far-fled, sharp-winged boat is near,
  No following fish at play!

'Tis not the rippling of the wave,
  Nor sighing of the cords;
No winds or waters ever gave
  A murmur so like words;

Nor wings of birds that northward strain,
  Nor talk of hidden crew:
The traveller questioned, but in vain—
  He found no answer true.

III.

A hundred level miles away,
  On Egypt's troubled shore,
Two nations fought, that sunny day,
  With bellowing cannons' roar.

The fluttering whisper, low and near,
  Was that far battle's blare;
A lipping, rippling motion here,
  The blasting thunder there.

IV.

Can this dull sighing in my breast
  So faint and undefined,
Be the worn edge of far unrest
  Borne on the spirit's wind?

The uproar of high battle fought
  Betwixt the bond and free,
The thunderous roll of armed thought
  Dwarfed to an ache in me?

MY ROOM

To G. E. M.

  'Tis a little room, my friend—
Baby walks from end to end;
All the things look sadly real
This hot noontide unideal;
Vaporous heat from cope to basement
All you see outside the casement,
Save one house all mud-becrusted,
And a street all drought-bedusted!
There behold its happiest vision,
Trickling water-cart's derision!
Shut we out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face!

  Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo, the walls with warm flush dyed!
Lo, the ceiling glorified,
As when, lost in tenderest pinks,
White rose on the red rose thinks!
But beneath, a hue right rosy,
Red as a geranium-posy,
Stains the air with power estranging,
Known with unknown clouding, changing.
See in ruddy atmosphere
Commonplaceness disappear!
Look around on either hand—
Are we not in fairyland?

  On that couch, inwrapt in mist
Of vaporized amethyst,
Lie, as in a rose's heart:
Secret things I would impart;
Any time you would believe them—
Easier, though, you will receive them
Bathed in glowing mystery
Of the red light shadowy;
For this ruby-hearted hue,
Sanguine core of all the true,
Which for love the heart would plunder
Is the very hue of wonder;
This dissolving dreamy red
Is the self-same radiance shed
From the heart of poet young,
Glowing poppy sunlight-stung:
If in light you make a schism
'Tis the deepest in the prism.

  This poor-seeming room, in fact
Is of marvels all compact,
So disguised by common daylight
By its disenchanting gray light,
Only eyes that see by shining,
Inside pierce to its live lining.
Loftiest observatory
Ne'er unveiled such hidden glory;
Never sage's furnace-kitchen
Magic wonders was so rich in;
Never book of wizard old
Clasped such in its iron hold.

  See that case against the wall,
Darkly-dull-purpureal!—
A piano to the prosy,
But to us in twilight rosy—
What?—A cave where Nereids lie,
Naiads, Dryads, Oreads sigh,
Dreaming of the time when they
Danced in forest and in bay.
In that chest before your eyes
Nature self-enchanted lies;—
Lofty days of summer splendour;
Low dim eves of opal tender;
Airy hunts of cloud and wind;
Brooding storm—below, behind;
Awful hills and midnight woods;
Sunny rains in solitudes;
Babbling streams in forests hoar;
Seven-hued icebergs; oceans frore.—
Yes; did I not say enchanted,
That is, hid away till wanted?
Do you hear a low-voiced singing?
'Tis the sorceress's, flinging
Spells around her baby's riot,
Binding her in moveless quiet:—
She at will can disenchant them,
And to prayer believing grant them.

  You believe me: soon will night
Free her hands for fair delight;
Then invoke her—she will come.
Fold your arms, be blind and dumb.
She will bring a book of spells
Writ like crabbed oracles;
Like Sabrina's will her hands
Thaw the power of charmed bands.
First will ransomed music rush
Round thee in a glorious gush;
Next, upon its waves will sally,
Like a stream-god down a valley,
Nature's self, the formless former,
Nature's self, the peaceful stormer;
She will enter, captive take thee,
And both one and many make thee,
One by softest power to still thee,
Many by the thoughts that fill thee.—
Let me guess three guesses where
She her prisoner will bear!

  On a mountain-top you stand
Gazing o'er a sunny land;
Shining streams, like silver veins,
Rise in dells and meet in plains;
Up yon brook a hollow lies
Dumb as love that fears surprise;
Moorland tracts of broken ground
O'er it rise and close it round:
He who climbs from bosky dale
Hears the foggy breezes wail.
Yes, thou know'st the nest of love,
Know'st the waste around, above!
In thy soul or in thy past,
Straight it melts into the vast,
Quickly vanishes away
In a gloom of darkening gray.

  Sinks the sadness into rest,
Ripple like on water's breast:
Mother's bosom rests the daughter—
Grief the ripple, love the water;
And thy brain like wind-harp lies
Breathed upon from distant skies,
Till, soft-gathering, visions new
Grow like vapours in the blue:
White forms, flushing hyacinthine,
Move in motions labyrinthine;
With an airy wishful gait
On the counter-motion wait;
Sweet restraint and action free
Show the law of liberty;
Master of the revel still
The obedient, perfect will;
Hating smallest thing awry,
Breathing, breeding harmony;
While the god-like graceful feet,
For such mazy marvelling meet,
Press from air a shining sound,
Rippling after, lingering round:
Hair afloat and arms aloft
Fill the chord of movement soft.

  Gone the measure polyhedral!
Towers aloft a fair cathedral!
Every arch—like praying arms
Upward flung in love's alarms,
Knit by clasped hands o'erhead—
Heaves to heaven a weight of dread;
In thee, like an angel-crowd,
Grows the music, praying loud,
Swells thy spirit with devotion
As a strong wind swells the ocean,
Sweeps the visioned pile away,
Leaves thy heart alone to pray.

  As the prayer grows dim and dies
Like a sunset from the skies,
Glides another change of mood
O'er thy inner solitude:
Girt with Music's magic zone,
Lo, thyself magician grown!
Open-eyed thou walk'st through earth
Brooding on the aeonian birth
Of a thousand wonder-things
In divine dusk of their springs:
Half thou seest whence they flow,
Half thou seest whither go—
Nature's consciousness, whereby
On herself she turns her eye,
Hoping for all men and thee
Perfected, pure harmony.

  But when, sinking slow, the sun
Leaves the glowing curtain dun,
I, of prophet-insight reft,
Shall be dull and dreamless left;
I must hasten proof on proof,
Weaving in the warp my woof!

  What are those upon the wall,
Ranged in rows symmetrical?
Through the wall of things external
Posterns they to the supernal;
Through Earth's battlemented height
Loopholes to the Infinite;
Through locked gates of place and time,
Wickets to the eternal prime
Lying round the noisy day
Full of silences alway.

  That, my friend? Now, it is curious
You should hit upon the spurious!
'Tis a door to nowhere, that;
Never soul went in thereat;
Lies behind, a limy wall
Hung with cobwebs, that is all.

  Do not open that one yet,
Wait until the sun is set.
If you careless lift its latch
Glimpse of nothing will you catch;
Mere negation, blank of hue,
Out of it will stare at you;
Wait, I say, the coming night,
Fittest time for second sight,
Then the wide eyes of the mind
See far down the Spirit's wind.
You may have to strain and pull,
Force and lift with cunning tool,
Ere the rugged, ill-joined door
Yield the sight it stands before:
When at last, with grating sweep,
Wide it swings—behold, the deep!

  Thou art standing on the verge
Where material things emerge;
Hoary silence, lightning fleet,
Shooteth hellward at thy feet!
Fear not thou whose life is truth,
Gazing will renew thy youth;
But where sin of soul or flesh
Held a man in spider-mesh,
It would drag him through that door,
Give him up to loreless lore,
Ages to be blown and hurled
Up and down a deedless world.

  Ah, your eyes ask how I brook
Doors that are not, doors to look!
That is whither I was tending,
And it brings me to good ending.

  Baby is the cause of this;
Odd it seems, but so it is;—
Baby, with her pretty prate
Molten, half articulate,
Full of hints, suggestions, catches,
Broken verse, and music snatches!
She, like seraph gone astray,
Must be shown the homeward way;
Plant of heaven, she, rooted lowly,
Must put forth a blossom holy,
Must, through culture high and steady,
Slow unfold a gracious lady;
She must therefore live in wonder,
See nought common up or under;
She the moon and stars and sea,
Worm and butterfly and bee,
Yea, the sparkle in a stone,
Must with marvel look upon;
She must love, in heaven's own blueness,
Both the colour and the newness;
Must each day from darkness break,
Often often come awake,
Never with her childhood part,
Change the brain, but keep the heart.

  So, from lips and hands and looks,
She must learn to honour books,
Turn the leaves with careful fingers,
Never lean where long she lingers;
But when she is old enough
She must learn the lesson rough
That to seem is not to be,
As to know is not to see;
That to man or book, appearing
Gives no title to revering;
That a pump is not a well,
Nor a priest an oracle:
This to leave safe in her mind,
I will take her and go find
Certain no-books, dreary apes,
Tell her they are mere mock-shapes
No more to be honoured by her
But be laid upon the fire;
Book-appearance must not hinder
Their consuming to a cinder.

  Would you see the small immortal
One short pace within Time's portal?
I will fetch her.—Is she white?
Solemn? true? a light in light?
See! is not her lily-skin
White as whitest ermelin
Washed in palest thinnest rose?
Very thought of God she goes,
Ne'er to wander, in her dance,
Out of his love-radiance!

  But, my friend, I've rattled plenty
To suffice for mornings twenty!
I should never stop of course,
Therefore stop I will perforce.—
If I led them up, choragic,
To reveal their nature magic,
Twenty things, past contradiction,
Yet would prove I spoke no fiction
Of the room's belongings cryptic
Read by light apocalyptic:
There is that strange thing, glass-masked,
With continual questions tasked,
Ticking with untiring rock:
It is called an eight-day clock,
But to me the thing appears
Busy winding up the years,
Drawing on with coiling chain
The epiphany again.

DEATH AND BIRTH.

'Tis the midnight hour; I heard
The Abbey-bell give out the word.
Seldom is the lamp-ray shed
On some dwarfed foot-farer's head
In the deep and narrow street
Lying ditch-like at my feet
Where I stand at lattice high
Downward gazing listlessly
From my house upon the rock,
Peak of earth's foundation-block.

  There her windows, every story,
Shine with far-off nebulous glory!
Round her in that luminous cloud
Stars obedient press and crowd,
She the centre of all gazing,
She the sun her planets dazing!
In her eyes' victorious lightning
Some are paling, some are brightening:
Those on which they gracious turn,
Stars combust, all tenfold burn;
Those from which they look away
Listless roam in twilight gray!
When on her my looks I bent
Wonder shook me like a tent,
And my eyes grew dim with sheen,
Wasting light upon its queen!
But though she my eyes might chain,
Rule my ebbing flowing brain,
Truth alone, without, within,
Can the soul's high homage win!

  He, I do not doubt, is there
Who unveiled my idol fair!
And I thank him, grateful much,
Though his end was none of such.
He from shapely lips of wit
Let the fire-flakes lightly flit,
Scorching as the snow that fell
On the damned in Dante's hell;
With keen, gentle opposition,
Playful, merciless precision,
Mocked the sweet romance of youth
Balancing on spheric truth;
He on sense's firm set plane
Rolled the unstable ball amain:
With a smile she looked at me,
Stung my soul, and set me free.

  Welcome, friend! Bring in your bricks.
Mortar there? No need to mix?
That is well. And picks and hammers?
Verily these are no shammers!—
There, my friend, build up that niche,
That one with the painting rich!

  Yes, you're right; it is a show
Picture seldom can bestow;
City palaces and towers,
Terraced gardens, twilight bowers,
Vistas deep through swaying masts,
Pennons flaunting in the blasts:
Build; my room it does not fit;
Brick-glaze is the thing for it!

  Yes, a window you may call it;
Not the less up you must wall it:
In that niche the dead world lies;
Bury death, and free mine eyes.

  There were youths who held by me,
Said I taught, yet left them free:
Will they do as I said then?
God forbid! As ye are men,
Find the secret—follow and find!
All forget that lies behind;
Me, the schools, yourselves, forsake;
In your souls a silence make;
Hearken till a whisper come,
Listen, follow, and be dumb.

  There! 'tis over; I am dead!
Of my life the broken thread
Here I cast out of my hand!—
O my soul, the merry land!
On my heart the sinking vault
Of my ruining past makes halt;
Ages I could sit and moan
For the shining world that's gone!

  Haste and pierce the other wall;
Break an opening to the All!
Where? No matter; done is best.
Kind of window? Let that rest:
Who at morning ever lies
Pondering how to ope his eyes!

  I bethink me: we must fall
On the thinnest of the wall!
There it must be, in that niche!—
No, the deepest—that in which
Stands the Crucifix.

                     You start?—
Ah, your half-believing heart
Shrinks from that as sacrilege,
Or, at least, upon its edge!
Worse than sacrilege, I say,
Is it to withhold the day
From the brother whom thou knowest
For the God thou never sawest!

  Reverently, O marble cold,
Thee in living arms I fold!
Thou who art thyself the way
From the darkness to the day,
Window, thou, to every land,
Wouldst not one dread moment stand
Shutting out the air and sky
And the dayspring from on high!
Brother with the rugged crown,
Gently thus I lift thee down!

  Give me pick and hammer; you
Stand aside; the deed I'll do.
Yes, in truth, I have small skill,
But the best thing is the will.

  Stroke on stroke! The frescoed plaster
Clashes downward, fast and faster.
Hark, I hear an outer stone
Down the rough rock rumbling thrown!
There's a cranny! there's a crack!
The great sun is at its back!
Lo, a mass is outward flung!
In the universe hath sprung!

  See the gold upon the blue!
See the sun come blinding through!
See the far-off mountain shine
In the dazzling light divine!
Prisoned world, thy captive's gone!
Welcome wind, and sky, and sun!

LOVE'S ORDEAL.

A recollection and attempted completion of a prose fragment read in boyhood.

  "Hear'st thou that sound upon the window pane?"
Said the youth softly, as outstretched he lay
Where for an hour outstretched he had lain—
Softly, yet with some token of dismay.
Answered the maiden: "It is but the rain
That has been gathering in the west all day!
Why shouldst thou hearken so? Thine eyelids close,
And let me gather peace from thy repose."

  "Hear'st thou that moan creeping along the ground?"
Said the youth, and his veiling eyelids rose
From deeps of lightning-haunted dark profound
Ruffled with herald blasts of coming woes.
"I hear it," said the maiden; "'tis the sound
Of a great wind that here not seldom blows;
It swings the huge arms of the dreary pine,
But thou art safe, my darling, clasped in mine."

  "Hear'st thou the baying of my hounds?" said he;
"Draw back the lattice bar and let them in."
From a rent cloud the moonlight, ghostily,
Slid clearer to the floor, as, gauntly thin,
She opening, they leaped through with bound so free,
Then shook the rain-drops from their shaggy skin.
The maiden closed the shower-bespattered glass,
Whose spotted shadow through the room did pass.

  The youth, half-raised, was leaning on his hand,
But, when again beside him sat the maid,
His eyes for one slow minute having scanned
Her moonlit face, he laid him down, and said,
Monotonous, like solemn-read command:
"For Love is of the earth, earthy, and is laid
Lifeless at length back in the mother-tomb."
Strange moanings from the pine entered the room.

  And then two shadows like the shadow of glass,
Over the moonbeams on the cottage floor,
As wind almost as thin and shapeless, pass;
A sound of rain-drops came about the door,
And a soft sighing as of plumy grass;
A look of sorrowing doubt the youth's face wore;
The two great hounds half rose; with aspect grim
They eyed his countenance by the taper dim.

  Shadow nor moaning sound the maiden noted,
But on his face dwelt her reproachful look;
She doubted whether he the saying had quoted
Out of some evil, earth-begotten book,
Or up from his deep heart, like bubbles, had floated
Words which no maiden ever yet could brook;
But his eyes held the question, "Yea or No?"
Therefore the maiden answered, "Nay, not so;

  "Love is of heaven, eternal." Half a smile
Just twinned his lips: shy, like all human best,
A hopeful thought bloomed out, and lived a while;
He looked one moment like a dead man blest—
His soul a bark that in a sunny isle
At length had found the haven of its rest;
But he could not remain, must forward fare:
He spoke, and said with words abrupt and bare,

  "Maiden, I have loved other maidens." Pale
Her red lips grew. "I loved them, yes, but they
Successively in trial's hour did fail,
For after sunset clouds again are gray."
A sudden light shone through the fringy veil
That drooping hid her eyes; and then there lay
A stillness on her face, waiting; and then
The little clock rung out the hour of ten.

  Moaning once more the great pine-branches bow
To a soft plaining wind they would not stem.
Brooding upon her face, the youth said, "Thou
Art not more beautiful than some of them,
But a fair courage crowns thy peaceful brow,
Nor glow thine eyes, but shine serene like gem
That lamps from radiant store upon the dark
The light it gathered where its song the lark.

  "The horse that broke this day from grasp of three,
Thou sawest then the hand thou holdest, hold:
Ere two fleet hours are gone, that hand will be
Dry, big-veined, wrinkled, withered up and old!—
No woman yet hath shared my doom with me."
With calm fixed eyes she heard till he had told;
The stag-hounds rose, a moment gazed at him,
Then laid them down with aspect yet more grim.

  Spake on the youth, nor altered look or tone:
"'Tis thy turn, maiden, to say no or dare."—
Was it the maiden's, that importunate moan?—
"At midnight, when the moon sets, wilt thou share
The terror with me? or must I go alone
To meet an agony that will not spare?"
She answered not, but rose to take her cloak;
He staid her with his hand, and further spoke.

  "Not yet," he said; "yet there is respite; see,
Time's finger points not yet to the dead hour!
Enough is left even now for telling thee
The far beginnings whence the fearful power
Of the great dark came shadowing down on me:
Red roses crowding clothe my love's dear bower—
Nightshade and hemlock, darnel, toadstools white
Compass the place where I must lie to-night!"

  Around his neck the maiden put her arm
And knelt beside him leaning on his breast,
As o'er his love, to keep it strong and warm,
Brooding like bird outspread upon her nest.
And well the faith of her dear eyes might charm
All doubt away from love's primeval rest!
He hid his face upon her heart, and there
Spake on with voice like wind from lonely lair.

  A drearier moaning through the pine did go
As if a human voice complained and cried
For one long minute; then the sound grew low,
Sank to a sigh, and sighing sank and died.
Together at the silence two voices mow—
His, and the clock's, which, loud grown, did divide
The hours into live moments—sparks of time
Scorching the soul that trembles for the chime.

  He spoke of sins ancestral, born in him
Impulses; of resistance fierce and wild;
Of failure weak, and strength reviving dim;
Self-hatred, dreariness no love beguiled;
Of storm, and blasting light, and darkness grim;
Of torrent paths, and tombs with mountains piled;
Of gulfs in the unsunned bosom of the earth;
Of dying ever into dawning birth.

  "But when I find a heart whose blood is wine;
Whose faith lights up the cold brain's passionless hour;
Whose love, like unborn rose-bud, will not pine,
But waits the sun and the baptizing shower—
Till then lies hid, and gathers odours fine
To greet the human summer, when its flower
Shall blossom in the heart and soul and brain,
And love and passion be one holy twain—

  "Then shall I rest, rest like the seven of yore;
Slumber divine will steep my outworn soul
And every stain dissolve to the very core.
She too will slumber, having found her goal.
Time's ocean o'er us will, in silence frore,
Aeonian tides of change-filled seasons roll,
And our long, dark, appointed period fill.
Then shall we wake together, loving still."

  Her face on his, her mouth to his mouth pressed,
Was all the answer of the trusting maid.
Close in his arms he held her to his breast
For one brief moment—would have yet assayed
Some deeper word her heart to strengthen, lest
It should though faithful be too much afraid;
But the clock gave the warning to the hour—
And on the thatch fell sounds not of a shower.

  One long kiss, and the maiden rose. A fear
Lay, thin as a glassy shadow, on her heart;
She trembled as some unknown thing were near,
But smiled next moment—for they should not part!
The youth arose. With solemn-joyous cheer,
He helped the maid, whose trembling hands did thwart
Her haste to wrap her in her mantle's fold;
Then out they passed into the midnight cold.

  The moon was sinking in the dim green west,
Curled upward, half-way to the horizon's brink,
A leaf of glory falling to its rest,
The maiden's hand, still trembling, sought to link
Her arm to his, with love's instinctive quest,
But his enfolded her; hers did not sink,
But, thus set free, it stole his body round,
And so they walked, in freedom's fetters bound.

  Pressed to his side, she felt, like full-toned bell,
A mighty heart heave large in measured play;
But as the floating moon aye lower fell
Its bounding force did, by slow loss, decay.
It throbbed now like a bird; now like far knell
Pulsed low and faint! And now, with sick dismay,
She felt the arm relax that round her clung,
And from her circling arm he forward hung.

  His footsteps feeble, short his paces grow;
Her strength and courage mount and swell amain.
He lifted up his head: the moon lay low,
Nigh the world's edge. His lips with some keen pain
Quivered, but with a smile his eyes turned slow
Seeking in hers the balsam for his bane
And finding it—love over death supreme:
Like two sad souls they walked met in one dream.[A]

[Note A:

In a lovely garden walking
  Two lovers went hand in hand;
Two wan, worn figures, talking
  They sat in the flowery land.

On the cheek they kissed one another,
  On the mouth with sweet refrain;
Fast held they each the other,
  And were young and well again.

Two little bells rang shrilly—
  The dream went with the hour:
She lay in the cloister stilly,
  He far in the dungeon-tower!

From Uhland.]

  Hanging his head, behind each came a hound,
Padding with gentle paws upon the road.
Straight silent pines rose here and there around;
A dull stream on the left side hardly flowed;
A black snake through the sluggish waters wound.
Hark, the night raven! see the crawling toad!
She thinks how dark will be the moonless night,
How feeblest ray is yet supernal light.

  The moon's last gleam fell on dim glazed eyes,
A body shrunken from its garments' fold:
An aged man whose bent knees could not rise,
He tottered in the maiden's tightening hold.
She shivered, but too slight was the disguise
To hide from love what never yet was old;
She held him fast, with open eyes did pray,
Walked through the fear, and kept the onward way.

  Toward a gloomy thicket of tall firs,
Dragging his inch-long steps, he turned aside.
There Silence sleeps; not one green needle stirs.
They enter it. A breeze begins to chide
Among the cones. It swells until it whirs,
Vibrating so each sharp leaf that it sighed:
The grove became a harp of mighty chords,
Wing-smote by unseen creatures wild for words.

  But when he turned again, toward the cleft
Of a great rock, as instantly it ceased,
And the tall pines stood sudden, as if reft
Of a strong passion, or from pain released;
Again they wove their straight, dark, motionless weft
Across the moonset-bars; and, west and east,
Cloud-giants rose and marched up cloudy stairs;
And like sad thoughts the bats came unawares.

  'Twas a drear chamber for thy bridal night,
O poor, pale, saviour bride! An earthen lamp
With shaking hands he kindled, whose faint light
Mooned out a tiny halo on the damp
That filled the cavern to its unseen height,
Dim glimmering like death-candle in a swamp.
Watching the entrance, each side lies a hound,
With liquid light his red eyes gleaming round.

  A heap rose grave-like from the rocky floor
Of moss and leaves, by many a sunny wind
Long tossed and dried—with rich furs covered o'er
Expectant. Up a jealous glory shined
In her possessing heart: he should find more
In her than in those faithless! With sweet mind
She, praying gently, did herself unclothe,
And lay down by him, trusting, and not loath.

  Once more a wind came, flapping overhead;
The hounds pricked up their ears, their eyes flashed fire.
The trembling maiden heard a sudden tread—
Dull, yet plain dinted on the windy gyre,
As if long, wet feet o'er smooth pavement sped—
Come fiercely up, as driven by longing dire
To enter; followed sounds of hurried rout:
With bristling hair, the hounds stood looking out.

  Then came, half querulous, a whisper old,
Feeble and hollow as if shut in a chest:
"Take my face on your bosom; I am cold."
She bared her holy bosom's truth-white nest,
And forth her two hands instant went, love-bold,
And took the face, and close against her pressed:
Ah, the dead chill!—Was that the feet again?—
But her great heart kept beating for the twain.

  She heard the wind fall, heard the following rain
Swelling the silent waters till their sound
Went wallowing through the night along the plain.
The lamp went out, by the slow darkness drowned.
Must the fair dawn a thousand years refrain?
Like centuries the feeble hours went round.
Eternal night entombed her with decay:
To her live soul she clasped the breathless clay.

  The world stood still. Her life sank down so low
That but for wretchedness no life she knew.
A charnel wind moaned out a moaning—No;
From the devouring heart of earth it blew.
Fair memories lost all their sunny glow:
Out of the dark the forms of old friends grew
But so transparent blanched with dole and smart
She saw the pale worm lying in each heart.

  And, worst of all—Oh death of keep-fled life!
A voice within her woke and cried: In sooth
Vain is all sorrow, hope, and care, and strife!
Love and its beauty, its tenderness and truth
Are shadows bred in hearts too fancy-rife,
Which melt and pass with sure-decaying youth:
Regard them, and they quiver, waver, blot;
Gaze at them fixedly, and they are not.

  And all the answer the poor child could make
Was in the tightened clasp of arms and hands.
Hopeless she lay, like one Death would not take
But still kept driving from his empty lands,
Yet hopeless held she out for his dear sake;
The darksome horror grew like drifting sands
Till nought was precious—neither God nor light,
And yet she braved the false, denying night.

  So dead was hope, that, when a glimmer weak
Stole through a fissure somewhere in the cave,
Thinning the clotted darkness on his cheek,
She thought her own tired eyes the glimmer gave:
He moved his head; she saw his eyes, love-meek,
And knew that Death was dead and filled the Grave.
Old age, convicted lie, had fled away!
Youth, Youth eternal, in her bosom lay!

  With a low cry closer to him she crept
And on his bosom hid a face that glowed:
It was his turn to comfort—he had slept!
Oh earth and sky, oh ever patient God,
She had not yielded, but the truth had kept!
New love, new bliss in weeping overflowed.
I can no farther tell the tale begun;
They are asleep, and waiting for the sun.

