Hope

Faith may break on reason,
Faith may prove a treason
To that highest gift
That is granted by Thy grace;
But Hope! Ah, let us cherish
Some spark that may not perish,
Some tiny spark to cheer us,
As we wander through the waste!

A little lamp beside us,
A little lamp to guide us,
Where the path is rocky,
Where the road is steep.
That when the light falls dimmer,
Still some God-sent glimmer
May hold us steadfast ever,
To the track that we should keep.

Hope for the trending of it,
Hope for the ending of it,
Hope for all around us,
That it ripens in the sun.

Hope for what is waning,
Hope for what is gaining,
Hope for what is waiting
When the long day is done.

Hope that He, the nameless,
May still b...

O sweet To-morrow! -
After to-day
There will away
This sense of sorrow.
Then let us borrow
Hope, for a gleaming
Soon will be streaming,
Dimmed by no gray -
No gray!

While the winds wing us
Sighs from The Gone,
Nearer to dawn
Minute-beats bring us;
When there will sing us
Larks of a glory
Waiting our story
Further anon -
Anon!

Doff the black token,
Don the red shoon,
Right and retune
Viol-strings broken;
Null the words spoken
In speeches of rueing,
The night cloud is hueing,
To-morrow shines soon -
Shines soon!

Judge we of coming, by the by-past, years,
And still can Hope, the siren, soothe our fears?
Cheated, deceived, our cherished day-dreams o'er,
We cling the closer, and we trust the more.
Oh, who can say there's bliss in the review
Of hours, when Hope with fairy fingers drew
A magic sketch of "rapture yet to be,"
A rainbow horizon, a life of glee!
The world all bright before us vivid scene
Of cloudless sunshine and of fadeless green;
A treacherous picture of our coming years,
Bright in prospective welcomed but with tears.

How false the view, a backward glance will tell!
A tale of visions wrecked, of broken spell,
Of valued hearts estranged or careless grown,
Affection's links dissevered or unknown;
Of joys, deemed fadeless, gone to swift decay,
And lo...

Hope comes again, to this heart long a stranger,
    Once more she sings me her flattering strain;
But hush, gentle syren--for, ah, there's less danger
    In still suffering on, than in hoping again.

Long, long, in sorrow, too deep for repining,
    Gloomy, but tranquil, this bosom hath lain:
And joy coming now, like a sudden light shining
    O'er eyelids long darkened, would bring me but pain.

Fly then, ye visions, that Hope would shed o'er me;
    Lost to the future, my sole chance of rest
Now lies not in dreaming of bliss that's before me.
    But, ah--in forgetting how once I was blest.

How beautiful the earth is still,
To thee, how full of happiness?
How little fraught with real ill,
Or unreal phantoms of distress!
How spring can bring thee glory, yet,
And summer win thee to forget
December's sullen time!
Why dost thou hold the treasure fast,
Of youth's delight, when youth is past,
And thou art near thy prime?

When those who were thy own compeers,
Equals in fortune and in years,
Have seen their morning melt in tears,
To clouded, smileless day;
Blest, had they died untried and young,
Before their hearts went wandering wrong,
Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,
A weak and helpless prey!

'Because, I hoped while they enjoyed,
And by fulfilment, hope destroyed;
As children hope, with trustful breast,
I wa...

The still sweet meadows shimmered: and I stood
And cursed them, bloom of hedge and bird of tree,
And bright and high beyond the hunch-backed wood
The thunder and the splendour of the sea.

Give back the Babylon where I was born,
The lips that gape give back, the hands that grope,
And noise and blood and suffocating scorn
An eddy of fierce faces--and a hope

That 'mid those myriad heads one head find place,
With brown hair curled like breakers of the sea,
And two eyes set so strangely in the face
That all things else are nothing suddenly.

Sometimes, to solace my sad heart, I say,
Though late it be, though lily-time be past,
Though all the summer skies be overcast,
Haply I will go down to her, some day,
And cast my rests of life before her feet,
That she may have her will of me, being so sweet
And none gainsay!

So might she look on me with pitying eyes,
And lay calm hands of healing on my head:
"Because of thy long pains be comforted;
For I, even I, am Love: sad soul, arise!"
So, for her graciousness, I might at last
Gaze on the very face of Love, and hold Him fast
In no disguise.

Haply, I said, she will take pity on me,
Though late I come, long after lily-time,
With burden of waste days and drifted rhyme:
Her kind, calm eyes, down drooping maidenly,
Shall change, gr...

We speak with the lip, and we dream in the soul,
Of some better and fairer day;
And our days, the meanwhile, to that golden goal
Are gliding and sliding away.
Now the world becomes old, now again it is young,
But "The better" 's forever the word on the tongue.

At the threshold of life hope leads us in
Hope plays round the mirthful boy;
Though the best of its charms may with youth begin,
Yet for age it reserves its toy.

(Macmillan's Magazine, May 1868.)


Hope new born one pleasant morn
    Died at even;
Hope dead lives nevermore.
    No, not in heaven.

If his shroud were but a cloud
    To weep itself away;
Or were he buried underground
    To sprout some day!
But dead and gone is dead and gone
    Vainly wept upon.

Nought we place above his face
    To mark the spot,
But it shows a barren place
    In our lot.
Hope has birth no more on earth
    Morn or even;
Hope dead lives nevermore,
    No, not in heaven.

Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong
Thine heart to live, and love, and long;
But thou art wed to grief and wrong:
Live, then, and long, though hope be dead!
Live on, & labour thro' the years!
Make pictures through the mist of tears,
Of unforgotten happy fears,
That crossed the time ere hope was dead.
Draw near the place where once we stood
Amid delight's swift-rushing flood,
And we and all the world seemed good
Nor needed hope now cold and dead.
Dream in the dawn I come to thee
Weeping for things that may not be!
Dream that thou layest lips on me!
Wake, wake to clasp hope's body dead!
Count o'er and o'er, and one by one
The minutes of the happy sun
That while agone on kissed lips shone,
Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.
Weep...

Hope holds to Christ the mind's own mirror out
To take His lovely likeness more and more.
It will not well, so she would bring about
An ever brighter burnish than before
And turns to wash it from her welling eyes
And breathes the blots off all with sighs on sighs.
Her glass is blest but she as good as blind
Holds till hand aches and wonders what is there;
Her glass drinks light, she darkles down behind,
All of her glorious gainings unaware.

I told you that she turned her mirror dim
Betweenwhiles, but she sees herself not Him.

See through yon cloud that rolls in wrath,
One little star benignant peep,
To light along their trackless path
The wanderers of the stormy deep.

And thus, oh Hope! thy lovely form
In sorrow's gloomy night shall be
The sun that looks through cloud and storm
Upon a dark and moonless sea.

When heaven is all serene and fair,
Full many a brighter gem we meet;
'Tis when the tempest hovers there,
Thy beam is most divinely sweet.

The rainbow, when the sun declines,
Like faithless friend will disappear;
Thy light, dear star! more brightly shines
When all is wail and weeping here.

And though Aurora's stealing beam
May wake a morning of delight,
'Tis only thy consoling beam
Will smile amid affliction's night.

I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring,
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing:
"Fly through the world, and I will follow thee,
Only for looks that may turn back on me;

"Only for roses that your chance may throw -
Though withered - Twill wear them on my brow,
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain, -
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again."

"Thy love before thee, I must tread behind,
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind;
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem,
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream."

"Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet;
But smiles betray, and music sings deceit;
And words speak false; - yet, if they welcome prove,
I'll be their echo, and repeat their love."

"Only if wa...

Hope is a subtle glutton;
He feeds upon the fair;
And yet, inspected closely,
What abstinence is there!

His is the halcyon table
That never seats but one,
And whatsoever is consumed
The same amounts remain.

When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,
And life can shew no joy for me;
And I behold a yawning tomb,
Where bowers and palaces should be;

In vain you talk of morbid dreams;
In vain you gaily smiling say,
That what to me so dreary seems,
The healthy mind deems bright and gay.

I too have smiled, and thought like you,
But madly smiled, and falsely deemed:
Truth led me to the present view,
I'm waking now, 'twas then I dreamed.

I lately saw a sunset sky,
And stood enraptured to behold
Its varied hues of glorious dye:
First, fleecy clouds of shining gold;

These blushing took a rosy hue;
Beneath them shone a flood of green;
Nor less divine, the glorious blue
That smiled above them and between.

I cannot name each lovely...

I.

Take Heart

Take heart again. Joy may be lost awhile.
It is not always Spring.
And even now from some far Summer Isle
Hither the birds may wing.

II.

Touchstones

Hearts, that have cheered us ever, night and day,
With words that helped us on the rugged way,
The hard, long road of life to whom is due
More than the heart can ever hope to pay
Are they not touchstones, soul-transmuting true
All thoughts to gold, refining thus the clay?

III.

Fortune

Fortune may pass us by:
Follow her flying feet.
Love, all we ask, deny:
Never admit defeat.
Take heart again and try.
Never say die.

IV

Be Glad

Be glad, just for to-day!
O heart, be glad!
Cast all your car...

Hope provides wings to thought, and love to hope.
Rise up to Cynthia, love, when night is clearest,
And say, that as on high her figure changeth,
So, upon earth, my joy decays and grows.
And whisper in her ear with modest softness,
How doubt oft hung its head, and truth oft wept.
And oh ye thoughts, distrustfully inclined,
If ye are therefore by the loved one chided,
Answer: 'tis true ye change, but alter not,
As she remains the same, yet changeth ever.
Doubt may invade the heart, but poisons not,
For love is sweeter, by suspicion flavour'd.
If it with anger overcasts the eye,
And heaven's bright purity perversely blackens,
Then zephyr-sighs straight scare the clouds away,
And, changed to tears, dissolve them into rain.
Thought, hope, and love remain there as ...

The Future, and its gifts, alone we prize,
    Few joys the Present brings, and those alloy'd;
    Th' expected fulness leaves an aching void;
    But HOPE stands by, and lifts her sunny eyes
That gild the days to come. - She still relies
    The Phantom HAPPINESS not thus shall glide
    Always from life. - Alas! - yet ill betide
    Austere Experience, when she coldly tries
In distant roses to discern the thorn!
    Ah! is it wise to anticipate our pain?
    Arriv'd, it then is soon enough to mourn.
Nor call the dear Consoler false and vain,
    When yet again, shining through april-tears,
    Those fair enlight'ning eyes beam on advancing Years.