THE LOST SOUL.

  Look! look there!
Send your eyes across the gray
By my finger-point away
Through the vaporous, fumy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark?
Beyond the dark, the dawning day?
On its horizon, pray you, mark
Something like a ruined heap
Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:
Down all the grades through which they rose
Up to harmonious life and law's repose,
Back, slow, to the awful deep
Of nothingness, mere being's lack:
On its surface, lone and bare,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Formless, nameless, something lies:
Can the vision in your eyes
Its idea recognize?

  'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!—
Half he lived some ages back;
But, with hardly opened eyes,
Thinking him already wise,
Down he sat and wrote a book;
Drew his life into a nook;
Out of it would not arise
To peruse the letters dim,
Graven dark on his own walls;
Those, he judged, were chance-led scrawls,
Or at best no use to him.
A lamp was there for reading these;
This he trimmed, sitting at ease,
For its aid to write his book,
Never at his walls to look—
Trimmed and trimmed to one faint spark
Which went out, and left him dark.—
I will try if he can hear
Spirit words with spirit ear!

  Motionless thing! who once,
Like him who cries to thee,
Hadst thy place with thy shining peers,
Thy changeful place in the changeless dance
Issuing ever in radiance
From the doors of the far eternity,
With feet that glitter and glide and glance
To the music-law that binds the free,
And sets the captive at liberty—
To the clang of the crystal spheres!
O heart for love! O thirst to drink
From the wells that feed the sea!
O hands of truth, a human link
'Twixt mine and the Father's knee!
O eyes to see! O soul to think!
O life, the brother of me!
Has Infinitude sucked back all
The individual life it gave?
Boots it nothing to cry and call?
Is thy form an empty grave?

  It heareth not, brothers, the terrible thing!
Sounds no sense to its ear will bring!
Let us away, 'tis no use to tarry;
Love no light to its heart will carry!
Sting it with words, it will never shrink;
It will not repent, it cannot think!
Hath God forgotten it, alas!
Lost in eternity's lumber-room?
Will the wind of his breathing never pass
Over it through the insensate gloom?
Like a frost-killed bud on a tombstone curled,
Crumbling it lies on its crumbling world,
Sightless and deaf, with never a cry,
In the hell of its own vacuity!

  See, see yon angel crossing our flight
Where the thunder vapours loom,
From his upcast pinions flashing the light
Of some outbreaking doom!
Up, brothers! away! a storm is nigh!
Smite we the wing up a steeper sky!
What matters the hail or the clashing winds,
The thunder that buffets, the lightning that blinds!
We know by the tempest we do not lie
Dead in the pits of eternity!

THE THREE HORSES.

What shall I be?—I will be a knight
  Walled up in armour black,
With a sword of sharpness, a hammer of might.
  And a spear that will not crack—
So black, so blank, no glimmer of light
  Will betray my darkling track.

Saddle my coal-black steed, my men,
  Fittest for sunless work;
Old Night is steaming from her den,
  And her children gather and lurk;
Bad things are creeping from the fen,
  And sliding down the murk.

Let him go!—let him go! Let him plunge!—Keep away!
  He's a foal of the third seal's brood!
Gaunt with armour, in grim array
  Of poitrel and frontlet-hood,
Let him go, a living castle, away—
  Right for the evil wood.

I and Ravenwing on the course,
  Heavy in fighting gear—
Woe to the thing that checks our force,
  That meets us in career!
Giant, enchanter, devil, or worse—
  What cares the couched spear!

Slow through the trees zigzag I ride.
  See! the goblins!—to and fro!
From the skull of the dark, on either side,
  See the eyes of a dragon glow!
From the thickets the silent serpents glide—
  I pass them, I let them go;

For somewhere in the evil night
  A little one cries alone;
An aged knight, outnumbered in fight,
  But for me will be stricken prone;
A lady with terror is staring white,
  For her champion is overthrown.

The child in my arms, to my hauberk prest,
  Like a trembling bird will cling;
I will cover him over, in iron nest,
  With my shield, my one steel wing,
And bear him home to his mother's breast,
  A radiant, rescued thing.

Spur in flank, and lance in rest,
  On the old knight's foes I flash;
The caitiffs I scatter to east and west
  With clang and hurtle and crash;
Leave them the law, as knaves learn it best,
  In bruise, and breach, and gash.

The lady I lift on my panting steed;
  On the pommel she holds my mace;
Hand on bridle I gently lead
  The horse at a gentle pace;
The thickets with martel-axe I heed,
  For the wood is an evil place.

What treasure is there in manly might
  That hid in the bosom lies!
Who for the crying will not fight
  Had better be he that cries!
A man is a knight that loves the right
  And mounts for it till he dies.

Alas, 'tis a dream of ages hoar!
  In the fens no dragons won;
No giants from moated castles roar;
  Through the forest wide roadways run;
Of all the deeds they did of yore
  Not one is left to be done!

If I should saddle old Ravenwing
  And hie me out at night,
Scared little birds away would spring
  An ill-shot arrow's flight:
The idle fancy away I fling,
  Now I will dream aright!

Let a youth bridle Twilight, my dapple-gray,
  With broad rein and snaffle bit;
He must bring him round at break of day
  When the shadows begin to flit,
When the darkness begins to dream away,
  And the owls begin to sit.

Ungraithed in plate or mail I go,
  With only my sword—gray-blue
Like the scythe of the dawning come to mow
  The night-sprung shadows anew
From the gates of the east, that, fair and slow,
  Maid Morning may walk through.

I seek no forest with darkness grim,
  To the open land I ride;
Low light, from the broad horizon's brim,
  Lies wet on the flowing tide,
And mottles with shadows dun and dim
  The mountain's rugged side.

Steadily, hasteless, o'er valley and hill.
  O'er the moor, along the beach,
We ride, nor slacken our pace until
  Some city of men we reach;
There, in the market, my horse stands still,
  And I lift my voice and preach.

Wealth and poverty, age and youth
  Around me gather and throng;
I tell them of justice, of wisdom, of truth,
  Of mercy, and law, and wrong;
My words are moulded by right and ruth
  To a solemn-chanted song.

They bring me questions which would be scanned,
  That strife may be forgot;
Swerves my balance to neither hand,
  The poor I favour no jot;
If a man withstand, out sweeps my brand.
  I slay him upon the spot.

But what if my eye have in it a beam
  And therefore spy his mote?
Righteousness only, wisdom supreme
  Can tell the sheep from the goat!
Not thus I dream a wise man's dream,
  Not thus take Wrong by the throat!

Lead Twilight home. I dare not kill;
  The sword myself would scare.—
When the sun looks over the eastern hill,
  Bring out my snow-white mare:
One labour is left which no one will
  Deny me the right to share!

Take heed, my men, from crest to heel
  Snow-white have no speck;
No curb, no bit her mouth must feel,
  No tightening rein her neck;
No saddle-girth drawn with buckle of steel
  Shall her mighty breathing check!

Lay on her a cloth of silver sheen,
  Bring me a robe of white;
Wherever we go we must be seen
  By the shining of our light—
A glistening splendour in forest green,
  A star on the mountain-height.

With jar and shudder the gates unclose;
  Out in the sun she leaps!
A unit of light and power she goes
  Levelling vales and steeps:
The wind around her eddies and blows,
  Before and behind her sleeps.

Oh joy, oh joy to ride the world
  And glad, good tidings bear!
A flag of peace on the winds unfurled
  Is the mane of my shining mare:
To the sound of her hoofs, lo, the dead stars hurled
  Quivering adown the air!

Oh, the sun and the wind! Oh, the life and the love!
  Where the serpent swung all day
The loud dove coos to the silent dove;
  Where the web-winged dragon lay
In its hole beneath, on the rock above
  Merry-tongued children play.

With eyes of light the maidens look up
  As they sit in the summer heat
Twining green blade with golden cup—
  They see, and they rise to their feet;
I call aloud, for I must not stop,
  "Good tidings, my sisters sweet!"

For mine is a message of holy mirth
  To city and land of corn;
Of praise for heaviness, plenty for dearth,
  For darkness a shining morn:
Clap hands, ye billows; be glad, O earth,
  For a child, a child is born!

Lo, even the just shall live by faith!
  None argue of mine and thine!
Old Self shall die an ecstatic death
  And be born a thing divine,
For God's own being and God's own breath
  Shall be its bread and wine.

Ambition shall vanish, and Love be king,
  And Pride to his darkness hie;
Yea, for very love of a living thing
  A man would forget and die,
If very love were not the spring
  Whence life springs endlessly!

The myrtle shall grow where grew the thorn;
  Earth shall be young as heaven;
The heart with remorse or anger torn
  Shall weep like a summer even;
For to us a child, a child is born,
  Unto us a son is given!

Lord, with thy message I dare not ride!
  I am a fool, a beast!
The little ones only from thy side
  Go forth to publish thy feast!
And I, where but sons and daughters abide,
  Would have walked about, a priest!

Take Snow-white back to her glimmering stall;
  There let her stand and feed!—
I am overweening, ambitious, small,
  A creature of pride and greed!
Let me wash the hoofs, let me be the thrall,
  Jesus, of thy white steed!

THE GOLDEN KEY.

From off the earth the vapours curled,
  Went up to meet their joy;
The boy awoke, and all the world
  Was waiting for the boy!

The sky, the water, the wide earth
  Was full of windy play—
Shining and fair, alive with mirth,
  All for his holiday!

The hill said "Climb me;" and the wood
  "Come to my bosom, child;
Mine is a merry gamboling brood,
  Come, and with them go wild."

The shadows with the sunlight played,
  The birds were singing loud;
The hill stood up with pines arrayed—
  He ran to join the crowd.

But long ere noon, dark grew the skies,
  Pale grew the shrinking sun:
"How soon," he said, "for clouds to rise
  When day was but begun!"

The wind grew rough; a wilful power
  It swept o'er tree and town;
The boy exulted for an hour,
  Then weary sat him down.

And as he sat the rain began,
  And rained till all was still:
He looked, and saw a rainbow span
  The vale from hill to hill.

He dried his tears. "Ah, now," he said,
  "The storm was good, I see!
Yon pine-dressed hill, upon its head
  I'll find the golden key!"

He thrid the copse, he climbed the fence,
  At last the top did scale;
But, lo, the rainbow, vanished thence,
  Was shining in the vale!

"Still, here it stood! yes, here," he said,
  "Its very foot was set!
I saw this fir-tree through the red,
  This through the violet!"

He searched and searched, while down the skies
  Went slow the slanting sun.
At length he lifted hopeless eyes,
  And day was nearly done!

Beyond the vale, above the heath,
  High flamed the crimson west;
His mother's cottage lay beneath
  The sky-bird's rosy breast.

"Oh, joy," he cried, "not all the way
  Farther from home we go!
The rain will come another day
  And bring another bow!"

Long ere he reached his mother's cot,
  Still tiring more and more,
The red was all one cold gray blot,
  And night lay round the door.

But when his mother stroked his head
  The night was grim in vain;
And when she kissed him in his bed
  The rainbow rose again.

Soon, things that are and things that seem
  Did mingle merrily;
He dreamed, nor was it all a dream,
  His mother had the key.

SOMNIUM MYSTICI

A Microcosm In Terza Rima.

I.

Quiet I lay at last, and knew no more
  Whether I breathed or not, so worn I lay
  With the death-struggle. What was yet before
Neither I met, nor turned from it away;
  My only conscious being was the rest
  Of pain gone dead—dead with the bygone day,
And long I could have lingered all but blest
  In that half-slumber. But there came a sound
  As of a door that opened—in the west
Somewhere I thought it. As the hare the hound,
  The noise did start my eyelids and they rose.
  I turned my eyes and looked. Then straight I found
It was my chamber-door that did unclose,
  For a tall form up to my bedside drew.
  Grand was it, silent, its very walk repose;
And when I saw the countenance, I knew
  That I was lying in my chamber dead;
  For this my brother—brothers such are few—
That now to greet me bowed his kingly head,
  Had, many years agone, like holy dove
  Returning, from his friends and kindred sped,
And, leaving memories of mournful love,
  Passed vanishing behind the unseen veil;
  And though I loved him, all high words above.
Not for his loss then did I weep or wail,
  Knowing that here we live but in a tent,
  And, seeking home, shall find it without fail.
Feeble but eager, toward him my hands went—
  I too was dead, so might the dead embrace!
  Taking me by the shoulders down he bent,
And lifted me. I was in sickly case,
  But, growing stronger, stood up on the floor,
  There turned, and once regarded my dead face
With curious eyes: its brow contentment wore,
  But I had done with it, and turned away.
  I saw my brother by the open door,
And followed him out into the night blue-gray.
  The houses stood up hard in limpid air,
  The moon hung in the heavens in half decay,
And all the world to my bare feet lay bare.

II.

Now I had suffered in my life, as they
  Must suffer, and by slow years younger grow,
  From whom the false fool-self must drop away,
Compact of greed and fear, which, gathered slow,
  Darkens the angel-self that, evermore,
  Where no vain phantom in or out shall go,
Moveless beholds the Father—stands before
  The throne of revelation, waiting there,
  With wings low-drooping on the sapphire-floor,
Until it find the Father's ideal fair,
  And be itself at last: not one small thorn
  Shall needless any pilgrim's garments tear;
And but to say I had suffered I would scorn
  Save for the marvellous thing that next befell:
  Sudden I grew aware I was new-born;
All pain had vanished in the absorbent swell
  Of some exalting peace that was my own;
  As the moon dwelt in heaven did calmness dwell
At home in me, essential. The earth's moan
  Lay all behind. Had I then lost my part
  In human griefs, dear part with them that groan?
"'Tis weariness!" I said; but with a start
  That set it trembling and yet brake it not,
  I found the peace was love. Oh, my rich heart!
For, every time I spied a glimmering spot
  Of window pane, "There, in that silent room,"
  Thought I, "mayhap sleeps human heart whose lot
Is therefore dear to mine!" I cared for whom
  I saw not, had not seen, and might not see!
  After the love crept prone its shadow-gloom,
But instant a mightier love arose in me,
  As in an ocean a single wave will swell,
  And heaved the shadow to the centre: we
Had called it prayer, before on sleep I fell.
  It sank, and left my sea in holy calm:
  I gave each man to God, and all was well.
And in my heart stirred soft a sleeping psalm.

III.

No gentlest murmur through the city crept;
  Not one lone word my brother to me had spoken;
  But when beyond the city-gate we stept
I knew the hovering silence would be broken.
  A low night wind came whispering: through and through
  It did baptize me with the pledge and token
Of that soft spirit-wind which blows and blew
  And fans the human world since evermore.
  The very grass, cool to my feet, I knew
To be love also, and with the love I bore
  To hold far sympathy, silent and sweet,
  As having known the secret from of yore
In the eternal heart where all things meet,
  Feelings and thinkings, and where still they are bred.
  Sudden he stood, and with arrested feet
I also. Like a half-sunned orb, his head
  Slow turned the bright side: lo, the brother-smile
  That ancient human glory on me shed
Clothéd in which Jesus came forth to wile
  Unto his bosom every labouring soul,
  And all dividing passions to beguile
To winsome death, and then on them to roll
  The blessed stone of the holy sepulchre!
  "Thank God," he said, "thou also now art whole
And sound and well! For the keen pain, and stir
  Uneasy, and sore grief that came to us all,
  In that we knew not how the wine and myrrh
Could ever from the vinegar and gall
  Be parted, are deep sunk, yea drowned in God;
  And yet the past not folded in a pall,
But breathed upon, like Aaron's withered rod,
  By a sweet light that brings the blossoms through,
  Showing in dreariest paths that men have trod
Another's foot-prints, spotted of crimson hue,
  Still on before wherever theirs did wend;
  Yea, through the desert leading, of thyme and rue,
The desert souls in which young lions rend
  And roar—the passionate who, to be blest,
  Ravin as bears, and do not gain their end,
Because that, save in God, there is no rest."

IV.

Something my brother said to me like this,
  But how unlike it also, think, I pray:
  His eyes were music, and his smile a kiss;
Himself the word, his speech was but a ray
  In the clear nimbus that with verity
  Of absolute utterance made a home-born day
Of truth about him, lamping solemnly;
  And when he paused, there came a swift repose,
  Too high, too still to be called ecstasy—
A purple silence, lanced through in the close
  By such keen thought that, with a sudden smiling,
  It grew sheen silver, hearted with burning rose.
He was a glory full of reconciling,
  Of faithfulness, of love with no self-stain,
  Of tenderness, and care, and brother-wiling
Back to the bosom of a speechless gain.

V.

I cannot tell how long we joyous talked,
  For from my sense old time had vanished quite,
  Space dim-remaining—for onward still we walked.
No sun arose to blot the pale, still night—
  Still as the night of some great spongy stone
  That turns but once an age betwixt the light
And the huge shadow from its own bulk thrown,
  And long as that to me before whose face
  Visions so many slid, and veils were blown
Aside from the vague vast of Isis' grace.
  Innumerous thoughts yet throng that infinite hour,
  And hopes which greater hopes unceasing chase,
For I was all responsive to his power.
  I saw my friends weep, wept, and let them weep;
  I saw the growth of each grief-nurtured flower;
I saw the gardener watching—in their sleep
  Wiping their tears with the napkin he had laid
  Wrapped by itself when he climbed Hades' steep;
What wonder then I saw nor was dismayed!
  I saw the dull, degraded monsters nursed
  In money-marshes, greedy men that preyed
Upon the helpless, ground the feeblest worst;
  Yea all the human chaos, wild and waste,
  Where he who will not leave what God hath cursed
Now fruitless wallows, now is stung and chased
  By visions lovely and by longings dire.
  "But who believeth, he shall not make haste,
Even passing through the water and the fire,
  Or sad with memories of a better lot!
  He, saved by hope, for all men will desire,
Knowing that God into a mustard-jot
  May shut an aeon; give a world that lay
  Wombed in its sun, a molten unorbed clot,
One moment from the red rim to spin away
  Librating—ages to roll on weary wheel
  Ere it turn homeward, almost spent its day!
Who knows love all, time nothing, he shall feel
  No anxious heart, shall lift no trembling hand;
  Tender as air, but clothed in triple steel,
He for his kind, in every age and land,
  Hoping will live; and, to his labour bent,
  The Father's will shall, doing, understand."
So spake my brother as we onward went:
  His words my heart received, as corn the lea,
  And answered with a harvest of content.
We came at last upon a lonesome sea.

VI.

And onward still he went, I following
  Out on the water. But the water, lo,
  Like a thin sheet of glass, lay vanishing!
The starry host in glorious twofold show
  Looked up, looked down. The moment I saw this,
  A quivering fear thorough my heart did go:
Unstayed I walked across a twin abyss,
  A hollow sphere of blue; nor floor was found
  Of questing eye, only the foot met the kiss
Of the cool water lightly crisping round
  The edges of the footsteps! Terror froze
  My fallen eyelids. But again the sound
Of my guide's voice on the still air arose:
  "Hast thou forgotten that we walk by faith?
  For keenest sight but multiplies the shows.
Lift up thine eyelids; take a valiant breath;
  Terrified, dare the terror in God's name;
  Step wider; trust the invisible. Can Death
Avail no more to hearten up thy flame?"
  I trembled, but I opened wide mine eyes,
  And strode on the invisible sea. The same
High moment vanished all my cowardice,
  And God was with me. The well-pleased stars
  Threw quivering smiles across the gulfy skies,
The white aurora flashed great scimitars
  From north to zenith; and again my guide
  Full turned on me his face. No prison-bars
Latticed across a soul I there descried,
  No weather-stains of grief; quiet age-long
  Brooded upon his forehead clear and wide;
Yet from that face a pang shot, vivid and strong,
  Into my heart. For, though I saw him stand
  Close to me in the void as one in a throng,
Yet on the border of some nameless land
  He stood afar; a still-eyed mystery
  Caught him whole worlds away. Though in my hand
His hand I held, and, gazing earnestly,
  Searched in his countenance, as in a mine,
  For jewels of contentment, satisfy
My heart I could not. Seeming to divine
  My hidden trouble, gently he stooped and kissed
  My forehead, and his arms did round me twine,
And held me to his bosom. Still I missed
  That ancient earthly nearness, when we shared
  One bed, like birds that of no morrow wist;
Roamed our one father's farm; or, later, fared
  Along the dusty highways of the old clime.
  Backward he drew, and, as if he had bared
My soul, stood reading there a little time,
  While in his eyes tears gathered slow, like dew
  That dims the grass at evening or at prime,
But makes the stars clear-goldener in the blue:
  And on his lips a faint ethereal smile
  Hovered, as hangs the mist of its own hue
Trembling about a purple flower, the while
  Evening grows brown. "Brother! brother!" I cried;
  But straight outbursting tears my words beguile,
And in my bosom all the utterance died.

VII.

A moment more he stood, then softly sighed.
  "I know thy pain; but this sorrow is far
  Beyond my help," his voice at length replied
To my beseeching tears. "Look at yon star
  Up from the low east half-way, all ablaze:
  Think'st thou, because no cloud between doth mar
The liquid glory that from its visage rays,
  Thou therefore knowest that same world on high,
  Its people and its orders and its ways?"
"What meanest thou?" I said. "Thou know'st that
  Would hold, not thy dear form, but the self-thee!
  Thou art not near me! For thyself I cry!"
"Not the less near that nearer I shall be.
  I have a world within thou dost not know—
  Would I could make thee know it! but all of me
Is thine, though thou not yet canst enter so
  Into possession that betwixt us twain
  The frolic homeliness of love should flow
As o'er the brim of childhood's cup again:
  Away the deeper childhood first must wipe
  That clouded consciousness which was our pain.
When in thy breast the godlike hath grown ripe,
  And thou, Christ's little one, art ten times more
  A child than when we played with drum and pipe
About our earthly father's happy door,
  Then—" He ceased not; his holy utterance still
  Flowing went on, like spring from hidden store
Of wasteless waters; but I wept my fill,
  Nor heeded much the comfort of his speech.
  At length he said: "When first I clomb the hill—
With earthly words I heavenly things would reach—
  Where dwelleth now the man we used to call
  Father, whose voice, oh memory dear! did teach
Us in our beds, when straight, as once a stall
  Became a temple, holy grew the room,
  Prone on the ground before him I did fall,
So grand he towered above me like a doom;
  But now I look into the well-known face
  Fearless, yea, basking blessed in the bloom
Of his eternal youthfulness and grace."
  "But something separates us," yet I cried;
  "Let light at least begin the dark to chase,
The dark begin to waver and divide,
  And clear the path of vision. In the old time,
  When clouds one heart did from the other hide,
A wind would blow between! If I would climb,
  This foot must rise ere that can go up higher:
  Some big A teach me of the eternal prime."
He answered me: "Hearts that to love aspire
  Must learn its mighty harmony ere they can
  Give out one perfect note in its great quire;
And thereto am I sent—oh, sent of one
  Who makes the dumb for joy break out and sing:
  He opens every door 'twixt man and man;
He to all inner chambers all will bring."

VIII.

It was enough; Hope waked from dreary swound,
  And Hope had ever been enough for me,
  To kennel driving grim Tomorrow's hound;
From chains of school and mode she set me free,
  And urged my life to living.—On we went
  Across the stars that underlay the sea,
And came to a blown shore of sand and bent.
  Beyond the sand a marshy moor we crossed
  Silent—I, for I pondered what he meant,
And he, that sacred speech might not be lost—
  And came at length upon an evil place:
  Trees lay about like a half-buried host,
Each in its desolate pool; some fearful race
  Of creatures was not far, for howls and cries
  And gurgling hisses rose. With even pace
Walking, "Fear not," he said, "for this way lies
  Our journey." On we went; and soon the ground
  Slow from the waste began a gentle rise;
And tender grass in patches, then all round,
  Came clouding up, with its fresh homely tinge
  Of softest green cold-flushing every mound;
At length, of lowly shrubs a scattered fringe;
  And last, a gloomy forest, almost blind,
  For on its roof no sun-ray did impinge,
So that its very leaves did share the mind
  Of a brown shadowless day. Not, all the year,
  Once part its branches to let through a wind,
But all day long the unmoving trees appear
  To ponder on the past, as men may do
  That for the future wait without a fear,
And in the past the coming present view.

IX.

I know not if for days many or few
  Pathless we thrid the wood; for never sun,
  Its sylvan-traceried windows peeping through,
Mottled with brighter green the mosses dun,
  Or meted with moving shadows Time the shade.
  No life was there—not even a spider spun.
At length we came into a sky-roofed glade,
  An open level, in a circle shut
  By solemn trees that stood aside and made
Large room and lonely for a little hut
  By grassy sweeps wide-margined from the wood.
  'Twas built of saplings old, that had been cut
When those great trees no larger by them stood;
  Thick with an ancient moss, it seemed to have grown
  Thus from the old brown earth, a covert rude,
Half-house, half-grave; half-lifted up, half-prone.
  To its low door my brother led me. "There
  Is thy first school," he said; "there be thou shown
Thy pictured alphabet. Wake a mind of prayer,
  And praying enter." "But wilt thou not come,
  Brother?" I said. "No," said he. And I, "Where
Then shall I find thee? Thou wilt not leave me dumb,
  And a whole world of thoughts unuttered?"
  With half-sad smile and dewy eyes, and some
Conflicting motions of his kingly head,
  He pointed to the open-standing door.
  I entered: inward, lo, my shadow led!
I turned: his countenance shone like lightning hoar!
  Then slow he turned from me, and parted slow,
  Like one unwilling, whom I should see no more;
With voice nor hand said, Farewell, I must go!
  But drew the clinging door hard to the post.
  No dry leaves rustled 'neath his going; no
Footfalls came back from the departing ghost.
  He was no more. I laid me down and wept;
  I dared not follow him, restrained the most
By fear I should not see him if I leapt
  Out after him with cries of pleading love.
  Close to the wall, in hopeless loss, I crept;
There cool sleep came, God's shadow, from above.

X.

I woke, with calmness cleansed and sanctified—
  The peace that filled my heart of old, when I
  Woke in my mother's lap; for since I died
The past lay bare, even to the dreaming shy
  That shadowed my yet gathering unborn brain.
  And, marvelling, on the floor I saw, close by
My elbow-pillowed head, as if it had lain
  Beside me all the time I dreamless lay,
  A little pool of sunlight, which did stain
The earthen brown with gold; marvelling, I say,
  Because, across the sea and through the wood,
  No sun had shone upon me all the way.
I rose, and through a chink the glade I viewed,
  But all was dull as it had always been,
  And sunless every tree-top round it stood,
With hardly light enough to show it green;
  Yet through the broken roof, serenely glad,
  By a rough hole entered that heavenly sheen.
Then I remembered in old years I had
  Seen such a light—where, with dropt eyelids gloomed,
  Sitting on such a floor, dark women sad
In a low barn-like house where lay entombed
  Their sires and children; only there the door
  Was open to the sun, which entering plumed
With shadowy palms the stones that on the floor
  Stood up like lidless chests—again to find
  That the soul needs no brain, but keeps her store
In hidden chambers of the eternal mind.
  Thence backward ran my roused Memory
  Down the ever-opening vista—back to blind
Anticipations while my soul did lie
  Closed in my mother's; forward thence through bright
  Spring morns of childhood, gay with hopes that fly
Bird-like across their doming blue and white,
 To passionate summer noons, to saddened eves
  Of autumn rain, so on to wintred night;
Thence up once more to the dewy dawn that weaves
  Saffron and gold—weaves hope with still content,
  And wakes the worship that even wrong bereaves
Of half its pain. And round her as she went
  Hovered a sense as of an odour dear
  Whose flower was far—as of a letter sent
Not yet arrived—a footstep coming near,
  But, oh, how long delayed the lifting latch!—
  As of a waiting sun, ready to peer
Yet peering not—as of a breathless watch
  Over a sleeping beauty—babbling rime
  About her lips, but no winged word to catch!
And here I lay, the child of changeful Time
  Shut in the weary, changeless Evermore,
  A dull, eternal, fadeless, fruitless clime!
Was this the dungeon of my sinning sore—
  A gentle hell of loneliness, foredoomed
  For such as I, whose love was yet the core
Of all my being? The brown shadow gloomed
  Persistent, faded, warm. No ripple ran
  Across the air, no roaming insect boomed.
"Alas," I cried, "I am no living man!
  Better were darkness and the leave to grope
  Than light that builds its own drear prison! Can
This be the folding of the wings of Hope?"

XI.

That instant—through the branches overhead
  No sound of going went—a shadow fell
  Isled in the unrippled pool of sunlight fed
From some far fountain hid in heavenly dell.
  I looked, and in the low roofs broken place
  A single snowdrop stood—a radiant bell
Of silvery shine, softly subdued by grace
  Of delicate green that made the white appear
  Yet whiter. Blind it bowed its head a space,
Half-timid—then, as in despite of fear,
  Unfolded its three rays. If it had swung
  Its pendent bell, and music golden clear—
Division just entrancing sounds among—
  Had flickered down as tender as flakes of snow,
  It had not shed more influence as it rung
Than from its look alone did rain and flow.
  I knew the flower; perceived its human ways;
  Dim saw the secret that had made it grow:
My heart supplied the music's golden phrase.
  Light from the dark and snowdrops from the earth,
  Life's resurrection out of gross decays,
The endless round of beauty's yearly birth,
  And nations' rise and fall—were in the flower,
  And read themselves in silence. Heavenly mirth
Awoke in my sad heart. For one whole hour
  I praised the God of snowdrops. But at height
  The bliss gave way. Next, faith began to cower;
And then the snowdrop vanished from my sight.

XII.

Last, I began in unbelief to say:
  "No angel this! a snowdrop—nothing more!
  A trifle which God's hands drew forth in play
From the tangled pond of chaos, dank and frore,
  Threw on the bank, and left blindly to breed!
  A wilful fancy would have gathered store
Of evanescence from the pretty weed,
  White, shapely—then divine! Conclusion lame
  O'erdriven into the shelter of a creed!
Not out of God, but nothingness it came:
  Colourless, feeble, flying from life's heat,
  It has no honour, hardly shunning shame!"
When, see, another shadow at my feet!
  Hopeless I lifted now my weary head:
  Why mock me with another heavenly cheat?—
A primrose fair, from its rough-blanketed bed
  Laughed, lo, my unbelief to heavenly scorn!
  A sun-child, just awake, no prayer yet said,
Half rising from the couch where it was born,
  And smiling to the world! I breathed again;
  Out of the midnight once more dawned the morn,
And fled the phantom Doubt with all his train.

XIII.

I was a child once more, nor pondered life,
  Thought not of what or how much. All my soul
  With sudden births of lovely things grew rife.
In peeps a daisy: on the instant roll
  Rich lawny fields, with red tips crowding the green,
  Across the hollows, over ridge and knoll,
To where the rosy sun goes down serene.
  From out of heaven in looks a pimpernel:
  I walk in morning scents of thyme and bean;
Dewdrops on every stalk and bud and bell
  Flash, like a jewel-orchard, many roods;
  Glow ruby suns, which emerald suns would quell;
Topaz saint-glories, sapphire beatitudes
  Blaze in the slanting sunshine all around;
  Above, the high-priest-lark, o'er fields and woods—
Rich-hearted with his five eggs on the ground—
  The sacrifice bore through the veil of light,
  Odour and colour offering up in sound.—
Filled heart-full thus with forms of lowly might
  And shapeful silences of lovely lore,
  I sat a child, happy with only sight,
And for a time I needed nothing more.

XIV.

Supine to the revelation I did lie,
  Passive as prophet to his dreaming deep,
  Or harp Aeolian to the breathing sky,
And blest as any child whom twilight sleep
  Holds half, and half lets go. But the new day
  Of higher need up-dawned with sudden leap:
"Ah, flowers," I said, "ye are divinely gay,
  But your fair music is too far and fine!
  Ye are full cups, yet reach not to allay
The drought of those for human love who pine
  As the hart for water-brooks!" At once a face
  Was looking in my face; its eyes through mine
Were feeding me with tenderness and grace,
  And by their love I knew my mother's eyes.
  Gazing in them, there grew in me apace
A longing grief, and love did swell and rise
  Till weeping I brake out and did bemoan
  My blameful share in bygone tears and cries:
"O mother, wilt thou plead for me?" I groan;
  "I say not, plead with Christ, but plead with those
  Who, gathered now in peace about his throne,
Were near me when my heart was full of throes,
  And longings vain alter a flying bliss,
  Which oft the fountain by the threshold froze:
They must forgive me, mother! Tell them this:
  No more shall swell the love-dividing sigh;
  Down at their feet I lay my selfishness."
The face grew passionate at this my cry;
  The gathering tears up to its eyebrims rose;
  It grew a trembling mist, that did not fly
But slow dissolved. I wept as one of those
  Who wake outside the garden of their dream,
  And, lo, the droop-winged hours laborious close
Its opal gates with stone and stake and beam.

XV.

But glory went that glory more might come.
  Behold a countless multitude—no less!
  A host of faces, me besieging, dumb
In the lone castle of my mournfulness!
  Had then my mother given the word I sent,
  Gathering my dear ones from the shining press?
And had these others their love-aidance lent
  For full assurance of the pardon prayed?
  Would they concentre love, with sweet intent,
On my self-love, to blast the evil shade?
  Ah, perfect vision! pledge of endless hope!
  Oh army of the holy spirit, arrayed
In comfort's panoply! For words I grope—
  For clouds to catch your radiant dawn, my own,
  And tell your coming! From the highest cope
Of blue, down to my roof-breach came a cone
  Of faces and their eyes on love's will borne,
  Bright heads down-bending like the forward blown,
Heavy with ripeness, golden ears of corn,
  By gentle wind on crowded harvest-field,
  All gazing toward my prison-hut forlorn
As if with power of eyes they would have healed
  My troubled heart, making it like their own
  In which the bitter fountain had been sealed,
And the life-giving water flowed alone!

XVI.

With what I thus beheld, glorified then,
 "God, let me love my fill and pass!" I sighed,
  And dead, for love had almost died again.
"O fathers, brothers, I am yours!" I cried;
 "O mothers, sisters. I am nothing now
  Save as I am yours, and in you sanctified!
O men, O women, of the peaceful brow,
  And infinite abysses in the eyes
  Whence God's ineffable gazes on me, how
Care ye for me, impassioned and unwise?
  Oh ever draw my heart out after you!
  Ever, O grandeur, thus before me rise
And I need nothing, not even for love will sue!
  I am no more, and love is all in all!
  Henceforth there is, there can be nothing new—
All things are always new!" Then, like the fall
  Of a steep avalanche, my joy fell steep:
  Up in my spirit rose as it were the call
Of an old sorrow from an ancient deep;
  For, with my eyes fixed on the eyes of him
  Whom I had loved before I learned to creep—
God's vicar in his twilight nursery dim
  To gather us to the higher father's knee—
  I saw a something fill their azure rim
That caught him worlds and years away from me;
  And like a javelin once more through me passed
  The pang that pierced me walking on the sea:
"O saints," I cried, "must loss be still the last?"

XVII.

When I said this, the cloud of witnesses
  Turned their heads sideways, and the cloud grew dim
  I saw their faces half, but now their bliss
Gleamed low, like the old moon in the new moon's rim.
  Then as I gazed, a better kind of light
  On every outline 'gan to glimmer and swim,
Faint as the young moon threadlike on the night,
  Just born of sunbeams trembling on her edge:
  'Twas a great cluster of profiles in sharp white.
Had some far dawn begun to drive a wedge
  Into the night, and cleave the clinging dark?
  I saw no moon or star, token or pledge
Of light, save that manifold silvery mark,
  The shining title of each spirit-book.
  Whence came that light? Sudden, as if a spark
Of vital touch had found some hidden nook
  Where germs of potent harmonies lay prest,
  And their outbursting life old Aether shook,
Rose, as in prayer to lingering promised guest,
  From that great cone of faces such a song,
  Instinct with hope's harmonical unrest,
That with sore weeping, and the cry "How long?"
  I bore my part because I could not sing.
  And as they sang, the light more clear and strong
Bordered their faces, till the glory-sting
  I could almost no more encounter and bear;
  Light from their eyes, like water from a spring,
Flowed; on their foreheads reigned their flashing hair;
  I saw the light from eyes I could not see.
  "He comes! he comes!" they sang, "comes to our prayer!"
"Oh my poor heart, if only it were He!"
  I cried. Thereat the faces moved! those eyes
  Were turning on me! In rushed ecstasy,
And woke me to the light of lower skies.

XVIII.

"What matter," said I, "whether clank of chain
  Or over-bliss wakes up to bitterness!"
  Stung with its loss, I called the vision vain.
Yet feeling life grown larger, suffering less,
  Sleep's ashes from my eyelids I did brush.
  The room was veiled, that morning should not press
Upon the slumber which had stayed the rush
  Of ebbing life; I looked into the gloom:
  Upon her brow the dawn's first grayest flush,
And on her cheek pale hope's reviving bloom,
  Sat, patient watcher, darkling and alone,
  She who had lifted me from many a tomb!
One then was left me of Love's radiant cone!
  Its light on her dear face, though faint and wan,
  Was shining yet—a dawn upon it thrown
From the far coming of the Son of Man!

XIX.

In every forehead now I see a sky
  Catching the dawn; I hear the wintriest breeze
  About me blow the news the Lord is nigh.
Long is the night, dark are the polar seas,
  Yet slanting suns ascend the northern hill.
  Round Spring's own steps the oozy waters freeze
But hold them not. Dreamers are sleeping still,
  But labourers, light-stung, from their slumber start:
  Faith sees the ripening ears with harvest fill
When but green blades the clinging earth-clods part.

XX.

Lord, I have spoken a poor parable,
  In which I would have said thy name alone
  Is the one secret lying in Truth's well,
Thy voice the hidden charm in every tone,
  Thy face the heart of every flower on earth,
  Its vision the one hope; for every moan
Thy love the cure! O sharer of the birth
  Of little children seated on thy knee!
  O human God! I laugh with sacred mirth
To think how all the laden shall go free;
  For, though the vision tarry, in healing ruth
  One morn the eyes that shone in Galilee
Will dawn upon them, full of grace and truth,
  And thy own love—the vivifying core
  Of every love in heart of age or youth,
Of every hope that sank 'neath burden sore!

THE SANGREAL:

A Part Of The Story Omitted In The Old Romances.

I.

How sir Galahad despaired of finding the Grail.

Through the wood the sunny day
  Glimmered sweetly glad;
Through the wood his weary way
  Rode sir Galahad.

All about stood open porch,
  Long-drawn cloister dim;
'Twas a wavering wandering church
  Every side of him.

On through columns arching high,
  Foliage-vaulted, he
Rode in thirst that made him sigh,
  Longing miserably.

Came the moon, and through the trees
  Glimmered faintly sad;
Withered, worn, and ill at ease
  Down lay Galahad;

Closed his eyes and took no heed
  What might come or pass;
Heard his hunger-busy steed
  Cropping dewy grass.

Cool and juicy was the blade,
  Good to him as wine:
For his labour he was paid,
  Galahad must pine!

Late had he at Arthur's board,
  Arthur strong and wise,
Pledged the cup with friendly lord,
  Looked in ladies' eyes;

Now, alas! he wandered wide,
  Resting never more,
Over lake and mountain-side,
  Over sea and shore!

Swift in vision rose and fled
  All he might have had;
Weary tossed his restless head,
  And his heart grew sad.

With the lowliest in the land
  He a maiden fair
Might have led with virgin hand
  From the altar-stair:

Youth away with strength would glide,
  Age bring frost and woe;
Through the world so dreary wide
  Mateless he must go!

Lost was life and all its good,
  Gone without avail!
All his labour never would
  Find the Holy Grail!

II.

How sir Galahad found and lost the Grail.

Galahad was in the night,
  And the wood was drear;
But to men in darksome plight
  Radiant things appear:

Wings he heard not floating by,
  Heard no heavenly hail;
But he started with a cry,
  For he saw the Grail.

Hid from bright beholding sun,
  Hid from moonlight wan,
Lo, from age-long darkness won,
  It was seen of man!

Three feet off, on cushioned moss,
  As if cast away,
Homely wood with carven cross,
  Rough and rude it lay!

To his knees the knight rose up,
  Loosed his gauntlet-band;
Fearing, daring, toward the cup
  Went his naked hand;

When, as if it fled from harm,
  Sank the holy thing,
And his eager following arm
  Plunged into a spring.

Oh the thirst, the water sweet!
  Down he lay and quaffed,
Quaffed and rose up on his feet,
  Rose and gayly laughed;

Fell upon his knees to thank,
  Loved and lauded there;
Stretched him on the mossy bank,
  Fell asleep in prayer;

Dreamed, and dreaming murmured low
  Ave, pater, creed;
When the fir-tops gan to glow
  Waked and called his steed;

Bitted him and drew his girth,
  Watered from his helm:
Happier knight or better worth
  Was not in the realm!

Belted on him then his sword,
  Braced his slackened mail;
Doubting said: "I dreamed the Lord
  Offered me the Grail."

III.

How sir Galahad gave up the Quest for the Grail.

Ere the sun had cast his light
  On the water's face,
Firm in saddle rode the knight
  From the holy place,

Merry songs began to sing,
  Let his matins bide;
Rode a good hour pondering,
  And was turned aside,

Saying, "I will henceforth then
  Yield this hopeless quest;
Tis a dream of holy men
  This ideal Best!"

"Every good for miracle
  Heart devout may hold;
Grail indeed was that fair well
  Full of water cold!

"Not my thirst alone it stilled
  But my soul it stayed;
And my heart, with gladness filled,
  Wept and laughed and prayed!

"Spectral church with cryptic niche
  I will seek no more;
That the holiest Grail is, which
  Helps the need most sore!"

And he spake with speech more true
  Than his thought indeed,
For not yet the good knight knew
  His own sorest need.

IV.

How sir Galahad sought yet again for the Grail.

On he rode, to succour bound,
  But his faith grew dim;
Wells for thirst he many found,
  Water none for him.

Never more from drinking deep
  Rose he up and laughed;
Never more did prayerful sleep
  Follow on the draught.

Good the water which they bore,
  Plenteously it flowed,
Quenched his thirst, but, ah, no more
  Eased his bosom's load!

For the Best no more he sighed;
  Rode as in a trance;
Life grew poor, undignified,
  And he spake of chance.

Then he dreamed through Jesus' hand
  That he drove a nail—
Woke and cried, "Through every land,
  Lord, I seek thy Grail!"

V.

That sir Galahad found the Grail.

Up the quest again he took,
  Rode through wood and wave;
Sought in many a mossy nook,
  Many a hermit-cave;

Sought until the evening red
  Sunk in shadow deep;
Sought until the moonlight fled;
  Slept, and sought in sleep.

Where he wandered, seeking, sad,
  Story doth not say,
But at length sir Galahad
  Found it on a day;

Took the Grail with holy hand,
  Had the cup of joy;
Carried it about the land,
  Gleesome as a boy;

Laid his sword where he had found
  Boot for every bale,
Stuck his spear into the ground,
  Kept alone the Grail.

VI.

How sir Galahad carried about the Grail.

Horse and crested helmet gone,
  Greaves and shield and mail,
Caroling loud the knight walked on,
  For he had the Grail;

Caroling loud walked south and north,
  East and west, for years;
Where he went, the smiles came forth,
  Where he left, the tears.

Glave nor dagger mourned he,
  Axe nor iron flail:
Evil might not brook to see
  Once the Holy Grail.

Wilds he wandered with his staff,
  Woods no longer sad;
Earth and sky and sea did laugh
  Round sir Galahad.

Bitter mere nor trodden pool
  Did in service fail,
Water all grew sweet and cool
  In the Holy Grail.

Without where to lay his head,
  Chanting loud he went;
Found each cave a palace-bed,
  Every rock a tent.

Age that had begun to quail
  In the gathering gloom,
Counselled he to seek the Grail
  And forget the tomb.

Youth with hope or passion pale,
  Youth with eager eyes,
Taught he that the Holy Grail
  Was the only prize.

Maiden worn with hidden ail,
  Restless and unsure,
Taught he that the Holy Grail
  Was the only cure.

Children rosy in the sun
  Ran to hear his tale
How twelve little ones had won
  Each of them the Grail.

VII.

How sir Galahad hid the Grail.

Very still was earth and sky
  When he passing lay;
Oft he said he should not die,
  Would but go away.

When he passed, they reverent sought,
  Where his hand lay prest,
For the cup he bare, they thought,
  Hidden in his breast.

Hope and haste and eager thrill
  Turned to sorrowing wail:
Hid he held it deeper still,
  Took with him the Grail.

THE FAILING TRACK.

Where went the feet that hitherto have come?
  Here yawns no gulf to quench the flowing past!
With lengthening pauses broke, the path grows dumb;
  The grass floats in; the gazer stands aghast.

Tremble not, maiden, though the footprints die;
  By no air-path ascend the lark's clear notes;
The mighty-throated when he mounts the sky
  Over some lowly landmark sings and floats.

Be of good cheer. Paths vanish from the wave;
  There all the ships tear each its track of gray;
Undaunted they the wandering desert brave:
  In each a magic finger points the way.

No finger finely touched, no eye of lark
  Hast thou to guide thy steps where footprints fail?
Ah, then, 'twere well to turn before the dark,
  Nor dream to find thy dreams in yonder vale!

The backward way one hour is plain to thee,
  Hard hap were hers who saw no trace behind!
Back to confession at thy mother's knee,
  Back to the question and the childlike mind!

Then start afresh, but toward unending end,
  The goal o'er which hangs thy own star all night;
So shalt thou need no footprints to befriend,
  Child-heart and shining star will guide thee right.

TELL ME.

"Traveller, what lies over the hill?
  Traveller, tell to me:
Tip-toe-high on the window-sill
  Over I cannot see."

"My child, a valley green lies there,
  Lovely with trees, and shy;
And a tiny brook that says, 'Take care,
  Or I'll drown you by and by!'"

"And what comes next?"—"A little town,
  And a towering hill again;
More hills and valleys up and down,
  And a river now and then."

"And what comes next?"—"A lonely moor
  Without one beaten way,
And slow clouds drifting dull before
  A wind that will not stay."

"And then?"—"Dark rocks and yellow sand,
  Blue sea and a moaning tide."
"And then?"—"More sea, and then more land,
  With rivers deep and wide."

"And then?"—"Oh, rock and mountain and vale,
  Ocean and shores and men,
Over and over, a weary tale,
  And round to your home again!"

"And is that all? From day to day,
  Like one with a long chain bound,
Should I walk and walk and not get away,
  But go always round and round?"

"No, no; I have not told you the best,
  I have not told you the end:
If you want to escape, away in the west
  You will see a stair ascend,

"Built of all colours of lovely stones,
  A stair up into the sky
Where no one is weary, and no one moans,
  Or wishes to be laid by."

"Is it far away?"—"I do not know:
  You must fix your eyes thereon,
And travel, travel through thunder and snow,
  Till the weary way is gone.

"All day, though you never see it shine,
  You must travel nor turn aside,
All night you must keep as straight a line
  Through moonbeams or darkness wide."

"When I am older!"—"Nay, not so!"
  "I have hardly opened my eyes!"
"He who to the old sunset would go,
  Starts best with the young sunrise."

"Is the stair right up? is it very steep?"
  "Too steep for you to climb;
You must lie at the foot of the glorious heap
  And patient wait your time."

"How long?"—"Nay, that I cannot tell."
  "In wind, and rain, and frost?"
"It may be so; and it is well
  That you should count the cost.

"Pilgrims from near and from distant lands
  Will step on you lying there;
But a wayfaring man with wounded hands
  Will carry you up the stair."

BROTHER ARTIST!

Brother artist, help me; come!
  Artists are a maimed band:
  I have words but not a hand;
Thou hast hands though thou art dumb.

Had I thine, when words did fail—
  Vassal-words their hasting chief,
  On the white awaiting leaf
Shapes of power should tell the tale.

Had I hers of music-might,
  I would shake the air with storm
  Till the red clouds trailed enorm
Boreal dances through the night.

Had I his whose foresight rare
  Piles the stones with lordliest art,
  From the quarry of my heart
Love should climb a heavenly stair!

Had I his whose wooing slow
  Wins the marble's hidden child,
  Out in passion undefiled
Stood my Psyche, white as snow!

Maimed, a little help I pray;
  Words suffice not for my end;
  Let thy hand obey thy friend,
Say for me what I would say.

Draw me, on an arid plain
  With hoar-headed mountains nigh,
  Under a clear morning sky
Telling of a night of rain,

Huge and half-shaped, like a block
  Chosen for sarcophagus
  By a Pharaoh glorious,
One rude solitary rock.

Cleave it down along the ridge
  With a fissure yawning deep
  To the heart of the hard heap,
Like the rent of riving wedge.

Through the cleft let hands appear,
  Upward pointed with pressed palms
  As if raised in silent psalms
For salvation come anear.

Turn thee now—'tis almost done!—
  To the near horizon's verge:
  Make the smallest arc emerge
Of the forehead of the sun.

One thing more—I ask too much!—
  From a brow which hope makes brave
  Sweep the shadow of the grave
With a single golden touch.

Thanks, dear painter; that is all.
  If thy picture one day should
  Need some words to make it good,
I am ready to thy call.

AFTER AN OLD LEGEND.

The monk was praying in his cell,
  With bowed head praying sore;
He had been praying on his knees
  For two long hours and more.

As of themselves, all suddenly,
  His eyelids opened wide;
Before him on the ground he saw
  A man's feet close beside;

And almost to the feet came down
  A garment wove throughout;
Such garment he had never seen
  In countries round about!

His eyes he lifted tremblingly
  Until a hand they spied:
A chisel-scar on it he saw,
  And a deep, torn scar beside.

His eyes they leaped up to the face,
  His heart gave one wild bound,
Then stood as if its work were done—
  The Master he had found!

With sudden clang the convent bell
  Told him the poor did wait
His hand to give the daily bread
  Doled at the convent-gate.

Then Love rose in him passionate,
  And with Duty wrestled strong;
And the bell kept calling all the time
  With merciless iron tongue.

The Master stood and looked at him
  He rose up with a sigh:
"He will be gone when I come back
  I go to him by and by!"

He chid his heart, he fed the poor
  All at the convent-gate;
Then with slow-dragging feet went back
  To his cell so desolate:

His heart bereaved by duty done,
  He had sore need of prayer!
Oh, sad he lifted the latch!—and, lo,
  The Master standing there!

He said, "My poor had not to stand
  Wearily at thy gate:
For him who feeds the shepherd's sheep
  The shepherd will stand and wait."

_Yet, Lord—for thou would'st have us judge,
  And I will humbly dare—
If he had staid, I do not think
  Thou wouldst have left him there.

Thy voice in far-off time I hear,
  With sweet defending, say:
"The poor ye always have with you,
  Me ye have not alway!"

Thou wouldst have said: "Go feed my poor,
  The deed thou shalt not rue;
Wherever ye do my father's will
  I always am with you."_

A MEDITATION OF ST. ELIGIUS.

_Queen Mary one day Jesus sent
  To fetch some water, legends tell;
The little boy, obedient,
  Drew a full pitcher from the well;

But as he raised it to his head,
  The water lipping with the rim,
The handle broke, and all was shed
  Upon the stones about the brim.

His cloak upon the ground he laid
  And in it gathered up the pool; [Proverbs xxx. 4.]
Obedient there the water staid,
  And home he bore it plentiful._

Eligius said, "Tis fabled ill:
  The hands that all the world control,
Had here been room for miracle,
  Had made his mother's pitcher whole!

"Still, some few drops for thirsty need
  A poor invention even, when told
In love of thee the Truth indeed,
  Like broken pitcher yet may hold:

"Thy truth, alas, Lord, once I spilt:
  I thought to bear the pitcher high;
Upon the shining stones of guilt
  I slipped, and there the potsherds lie!

"Master, I cried, _no man will drink,
  No human thirst will e'er be stilled
Through me, who sit upon the brink,
  My pitcher broke, thy water spilled!

"What will they do I waiting left?
  They looked to me to bring thy law!
The well is deep, and, sin-bereft,
  I nothing have wherewith to draw!"_

"But as I sat in evil plight,
  With dry parched heart and sickened brain,
Uprose in me the water bright,
  Thou gavest me thyself again!"

THE EARLY BIRD.

A little bird sat on the edge of her nest;
  Her yellow-beaks slept as sound as tops;
Day-long she had worked almost without rest,
  And had filled every one of their gibbous crops;
Her own she had filled just over-full,
And she felt like a dead bird stuffed with wool.

"Oh dear!" she sighed, as she sat with her head
  Sunk in her chest, and no neck at all,
Looking like an apple on a feather-bed
  Poked and rounded and fluffed to a ball,
"What's to be done if things don't reform?
I cannot tell where there is one more worm!

"I've had fifteen to-day, and the children five each,
  Besides a few flies, and some very fat spiders:
Who will dare say I don't do as I preach?
  I set an example to all providers!
But what's the use? We want a storm:
I don't know where there's a single worm!"

"There's five in my crop," chirped a wee, wee bird
  Who woke at the voice of his mother's pain;
"I know where there's five!" And with the word
  He tucked in his head and went off again.
"The folly of childhood," sighed his mother,
"Has always been my especial bother!"

Careless the yellow-beaks slept on,
  They never had heard of the bogy, Tomorrow;
The mother sat outside making her moan—
  "I shall soon have to beg, or steal, or borrow!
I have always to say, the night before,
Where shall I find one red worm more!"

Her case was this, she had gobbled too many,
  And sleepless, had an attack she called foresight:
A barn of crumbs, if she knew but of any!
  Could she but get of the great worm-store sight!
The eastern sky was growing red
Ere she laid her wise beak in its feather-bed.

Just then, the fellow who knew of five,
  Nor troubled his sleep with anxious tricks,
Woke, and stirred, and felt alive:
  "To-day," he said, "I am up to six!
But my mother feels in her lot the crook—
What if I tried my own little hook!"

When his mother awoke, she winked her eyes
  As if she had dreamed that she was a mole:
Could she believe them? "What a huge prize
  That child is dragging out of its hole!"
The fledgeling indeed had just caught his third!
And here is a fable to catch the bird!

SIR LARK AND KING SUN.

"Good morrow, my lord!" in the sky alone
Sang the lark as the sun ascended his throne.
"Shine on me, my lord: I only am come,
Of all your servants, to welcome you home!
I have shot straight up, a whole hour, I swear,
To catch the first gleam of your golden hair."

"Must I thank you then," said the king, "sir Lark,
For flying so high and hating the dark?
You ask a full cup for half a thirst:
Half was love of me, half love to be first.
Some of my subjects serve better my taste:
Their watching and waiting means more than your haste."

King Sun wrapt his head in a turban of cloud;
Sir Lark stopped singing, quite vexed and cowed;
But higher he flew, for he thought, "Anon
The wrath of the king will be over and gone;
And, scattering his head-gear manifold,
He will change my brown feathers to a glory of gold!"

He flew, with the strength of a lark he flew,
But as he rose the cloud rose too;
And not one gleam of the flashing hair
Brought signal of favour across the air;
And his wings felt withered and worn and old,
For their feathers had had no chrism of gold.

Outwearied at length, and throbbing sore,
The strong sun-seeker could do no more;
He faltered and sank, then dropped like a stone
Beside his nest, where, patient, alone,
Sat his little wife on her little eggs,
Keeping them warm with wings and legs.

Did I say alone? Ah, no such thing!
There was the cloudless, the ray-crowned king!
"Welcome, sir Lark!—You look tired!" said he;
"Up is not always the best way to me:
While you have been racing my turban gray,
I have been shining where you would not stay!"

He had set a coronet round the nest;
Its radiance foamed on the wife's little breast;
And so glorious was she in russet gold
That sir Lark for wonder and awe grew cold;
He popped his head under her wing, and lay
As still as a stone till king Sun went away.

THE OWL AND THE BELL.

Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!
Sang the Bell to himself in his house at home,
High in the church-tower, lone and unseen,
In a twilight of ivy, cool and green;
With his Bing, Bing, Bim, Bing, Bang, Bome!
Singing bass to himself in his house at home.

Said the Owl, on a shadowy ledge below,
Like a glimmering ball of forgotten snow,
"Pest on that fellow sitting up there,
Always calling the people to prayer!
He shatters my nerves with his Bing, Bang, Bome!—-
Far too big in his house at home!

"I think I will move.—But it suits me well,
And one may get used to it, who can tell!"
So he slept again with all his might,
Then woke and snooved out in the hush of night
When the Bell was asleep in his house at home,
Dreaming over his Bing, Bang, Bome!

For the Owl was born so poor and genteel
What could he do but pick and steal?
He scorned to work for honest bread—
"Better have never been hatched!" he said.
So his day was the night, for he dared not roam
Till sleep had silenced the Bing, Bang, Bome!

When five greedy Owlets chipped the egg
He wanted two beaks and another leg,
And they ate the more that they did not sleep well:
"It's their gizzards," said Owless; said Owl, "It's that Bell!"
For they quivered like leaves of a wind-blown tome
When the Bell bellowed out his Bing, Bang, Bome!

But the Bell began to throb with the fear
Of bringing his house about his one ear;
And his people came round it, quite a throng,
To buttress the walls and make them strong:
A full month he sat, and felt like a mome
Not daring to shout his Bing, Bang, Bome!

Said the Owl to himself, and hissed as he said,
"I trust in my heart the old fool is dead!
No more will he scare church-mice with his bounce,
And make them so thin they're scarce worth a pounce!
Once I will see him ere he's laid in the loam,
And shout in his ear Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!"

"Hoo! hoo!" he cried, as he entered the steeple,
"They've hanged him at last, the righteous people!
His swollen tongue lolls out of his head!
Hoo! hoo! at last the old brute is dead!
There let him hang, the shapeless gnome,
Choked with a throatful of Bing, Bang, Bome!"

He fluttered about him, singing Too-whoo!
He flapped the poor Bell, and said, "Is that you?
You that never would matters mince,
Banging poor owls and making them wince?
A fig for you now, in your great hall-dome!
Too-whit is better than Bing, Bang, Bome!"

Still braver he grew, the downy, the dapper;
He flew in and perched on the knob of the clapper,
And shouted Too-whoo! An echo awoke
Like a far-off ghostly Bing-Bang stroke:
"Just so!" he cried; "I am quite at home!
I will take his place with my Bing, Bang, Bome!"

He hissed with the scorn of his grand self-wonder,
And thought the Bell's tremble his own great thunder:
He sat the Jove of creation's fowl.—
Bang! went the Bell—through the rope-hole the owl,
A fluffy avalanche, light as foam,
Loosed by the boom of the Bing, Bang, Bome!

He sat where he fell, as if he had meant it,
Ready for any remark anent it.
Said the eldest Owlet, "Pa, you were wrong;
He's at it again with his vulgar song!"
"Child," said the Owl, "of the mark you are wide:
I brought him to life by perching inside."

"Why did you, my dear?" said his startled wife;
"He has always been the plague of your life!"
"I have given him a lesson of good for evil:
Perhaps the old ruffian will now be civil!"
The Owl sat righteous, he raised his comb.
The Bell bawled on, Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!

A MAMMON-MARRIAGE.

The croak of a raven hoar!
  A dog's howl, kennel-tied!
Loud shuts the carriage-door:
  The two are away on their ghastly ride
To Death's salt shore!

Where are the love and the grace?
  The bridegroom is thirsty and cold!
The bride's skull sharpens her face!
  But the coachman is driving, jubilant, bold,
The devil's pace.

The horses shivered and shook
  Waiting gaunt and haggard
With sorry and evil look;
  But swift as a drunken wind they staggered
'Longst Lethe brook.

Long since, they ran no more;
  Heavily pulling they died
On the sand of the hopeless shore
  Where never swelled or sank a tide,
And the salt burns sore.

Flat their skeletons lie,
  White shadows on shining sand;
The crusted reins go high
  To the crumbling coachman's bony hand
On his knees awry.

Side by side, jarring no more,
  Day and night side by side,
Each by a doorless door,
  Motionless sit the bridegroom and bride
On the Dead-Sea-shore.

A SONG IN THE NIGHT.

A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree,
Sang in the moonshine, merrily,
Three little songs, one, two, and three,
A song for his wife, for himself, and me.

He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high,
Filling the moonlight that filled the sky;
"Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive!
Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!"

He sang to himself, "What shall I do
With this life that thrills me through and through!
Glad is so glad that it turns to ache!
Out with it, song, or my heart will break!"

He sang to me, "Man, do not fear
Though the moon goes down and the dark is near;
Listen my song and rest thine eyes;
Let the moon go down that the sun may rise!"

I folded me up in the heart of his tune,
And fell asleep with the sinking moon;
I woke with the day's first golden gleam,
And, lo, I had dreamed a precious dream!

LOVE'S HISTORY.

Love, the baby,
  Crept abroad to pluck a flower:
One said, Yes, sir; one said, Maybe;
  One said, Wait the hour.

Love, the boy,
  Joined the youngsters at their play:
But they gave him little joy,
  And he went away.

Love, the youth,
  Roamed the country, quiver-laden;
From him fled away in sooth
  Many a man and maiden!

Love, the man,
  Sought a service all about;
But they called him feeble, one
  They could do without.

Love, the aged,
  Walking, bowed, the shadeless miles,
Read a volume many-paged,
  Full of tears and smiles.

Love, the weary,
  Tottered down the shelving road:
At its foot, lo, Night, the starry,
  Meeting him from God!

"Love, the holy,"
  Sang a music in her dome,
Sang it softly, sang it slowly,
  "Love is coming home!"

THE LARK AND THE WIND.

In the air why such a ringing?
  On the earth why such a droning?

In the air the lark is singing;
  On the earth the wind is moaning.

"I am blest, in sunlight swinging!"
  "Sad am I: the world lies groaning!"

In the sky the lark kept singing;
  On the earth the wind kept moaning.

A DEAD HOUSE.

When the clock hath ceased to tick
  Soul-like in the gloomy hall;
When the latch no more doth click
  Tongue-like in the red peach-wall;
When no more come sounds of play,
  Mice nor children romping roam,
Then looks down the eye of day
  On a dead house, not a home!

But when, like an old sun's ghost,
  Haunts her vault the spectral moon;
When earth's margins all are lost,
  Melting shapes nigh merged in swoon,
Then a sound—hark! there again!—
  No, 'tis not a nibbling mouse!
'Tis a ghost, unseen of men,
  Walking through the bare-floored house!

And with lightning on the stair
  To that silent upper room,
With the thunder-shaken air
  Sudden gleaming into gloom,
With a frost-wind whistling round,
  From the raging northern coasts,
Then, mid sieging light and sound,
  All the house is live with ghosts!

Brother, is thy soul a cell
  Empty save of glittering motes,
Where no live loves live and dwell,
  Only notions, things, and thoughts?
Then thou wilt, when comes a Breath
  Tempest-shaking ridge and post,
Find thyself alone with Death
  In a house where walks no ghost.

'BELL UPON ORGAN.

  It's all very well,
Said the Bell,
To be the big Organ below!
But the folk come and go,
Said the Bell,
And you never can tell
What sort of person the Organ will blow!
And, besides, it is much at the mercy of the weather
For 'tis all made in pieces and glued together!

  But up in my cell
Next door to the sky,
Said the Bell,
I dwell
Very high;
And with glorious go
I swing to and fro;
I swing swift or slow,
I swing as I please,
With summons or knell;
I swing at my ease,
Said the Bell:
Not the tallest of men
Can reach up to touch me,
To smirch me or smutch me,
Or make me do what
I would not be at!
And, then,
The weather can't cause me to shrink or increase:
I chose to be made in one perfect piece!

MASTER AND BOY.

"WHO is this little one lying,"
  Said Time, "at my garden-gate,
Moaning and sobbing and crying,
  Out in the cold so late?"

"They lurked until we came near,
  Master and I," the child said,
"Then caught me, with 'Welcome, New-year!
  Happy Year! Golden-head!'

"See Christmas-day, my Master,
  On the meadow a mile away!
Father Time, make me run faster!
  I'm the Shadow of Christmas-day!"

"Run, my child; still he's in sight!
  Only look well to his track;
Little Shadow, run like the light,
  He misses you at his back!"

Old Time sat down in the sun
  On a grave-stone—his legs were numb:
"When the boy to his master has run,"
  He said, "Heaven's New Year is come!"

THE CLOCK OF THE UNIVERSE.

  A clock aeonian, steady and tall,
With its back to creation's flaming wall,
Stands at the foot of a dim, wide stair.
Swing, swang, its pendulum goes,
Swing—swang—here—there!
Its tick and its tack like the sledge-hammer blows
Of Tubal Cain, the mighty man!
But they strike on the anvil of never an ear,
On the heart of man and woman they fall,
With an echo of blessing, an echo of ban;
For each tick is a hope, each tack is a fear,
Each tick is a Where, each tack a Not here,
Each tick is a kiss, each tack is a blow,
Each tick says Why, each tack I don't know.
Swing, swang, the pendulum!
Tick and tack, and go and come,
With a haunting, far-off, dreamy hum,
With a tick, tack, loud and dumb,
Swings the pendulum.

  Two hands, together joined in prayer,
With a roll and a volley of spheric thunder;
Two hands, in hope spread half asunder,
An empty gulf of longing embrace;
Two hands, wide apart as they can fare
In a fear still coasting not touching Despair,
But turning again, ever round to prayer:
Two hands, human hands, pass with awful motion
From isle to isle of the sapphire ocean.

  The silent, surfaceless ocean-face
Is filled with a brooding, hearkening grace;
The stars dream in, and sink fainting out,
And the sun and the moon go walking about,
Walking about in it, solemn and slow,
Solemn and slow, at a thinking pace,
Walking about in it to and fro,
Walking, walking about.

  With open beak and half-open wing
Ever with eagerness quivering,
On the peak of the clock
Stands a cock:
Tip-toe stands the cock to crow—
Golden cock with silver call
Clear as trumpet tearing the sky!
No one yet has heard him cry,
Nor ever will till the hour supreme
When Self on itself shall turn with a scream,
What time the hands are joined on high
In a hoping, despairing, speechless sigh,
The perfect groan-prayer of the universe
When the darkness clings and will not disperse
Though the time is come, told ages ago,
For the great white rose of the world to blow:
—Tick, tack, to the waiting cock,
Tick, tack, goes the aeon-clock!

  A polar bear, golden and gray,
Crawls and crawls around the top.
Black and black as an Ethiop
The great sea-serpent lies coiled beneath,
Living, living, but does not breathe.
For the crawling bear is so far away
That he cannot hear, by night or day,
The bourdon big of his deep bear-bass
Roaring atop of the silent face,
Else would he move, and none knows then
What would befall the sons of men!

  Eat up old Time, O raging Bear;
Take Bald-head, and the children spare!
Lie still, O Serpent, nor let one breath
Stir thy pool and stay Time's death!
Steady, Hands! for the noon is nigh:
See the silvery ghost of the Dawning shy
Low on the floor of the level sky!
Warn for the strike, O blessed Clock;
Gather thy clarion breath, gold Cock;
Push on the month-figures, pale, weary-faced Moon;
Tick, awful Pendulum, tick amain;
And soon, oh, soon,
Lord of life, and Father of boon,
Give us our own in our arms again!

  Then the great old clock to pieces will fall
Sans groaning of axle or whirring of wheel.
And away like a mist of the morning steal,
To stand no more in creation's hall;
Its mighty weights will fall down plumb
Into the regions where all is dumb;
No more will its hands, in horror or prayer,
Be lifted or spread at the foot of the stair
That springs aloft to the Father's room;
Its tick and its tack, When?—Not now,
Will cease, and its muffled groan below;
Its sapphire face will dissolve away
In the dawn of the perfect, love-potent day;
The serpent and bear will be seen no more,
Growling atop, or prone on the floor;
And up the stair will run as they please
The children to clasp the Father's knees.

O God, our father, Allhearts' All,
Open the doors of thy clockless hall!

THE THORN IN THE FLESH.

Within my heart a worm had long been hid.
I knew it not when I went down and chid
Because some servants of my inner house
Had not, I found, of late been doing well,
But then I spied the horror hideous
Dwelling defiant in the inmost cell—
No, not the inmost, for there God did dwell!
But the small monster, softly burrowing,
Near by God's chamber had made itself a den,
And lay in it and grew, the noisome thing!
Aghast I prayed—'twas time I did pray then!
But as I prayed it seemed the loathsome shape
Grew livelier, and did so gnaw and scrape
That I grew faint. Whereon to me he said—
Some one, that is, who held my swimming head,
"Lo, I am with thee: let him do his worst;
The creature is, but not his work, accurst;
Thou hating him, he is as a thing dead."
Then I lay still, nor thought, only endured.
At last I said, "Lo, now I am inured
A burgess of Pain's town!" The pain grew worse.
Then I cried out as if my heart would break.
But he, whom, in the fretting, sickening ache,
I had forgotten, spoke: "The law of the universe
Is this," he said: "Weakness shall be the nurse
Of strength. The help I had will serve thee too."
So I took courage and did bear anew.
At last, through bones and flesh and shrinking skin,
Lo, the thing ate his way, and light came in,
And the thing died. I knew then what it meant,
And, turning, saw the Lord on whom I leant.

LYCABAS:

A name of the Year. Some say the word means a march of wolves, which wolves, running in single file, are the Months of the Year. Others say the word means the path of the light.

  O ye months of the year,
Are ye a march of wolves?
Lycabas! Lycabas! twelve to growl and slay?
Men hearken at night, and lie in fear,
Some men hearken all day!

  Lycabas, verily thou art a gallop of wolves,
Gaunt gray wolves, gray months of the year, hunting in twelves,
Running and howling, head to tail,
In a single file, over the snow,
A long low gliding of silent horror and fear!
On and on, ghastly and drear,
Not a head turning, not a foot swerving, ye go,
Twelve making only a one-wolf track!
Onward ye howl, and behind we wail;
Wail behind your narrow and slack
Wallowing line, and moan and weep,
As ye draw it on, straight and deep,
Thorough the night so swart!
Behind you a desert, and eyes a-weary,
A long, bare highway, stony and dreary,
A hungry soul, and a wolf-cub wrapt,
A live wolf-cub, sharp-toothed, steel-chapt,
In the garment next the heart!

  Lycabas!
One of them hurt me sore!
Two of them hurt and tore!
Three of them made me bleed!
The fourth did a terrible deed,
Rent me the worst of the four!
Rent me, and shook me, and tore,
And ran away with a growl!
Lycabas, if I feared you a jot,
You, and your devils running in twelves,
Black-mouthed, hell-throated, straight-going wolves,
I would run like a wolf, I too, and howl!
I live, and I fear you not.

  But shall I not hate you, low-galloping wolves
Hunting in ceaseless twelves?
Ye have hunted away my lambs!
Ye ran at them open-mouthed,
And your mouths were gleamy-toothed,
And their whiteness with red foam frothed,
And your throats were a purple-black gulf:
My lambs they fled, and they came not back!
Lovely white lambs they were, alack!
They fled afar and they left a track
Which at night, when the lone sky clears,
Glistens with Nature's tears!
Many a shepherd scarce thinks of a lamb
But he hears behind it the growl of a wolf,
And behind that the wail of its dam!

  They ran, nor cried, but fled
From day's sweet pasture, from night's soft bed:
Ah me, the look in their eyes!
For behind them rushed the swallowing gulf,
The maw of the growl-throated wolf,
And they fled as the thing that speeds or dies:
They looked not behind,
But fled as over the grass the wind.

  Oh my lambs, I would drop away
Into a night that never saw day
That so in your dear hearts you might say,
"All is well for ever and aye!"
Yet it was well to hurry away,
To hurry from me, your shepherd gray:
I had no sword to bite and slay,
And the wolfy Months were on your track!
It was well to start from work and play,
It was well to hurry from me away—
But why not once look back?

  The wolves came panting down the lea—
What was left you but somewhere flee!
Ye saw the Shepherd that never grows old,
Ye saw the great Shepherd, and him ye knew,
And the wolves never once came near to you;
For he saw you coming, threw down his crook,
Ran, and his arms about you threw;
He gathered you into his garment's fold,
He kneeled, he gathered, he lifted you,
And his bosom and arms were full of you.
He has taken you home to his stronghold:
Out of the castle of Love ye look;
The castle of Love is now your home,
From the garden of Love you will never roam,
And the wolves no more shall flutter you.

  Lycabas! Lycabas!
For all your hunting and howling and cries,
Your yelling of woe! and alas!
For all your thin tongues and your fiery eyes,
Your questing thorough the windy grass,
Your gurgling gnar, and your horrent hair,
And your white teeth that will not spare—
Wolves, I fear you never a jot,
Though you come at me with your mouths red-hot,
Eyes of fury, and teeth that foam:
Ye can do nothing but drive me home!
Wolves, wolves, you will lie one day—
Ye are lying even now, this very day,
Wolves in twelves, gaunt and gray,
At the feet of the Shepherd that leads the dams,
At the feet of the Shepherd that carries the lambs!

  And now that I see you with my mind's eye,
What are you indeed? my mind revolves.
Are you, are you verily wolves?
I saw you only through twilight dark,
Through rain and wind, and ill could mark!
Now I come near—are you verily wolves?
Ye have torn, but I never saw you slay!
Me ye have torn, but I live to-day,
Live, and hope to live ever and aye!
Closer still let me look at you!—
Black are your mouths, but your eyes are true!—
Now, now I know you!—the Shepherd's sheep-dogs!
Friends of us sheep on the moors and bogs,
Lost so often in swamps and fogs!
Dear creatures, forgive me; I did you wrong;
You to the castle of Love belong:
Forgive the sore heart that made sharp the tongue!
Your swift-flying feet the Shepherd sends
To gather the lambs, his little friends,
And draw the sheep after for rich amends!
Sharp are your teeth, my wolves divine,
But loves and no hates in your deep eyes shine!
No more will I call you evil names,
No more assail you with untrue blames!
Wake me with howling, check me with biting,
Rouse up my strength for the holy fighting:
Hunt me still back, nor let me stray
Out of the infinite narrow way,
The radiant march of the Lord of Light
Home to the Father of Love and Might,
Where each puts Thou in the place of I,
And Love is the Law of Liberty.

BALLADS

THE UNSEEN MODEL.

Forth to his study the sculptor goes
  In a mood of lofty mirth:
"Now shall the tongues of my carping foes
  Confess what my art is worth!
In my brain last night the vision arose,
  To-morrow shall see its birth!"

He stood like a god; with creating hand
  He struck the formless clay:
"Psyche, arise," he said, "and stand;
  In beauty confront the day.
I have sought nor found thee in any land;
  I call thee: arise; obey!"

The sun was low in the eastern skies
  When spoke the confident youth;
Sweet Psyche, all day, his hands and eyes
  Wiled from the clay uncouth,
Nor ceased when the shadows came up like spies
  That dog the steps of Truth.

He said, "I will do my will in spite
  Of the rising dark; for, see,
She grows to my hand! The mar-work night
  Shall hurry and hide and flee
From the glow of my lamp and the making might
  That passeth out of me!"

In the flickering lamplight the figure swayed,
  In the shadows did melt and swim:
With tool and thumb he modelled and made,
  Nor knew that feature and limb
Half-obeying, half-disobeyed,
  And mocking eluded him.

At the dawning Psyche of his brain
  Joyous he wrought all night:
The oil went low, and he trimmed in vain,
  The lamp would not burn bright;
But he still wrought on: through the high roof-pane
  He saw the first faint light!

The dark retreated; the morning spread;
  His creatures their shapes resume;
The plaster stares dumb-white and dead;
  A faint blue liquid bloom
Lies on each marble bosom and head;
  To his Psyche clings the gloom.

Backward he stept to see the clay:
  His visage grew white and sear;
No beauty ideal confronted the day,
  No Psyche from upper sphere,
But a once loved shape that in darkness lay,
  Buried a lonesome year!

From maidenhood's wilderness fair and wild
  A girl to his charm had hied:
He had blown out the lamp of the trusting child,
  And in the darkness she died;
Now from the clay she sadly smiled,
  And the sculptor stood staring-eyed.

He had summoned Psyche—and Psyche crept
  From a half-forgotten tomb;
She brought her sad smile, that still she kept,
  Her eyes she left in the gloom!
High grace had found him, for now he wept,
  And love was his endless doom!

Night-long he pined, all day did rue;
  He haunted her form with sighs:
As oft as his clay to a lady grew
  The carvers, with dim surmise,
Would whisper, "The same shape come to woo,
  With its blindly beseeching eyes!"

THE HOMELESS GHOST.

Through still, bare streets, and cold moonshine
  His homeward way he bent;
The clocks gave out the midnight sign
  As lost in thought he went
Along the rampart's ocean-line,
Where, high above the tossing brine,
  Seaward his lattice leant.

He knew not why he left the throng,
  Why there he could not rest,
What something pained him in the song
  And mocked him in the jest,
Or why, the flitting crowd among,
A moveless moonbeam lay so long
  Athwart one lady's breast!

He watched, but saw her speak to none,
  Saw no one speak to her;
Like one decried, she stood alone,
  From the window did not stir;
Her hair by a haunting gust was blown,
Her eyes in the shadow strangely shown,
  She looked a wanderer.

He reached his room, he sought a book
  His brooding to beguile;
But ever he saw her pallid look,
  Her face too still to smile.
An hour he sat in his fireside nook,
The time flowed past like a silent brook,
  Not a word he read the while.

Vague thoughts absorbed his passive brain
  Of love that bleeding lies,
Of hoping ever and hoping in vain,
  Of a sorrow that never dies—
When a sudden spatter of angry rain
Smote against every window-pane,
  And he heard far sea-birds' cries.

He looked from the lattice: the misty moon
  Hardly a glimmer gave;
The wind was like one that hums a tune,
  The first low gathering stave;
The ocean lay in a sullen swoon,
With a moveless, monotonous, murmured croon
  Like the moaning of a slave.

Sudden, with masterful, angry blare
  It howled from the watery west:
The storm was up, he had left his lair!
  The night would be no jest!
He turned: a lady sat in his chair!
Through her loose dim robe her arm came bare,
  And it lay across her breast.

She sat a white queen on a ruined throne,
  A lily bowed with blight;
In her eyes the darkness about was blown
  By flashes of liquid light;
Her skin with very whiteness shone;
Back from her forehead loosely thrown
  Her hair was dusk as night.

Wet, wet it hung, and wept like weeds
  Down her pearly shoulders bare;
The pale drops glistened like diamond beads
  Caught in a silken snare;
As the silver-filmy husk to its seeds
Her dank robe clings, and but half recedes
  Her form so shadowy fair.

Doubting she gazed in his wondering face,
  Wonder his utterance ties;
She searches, like one in forgetful case,
  For something within his eyes,
For something that love holds ever in chase,
For something that is, and has no place,
  But away in the thinking lies.

Speechless he ran, brought a wrap of wool,
  And a fur that with down might vie;
Listless, into the gathering pool
  She dropped them, and let them lie.
He piled the hearth with fagots so full
That the flames, as if from the log of Yule,
  Up the chimney went roaring high.

Then she spoke, and lovely to heart and ear
  Was her voice, though broke by pain;
Afar it sounded, though sweet and clear,
  As if from out of the rain;
As if from out of the night-wind drear
It came like the voice of one in fear
  Lest she should no welcome gain.

"I am too far off to feel the cold,
  Too cold to feel the fire;
It cannot get through the heap of mould
  That soaks in the drip from the spire:
Cerement of wax 'neath cloth of gold,
'Neath fur and wool in fold on fold,
  Freezes in frost so dire."

Her voice and her eyes and her cheek so white
  Thrilled him through heart and brain;
Wonder and pity and love unite
  In a passion of bodiless pain;
Her beauty possessed him with strange delight:
He was out with her in the live wan night,
  With her in the blowing rain!

Sudden she rose, she kneeled, she flung
  Her loveliness at his feet:
"I am tired of being blown and swung
  In the rain and the snow and the sleet!
But better no rest than stillness among
Things whose names would defile my tongue!
  How I hate the mouldy sheet!

"Ah, though a ghost, I'm a lady still!"
  The youth recoiled aghast.
Her eyes grew wide and pale and chill
  With a terror that surpassed.
He caught her hand: a freezing thrill
Stung to his wrist, but with steadfast will
  He held it warm and fast.

"What can I do to save thee, dear?"
  At the word she sprang upright;
On tiptoe she stood, he bent his ear,
  She whispered, whispered light.
She withdrew; she gazed with an asking fear:
Like one that looks on his lady's bier
  He stood, with a face ghost-white.

"Six times—in vain, oh hapless maid!—
  I have humbled myself to sue!
This is the last: as the sunset decayed,
  Out with the twilight I grew,
And about the city flitted and strayed,
A wandering, lonely, forsaken shade:
  No one saw me but you."

He shivered, he shook, he had turned to clay,
  Vile fear had gone into his blood;
His face was a dismal ashy gray,
  Through his heart crept slime and mud;
The lady stood in a still dismay,
She drooped, she shrank, she withered away
  Like a half-blown frozen bud.

"Speak once more. Am I frightful then?
  I live, though they call it death;
I am only cold! Say dear again."
  But scarce could he heave a breath;
Over a dank and steaming fen
He floated astray from the world of men,
  A lost, half-conscious wraith.

"Ah, 'tis the last time! Save me!" Her cry
  Entered his heart, and lay.
But he loved the sunshine, the golden sky,
  And the ghosts' moonlight is gray!—
As feverous visions flit and fly
And without a motion elude the eye,
  She stood three steps away.

But oh, her eyes!—refusal base
  Those live-soul-stars had slain!
Frozen eyes in an icy face
  They had grown. Like a ghost of the brain,
Beside the lattice, thought-moved in space,
She stood with a doleful despairing grace:
  The fire burned! clanged the rain!

Faded or fled, she had vanished quite!
  The loud wind sank to a sigh;
Pale faces without paled the face of night,
  Sweeping the window by;
Some to the glass pressed a cheek of fright,
Some shot a gleam of decaying light
  From a flickering, uncertain eye.

Whence did it come, from the sky or the deep,
  That faint, long-cadenced wail?
From the closing door of the down-way steep,
  His own bosom, or out of the gale?
From the land where dead dreams, or dead maidens sleep?
Out of every night to come will creep
  That cry his heart to quail!

The clouds had broken, the wind was at rest,
  The sea would be still ere morn,
The moon had gone down behind its breast
  Save the tip of one blunt horn:
Was that the ghost-angel without a nest—
Across the moonset far in the west
 That thin white vapour borne?

He turned from the lattice: the fire-lit room
  With its ghost-forsaken chair
Was cold and drear as a rifled tomb,
  Shameful and dreamless and bare!
Filled it was with his own soul's gloom,
With the sense of a traitor's merited doom,
  With a lovely ghost's despair!

He had driven a lady, and lightly clad,
  Out in the stormy cold!
Was she a ghost?—Divinely sad
  Are the people of Hades old!
A wandering ghost? Oh, self-care bad,
Caitiff and craven and cowering, which had
  Refused her an earthly fold!

Ill had she fared, his lovely guest!—
  A passion of wild self-blame
Tore the heart that failed in the test
  With a thousand hooks of shame,
Bent his proud head on his heaving breast,
Shore the plume from his ancient crest,
  Puffed at his ancient name.

He sickened with scorn of a fallen will,
  With love and remorse he wept;
He sank and kissed her footprints chill
  And the track by her garment swept;
He kneeled by her chair, all ice-cold still,
Dropped his head in it, moaned until
  For weariness he slept.

He slept until the flaming sun
  Laughed at the by-gone dark:
"A frightful dream!—but the night is done,"
  He said, "and I hear the lark!"
All day he held out; with the evening gun
A booming terror his brain did stun,
  And Doubt, the jackal, gan bark.

Followed the lion, Conviction, fast,
  And the truth no dream he knew!
Night after night raved the conscience-blast,
  But stilled as the morning grew.
When seven slow moons had come and passed
His self-reproach aside he cast,
  And the truth appeared untrue.

A lady fair—old story vile!—
  Would make his heart her boast:
In the growing glamour of her smile
  He forgot the lovely ghost:
Forgot her for bitterness wrapt in wile,
For the lady was false as a crocodile,
  And her heart was a cave of frost.

Then the cold white face, with its woe divine,
  Came back in the hour of sighs:
Not always with comfort to those that pine
  The dear true faces arise!
He yearned for her, dreamed of her, prayed for a sign;
He wept for her pleading voice, and the shine
  Of her solitary eyes.

"With thy face so still, which I made so sad—
  Ah me! which I might have wooed—
Thou holdest my heart in a love not glad,
  Sorrowful, shame-subdued!
Come to me, lady, in pardon clad;
Come to my dreams, white Aidead,
  For on thee all day I brood!"

She came not. He sought her in churchyards old,
  In churchyards by the sea;
And in many a church, when the midnight tolled
  And the moon shone eerily,
Down to the crypt he crept, grown bold,
Sat all night in the dead men's cold,
  And called to her: never came she.

Praying forgiveness more and more,
  And her love at any cost,
Pining and sighing and longing sore
  He grew like a creature lost;
Thin and spectral his body wore,
He faded out at the ghostly door,
  And was himself a ghost.

But if he found the lady then,
  So sorrowfully lost
For lack of the love 'mong earthly men
  That was ready to brave love's cost,
I know not till I drop my pen,
Wander away from earthly ken,
  And am myself a ghost.

ABU MIDJAN.

"If I sit in the dust
  For lauding good wine,
Ha, ha! it is just:
  So sits the vine!"

Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins.
The Prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not!"
Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot;
Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine,
He called it good names—a joy divine,
The giver of might, the opener of eyes,
Love's handmaid, the water of Paradise!
Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame,
And set him in irons—a fettered flame;
But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains,
For the blood of the grape runs the juice of his veins:

"I will not think
  That the Prophet said
Ye shall not drink
  Of the flowing red!"

"'Tis a drenched brain
  Whose after-sting
Cries out, Refrain:
  'Tis an evil thing!

"But I will dare,
  With a goodly drought,
To drink, nor spare
  Till my thirst be out.

"I do not laugh
  Like a Christian fool
But in silence quaff
  The liquor cool

"At door of tent
  'Neath evening star,
With daylight spent,
  And Uriel afar!

"Then, through the sky,
  Lo, the emerald hills!
My faith swells high,
  My bosom thrills:

"I see them hearken,
  The Houris that wait!
Their dark eyes darken
  The diamond gate!

"I hear the float
  Of their chant divine,
And my heart like a boat
  Sails thither on wine!

"Can an evil thing
  Make beauty more?
Or a sinner bring
  To the heavenly door?

"The sun-rain fine
  Would sink and escape,
But is drunk by the vine,
  Is stored in the grape:

"And the prisoned light
  I free again:
It flows in might
  Through my shining brain

"I love and I know;
  The truth is mine;
I walk in the glow
  Of the sun-bred wine.

"I will not think
  That the Prophet said
Ye shall not drink
  Of the flowing red!

"For his promises, lo,
  Sevenfold they shine
When the channels o'erflow
  With the singing wine!

"But I care not, I!—'tis a small annoy
To sit in chains for a heavenly joy!"

  Away went the song on the light wind borne;
His head sank down, and a ripple of scorn
Shook the hair that flowed from his curling lip
As he eyed his brown limbs in the iron's grip.

  Sudden his forehead he lifted high:
A faint sound strayed like a moth-wing by!
Like beacons his eyes burst blazing forth:
A dust-cloud he spied in the distant north!
A noise and a smoke on the plain afar?
'Tis the cloud and the clang of the Moslem war!
He leapt aloft like a tiger snared;
The wine in his veins through his visage flared;
He tore at his fetters in bootless ire,
He called the Prophet, he named his sire;
From his lips, with wild shout, the Techir burst;
He danced in his irons; the Giaours he cursed;
And his eyes they flamed like a beacon dun,
Or like wine in the crystal twixt eye and sun.

  The lady of Saad heard him shout,
Heard his fetters ring on the stones about
The heart of a warrior she understood,
And the rage of the thwarted battle-mood:
Her name, with the cry of an angry prayer,
He called but once, and the lady was there.

  "The Giaour!" he panted, "the Godless brute!
And me like a camel tied foot to foot!
Let me go, and I swear by Allah's fear
At sunset I don again this gear,
Or lie in a heaven of starry eyes,
Kissed by moon-maidens of Paradise!
O lady, grant me the death of the just!
Hark to the hurtle! see the dust!"

  With ready fingers the noble dame
Unlocked her husband's iron blame;
Brought his second horse, his Abdon, out,
And his second hauberk, light and stout;
Harnessed the warrior, and hight him go
An angel of vengeance upon the foe.

  With clank of steel and thud of hoof
Away he galloped; she climbed the roof.

  She sees the cloud and the flashes that leap
From the scythe-shaped swords inside it that sweep
Down with back-stroke the disordered swath:
Thither he speeds, a bolt of wrath!
Straight as an arrow she sees him go,
Abu Midjan, the singer, upon the foe!
Like an eagle he vanishes in the cloud,
And the thunder of battle bursts more loud,
Mingled of crashes and blows and falls,
Of the whish that severs the throat that calls,
Of neighing and shouting and groaning grim:
Abu Midjan, she sees no more of him!
Northward the battle drifts afar
On the flowing tide of the holy war.

  Lonely across the desert sand,
From his wrist by its thong hung his clotted brand,
Red in the sunset's level flame
Back to his bonds Abu Midjan came.

  "Lady, I swear your Saad's horse—
The Prophet himself might have rode a worse!
Like the knots of a serpent the play of his flesh
As he tore to the quarry in Allah's mesh!
I forgot him, and mowed at the traitor weeds,
Which fell before me like rushes and reeds,
Or like the tall poppies that sudden drop low
Their heads to an urchin's unstrung bow!
Fled the Giaour; the faithful flew after to kill;
I turned to surrender: beneath me still
Was Abdon unjaded, fresh in force,
Faithful and fearless—a heavenly horse!
Give him water, lady, and barley to eat;
Then haste thee and fetter the wine-bibber's feet."

  To the terrace he went, and she to the stall;
She tended the horse like guest in hall,
Then to the warrior unhasting returned.
The fire of the fight in his eyes yet burned,
But he sat in a silence that might betoken
One ashamed that his heart had spoken—
Though where was the word to breed remorse?
He had lauded only his chief's brave horse!
Not a word she spoke, but his fetters locked;
He watched with a smile that himself bemocked;
She left him seated in caitiff-plight,
Like one that had feared and fled the fight.

  But what singer ever sat lonely long
Ere the hidden fountain burst in song!
The battle wine foamed in the warrior's veins,
And he sang sword-tempest who sat in chains.

  "Oh, the wine
Of the vine
  Is a feeble thing!
In the rattle
Of battle
  The true grapes spring!

"When on whir
Of Tecbir
  Allah's wrath flies,
And the power
Of the Giaour
  A blasted leaf lies!

"When on force
Of the horse
  The arm flung abroad
Is sweeping,
And reaping
  The harvest of God!

"Ha! they drop
From the top
  To the sear heap below!
Ha! deeper,
Down steeper,
 The infidels go!

"Azrael
Sheer to hell
 Shoots the foul shoals!
There Monker
And Nakir
  Torture their souls!

"But when drop
On their crop
  The scimitars red,
And under
War's thunder
  The faithful lie dead,

"Oh, bright
Is the light
  On hero slow breaking!
Rapturous faces
Bent for embraces
  Watch for his waking!

"And he hears
In his ears
  The voice of Life's river,
Like a song
Of the strong,
  Jubilant ever!

"Oh, the wine
Of the vine
  May lead to the gates,
But the rattle
Of battle
  Wakes the angel who waits!

"To the lord
Of the sword
  Open it must!
The drinker,
The thinker
  Sits in the dust!

"He dreams
Of the gleams
  Of their garments of white;
He misses
Their kisses,
  The maidens of light!

"They long
For the strong
  Who has burst through alarms—
Up, by the labour
Of stirrup and sabre,
  Up to their arms!

"Oh, the wine of the grape is a feeble ghost!
The wine of the fight is the joy of a host!"

  When Saad came home from the far pursuit,
An hour he sat, and an hour was mute.
Then he opened his mouth: "Ah, wife, the fight
Had been lost full sure, but an arm of might
Sudden rose up on the crest of the battle,
Flashed blue lightnings, thundered steel rattle,
Took up the fighting, and drove it on—
Enoch sure, or the good Saint John!
Wherever he leaped, like a lion he,
The battle was thickest, or soon to be!
Wherever he sprang with his lion roar,
In a minute the battle was there no more!
With a headlong fear, the sinners fled,
And we swept them down the steep of the dead:
Before us, not from us, did they flee,
They ceased in the depths of a new Red Sea!
But him who saved us we saw no more;
He went as he came, by a secret door!
And strangest of all—nor think I err
If a miracle I for truth aver—
I was close to him thrice—the holy Force
Wore my silver-ringed hauberk, rode Abdon my horse!"

  The lady rose up, withholding her word,
And led to the terrace her wondering lord,
Where, song-soothed, and weary with battle strain,
Abu Midjan sat counting the links of his chain:
"The battle was raging, he raging worse;
I freed him, harnessed him, gave him thy horse."

  "Abu Midjan! the singer of love and of wine!
The arm of the battle, it also was thine?
Rise up, shake the irons from off thy feet:
For the lord of the fight are fetters meet?
If thou wilt, then drink till thou be hoar:
Allah shall judge thee; I judge no more!"

  Abu Midjan arose; he flung aside
The clanking fetters, and thus he cried:
"If thou give me to God and his decrees,
Nor purge my sin with the shame of these,
Wrath against me I dare not store:
In the name of Allah, I drink no more!"

THE THANKLESS LADY.

It is May, and the moon leans down at night
  Over a blossomy land;
Leans from her window a lady white,
  With her cheek upon her hand.

"Oh, why in the blue so misty, moon?
  Why so dull in the sky?
Thou look'st like one that is ready to swoon
  Because her tear-well is dry.

"Enough, enough of longing and wail!
  Oh, bird, I pray thee, be glad!
Sing to me once, dear nightingale,
  The old song, merry mad.

"Hold, hold with thy blossoming, colourless, cold,
  Apple-tree white as woe!
Blossom yet once with the blossom of old,
  Let the roses shine through the snow!"

The moon and the blossoms they gloomily gleam,
  The bird will not be glad:
The dead never speak when the mournful dream,
  They are too weak and sad.

Listened she listless till night grew late,
  Bound by a weary spell;
Then clanked the latch of the garden-gate,
  And a wondrous thing befell:

Out burst the gladness, up dawned the love.
  In the song, in the waiting show;
Grew silver the moon in the sky above.
  Blushed rosy the blossom below.

But the merry bird, nor the silvery moon,
  Nor the blossoms that flushed the night
Had one poor thanks for the granted boon:
  The lady forgot them quite!

LEGEND OF THE CORRIEVRECHAN.

Prince Breacan of Denmark was lord of the strand
  And lord of the billowy sea;
Lord of the sea and lord of the land,
  He might have let maidens be!

A maiden he met with locks of gold,
  Straying beside the sea:
Maidens listened in days of old,
  And repented grievously.

Wiser he left her in evil wiles,
  Went sailing over the sea;
Came to the lord of the Western Isles:
  Give me thy daughter, said he.

The lord of the Isles he laughed, and said:
  Only a king of the sea
May think the Maid of the Isles to wed,
  And such, men call not thee!

Hold thine own three nights and days
  In yon whirlpool of the sea,
Or turn thy prow and go thy ways
  And let the isle-maiden be.

Prince Breacan he turned his dragon prow
  To Denmark over the sea:
Wise women, he said, now tell me how
  In yon whirlpool to anchor me.

Make a cable of hemp and a cable of wool
  And a cable of maidens' hair,
And hie thee back to the roaring pool
  And anchor in safety there.

The smiths of Greydule, on the eve of Yule,
  Will forge three anchors rare;
The hemp thou shalt pull, thou shalt shear the wool,
  And the maidens will bring their hair.

Of the hair that is brown thou shalt twist one strand,
  Of the hair that is raven another;
Of the golden hair thou shalt twine a band
  To bind the one to the other!

The smiths of Greydule, on the eve of Yule,
  They forged three anchors rare;
The hemp he did pull, and he shore the wool,
  And the maidens brought their hair.

He twisted the brown hair for one strand,
  The raven hair for another;
He twined the golden hair in a band
  To bind the one to the other.

He took the cables of hemp and wool.
  He took the cable of hair,
He hied him back to the roaring pool,
  He cast the three anchors there.

The whirlpool roared, and the day went by,
  And night came down on the sea;
But or ever the morning broke the sky
  The hemp was broken in three.

The night it came down, the whirlpool it ran,
  The wind it fiercely blew;
And or ever the second morning began
  The wool it parted in two.

The storm it roared all day the third,
  The whirlpool wallowed about,
The night came down like a wild black bird,
  But the cable of hair held out.

Round and round with a giddy swing
  Went the sea-king through the dark;
Round went the rope in the swivel-ring,
  Round reeled the straining bark.

Prince Breacan he stood on his dragon prow,
  A lantern in his hand:
Blest be the maidens of Denmark now,
  By them shall Denmark stand!

He watched the rope through the tempest black
  A lantern in his hold:
Out, out, alack! one strand will crack!
  It is the strand of gold!

The third morn clear and calm came out:
  No anchored ship was there!
The golden strand in the cable stout
  Was not all of maidens' hair.

THE DEAD HAND.

The witch lady walked along the strand,
  Heard a roaring of the sea,
On the edge of a pool saw a dead man's hand,
  Good thing for a witch lady!

Lightly she stepped across the rocks,
  Came where the dead man lay:
Now pretty maid with your merry mocks,
  Now I shall have my way!

On a finger shone a sapphire blue
  In the heart of six rubies red:
Come back to me, my promise true,
  Come back, my ring, she said.

She took the dead hand in the live,
  And at the ring drew she;
The dead hand closed its fingers five,
  And it held the witch lady.

She swore the storm was not her deed,
  Dark spells she backward spoke;
If the dead man heard he took no heed,
  But held like a cloven oak.

Deathly cold, crept up the tide,
  Sure of her, made no haste;
Crept up to her knees, crept up each side,
  Crept up to her wicked waist.

Over the blue sea sailed the bride
  In her love's own sailing ship,
And the witch she saw them across the tide
  As it rose to her lying lip.

Oh, the heart of the dead and the hand of the dead
  Are strong hasps they to hold!
Fled the true dove with the kite's new love,
  And left the false kite with the old.

MINOR DITTIES.

IN THE NIGHT.

As to her child a mother calls,
"Come to me, child; come near!"
Calling, in silent intervals,
The Master's voice I hear.

But does he call me verily?
To have me does he care?
Why should he seek my poverty,
My selfishness so bare?

The dear voice makes his gladness brim,
But not a child can know
Why that large woman cares for him,
Why she should love him so!

Lord, to thy call of me I bow,
Obey like Abraham:
Thou lov'st me because thou art thou,
And I am what I am!

Doubt whispers, Thou art such a blot
He cannot love poor thee:
If what I am he loveth not,
He loves what I shall be.

Nay, that which can be drawn and wooed,
And turned away from ill,
Is what his father made for good:
He loves me, I say still!

THE GIVER.

To give a thing and take again
Is counted meanness among men;
To take away what once is given
Cannot then be the way of heaven!

But human hearts are crumbly stuff,
And never, never love enough,
Therefore God takes and, with a smile,
Puts our best things away a while.

Thereon some weep, some rave, some scorn,
Some wish they never had been born;
Some humble grow at last and still,
And then God gives them what they will.

FALSE PROPHETS.

Would-be prophets tell us
We shall not re-know
Them that walked our fellows
In the ways below!

Smoking, smouldering Tophets
Steaming hopeless plaints!
Dreary, mole-eyed prophets!
Mean, skin-pledging saints!

Knowing not the Father
What their prophecies!
Grapes of such none gather,
Only thorns and lies.

Loving thus the brother,
How the Father tell?
Go without each other
To your heavenly hell!

LIFE-WEARY.

O Thou that walkest with nigh hopeless feet
Past the one harbour, built for thee and thine.
Doth no stray odour from its table greet,
No truant beam from fire or candle shine?

At his wide door the host doth stand and call;
At every lattice gracious forms invite;
Thou seest but a dull-gray, solid wall
In forest sullen with the things of night!

Thou cravest rest, and Rest for thee doth crave,
The white sheet folded down, white robe apart.—
Shame, Faithless! No, I do not mean the grave!
I mean Love's very house and hearth and heart.

APPROACHES.

When thou turn'st away from ill,
Christ is this side of thy hill.

When thou turnest toward good,
Christ is walking in thy wood.

When thy heart says, "Father, pardon!"
Then the Lord is in thy garden.

When stern Duty wakes to watch,
Then his hand is on the latch.

But when Hope thy song doth rouse,
Then the Lord is in the house.

When to love is all thy wit,
Christ doth at thy table sit.

When God's will is thy heart's pole,
Then is Christ thy very soul.

TRAVELLERS' SONG.

Bands of dark and bands of light
Lie athwart the homeward way;
Now we cross a belt of Night,
Now a strip of shining Day!

Now it is a month of June,
Now December's shivering hour;
Now rides high loved memories' Moon,
Now the Dark is dense with power!

Summers, winters, days, and nights,
Moons, and clouds, they come and go;
Joys and sorrows, pains, delights,
Hope and fear, and yes and no.

All is well: come, girls and boys,
Not a weary mile is vain!
Hark—dim laughter's radiant noise!
See the windows through the rain!

LOVE IS STRENGTH.

Love alone is great in might,
Makes the heavy burden light,
Smooths rough ways to weary feet,
Makes the bitter morsel sweet:
Love alone is strength!

Might that is not born of Love
Is not Might born from above,
Has its birthplace down below
Where they neither reap nor sow:
Love alone is strength!

Love is stronger than all force,
Is its own eternal source;
Might is always in decay,
Love grows fresher every day:
Love alone is strength!

Little ones, no ill can chance;
Fear ye not, but sing and dance;
Though the high-heaved heaven should fall
God is plenty for us all:
God is Love and Strength!

COMING.

When the snow is on the earth
Birds and waters cease their mirth;
When the sunlight is prevailing
Even the night-winds drop their wailing.

On the earth when deep snows lie
Still the sun is in the sky,
And when most we miss his fire
He is ever drawing nigher.

In the darkest winter day
Thou, God, art not far away;
When the nights grow colder, drearer,
Father, thou art coming nearer!

For thee coming I would watch
With my hand upon the latch—
Of the door, I mean, that faces
Out upon the eternal spaces!

SONG OF THE WAITING DEAD.

With us there is no gray fearing,
With us no aching for lack!
For the morn it is always nearing,
And the night is at our back.
At times a song will fall dumb,
A thought-bell burst in a sigh,
But no one says, "He will not come!"
She says, "He is almost nigh!"

The thing you call a sorrow
Is our delight on its way:
We know that the coming morrow
Comes on the wheels of to-day!
Our Past is a child asleep;
Delay is ripening the kiss;
The rising tear we will not weep
Until it flow for bliss.

OBEDIENCE.

Trust him in the common light;
Trust him in the awesome night;

Trust him when the earth doth quake:
Trust him when thy heart doth ache;

Trust him when thy brain doth reel
And thy friend turns on his heel;

Trust him when the way is rough,
Cry not yet, It is enough!

But obey with true endeavour,
Else the salt hath lost his savour.

A SONG IN THE NIGHT.

I would I were an angel strong,
An angel of the sun, hasting along!

I would I were just come awake,
A child outbursting from night's dusky brake!

Or lark whose inward, upward fate
Mocks every wall that masks the heavenly gate!

Or hopeful cock whose clarion clear
Shrills ten times ere a film of dawn appear!

Or but a glowworm: even then
My light would come straight from the Light of Men!

I am a dead seed, dark and slow:
Father of larks and children, make me grow.

DE PROFUNDIS.

When I am dead unto myself, and let,
O Father, thee live on in me,
Contented to do nought but pay my debt,
And leave the house to thee,

Then shall I be thy ransomed—from the cark
Of living, from the strain for breath,
From tossing in my coffin strait and dark,
At hourly strife with death!

Have mercy! in my coffin! and awake!
A buried temple of the Lord!
Grow, Temple, grow! Heart, from thy cerements break!
Stream out, O living Sword!

When I am with thee as thou art with me,
Life will be self-forgetting power;
Love, ever conscious, buoyant, clear, and free,
Will flame in darkest hour.

Where now I sit alone, unmoving, calm,
With windows open to thy wind,
Shall I not know thee in the radiant psalm
Soaring from heart and mind?

The body of this death will melt away,
And I shall know as I am known;
Know thee my father, every hour and day,
As thou know'st me thine own!

BLIND SORROW.

"My life is drear; walking I labour sore;
  The heart in me is heavy as a stone;
And of my sorrows this the icy core:
  Life is so wide, and I am all alone!"

Thou did'st walk so, with heaven-born eyes down bent
  Upon the earth's gold-rosy, radiant clay,
That thou had'st seen no star in all God's tent
  Had not thy tears made pools first on the way.

Ah, little knowest thou the tender care
  In a love-plenteous cloak around thee thrown!
Full many a dim-seen, saving mountain-stair
  Toiling thou climb'st—but not one step alone!

Lift but thy languid head and see thy guide;
  Let thy steps go in his, nor choose thine own;
Then soon wilt thou, thine eyes with wonder wide,
  Cry, Now I know I never was alone!

MOTES IN THE SUN.

ANGELS.

Came of old to houses lonely
  Men with wings, but did not show them:
Angels come to our house, only,
  For their wings, they do not know them!

THE FATHER'S WORSHIPPERS.

'Tis we, not in thine arms, who weep and pray;
The children in thy bosom laugh and play.

A BIRTHDAY-WISH.

Who know thee, love: thy life be such
  That, ere the year be o'er,
Each one who loves thee now so much,
  Even God, may love thee more!

TO ANY ONE.

Go not forth to call Dame Sorrow
From the dim fields of Tomorrow;
Let her roam there all unheeded,
She will come when she is needed;
Then, when she draws near thy door,
She will find God there before.

WAITING.

Lie, little cow, and chew thy cud,
  The farmer soon will shift thy tether;
Chirp, linnet, on the frozen mud,
  Sun and song will come together;
Wait, soul, for God, and thou shalt bud,
  He waits thy waiting with his weather.

LOST BUT SAFE.

Lost the little one roams about,
Pathway or shelter none can find;
Blinking stars are coming out;
No one is moving but the wind;
It is no use to cry or shout,
All the world is still as a mouse;
One thing only eases her mind:
"Father knows I'm not in the house!"

MUCH AND MORE.

When thy heart, love-filled, grows graver,
  And eternal bliss looks nearer,
Ask thy heart, nor show it favour,
  Is the gift or giver dearer?

Love, love on; love higher, deeper;
  Let love's ocean close above her;
Only, love thou more love's keeper,
  More, the love-creating lover.

HOPE AND PATIENCE.

An unborn bird lies crumpled and curled,
A-dreaming of the world.

Round it, for castle-wall, a shell
Is guarding it well.

Hope is the bird with its dim sensations; The shell that keeps it alive is Patience.

A BETTER THING.

I took it for a bird of prey that soared
High over ocean, battled mount, and plain;
'Twas but a bird-moth, which with limp horns gored
The invisibly obstructing window-pane!

Better than eagle, with far-towering nerve
But downward bent, greedy, marauding eye,
Guest of the flowers, thou art: unhurt they serve
Thee, little angel of a lower sky!

A PRISONER.

The hinges are so rusty
The door is fixed and fast;
The windows are so dusty
The sun looks in aghast:
Knock out the glass, I pray,
Or dash the door away,
Or break the house down bodily,
And let my soul go free!

TO MY LORD AND MASTER.

Imagination cannot rise above thee;
Near and afar I see thee, and I love thee;
My misery away from me I thrust it,
For thy perfection I behold, and trust it.

TO ONE UNSATISFIED.

When, with all the loved around thee,
  Still thy heart says, "I am lonely,"
It is well; the truth hath found thee:
  Rest is with the Father only.

TO MY GOD.

Oh how oft I wake and find
  I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
  Thou it is that wakest me.

TRIOLET.

Oh that men would praise the Lord
  For his goodness unto men!
Forth he sends his saving word,
  —Oh that men would praise the Lord!—
And from shades of death abhorred
  Lifts them up to light again:
Oh that men would praise the Lord
  For his goodness unto men!

THE WORD OF GOD.

Where the bud has never blown
  Who for scent is debtor?
Where the spirit rests unknown
  Fatal is the letter.

In thee, Jesus, Godhead-stored,
  All things we inherit,
For thou art the very Word
  And the very Spirit!

EINE KLEINE PREDIGT.

Graut Euch nicht, Ihr lieben Leute,
  Vor dem ungeheuren Morgen;
Wenn es kommt, es ist das Heute,
  Und der liebe Gott zu sorgen.

TO THE LIFE ETERNAL.

Thou art my thought, my heart, my being's fortune,
  The search for thee my growth's first conscious date;
For nought, for everything, I thee importune;
  Thou art my all, my origin and fate!

HOPE DEFERRED.

"Where is thy crown, O tree of Love?
  Flowers only bears thy root!
Will never rain drop from above
  Divine enough for fruit?"

"I dwell in hope that gives good cheer,
  Twilight my darkest hour;
For seest thou not that every year
  I break in better flower?"

FORGIVENESS.

God gives his child upon his slate a sum—
  To find eternity in hours and years;
With both sides covered, back the child doth come,
  His dim eyes swollen with shed and unshed tears;
God smiles, wipes clean the upper side and nether,
And says, "Now, dear, we'll do the sum together!"

DEJECTION.

O Father, I am in the dark,
  My soul is heavy-bowed:
I send my prayer up like a lark,
  Up through my vapoury shroud,
        To find thee,
        And remind thee
I am thy child, and thou my father,
Though round me death itself should gather.

Lay thy loved hand upon my head,
  Let thy heart beat in mine;
One thought from thee, when all seems dead,
  Will make the darkness shine
        About me
        And throughout me!
And should again the dull night gather,
I'll cry again, Thou art my father.

APPEAL.

If in my arms I bore my child,
  Would he cry out for fear
Because the night was dark and wild
  And no one else was near?

Shall I then treat thee, Father, as
  My fatherhood would grieve?
I will be hopeful, though, alas,
  I cannot quite believe!

I had no power, no wish to be:
  Thou madest me half blind!
The darkness comes! I cling to thee!
  Be thou my perfect mind.

POEMS FOR CHILDREN

LESSONS FOR A CHILD.

I.

There breathes not a breath of the summer air
But the spirit of love is moving there;
Not a trembling leaf on the shadowy tree,
Flutters with hundreds in harmony,
But that spirit can part its tone from the rest,
And read the life in its beetle's breast.
When the sunshiny butterflies come and go,
Like flowers paying visits to and fro,
Not a single wave of their fanning wings
Is unfelt by the spirit that feeleth all things.
The long-mantled moths that sleep at noon
And rove in the light of the gentler moon;
And the myriad gnats that dance like a wall,
Or a moving column that will not fall;
And the dragon-flies that go burning by,
Shot like a glance from a seeking eye—
There is one being that loves them all:
Not a fly in a spider's web can fall
But he cares for the spider, and cares for the fly;
He cares for you, whether you laugh or cry,
Cares whether your mother smile or sigh.
How he cares for so many, I do not know,
But it would be too strange if he did not so—
Dreadful and dreary for even a fly:
So I cannot wait for the how and why,
But believe that all things are gathered and nursed
In the love of him whose love went first
And made this world—like a huge great nest
For a hen to sit on with feathery breast.

II.

  The bird on the leafy tree,
  The bird in the cloudy sky,
  The hart in the forest free,
  The stag on the mountain high,
  The fish inside the sea,
  The albatross asleep
  On the outside of the deep,
  The bee through the summer sunny
  Hunting for wells of honey—
  What is the thought in the breast
  Of the little bird in its nest?
  What is the thought in the songs
  The lark in the sky prolongs?
  What mean the dolphin's rays,
  Winding his watery ways?
  What is the thought of the stag,
  Stately on yonder crag?
  What does the albatross think,
  Dreaming upon the brink
  Of the mountain billow, and then
  Dreaming down in its glen?
  What is the thought of the bee
  Fleeting so silently,
  Or flitting—with busy hum,
  But a careless go-and-come—
  From flower-chalice to chalice,
  Like a prince from palace to palace?
  What makes them alive, so very—
  Some of them, surely, merry.
  And others so stately calm
  They might be singing a psalm?

    I cannot tell what they think—-
  Only know they eat and drink,
  And on all that lies about
  With a quiet heart look out,
  Each after its kind, stately or coy,
  Solemn like man, gamesome like boy,
  Glad with its own mysterious joy.

    And God, who knows their thoughts and ways
  Though his the creatures do not know,
  From his full heart fills each of theirs:
  Into them all his breath doth go;
  Good and better with them he shares;
  Content with their bliss while they have no prayers,
  He takes their joy for praise.

    If thou wouldst be like him, little one, go
  And be kind with a kindness undefiled;
  Who gives for the pleasure of thanks, my child,
  God's gladness cannot know.

III.

  Root met root in the spongy ground,
    Searching each for food:
  Each turned aside, and away it wound.
    And each got something good.

  Sound met sound in the wavy air—
    That made a little to-do!
  They jostled not long, but were quick and fair;
    Each found its path and flew.

  Drop dashed on drop, as the rain-shower fell;
    They joined and sank below:
  In gathered thousands they rose a well,
    With a singing overflow.

  Wind met wind in a garden green,
    They began to push and fret:
  A tearing whirlwind arose between:
    There love lies bleeding yet.

WHAT MAKES SUMMER?

  Winter froze both brook and well;
Fast and fast the snowflakes fell;
Children gathered round the hearth
Made a summer of their mirth;
When a boy, so lately come
That his life was yet one sum
Of delights—of aimless rambles.
Romps and dreams and games and gambols,
Thought aloud: "I wish I knew
What makes summer—that I do!"
Father heard, and it did show him
How to write a little poem.

  What makes summer, little one,
Do you ask? It is the sun.
Want of heat is all the harm,
Summer is but winter warm.
'Tis the sun—yes, that one there,
Dim and gray, low in the air!
Now he looks at us askance,
But will lift his countenance
Higher up, and look down straighter.
Rise much earlier, set much later,
Till we sing out, "Hail, Well-comer,
Thou hast brought our own old Summer!"

  When the sun thus rises early
And keeps shining all day rarely,
Up he draws the larks to meet him,
Earth's bird-angels, wild to greet him;
Up he draws the clouds, and pours
Down again their shining showers;
Out he draws the grass and clover,
Daisies, buttercups all over;
Out he wiles all flowers to stare
At their father in the air—
He all light, they how much duller,
Yet son-suns of every colour!
Then he draws their odours out,
Sends them on the winds about.
Next he draws out flying things—
Out of eggs, fast-flapping wings;
Out of lumps like frozen snails,
Butterflies with splendid sails;
Draws the blossoms from the trees,
From their hives the buzzy bees,
Golden things from muddy cracks—
Beetles with their burnished backs;
Laughter draws he from the river
Gleaming back to the gleam-giver;
Light he sends to every nook
That no creature be forsook;
Draws from gloom and pain and sadness,
Hope and blessing, peace and gladness,
Making man's heart sing and shine
With his brilliancy divine:
Summer, thus it is he makes it,
And the little child he takes it.

  Day's work done, adown the west
Lingering he goes to rest;
Like a child, who, blissful yet,
Is unwilling to forget,
And, though sleepy, heels and head,
Thinks he cannot go to bed.
Even when down behind the hill
Back his bright look shineth still,
Whose keen glory with the night
Makes the lovely gray twilight—
Drawing out the downy owl,
With his musical bird-howl;
Drawing out the leathery bats—
Mice they are, turned airy cats—
Noiseless, sly, and slippery things
Swimming through the air on wings;
Drawing out the feathery moth,
Lazy, drowsy, very loath;
Drawing children to the door
For one goodnight-frolic more;
Drawing from the glow-worms' tails
Glimmers green in grassy dales;
Making ocean's phosphor-flashes
Glow as if they were sun-ashes.

  Then the moon comes up the hill,
Wide awake, but dreaming still,
Soft and slow, as if in fear
Lest her path should not be clear.
Like a timid lady she
Looks around her daintily,
Begs the clouds to come about her,
Tells the stars to shine without her,
Then unveils, and, bolder grown,
Climbs the steps of her blue throne:
Stately in a calm delight,
Mistress of a whole fair night,
Lonely but for stars a few,
There she sits in silence blue,
And the world before her lies
Faint, a round shade in the skies!

  But what fun is all about
When the humans are shut out!
Shadowy to the moon, the earth
Is a very world of mirth!
Night is then a dream opaque
Full of creatures wide awake!
Noiseless then, on feet or wings,
Out they come, all moon-eyed things!
In and out they pop and play,
Have it all their own wild way,
Fly and frolic, scamper, glow;
Treat the moon, for all her show,
State, and opal diadem,
Like a nursemaid watching them.
And the nightingale doth snare
All the merry tumult rare,
All the music and the magic,
All the comic and the tragic,
All the wisdom and the riot
Of the midnight moonlight diet,
In a diamond hoop of song,
Which he trundles all night long.

  What doth make the sun, you ask,
Able for such mighty task?
He is not a lamp hung high
Sliding up and down the sky,
He is carried in a hand:
That's what makes him strong and grand!
From that hand comes all his power;
If it set him down one hour,
Yea, one moment set him by,
In that moment he would die,
And the winter, ice, and snow
Come on us, and never go.

  Need I tell you whose the hand
Bears him high o'er sea and land?

MOTHER NATURE.

  Beautiful mother is busy all day,
So busy she neither can sing nor say;
But lovely thoughts, in a ceaseless flow,
Through her eyes, and her ears, and her bosom go—
Motion, sight, and sound, and scent,
Weaving a royal, rich content.

  When night is come, and her children sleep,
Beautiful mother her watch doth keep;
With glowing stars in her dusky hair
Down she sits to her music rare;
And her instrument that never fails,
Is the hearts and the throats of her nightingales.

THE MISTLETOE.

  Kiss me: there now, little Neddy,
Do you see her staring steady?
There again you had a chance of her!
Didn't you catch the pretty glance of her?
See her nest! On any planet
Never was a sweeter than it!
Never nest was such as this is:
Tis the nest of all the kisses,
With the mother kiss-bird sitting
All through Christmas, never flitting,
Kisses, kisses, kisses hatching,
Sweetest birdies, for the catching!
Oh, the precious little brood
Always in a loving mood!—
There's one under Mamy's hood!

  There, that's one I caught this minute,
Musical as any linnet!
Where it is, your big eyes question,
With of doubt a wee suggestion?
There it is—upon mouth merry!
There it is—upon cheek cherry!
There's another on chin-chinnie!
Now it's off, and lights on Minnie!
There's another on nose-nosey!
There's another on lip-rosy!
And the kissy-bird is hatching
Hundreds more for only catching.

  Why the mistletoe she chooses,
And the Christmas-tree refuses?
There's a puzzle for your mother?
I'll present you with another!
Tell me why, you question-asker,
Cruel, heartless mother-tasker—
Why, of all the trees before her,
Gathered round, or spreading o'er her,
Jenny Wren should choose the apple
For her nursery and chapel!
Or Jack Daw build in the steeple
High above the praying people!
Tell me why the limping plover
O'er moist meadow likes to hover;
Why the partridge with such trouble
Builds her nest where soon the stubble
Will betray her hop-thumb-cheepers
To the eyes of all the reapers!—
Tell me, Charley; tell me, Janey;
Answer all, or answer any,
And I'll tell you, with much pleasure,
Why this little bird of treasure
Nestles only in the mistletoe,
Never, never goes the thistle to.

  Not an answer? Tell without it?
Yes—all that I know about it:—
Mistletoe, then, cannot flourish,
Cannot find the food to nourish
But on other plant when planted—
And for kissing two are wanted.
That is why the kissy-birdie
Looks about for oak-tree sturdy
And the plant that grows upon it
Like a wax-flower on a bonnet.

  But, my blessed little mannie,
All the birdies are not cannie
That the kissy-birdie hatches!
Some are worthless little patches,
Which indeed if they don't smutch you,
'Tis they're dead before they touch you!
While for kisses vain and greedy,
Kisses flattering, kisses needy,
They are birds that never waddled
Out of eggs that only addled!
Some there are leave spots behind them,
On your cheek for years you'd find them:
Little ones, I do beseech you,
Never let such birdies reach you.

  It depends what net you venture
What the sort of bird will enter!
I will tell you in a minute
What net takes kiss—lark or linnet—
Any bird indeed worth hatching
And just therefore worth the catching:
The one net that never misses
Catching at least some true kisses,
Is the heart that, loving truly,
Always loves the old love newly;
But to spread out would undo it—
Let the birdies fly into it.

PROFESSOR NOCTUTUS.

Nobody knows the world but me.
The rest go to bed; I sit up and see.
I'm a better observer than any of you all,
For I never look out till the twilight fall,
And never then without green glasses,
And that is how my wisdom passes.

I never think, for that is not fit:
I observe. I have seen the white moon sit
On her nest, the sea, like a fluffy owl,
Hatching the boats and the long-legged fowl!
When the oysters gape—you may make a note—
She drops a pearl into every throat.

I can see the wind: can you do that?
I see the dreams he has in his hat,
I see him shaking them out as he goes,
I see them rush in at man's snoring nose.
Ten thousand things you could not think,
I can write down plain with pen and ink!

You know that I know; therefore pull off your hat,
Whether round and tall, or square and flat:
You cannot do better than trust in me;
You may shut your eyes in fact—I see!
Lifelong I will lead you, and then, like the owl,
I will bury you nicely with my spade and showl.

BIRD-SONGS.

I will sing a song,
  Said the owl.
You sing a song, sing-song
  Ugly fowl!
What will you sing about,
Night in and day out?

All about the night,
  When the gray
With her cloak smothers bright,
  Hard, sharp day.
Oh, the moon! the cool dew!
And the shadows!—tu-whoo!

I will sing a song,
  Said the nightingale.
Sing a song, long, long,
  Little Neverfail!
What will you sing about,
Day in or day out?

All about the light
  Gone away,
Down, away, and out of sight:
  Wake up, day!
For the master is not dead,
Only gone to bed.

I will sing a song,
  Said the lark.
Sing, sing, Throat-strong,
  Little Kill-the-dark!
What will you sing about,
Day in and night out?

I can only call!
  I can't think!
Let me up, that's all!
  I see a chink!
I've been thirsting all night
For the glorious light!

RIDDLES.

I.

I have only one foot, but thousands of toes;
My one foot stands well, but never goes;
I've a good many arms, if you count them all,
But hundreds of fingers, large and small;
From the ends of my fingers my beauty grows;
I breathe with my hair, and I drink with my toes;
I grow bigger and bigger about the waist
Although I am always very tight laced;
None e'er saw me eat—I've no mouth to bite!
Yet I eat all day, and digest all night.
In the summer, with song I shake and quiver,
But in winter I fast and groan and shiver.

II.

There is a plough that hath no share,
Only a coulter that parteth fair;
  But the ridges they rise
  To a terrible size
Or ever the coulter comes near to tear:
The horses and ridges fierce battle make;
The horses are safe, but the plough may break.

Seed cast in its furrows, or green or sear,
Will lift to the sun neither blade nor ear:
  Down it drops plumb
  Where no spring-times come,
Nor needeth it any harrowing gear;
Wheat nor poppy nor blade has been found
Able to grow on the naked ground.

FOR MY GRANDCHILD.

III.

Who is it that sleeps like a top all night,
And wakes in the morning so fresh and bright
That he breaks his bed as he gets up,
And leaves it smashed like a china cup?

IV.

I've a very long nose, but what of that?
It is not too long to lie on a mat!

I have very big jaws, but never get fat:
I don't go to church, and I'm not a church rat!

I've a mouth in my middle my food goes in at,
Just like a skate's—that's a fish that's a flat.

In summer I'm seldom able to breathe,
But when winter his blades in ice doth sheathe

I swell my one lung, I look big and I puff,
And I sometimes hiss.—There, that's enough!

BABY.

Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into here.

Where did you get those eyes so blue?
Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry twinkles left in.

Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?
I saw something better than any one knows.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss.

Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?
From the same box as the cherubs' wings.

How did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me, and so I grew.

But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.

UP AND-DOWN.

The sun is gone down
  And the moon's in the sky
But the sun will come up
  And the moon be laid by.

The flower is asleep.
  But it is not dead,
When the morning shines
  It will lift its head.

When winter comes
  It will die! No, no,
It will only hide
  From the frost and snow.

Sure is the summer,
  Sure is the sun;
The night and the winter
  Away they run.

UP IN THE TREE.

What would you see, if I took you up
My little aerie-stair?
You would see the sky like a clear blue cup
Turned upside down in the air.

What would you do, up my aerie-stair
In my little nest on the tree?
With cry upon cry you would ripple the air
To get at what you would see.

And what would you reach in the top of the tree
To still your grasping grief?
Not a star would you clutch of all you would see,
You would gather just one green leaf.

But when you had lost your greedy grief,
Content to see from afar,
Your hand it would hold a withering leaf,
But your heart a shining star.

A BABY-SERMON.

The lightning and thunder
They go and they come:
But the stars and the stillness
Are always at home.

LITTLE BO-PEEP.

Little Bo-Peep, she has lost her sheep,
  And will not know where to find them;
They are over the height and out of sight,
  Trailing their tails behind them!

Little Bo-Peep woke out of her sleep,
  Jump'd up and set out to find them:
"The silly things! they've got no wings,
  And they've left their trails behind them!

"They've taken their tails, but they've left their trails,
  And so I shall follow and find them!"
For wherever a tail had dragged a trail
  The grass lay bent behind them.

She washed in the brook, and caught up her crook.
  And after her sheep did run
Along the trail that went up the dale
  Across the grass in the sun.

She ran with a will, and she came to a hill
  That went up steep like a spire;
On its very top the sun seemed to stop,
  And burned like a flame of fire.

But now she went slow, for the hill did go
  Up steeper as she went higher;
When she reached its crown, the sun was down,
  Leaving a trail of fire.

And her sheep were gone, and hope she had none.
  For now was no trail behind them.
Yes, there they were! long-tailed and fair!
  But to see was not to find them!

Golden in hue, and rosy and blue,
  And white as blossom of pears,
Her sheep they did run in the trail of the sun,
  As she had been running in theirs!

After the sun like clouds they did run,
  But she knew they were her sheep:
She sat down to cry and look up at the sky,
  But she cried herself to sleep.

And as she slept the dew down wept,
  And the wind did blow from the sky;
And doings strange brought a lovely change:
  She woke with a different cry!

Nibble, nibble, crop, without a stop!
  A hundred little lambs
Did pluck and eat the grass so sweet
  That grew in the trail of their dams!

She gave one look, she caught up her crook,
  Wiped away the sleep that did blind her;
And nibble-nibble-crop, without a stop
  The lambs came nibbling behind her.

Home, home she came, both tired and lame,
  With three times as large a stock;
In a month or more, they'll be sheep as before,
  A lovely, long-wooled flock!

But what will she say, if, one fine day,
  When they've got their bushiest tails,
Their grown-up game should be just the same,
  And again she must follow mere trails?

Never weep, Bo-Peep, though you lose your sheep,
  Tears will turn rainbow-laughter!
In the trail of the sun if the mothers did run,
  The lambs are sure to run after;

But a day is coming when little feet drumming
  Will wake you up to find them—
All the old sheep—how your heart will leap!—
  With their big little lambs behind them!

LITTLE BOY BLUE.

Little Boy Blue lost his way in a wood—
  Sing apples and cherries, roses and honey:
He said, "I would not go back if I could,
  It's all so jolly and funny!"

He sang, "This wood is all my own—
  Apples and cherries, roses and honey!
Here I will sit, a king on my throne,
  All so jolly and funny!"

A little snake crept out of a tree—
  Apples and cherries, roses and honey:
"Lie down at my feet, little snake," said he—
  All so jolly and funny!

A little bird sang in the tree overhead—
  "Apples and cherries, roses and honey:"
"Come and sing your song on my finger," he said,
  All so jolly and funny.

Up coiled the snake; the bird came down,
And sang him the song of Birdie Brown.

But little Boy Blue found it tiresome to sit
Though it was on a throne: he would walk a bit!

He took up his horn, and he blew a blast:
"Snake, you go first, and, birdie, come last."

Waves of green snake o'er the yellow leaves went;
The snake led the way, and he knew what he meant:

But by Boy Blue's head, with flutter and dart,
Flew Birdie Brown, her song in her heart.

Boy Blue came where apples grew fair and sweet:
"Tree, drop me an apple down at my feet."

He came where cherries hung plump and red:
"Come to my mouth, sweet kisses," he said.

And the boughs bow down, and the apples they dapple
The grass, too many for him to grapple;

And the cheeriest cherries, with never a miss,
Fall to his mouth, each a full-grown kiss.

He met a little brook singing a song:
"Little brook," he said, "you are going wrong,

"You must follow me, follow me, follow, I say,
Do as I tell you, and come this way."

And the song-singing, sing-songing forest brook
Leapt from its bed and after him took;

And the dead leaves rustled, yellow and wan,
As over their beds the water ran.

He called every bird that sat on a bough;
He called every creature with poop and prow—

I mean, with two ends, that is, nose and tail:
With legs or without, they followed full sail;

Squirrels that carried their tails like a sack,
Each his own on his little brown humpy back;

Snails that drew their own caravans,
Poking out their own eyes on the point of a lance,

And houseless slugs, white, black, and red—
Snails too lazy to build a shed;

And butterflies, flutterbys, weasels, and larks,
And owls, and shrew-mice, and harkydarks,

Cockchafers, henchafers, cockioli-birds,
Cockroaches, henroaches, cuckoos in herds;

The dappled fawns fawning, the fallow-deer following;
The swallows and flies, flying and swallowing—

All went flitting, and sailing, and flowing
After the merry boy running and blowing.

The spider forgot, and followed him spinning,
And lost all his thread from end to beginning;

The gay wasp forgot his rings and his waist—
He never had made such undignified haste!

The dragon-flies melted to mist with their hurrying;
The mole forsook his harrowing and burrowing;

The bees went buzzing, not busy but beesy,
And the midges in columns, upright and easy.

But Little Boy Blue was not content,
Calling for followers still as he went,

Blowing his horn, and beating his drum,
And crying aloud, "Come all of you, come!"

He said to the shadows, "Come after me;"
And the shadows began to flicker and flee,

And away through the wood went flattering and fluttering,
Shaking and quivering, quavering and muttering.

He said to the wind, "Come, follow; come, follow
With whistle and pipe, with rustle and hollo;"

And the wind wound round at his desire,
As if Boy had been the gold cock on the spire;

And the cock itself flew down from the church
And left the farmers all in the lurch.

Everything, everything, all and sum,
They run and they fly, they creep and they come;

The very trees they tugged at their roots,
Only their feet were too fast in their boots—

After him leaning and straining and bending,
As on through their boles the army kept wending,

Till out of the wood Boy burst on a lea,
Shouting and calling, "Come after me,"

And then they rose with a leafy hiss
And stood as if nothing had been amiss.

Little Boy Blue sat down on a stone,
And the creatures came round him every one.

He said to the clouds, "I want you there!"
And down they sank through the thin blue air.

He said to the sunset far in the west,
"Come here; I want you; 'tis my behest!"

And the sunset came and stood up on the wold,
And burned and glowed in purple and gold.

Then Little Boy Blue began to ponder:
"What's to be done with them all, I wonder!"

He thought a while, then he said, quite low,
"What to do with you all, I am sure I don't know!"

The clouds clodded down till dismal it grew;
The snake sneaked close; round Birdie Brown flew;

The brook, like a cobra, rose on its tail,
And the wind sank down with a what-will-you wail,

And all the creatures sat and stared;
The mole opened the eyes that he hadn't, and glared;

And for rats and bats, and the world and his wife
Little Boy Blue was afraid of his life.

Then Birdie Brown began to sing,
And what he sang was the very thing:

"Little Boy Blue, you have brought us all hither:
Pray, are we to sit and grow old together?"

"Go away; go away," said Little Boy Blue;
"I'm sure I don't want you! get away—do."

"No, no; no, no; no, yes, and no, no,"
Sang Birdie Brown, "it mustn't be so!

"If we've come for no good, we can't go away.
Give us reason for going, or here we stay!"

They covered the earth, they darkened the air,
They hovered, they sat, with a countless stare.

"If I do not give them something to do,
They will stare me up!" said Little Boy Blue.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" he began to cry,
"They're an awful crew, and I feel so shy!"

All of a sudden he thought of a thing,
And up he stood, and spoke like a king:

"You're the plague of my life! have done with your bother!
Off with you all: take me back to my mother!"

The sunset went back to the gates of the west.
"Follow me" sang Birdie, "I know the way best!"

"I am going the same way as fast as I can!"
Said the brook, as it sank and turned and ran.

To the wood fled the shadows, like scared black ghosts:
"If we stay, we shall all be missed from our posts!"

Said the wind, with a voice that had changed its cheer,
"I was just going there when you brought me here!"

"That's where I live," said the sack-backed squirrel,
And he turned his sack with a swing and a swirl.

Said the gold weather-cock, "I'm the churchwarden!"
Said the mole, "I live in the parson's garden!"

Said they all, "If that's where you want us to steer for,
What on earth or in air did you bring us here for?"

"You are none the worse!" said Boy. "If you won't
Do as I tell you, why, then, don't;

"I'll leave you behind, and go home without you;
And it's time I did: I begin to doubt you!"

He jumped to his feet. The snake rose on his tail,
And hissed three times, a hiss full of bale,

And shot out his tongue at Boy Blue to scare him,
And stared at him, out of his courage to stare him.

"You ugly snake," Little Boy Blue said,
"Get out of my way, or I'll break your head!"

The snake would not move, but glared at him glum;
Boy Blue hit him hard with the stick of his drum.

The snake fell down as if he was dead.
Little Boy Blue set his foot on his head.

"Hurrah!" cried the creatures, "hurray! hurrah!
Little Boy Blue, your will is a law!"

And away they went, marching before him,
And marshalled him home with a high cockolorum.

And Birdie Brown sang, "Twirrr twitter, twirrr twee!
In the rosiest rose-bush a rare nest!
Twirrr twitter, twirrr twitter, twirrr twitter, twirrrrr tweeeee!
In the fun he has found the earnest!"

WILLIE'S QUESTION.

I.

Willie speaks.

Is it wrong, the wish to be great,
  For I do wish it so?
I have asked already my sister Kate;
  She says she does not know.

Yestereve at the gate I stood
  Watching the sun in the west;
When I saw him look so grand and good
  It swelled up in my breast.

Next from the rising moon
  It stole like a silver dart;
In the night when the wind began his tune
  It woke with a sudden start.

This morning a trumpet blast
  Made all the cottage quake;
It came so sudden and shook so fast
  It blew me wide awake.

It told me I must make haste,
  And some great glory win,
For every day was running to waste,
  And at once I must begin.

I want to be great and strong,
  I want to begin to-day;
But if you think it very wrong
  I will send the wish away.

II.

The Father answers.

Wrong to wish to be great?
  No, Willie; it is not wrong:
The child who stands at the high closed gate
  Must wish to be tall and strong!

If you did not wish to grow
  I should be a sorry man;
I should think my boy was dull and slow,
  Nor worthy of his clan.

You are bound to be great, my boy:
  Wish, and get up, and do.
Were you content to be little, my joy
  Would be little enough in you.

Willie speaks.

Papa, papa! I'm so glad
  That what I wish is right!
I will not lose a chance to be had;
  I'll begin this very night.

I will work so hard at school!
  I will waste no time in play;
At my fingers' ends I'll have every rule,
  For knowledge is power, they say.

I would be a king and reign,
  But I can't be that, and so
Field-marshal I'll be, I think, and gain
  Sharp battles and sieges slow.

I shall gallop and shout and call,
  Waving my shining sword:
Artillery, cavalry, infantry, all
  Hear and obey my word.

Or admiral I will be,
  Wherever the salt wave runs,
Sailing, fighting over the sea,
  With flashing and roaring guns.

I will make myself hardy and strong;
  I will never, never give in.
I am so glad it is not wrong!
  At once I will begin.

The Father speaks.

Fighting and shining along,
  All for the show of the thing!
Any puppet will mimic the grand and strong
  If you pull the proper string!

Willie speaks.

But indeed I want to be great,
  I should despise mere show;
The thing I want is the glory-state—
  Above the rest, you know!

The Father answers.

The harder you run that race,
  The farther you tread that track,
The greatness you fancy before your face
  Is the farther behind your back.

To be up in the heavens afar,
  Miles above all the rest,
Would make a star not the greatest star,
  Only the dreariest.

That book on the highest shelf
  Is not the greatest book;
If you would be great, it must be in yourself,
  Neither by place nor look.

The Highest is not high
  By being higher than others;
To greatness you come not a step more nigh
  By getting above your brothers.

III.

Willie speaks.

I meant the boys at school,
  I did not mean my brother.
Somebody first, is there the rule—
  It must be me or another.

The Father answers.

Oh, Willie, it's all the same!
  They are your brothers all;
For when you say, "Hallowed be thy name!"
  Whose Father is it you call?

Could you pray for such rule to him?
  Do you think that he would hear?
Must he favour one in a greedy whim
  Where all are his children dear?

It is right to get up and do,
  But why outstrip the rest?
Why should one of the many be one of the few?
  Why should you think to be best?

Willie speaks.

Then how am I to be great?
  I know no other way;
It would be folly to sit and wait,
  I must up and do, you say!

The Father answers.

I do not want you to wait,
  For few before they die
Have got so far as begin to be great,
  The lesson is so high.

I will tell you the only plan
  To climb and not to fall:
He who would rise and be greater than
  He is, must be servant of all.

Turn it each way in your mind,
  Try every other plan,
You may think yourself great, but at length you'll find
  You are not even a man.

Climb to the top of the trees,
  Climb to the top of the hill,
Get up on the crown of the sky if you please,
  You'll be a small creature still.

Be admiral, poet, or king,
  Let praises fill both your ears,
Your soul will be but a windmill thing
  Blown round by its hopes and fears.

IV.

Willie speaks.

Then put me in the way,
  For you, papa, are a man:
What thing shall I do this very day?—
  Only be sure I can.

I want to know—I am willing,
  Let me at least have a chance!
Shall I give the monkey-boy my shilling?—
  I want to serve at once.

The Father answers.

Give all your shillings you might
  And hurt your brothers the more;
He only can serve his fellows aright
  Who goes in at the little door.

We must do the thing we must
  Before the thing we may;
We are unfit for any trust
  Till we can and do obey.

Willie speaks.

I will try more and more;
  I have nothing now to ask;
Obedience I know is the little door:
  Now set me some hard task.

The Father answers.

No, Willie; the father of all,
  Teacher and master high,
Has set your task beyond recall,
  Nothing can set it by.

Willie speaks.

What is it, father dear,
  That he would have me do?
I'd ask himself, but he's not near,
  And so I must ask you!

The Father answers.

Me 'tis no use to ask,
  I too am one of his boys!
But he tells each boy his own plain task;
  Listen, and hear his voice.

Willie speaks.

Father, I'm listening so
  To hear him if I may!
His voice must either be very low,
  Or very far away!

The Father answers.

It is neither hard to hear,
  Nor hard to understand;
It is very low, but very near,
  A still, small, strong command.

Willie answers.

I do not hear it at all;
  I am only hearing you!

The Father speaks.

Think: is there nothing, great or small,
  You ought to go and do?

Willie answers.

Let me think:—I ought to feed
  My rabbits. I went away
In such a hurry this morning! Indeed
  They've not had enough to-day!

The Father speaks.

That is his whisper low!
  That is his very word!
You had only to stop and listen, and so
  Very plainly you heard!

That duty's the little door:
  You must open it and go in;
There is nothing else to do before,
  There is nowhere else to begin.

Willie speaks.

But that's so easily done!
  It's such a trifling affair!
So nearly over as soon as begun.
  For that he can hardly care!

The Father answers.

You are turning from his call
  If you let that duty wait;
You would not think any duty small
  If you yourself were great.

The nearest is at life's core;
  With the first, you all begin:
What matter how little the little door
  If it only let you in?

V.

Willie speaks.

Papa, I am come again:
  It is now three months and more
That I've tried to do the thing that was plain,
  And I feel as small as before.

The Father answers.

Your honour comes too slow?
  How much then have you done?
One foot on a mole-heap, would you crow
  As if you had reached the sun?

Willie speaks.

But I cannot help a doubt
  Whether this way be the true:
The more I do to work it out
  The more there comes to do;

And yet, were all done and past,
  I should feel just as small,
For when I had tried to the very last—
  'Twas my duty, after all!

It is only much the same
  As not being liar or thief!

The Father answers.

One who tried it found even, with shame,
  That of sinners he was the chief!

My boy, I am glad indeed
  You have been finding the truth!

Willie speaks.

But where's the good? I shall never speed—
  Be one whit greater, in sooth!

If duty itself must fail,
  And that be the only plan,
How shall my scarce begun duty prevail
  To make me a mighty man?

The Father answers.

Ah, Willie! what if it were
  Quite another way to fall?
What if the greatness itself lie there—
  In knowing that you are small?

In seeing the good so good
  That you feel poor, weak, and low;
And hungrily long for it as for food,
  With an endless need to grow?

The man who was lord of fate,
  Born in an ox's stall,
Was great because he was much too great
  To care about greatness at all.

Ever and only he sought
  The will of his Father good;
Never of what was high he thought,
  But of what his Father would.

You long to be great; you try;
  You feel yourself smaller still:
In the name of God let ambition die;
  Let him make you what he will.

Who does the truth, is one
  With the living Truth above:
Be God's obedient little son,
  Let ambition die in love.

KING COLE.

King Cole he reigned in Aureoland,
But the sceptre was seldom in his hand

Far oftener was there his golden cup—
He ate too much, but he drank all up!

To be called a king and to be a king,
That is one thing and another thing!

So his majesty's head began to shake,
And his hands and his feet to swell and ache,

The doctors were called, but they dared not say
Your majesty drinks too much Tokay;

So out of the king's heart died all mirth,
And he thought there was nothing good on earth.

Then up rose the fool, whose every word
Was three parts wise and one part absurd.

Nuncle, he said, never mind the gout;
I will make you laugh till you laugh it out.

King Cole pushed away his full gold plate:
The jester he opened the palace gate,

Brought in a cold man, with hunger grim,
And on the dais-edge seated him;

Then caught up the king's own golden plate,
And set it beside him: oh, how he ate!

And the king took note, with a pleased surprise,
That he ate with his mouth and his cheeks and his eyes,

With his arms and his legs and his body whole,
And laughed aloud from his heart and soul.

Then from his lordly chair got up,
And carried the man his own gold cup;

The goblet was deep and wide and full,
The poor man drank like a cow at a pool.

Said the king to the jester—I call it well done
To drink with two mouths instead of one!

Said the king to himself, as he took his seat,
It is quite as good to feed as to eat!

It is better, I do begin to think,
To give to the thirsty than to drink!

And now I have thought of it, said the king,
There might be more of this kind of thing!

The fool heard. The king had not long to wait:
The fool cried aloud at the palace-gate;

The ragged and wretched, the hungry and thin,
Loose in their clothes and tight in their skin,

Gathered in shoals till they filled the hall,
And the king and the fool they fed them all;

And as with good things their plates they piled
The king grew merry as a little child.

On the morrow, early, he went abroad
And sought poor folk in their own abode—

Sought them till evening foggy and dim,
Did not wait till they came to him;

And every day after did what he could,
Gave them work and gave them food.

Thus he made war on the wintry weather,
And his health and the spring came back together.

But, lo, a change had passed on the king,
Like the change of the world in that same spring!

His face had grown noble and good to see,
And the crown sat well on his majesty.

Now he ate enough, and ate no more,
He drank about half what he drank before,

He reigned a real king in Aureoland,
Reigned with his head and his heart and his hand.

All this through the fool did come to pass.
And every Christmas-eve that was,

The palace-gates stood open wide
And the poor came in from every side,

And the king rose up and served them duly,
And his people loved him very truly.

SAID AND DID.

Said the boy as he read, "I too will be bold,
  I will fight for the truth and its glory!"
He went to the playground, and soon had told
  A very cowardly story!

Said the girl as she read, "That was grand, I declare!
  What a true, what a lovely, sweet soul!"
In half-an-hour she went up the stair,
  Looking as black as a coal!

"The mean little wretch, I wish I could fling
  This book at his head!" said another;
Then he went and did the same ugly thing
  To his own little trusting brother!

Alas for him who sees a thing grand
  And does not fit himself to it!
But the meanest act, on sea or on land,
  Is to find a fault, and then do it!

DR. DODDRIDGE'S DOG.

"What! you Dr. Doddridge's dog, and not know who made you?"

My little dog, who blessed you
  With such white toothy-pegs?
And who was it that dressed you
  In such a lot of legs?

Perhaps he never told you!
  Perhaps you know quite well,
And beg me not to scold you
  For you can't speak to tell!

I'll tell you, little brother,
  In case you do not know:—
One only, not another,
  Could make us two just so.

You love me?—Quiet!—I'm proving!—
  It must be God above
That filled those eyes with loving:
  He was the first to love!

One day he'll stop all sadness—
  Hark to the nightingale!
Oh blessed God of gladness!—
  Come, doggie, wag your tail!

That's—Thank you, God!—He gave you
  Of life this little taste;
And with more life he'll save you,
  Not let you go to waste!

He says now, Live together,
  And share your bite and sup;
And then he'll say, Come hither—
  And lift us both high up.

THE GIRL THAT LOST THINGS.

There was a girl that lost things—
  Nor only from her hand;
She lost, indeed—why, most things,
  As if they had been sand!

She said, "But I must use them,
  And can't look after all!
Indeed I did not lose them,
  I only let them fall!"

That's how she lost her thimble,
  It fell upon the floor:
Her eyes were very nimble
  But she never saw it more.

And then she lost her dolly,
  Her very doll of all!
That loss was far from jolly,
  But worse things did befall.

She lost a ring of pearls
  With a ruby in them set;
But the dearest girl of girls
  Cried only, did not fret.

And then she lost her robin;
  Ah, that was sorrow dire!
He hopped along, and—bob in—
  Hopped bob into the fire!

And once she lost a kiss
  As she came down the stair;
But that she did not miss,
  For sure it was somewhere!

Just then she lost her heart too,
  But did so well without it
She took that in good part too,
  And said—not much about it.

But when she lost her health
  She did feel rather poor,
Till in came loads of wealth
  By quite another door!

And soon she lost a dimple
  That was upon her cheek,
But that was very simple—
  She was so thin and weak!

And then she lost her mother,
  And thought that she was dead;
Sure there was not another
  On whom to lay her head!

And then she lost her self—
  But that she threw away;
And God upon his shelf
  It carefully did lay.

And then she lost her sight,
  And lost all hope to find it;
But a fountain-well of light
  Came flashing up behind it.

At last she lost the world:
  In a black and stormy wind
Away from her it whirled—
  But the loss how could she mind?

For with it she lost her losses,
  Her aching and her weeping,
Her pains and griefs and crosses,
  And all things not worth keeping;

It left her with the lost things
  Her heart had still been craving;
'Mong them she found—why, most things,
  And all things worth the saving.

She found her precious mother,
  Who not the least had died;
And then she found that other
  Whose heart had hers inside.

And next she found the kiss
  She lost upon the stair;
'Twas sweeter far, I guess,
  For ripening in that air.

She found her self, all mended,
  New-drest, and strong, and white;
She found her health, new-blended
  With a radiant delight.

She found her little robin:
  He made his wings go flap,
Came fluttering, and went bob in,
  Went bob into her lap.

So, girls that cannot keep things,
  Be patient till to-morrow;
And mind you don't beweep things
  That are not worth such sorrow;

For the Father great of fathers,
  Of mothers, girls, and boys,
In his arms his children gathers,
  And sees to all their toys.

A MAKE-BELIEVE.

I will think as thinks the rabbit:—

   Oh, delight
   In the night
   When the moon
   Sets the tune
   To the woods!
   And the broods
   All run out,
   Frisk about,
   Go and come,
   Beat the drum—
   Here in groups,
   There in troops!
   Now there's one!
   Now it's gone!
   There are none!
And now they are dancing like chaff!
I look, and I laugh,
But sit by my door, and keep to my habit—
A wise, respectable, clean-furred old rabbit!

   Now I'm going,
      Business calls me out—
   Going, going,
   Very knowing,
      Slow, long-heeled, and stout,
      Loping, lumbering,
   Nipping, numbering,
   Head on this side and on that,
   Along the pathway footed flat,
   Through the meadow, through the heather,
   Through the rich dusky weather—
      Big stars and little moon!

  Dews are lighting down in crowds,
  Odours rising in thin clouds,
    Night has all her chords in tune—
  The very night for us, God's rabbits,
  Suiting all our little habits!
Wind not loud, but playful with our fur,
Just a cool, a sweet, a gentle stir!
And all the way not one rough bur,
But the dewiest, freshest grasses,
That whisper thanks to every foot that passes!

  I, the king the rest call Mappy,
  Canter on, composed and happy,
  Till I come where there is plenty
  For a varied meal and dainty.
  Is it cabbage, I grab it;
  Is it parsley, I nab it;
  Is it carrot, I mar it;
  The turnip I turn up
  And hollow and swallow;
  A lettuce? Let us eat it!
  A beetroot? Let's beat it!
  If you are juicy,
  Sweet sir, I will use you!
  For all kinds of corn-crop
  I have a born crop!
  Are you a green top?
  You shall be gleaned up!
  Sucking and feazing,
  Crushing and squeezing
  All that is feathery,
  Crisp, not leathery,
  Juicy and bruisy—
  All comes proper
  To my little hopper
  Still on the dance,
    Driven by hunger and drouth!

All is welcome to my crunching,
Finding, grinding,
Milling, munching,
Gobbling, lunching,
Fore-toothed, three-lipped mouth—
Eating side way, round way, flat way,
Eating this way, eating that way,
Every way at once!

Hark to the rain!—
Pattering, clattering,
The cabbage leaves battering,
Down it comes amain!—
Home we hurry
Hop and scurry,
And in with a flurry!
Hustling, jostling
Out of the airy land
Into the dry warm sand;
Our family white tails,
The last of our vitals,
Following hard with a whisk to them,
And with a great sense of risk to them!

Hear to it pouring!
Hear the thunder roaring
Far off and up high,
While we all lie
So warm and so dry
In the mellow dark,
Where never a spark,
White or rosy or blue,
Of the sheeting, fleeting,
Forking, frightening,
Lashing lightning
Ever can come through!

Let the wind chafe
In the trees overhead,
We are quite safe
In our dark, yellow bed!
Let the rain pour!
It never can bore
A hole in our roof—
It is waterproof!
So is the cloak
We always carry,
We furry folk,
In sandhole or quarry!
It is perfect bliss
To lie in a nest
So soft as this,
All so warmly drest!
No one to flurry you!
No one to hurry you!
No one to scurry you!
Holes plenty to creep in!
All day to sleep in!
All night to roam in!
Gray dawn to run home in!
And all the days and nights to come after—
All the to-morrows for hind-legs and laughter!

Now the rain is over,
We are out again,
Every merry, leaping rover,
On his right leg and his wrong leg,
On his doubled, shortened long leg,
Floundering amain!
Oh, it is merry
And jolly—yes, very!

But what—what is that?
What can he be at?
Is it a cat?
Ah, my poor little brother,
He's caught in the trap
That goes-to with a snap!
Ah me! there was never,
Nor will be for ever—
There was never such another,
Such a funny, funny bunny,
Such a frisking, such a whisking,
Such a frolicking brother!
He's screeching, beseeching!
They're going to—

Ah, my poor foot,
It is caught in a root!
No, no! 'tis a trap
That goes-to with a snap!
Ah me, I'm forsaken!
Ah me, I am taken!
I am screeching, beseeching!
They are going to—

No more! no more! I must stop this play,
Be a boy again, and kneel down and pray
To the God of sparrows and rabbits and men,
Who never lets any one out of his ken—
It must be so, though it be bewild'ring—
To save his dear beasts from his cruel children!

THE CHRISTMAS CHILD.

"Little one, who straight hast come
Down the heavenly stair,
Tell us all about your home,
And the father there."

"He is such a one as I,
Like as like can be.
Do his will, and, by and by,
Home and him you'll see."

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

Loving looks the large-eyed cow,
Loving stares the long-eared ass
At Heaven's glory in the grass!
Child, with added human birth
Come to bring the child of earth
Glad repentance, tearful mirth,
And a seat beside the hearth
At the Father's knee—
Make us peaceful as thy cow;
Make us patient as thine ass;
Make us quiet as thou art now;
Make us strong as thou wilt be.
Make us always know and see
We are his as well as thou.

NO END OF NO-STORY.

There is a river whose waters run asleep run run ever singing in the shallows dumb in the hollows sleeping so deep and all the swallows that dip their feathers in the hollows or in the shallows are the merriest swallows and the nests they make with the clay they cake with the water they shake from their wings that rake the water out of the shallows or out of the hollows will hold together in any weather and the swallows are the merriest fellows and have the merriest children and are built very narrow like the head of an arrow to cut the air and go just where the nicest water is flowing and the nicest dust is blowing and each so narrow like the head of an arrow is a wonderful barrow to carry the mud he makes for his children's sakes from the wet water flowing and the dry dust blowing to build his nest for her he loves best and the wind cakes it the sun bakes it into a nest for the rest of her he loves best and all their merry children each little fellow with a beak as yellow as the buttercups growing beside the flowing of the singing river always and ever growing and blowing as fast as the sheep awake or asleep crop them and crop and cannot stop their yellowness blowing nor yet the growing of the obstinate daisies the little white praises they grow and they blow they spread out their crown and they praise the sun and when he goes down their praising is done they fold up their crown and sleep every one till over the plain he is shining amain and they're at it again praising and praising such low songs raising that no one can hear them but the sun so near them and the sheep that bite them but do not fright them are the quietest sheep awake or asleep with the merriest bleat and the little lambs are the merriest lambs forgetting to eat for the frolic in their feet and the lambs and their dams are the whitest sheep with the woolliest wool for the swallow to pull when he makes his nest for her he loves best and they shine like snow in the grasses that grow by the singing river that sings for ever and the sheep and the lambs are merry for ever because the river sings and they drink it and the lambs and their dams would any one think it are bright and white because of their diet which gladdens them quiet for what they bite is buttercups yellow and daisies white and grass as green as the river can make it with wind as mellow to kiss it and shake it as never was known but here in the hollows beside the river where all the swallows are the merriest fellows and the nests they make with the clay they cake in the sunshine bake till they are like bone and as dry in the wind as a marble stone dried in the wind the sweetest wind that blows by the river flowing for ever and who shall find whence comes the wind that blows on the hollows and over the shallows where dip the swallows and comes and goes and the sweet life blows into the river that sings as it flows and the sweet life blows into the sheep awake or asleep with the woolliest wool and the trailingest tails and never fails gentle and cool to wave the wool and to toss the grass as the lambs and the sheep over it pass and tug and bite with their teeth so white and then with the sweep of their trailing tails smooth it again and it grows amain and amain it grows and the wind that blows tosses the swallows over the hollows and over the shallows and blows the sweet life and the joy so rife into the swallows that skim the shallows and have the yellowest children and the wind that blows is the life of the river that flows for ever and washes the grasses still as it passes and feeds the daisies the little white praises and buttercups sunny with butter and honey that whiten the sheep awake or asleep that nibble and bite and grow whiter than white and merry and quiet on such good diet watered by the river and tossed for ever by the wind that tosses the wool and the grasses and the swallow that crosses with all the swallows over the shallows dipping their wings to gather the water and bake the cake for the wind to make as hard as a bone and as dry as a stone and who shall find whence comes the wind that blows from behind and ripples the river that flows for ever and still as it passes waves the grasses and cools the daisies the white sun praises that feed the sheep awake or asleep and give them their wool for the swallows to pull a little away to mix with the clay that cakes to a nest for those they love best and all the yellow children soon to go trying their wings at the flying over the hollows and over the shallows with all the swallows that do not know whence the wind doth blow that comes from behind a blowing wind.

A THREEFOLD CORD:

Poems by Three Friends.

TO

GREVILLE MATHESON MACDONALD.

First, most, to thee, my son, I give this book
  In which a friend's and brother's verses blend
  With mine; for not son only—brother, friend,
Art thou, through sonship which no veil can brook
Between the eyes that in each other look,
  Or any shadow 'twixt the hearts that tend
  Still nearer, with divine approach, to end
In love eternal that cannot be shook
  When all the shakable shall cease to be.
    With growing hope I greet the coming day
When from thy journey done I welcome thee
Who sharest in the names of all the three,
  And take thee to the two, and humbly say,
  Let this man be the fourth with us, I pray.

CASA CORAGGIO: May, 1883.

A THREEFOLD CHORD.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE:

Suggested by a drawing of Thomas Moran, the American painter.

This must be the very night!
The moon knows it!—and the trees!
They stand straight upright,
Each a sentinel drawn up,
As if they dared not know
Which way the wind might blow!
The very pool, with dead gray eye,
Dully expectant, feels it nigh,
And begins to curdle and freeze!
And the dark night,
With its fringe of light,
Holds the secret in its cup!

II. What can it be, to make
The poplars cease to shiver and shake,
And up in the dismal air
Stand straight and stiff as the human hair
When the human soul is dizzy with dread—
All but those two that strain
Aside in a frenzy of speechless pain,
Though never a wind sends out a breath
To tunnel the foggy rheum of death?
What can it be has power to scare
The full-grown moon to the idiot stare
Of a blasted eye in the midnight air?
Something has gone wrong;
A scream will come tearing out ere long!

III. Still as death,
Although I listen with bated breath!
Yet something is coming, I know—is coming!
With an inward soundless humming
Somewhere in me, or if in the air
I cannot tell, but it is there!
Marching on to an unheard drumming
Something is coming—coming—
Growing and coming!
And the moon is aware,
Aghast in the air
At the thing that is only coming
With an inward soundless humming
And an unheard spectral drumming!

IV. Nothing to see and nothing to hear!
Only across the inner sky
The wing of a shadowy thought flits by,
Vague and featureless, faceless, drear—
Only a thinness to catch the eye:
Is it a dim foreboding unborn,
Or a buried memory, wasted and worn
As the fading frost of a wintry sigh?
Anon I shall have it!—anon!—it draws nigh!
A night when—a something it was took place
That drove the blood from that scared moon-face!
Hark! was that the cry of a goat,
Or the gurgle of water in a throat?
Hush! there is nothing to see or hear,
Only a silent something is near;
No knock, no footsteps three or four,
Only a presence outside the door!
See! the moon is remembering!—what?
The wail of a mother-left, lie-alone brat?
Or a raven sharpening its beak to peck?
Or a cold blue knife and a warm white neck?
Or only a heart that burst and ceased
For a man that went away released?
I know not—know not, but something is coming
Somehow back with an inward humming!

V. Ha! look there! look at that house,
Forsaken of all things, beetle and mouse!
Mark how it looks! It must have a soul!
It looks, it looks, though it cannot stir!
See the ribs of it, how they stare!
Its blind eyes yet have a seeing air!
It knows it has a soul!
Haggard it hangs o'er the slimy pool,
And gapes wide open as corpses gape:
It is the very murderer!
The ghost has modelled himself to the shape
Of this drear house all sodden with woe
Where the deed was done, long, long ago,
And filled with himself his new body full—
To haunt for ever his ghastly crime,
And see it come and go—
Brooding around it like motionless time,
With a mouth that gapes, and eyes that yawn
Blear and blintering and full of the moon,
Like one aghast at a hellish dawn!—
The deed! the deed! it is coming soon!

VI. For, ever and always, when round the tune
Grinds on the barrel of organ-Time,
The deed is done. And it comes anon:
True to the roll of the clock-faced moon,
True to the ring of the spheric chime,
True to the cosmic rhythm and rime,
Every point, as it first fell out,
Will come and go in the fearsome bout.
See! palsied with horror from garret to core,
The house cannot shut its gaping door;
Its burst eye stares as if trying to see,
And it leans as if settling heavily,
Settling heavy with sickness dull:
It also is hearing the soundless humming
Of the wheel that is turning—the thing that is coming!
On the naked rafters of its brain,
Gaunt and wintred, see the train
Of gossiping, scandal-mongering crows
That watch, all silent, with necks a-strain,
Wickedly knowing, with heads awry
And the sharpened gleam of a cunning eye—
Watch, through the cracks of the ruined skull,
How the evil business goes!—
Beyond the eyes of the cherubim,
Beyond the ears of the seraphim,
Outside, forsaken, in the dim
Phantom-haunted chaos grim
He stands, with the deed going on in him!

VII. O winds, winds, that lurk and peep
Under the edge of the moony fringe!
O winds, winds, up and sweep,
Up and blow and billow the air,
Billow the air with blow and swinge,
Rend me this ghastly house of groans!
Rend and scatter the skeleton's bones
Over the deserts and mountains bare!
Blast and hurl and shiver aside
Nailed sticks and mortared stones!
Clear the phantom, with torrent and tide,
Out of the moon and out of my brain,
That the light may fall shadowless in again!

VIII. But, alas, then the ghost
O'er mountain and coast
Would go roaming, roaming! and never was swine
That, grubbing and talking with snork and whine
On Gadarene mountains, had taken him in
But would rush to the lake to unhouse the sin!
For any charnel
This ghost is too carnal;
There is no volcano, burnt out and cold,
Whose very ashes are gray and old,
But would cast him forth in reviving flame
To blister the sky with a smudge of shame!

IX. Is there no help? none anywhere
Under the earth or above the air?—
Come, sad woman, whose tender throat
Has a red-lipped mouth that can sing no note!
Child, whose midwife, the third grim Fate,
Shears in hand, thy coming did wait!
Father, with blood-bedabbled hair!
Mother, all withered with love's despair!
Come, broken heart, whatever thou be,
Hasten to help this misery!
Thou wast only murdered, or left forlorn:
He is a horror, a hate, a scorn!
Come, if out of the holiest blue
That the sapphire throne shines through;
For pity come, though thy fair feet stand
Next to the elder-band;
Fling thy harp on the hyaline,
Hurry thee down the spheres divine;
Come, and drive those ravens away;
Cover his eyes from the pitiless moon,
Shadow his brain from her stinging spray;
Droop around him, a tent of love,
An odour of grace, a fanning dove;
Walk through the house with the healing tune
Of gentle footsteps; banish the shape
Remorse calls up thyself to ape;
Comfort him, dear, with pardon sweet;
Cool his heart from its burning heat
With the water of life that laves the feet
Of the throne of God, and the holy street!

X. O God, he is but a living blot,
Yet he lives by thee—for if thou wast not,
They would vanish together, self-forgot,
He and his crime:—one breathing blown
From thy spirit on his would all atone,
Scatter the horror, and bring relief
In an amber dawn of holy grief!
God, give him sorrow; arise from within,
His primal being, deeper than sin!

XI. Why do I tremble, a creature at bay?
'Tis but a dream—I drive it away.
Back comes my breath, and my heart again
Pumps the red blood to my fainting brain
Released from the nightmare's nine-fold train:
God is in heaven—yes, everywhere,
And Love, the all-shining, will kill Despair!—
To the wall's blank eyeless space
I turn the picture's face.

XII. But why is the moon so bare, up there?
And why is she so white?
And why does the moon so stare, up there—
Strangely stare, out of the night?
Why stand up the poplars
That still way?
And why do those two of them
Start astray?
And out of the black why hangs the gray?
Why does it hang down so, I say,
Over that house, like a fringed pall
Where the dead goes by in a funeral?—
Soul of mine,
Thou the reason canst divine:
Into thee the moon doth stare
With pallid, terror-smitten air!
Thou, and the Horror lonely-stark,
Outcast of eternal dark,
Are in nature same and one,
And thy story is not done!
So let the picture face thee from the wall,
And let its white moon stare!

IN THE WINTER.

In the winter, flowers are springing;
In the winter, woods are green,
Where our banished birds are singing,
Where our summer sun is seen!
Our cold midnights are coeval
With an evening and a morn
Where the forest-gods hold revel,
And the spring is newly born!

While the earth is full of fighting,
While men rise and curse their day,
While the foolish strong are smiting,
And the foolish weak betray—
The true hearts beyond are growing,
The brave spirits work alone,
Where Love's summer-wind is blowing
In a truth-irradiate zone!

While we cannot shape our living
To the beauty of our skies,
While man wants and earth is giving—
Nature calls and man denies—
How the old worlds round Him gather
Where their Maker is their sun!
How the children know the Father
Where the will of God is done!

Daily woven with our story,
Sounding far above our strife,
Is a time-enclosing glory,
Is a space-absorbing life.
We can dream no dream Elysian,
There is no good thing might be,
But some angel has the vision,
But some human soul shall see!

Is thy strait horizon dreary?
Is thy foolish fancy chill?
Change the feet that have grown weary
For the wings that never will.
Burst the flesh, and live the spirit;
Haunt the beautiful and far;
Thou hast all things to inherit,
And a soul for every star.

CHRISTMAS-DAY, 1878.

I think I might be weary of this day
That comes inevitably every year,
The same when I was young and strong and gay,
The same when I am old and growing sere—
I should grow weary of it every year
But that thou comest to me every day.

I shall grow weary if thou every day
But come to me, Lord of eternal life;
I shall grow weary thus to watch and pray,
For ever out of labour into strife;
Take everlasting house with me, my life,
And I shall be new-born this Christmas-day.

Thou art the Eternal Son, and born no day,
But ever he the Father, thou the Son;
I am his child, but being born alway—
How long, O Lord, how long till it be done?
Be thou from endless years to years the Son—
And I thy brother, new-born every day.

THE NEW YEAR.

Be welcome, year! with corn and sickle come;
  Make poor the body, but make rich the heart:
What man that bears his sheaves, gold-nodding, home,
  Will heed the paint rubbed from his groaning cart!

Nor leave behind thy fears and holy shames,
  Thy sorrows on the horizon hanging low—
Gray gathered fuel for the sunset-flames
  When joyous in death's harvest-home we go.

TWO RONDELS.

I.

When, in the mid-sea of the night,
  I waken at thy call, O Lord,
  The first that troop my bark aboard
Are darksome imps that hate the light,
Whose tongues are arrows, eyes a blight—
  Of wraths and cares a pirate horde—
Though on the mid-sea of the night
  It was thy call that waked me, Lord.

Then I must to my arms and fight—
  Catch up my shield and two-edged sword,
  The words of him who is thy word—
Nor cease till they are put to flight;
Then in the mid-sea of the night
  I turn and listen for thee, Lord.

II.

There comes no voice from thee, O Lord,
  Across the mid-sea of the night!
  I lift my voice and cry with might:
If thou keep silent, soon a horde
Of imps again will swarm aboard,
  And I shall be in sorry plight
If no voice come from thee, my Lord,
Across the mid-sea of the night.

There comes no voice; I hear no word!
  But in my soul dawns something bright:—
  There is no sea, no foe to fight!
Thy heart and mine beat one accord:
I need no voice from thee, O Lord,
  Across the mid-sea of the night.

RONDEL.

Heart, thou must learn to do without—
  That is the riches of the poor,
  Their liberty is to endure;
Wrap thou thine old cloak thee about,
And carol loud and carol stout;
  Let thy rags fly, nor wish them fewer;
Thou too must learn to do without,
  Must earn the riches of the poor!

Why should'st thou only wear no clout?
  Thou only walk in love-robes pure?
  Why should thy step alone be sure?
Thou only free of fortune's flout?
Nay, nay! but learn to go without,
  And so be humbly, richly poor.

SONG.

Lighter and sweeter
  Let your song be;
And for sorrow—oh cheat her
  With melody!

SMOKE.

Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar
  But cannot get the wood to burn;
It hardly flares ere it begins to falter
  And to the dark return.

Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel;
  In vain my breath would flame provoke;
Yet see—at every poor attempt's renewal
  To thee ascends the smoke!

'Tis all I have—smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,
  Coldness and doubt and palsied lack:
Such as I have I send thee!—perfect Giver,
  Send thou thy lightning back.

TO A CERTAIN CRITIC.

Such guests as you, sir, were not in my mind
When I my homely dish with care designed;
'Twas certain humble souls I would have fed
Who do not turn from wholesome milk and bread:
You came, slow-trotting on the narrow way,
O'erturned the food, and trod it in the clay;
Then low with discoid nostrils sniffing curt,
Cried, "Sorry cook! why, what a mess of dirt!"

SONG.

She loves thee, loves thee not!
That, that is all, my heart.
Why should she take a part
In every selfish blot,
In every greedy spot
That now doth ache and smart
Because she loves thee not—
Not, not at all, poor heart!

Thou art no such dove-cot
Of virtues—no such chart
Of highways, though the dart
Of love be through thee shot!
Why should she not love not
Thee, poor, pinched, selfish heart?

A CRY.

Lord, hear my discontent: all blank I stand,
A mirror polished by thy hand;
Thy sun's beams flash and flame from me—
I cannot help it: here I stand, there he!
To one of them I cannot say,
Go, and on yonder water play;
Nor one poor ragged daisy can I fashion—
I do not make the words of this my limping passion!
If I should say, Now I will think a thought,
Lo, I must wait, unknowing
What thought in me is growing,
Until the thing to birth be brought!
Nor know I then what next will come
From out the gulf of silence dumb:
I am the door the thing will find
To pass into the general mind!
I cannot say I think—
I only stand upon the thought-well's brink:
From darkness to the sun the water bubbles up—
lift it in my cup.
Thou only thinkest—I am thought;
Me and my thought thou thinkest. Nought
Am I but as a fountain spout
From which thy water welleth out.
Thou art the only one, the all in all.—
Yet when my soul on thee doth call
And thou dost answer out of everywhere,
I in thy allness have my perfect share.

FROM HOME.

Some men there are who cannot spare
  A single tear until they feel
  The last cold pressure, and the heel
Is stamped upon the outmost layer.

And, waking, some will sigh to think
  The clouds have borrowed winter's wing,
  Sad winter, when the grasses spring
No more about the fountain's brink.

And some would call me coward fool:
  I lay a claim to better blood,
  But yet a heap of idle mud
Hath power to make me sorrowful.

TO MY MOTHER EARTH.

0 Earth, Earth, Earth,
  I am dying for love of thee,
For thou hast given me birth,
  And thy hands have tended me.

I would fall asleep on thy breast
  When its swelling folds are bare,
When the thrush dreams of its nest
  And the life of its joy in the air;

When thy life is a vanished ghost,
  And the glory hath left thy waves,
When thine eye is blind with frost,
  And the fog sits on the graves;

When the blasts are shivering about,
  And the rain thy branches beats,
When the damps of death are out,
  And the mourners are in the streets.

Oh my sleep should be deep
  In the arms of thy swiftening motion,
And my dirge the mystic sweep
  Of the winds that nurse the ocean.

And my eye would slowly ope
  With the voice that awakens thee,
And runs like a glance of hope
  Up through the quickening tree;

When the roots of the lonely fir
  Are dipt in thy veining heat,
And thy countless atoms stir
  With the gather of mossy feet;

When the sun's great censer swings
  In the hands that always be,
And the mists from thy watery rings
  Go up like dust from the sea;

When the midnight airs are assembling
  With a gush in thy whispering halls,
And the leafy air is trembling
  Like a stream before it falls.

Thy shadowy hand hath found me
  On the drifts of the Godhead's will,
And thy dust hath risen around me
  With a life that guards me still.

O Earth! I have caught from thine
  The pulse of a mystic chase;
O Earth! I have drunk like wine
  The life of thy swiftening race.

Wilt miss me, mother sweet,
  A life in thy milky veins?
Wilt miss the sound of my feet
  In the tramp that shakes thy plains

When the jaws of darkness rend,
  And the vapours fold away,
And the sounds of life ascend
  Like dust in the blinding day?

I would know thy silver strain
  In the shouts of the starry crowd
When the souls of thy changing men
  Rise up like an incense cloud.

I would know thy brightening lobes
  And the lap of thy watery bars
Though space were choked with globes
  And the night were blind with stars!

From the folds of my unknown place,
  When my soul is glad and free,
I will slide by my God's sweet grace
  And hang like a cloud on thee.

When the pale moon sits at night
  By the brink of her shining well,
Laving the rings of her widening light
  On the slopes of the weltering swell,

I will fall like a wind from the west
  On the locks of thy prancing streams,
And sow the fields of thy rest
 With handfuls of sweet young dreams.

When the sound of thy children's cry
  Hath stricken thy gladness dumb,
I will kindle thine upward eye
  With a laugh from the years that come.

Far above where the loud wind raves,
  On a wing as still as snow
I will watch the grind of the curly waves
  As they bite the coasts below;

When the shining ranks of the frost
  Draw down on the glistening wold
In the mail of a fairy host,
  And the earth is mossed with cold,

Till the plates that shine about
  Close up with a filmy din,
Till the air is frozen out,
  And the stars are frozen in.

I will often stoop to range
  On the fields where my youth was spent,
And my feet shall smite the cliffs of change
  With the rush of a steep descent;

And my glowing soul shall burn
  With a love that knows no pall,
And my eye of worship turn
  Upon him that fashioned all—

When the sounding waves of strife
  Have died on the Godhead's sea,
And thy life is a purer life
  That nurses a life in me.

THY HEART.

Make not of thy heart a casket,
Opening seldom, quick to close;
But of bread a wide-mouthed basket,
Or a cup that overflows.

0 LORD, HOW HAPPY!

From the German of Dessler.

O Lord, how happy is the time
  When in thy love I rest!
When from my weariness I climb
  Even to thy tender breast!
The night of sorrow endeth there—
  Thou art brighter than the sun;
And in thy pardon and thy care
  The heaven of heaven is won.

Let the world call herself my foe,
  Or let the world allure—
I care not for the world; I go
  To this dear friend and sure.
And when life's fiercest storms are sent
  Upon life's wildest sea,
My little bark is confident
  Because it holds by thee.

When the law threatens endless death
  Upon the dreadful hill,
Straightway from her consuming breath
  My soul goeth higher still—
Goeth to Jesus, wounded, slain,
  And maketh him her home,
Whence she will not go out again,
  And where death cannot come.

I do not fear the wilderness
  Where thou hast been before;
Nay rather will I daily press
  After thee, near thee, more!
Thou art my food; on thee I lean,
  Thou makest my heart sing;
And to thy heavenly pastures green
  All thy dear flock dost bring.

And if the gate that opens there
  Be dark to other men,
It is not dark to those who share
  The heart of Jesus then:
That is not losing much of life
  Which is not losing thee,
Who art as present in the strife
  As in the victory.

Therefore how happy is the time
  When in thy love I rest!
When from my weariness I climb
  Even to thy tender breast!
The night of sorrow endeth there—
  Thou art brighter than the sun!
And in thy pardon and thy care
  The heaven of heaven is won!

NO SIGN.

O Lord, if on the wind, at cool of day,
  I heard one whispered word of mighty grace;
If through the darkness, as in bed I lay,
  But once had come a hand upon my face;

If but one sign that might not be mistook
  Had ever been, since first thy face I sought,
I should not now be doubting o'er a book,
  But serving thee with burning heart and thought.

So dreams that heart. But to my heart I say,
  Turning my face to front the dark and wind:
Such signs had only barred anew his way
  Into thee, longing heart, thee, wildered mind.

They asked the very Way, where lies the way?
  The very Son, where is the Father's face?
How he could show himself, if not in clay,
  Who was the lord of spirit, form, and space!

My being, Lord, will nevermore be whole
  Until thou come behind mine ears and eyes,
Enter and fill the temple of my soul
  With perfect contact—such a sweet surprise,

Such presence as, before it met the view,
  The prophet-fancy could not once foresee,
Though every corner of the temple knew
  By very emptiness its need of thee.

When I keep all thy words, no favoured some,
  Heedless of worldly winds or judgment's tide,
Then, Jesus, thou wilt with thy father come—
  Oh, ended prayers!—and in my soul abide.

Ah, long delay! ah, cunning, creeping sin!
  I shall but fail, and cease at length to try:
O Jesus, though thou wilt not yet come in,
  Knock at my window as thou passest by!

NOVEMBER, 1851.

  What dost thou here, O soul,
Beyond thy own control,
Under the strange wild sky?
0 stars, reach down your hands,
And clasp me in your silver bands,
I tremble with this mystery!—
Flung hither by a chance
Of restless circumstance,
Thou art but here, and wast not sent;
Yet once more mayest thou draw
By thy own mystic law
To the centre of thy wonderment.

  Why wilt thou stop and start?
Draw nearer, oh my heart,
And I will question thee most wistfully;
Gather thy last clear resolution
To look upon thy dissolution.

  The great God's life throbs far and free,
And thou art but a spark
Known only in thy dark,
Or a foam-fleck upon the awful ocean,
Thyself thy slender dignity,
Thy own thy vexing mystery,
In the vast change that is not change but motion.

  'Tis not so hard as it would seem;
Thy life is but a dream—
And yet thou hast some thoughts about the past;
Let go, let go thy memories,
They are not things but wandering cries—
Wave them each one a long farewell at last:
I hear thee say—"Take them, O tide,
And I will turn aside,
Gazing with heedlessness, nay, even with laughter!
Bind me, ye winds and storms,
Among the things that once had forms,
And carry me clean out of sight thereafter!"

  Thou hast lived long enough
To know thy own weak stuff,
Laughing thy fondest joys to utter scorn;
Give up the idle strife—
It is but mockery of life;
The fates had need of thee and thou wast born!
They are, in sooth, but thou shalt die.
O wandering spark! O homeless cry!
O empty will, still lacking self-intent!
Look up among the autumn trees:
The ripened fruits fall through the breeze,
And they will shake thee even like these
Into the lap of an Accomplishment!

  Thou hadst a faith, and voices said:—
"Doubt not that truth, but bend thy head
Unto the God who drew thee from the night:"
Thou liftedst up thy eyes—and, lo!
A host of voices answered—"No;
A thousand things as good have seen the light!"
Look how the swarms arise
From every clod before thy eyes!
Are thine the only hopes that fade and fall
When to the centre of its action
One purpose draws each separate fraction,
And nothing but effects are left at all?
Aha, thy faith! what is thy faith?
The sleep that waits on coming death—
A blind delirious swoon that follows pain.
"True to thy nature!"—well! right well!
But what that nature is thou canst not tell—
It has a thousand voices in thy brain.
Danced all the leaflets to and fro?
—Thy feet have trod them long ago!
Sprung the glad music up the blue?
—The hawk hath cut the song in two.
All the mountains crumble,
All the forests fall,
All thy brethren stumble,
And rise no more at all!
In the dim woods there is a sound
When the winds begin to moan;
It is not of joy or yet of mirth,
But the mournful cry of our mother Earth,
As she calleth back her own.
Through the rosy air to-night
The living creatures play
Up and down through the rich faint light—
None so happy as they!
But the blast is here, and noises fall
Like the sound of steps in a ruined hall,
An icy touch is upon them all,
And they sicken and fade away.

  The child awoke with an eye of gladness,
With a light on his head and a matchless grace,
And laughed at the passing shades of sadness
That chased the smiles on his mother's face;
And life with its lightsome load of youth
Swam like a boat on a shining lake—
Freighted with hopes enough, in sooth,
But he lived to trample on joy and truth,
And change his crown for a murder-stake!

  Oh, a ruddy light went through the room,
Till the dark ran out to his mother Night!
And that little chamber showed through the gloom
Like a Noah's ark with its nest of light!
Right glad was the maiden there, I wis,
With the youth that held her hand in his!
Oh, sweet were the words that went and came
Through the light and shade of the leaping flame
That glowed on the cheerful faces!
So human the speech, so sunny and kind,
That the darkness danced on the wall behind,
And even the wail of the winter wind
Sang sweet through the window-cases!

  But a mournful wail crept round and round,
And a voice cried:—"Come!" with a dreary sound,
And the circle wider grew;
The light flame sank, and sorrow fell
On the faces of those that loved so well;
Darker and wilder grew the tone;
Fainter and fainter the faces shone;
The wild night clasped them, and they were gone—
And thou art passing too!

  Lo, the morning slowly springs
Like a meek white babe from the womb of night!
One golden planet sits and stings
The shifting gloom with his point of light!
Lo, the sun on its throne of flame!
—Wouldst thou climb and win a crown?
Oh, many a heart that pants for the same
Falls to the earth ere he goes down!
Thy heart is a flower with an open cup—
Sit and watch, if it pleaseth thee,
Till the melting twilight fill it up
With a crystal of tender sympathy;
So, gently will it tremble
The silent midnight through,
And flocks of stars assemble
By turns in its depths of dew;—
But look! oh, look again!
After the driving wind and rain!
When the day is up and the sun is strong,
And the voices of men are loud and long,
When the flower hath slunk to its rest again,
And love is lost in the strife of men!