Hope

On a sunny brae alone I lay
One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May,
With her young lover, June.

From her mother's heart seemed loath to part
That queen of bridal charms,
But her father smiled on the fairest child
He ever held in his arms.

The trees did wave their plumy crests,
The glad birds carolled clear;
And I, of all the wedding guests,
Was only sullen there!

There was not one, but wished to shun
My aspect void of cheer;
The very gray rocks, looking on,
Asked, "What do you here?"

And I could utter no reply;
In sooth, I did not know
Why I had brought a clouded eye
To greet the general glow.

So, resting on a heathy bank,
I took my heart to me;
And we together sadly sank
Into a re...

I

Last night I dreamed this dream: That I was dead;
And as I slept, forgot of man and God,
That other dreamless sleep of rest,
I heard a footstep on the sod,
As of one passing overhead,
And lo, thou, Dear, didst touch me on the breast,
Saying: "What shall I write against thy name
That men should see?"
Then quick the answer came,
"I was beloved of thee."


II

Dear Giver of Thyself when at thy side,
I see the path beyond divide,
Where we must walk alone a little space,
I say: "Now am I strong indeed
To wait with only memory awhile,
Content, until I see thy face, "
Yet turn, as one in sorest need,
To ask once more thy giving grace,
So, at the last
Of all our partings, when the night
Has hidden from my failing si...

I

Had this effulgence disappeared
With flying haste, I might have sent,
Among the speechless clouds, a look
Of blank astonishment;
But 'tis endued with power to stay,
And sanctify one closing day,
That frail Mortality may see,
What is? ah no, but what 'can' be!
Time was when field and watery cove
With modulated echoes rang,
While choirs of fervent Angels sang
Their vespers in the grove;
Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height,
Warbled, for heaven above and earth below,
Strains suitable to both. Such holy rite,
Methinks, if audibly repeated now
From hill or valley, could not move
Sublimer transport, purer love,
Than doth this silent spectacle, the gleam,
The shadow and the peace supreme!

II

No sound is...

Seaward, at morn, my doves flew free;
At eve they circled back to me.
The first was Faith; the second, Hope;
The third - the whitest - Charity.

Above the plunging surge's play
Dream-like they hovered, day by day.
At last they turned, and bore to me
Green signs of peace thro' nightfall gray.

No shore forlorn, no loveliest land
Their gentle eyes had left unscanned,
'Mid hues of twilight-heliotrope
Or daybreak fires by heaven-breath fanned.

Quick visions of celestial grace, -
Hither they waft, from earth's broad space,
Kind thoughts for all humanity.
They shine with radiance from God's face.

Ah, since my heart they choose for home,
Why loose them, - forth again to roam?
Yet look: they rise! with loftier scope
They wheel in f...

What though the sun had left my sky;
To save me from despair
The blessed moon arose on high,
And shone serenely there.

I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
Rise slowly o'er the hill,
While through the dim horizon's haze
Her light gleamed faint and chill.

I thought such wan and lifeless beams
Could ne'er my heart repay,
For the bright sun's most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:

But as above that mist's control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now, that light is gone!

Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:

Until, methought, a little star
Shone forth with trembling ray,
...

Letter IX. To-Morrow.


I.

    O Love! O Love! O Gateway of Delight!
    Thou porch of peace, thou pageant of the prime
    Of all God's creatures! I am here to climb
    Thine upward steps, and daily and by night
    To gaze beyond them, and to search aright
    The far-off splendour of thy track sublime.


II.

    For, in thy precincts, on the further side,
    Beyond the turret where the bells are rung,
    Beyond the chapel where the rites are sung,
    There is a garden fit for any bride.
    O Love! by thee, by thee are sa...

Thank God for dreams! I, desolate and lone,
    In the dark curtained night, did seem to be
The centre where all golden sun-rays shone,
    And, sitting there, held converse sweet with thee.
No shadow lurked between us; all was bright
    And beautiful as in the hours gone by,
I smiled, and was rewarded by the light
    Of olden days soft beaming from thine eye.
Thank God, thank God for dreams!

I thought the birds all listened; for thy voice
    Pulsed through the air, like beat of silver wings.
It made each chamber of my soul rejoice
    And thrilled along my heart's tear-rusted strings.
As some devout and ever-prayerful nun
    Tells her bright beads, and counts them o'er and o'er,
Thy golden words I gathered, one by one,
    And slipped them into memo...

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:
Future or Past no richer secret folds,
O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.

Douglas, Isle of Man


Who taught this pleading to unpractis’d eyes?
Who hid such import in an infant’s gloom?
Who lent thee, child, this meditative guise?
What clouds thy forehead, and fore-dates thy doom?

Lo! sails that gleam a moment and are gone;
The swinging waters, and the cluster’d pier.
Not idly Earth and Ocean labour on,
Nor idly do these sea-birds hover near.

But thou, whom superfluity of joy
Wafts not from thine own thoughts, nor longings vain,
Nor weariness, the full-fed soul’s annoy;
Remaining in thy hunger and thy pain:

Thou, drugging pain by patience; half averse
From thine own mother’s breast, that knows not thee;
With eyes that sought thine eyes thou didst converse,
And that soul-searching vision fell on me.<...

Angel of Death! extend thy silent reign!
Stretch thy dark sceptre o'er this new domain
No sable car along the winding road
Has borne to earth its unresisting load;
No sudden mound has risen yet to show
Where the pale slumberer folds his arms below;
No marble gleams to bid his memory live
In the brief lines that hurrying Time can give;
Yet, O Destroyer! from thy shrouded throne
Look on our gift; this realm is all thine own!

Fair is the scene; its sweetness oft beguiled
From their dim paths the children of the wild;
The dark-haired maiden loved its grassy dells,
The feathered warrior claimed its wooded swells,
Still on its slopes the ploughman's ridges show
The pointed flints that left his fatal bow,
Chipped with rough art and slow barbarian toil, -
L...

And dwells there in a female heart,
By bounteous Heaven design’d,
The choicest raptures to impart,
To feel the most refined—


Dwells there a wish in such a breast
Its nature to forego,
To smother in ignoble rest
At once both bliss and woe!


Far be the thought, and far the strain,
Which breathes the low desire,
How sweet soe’er the verse complain,
Though Phœbus string the lyre.


Come, then, fair maid (in nature wise),
Who, knowing them, can tell
From generous sympathy what joys
The glowing bosom swell:


In justice to the various powers
Of pleasing, which you share,
Join me, amid your silent hours,
To form the better prayer.


With lenient balm may Oberon hence
To fairy-land be driven...

There's blood between us, love, my love,
There's father's blood, there's brother's blood;
And blood's a bar I cannot pass:
I choose the stairs that mount above,
Stair after golden skyward stair,
To city and to sea of glass.
My lily feet are soiled with mud,
With scarlet mud which tells a tale
Of hope that was, of guilt that was,
Of love that shall not yet avail;
Alas, my heart, if I could bare
My heart, this selfsame stain is there:
I seek the sea of glass and fire
To wash the spot, to burn the snare;
Lo, stairs are meant to lift us higher:
Mount with me, mount the kindled stair.

    Your eyes look earthward, mine look up.
I see the far-off city grand,
Beyond the hills a watered land,
Beyond the gulf a gleaming strand
Of mansions wher...

See, the fire is sinking low,
Dusky red the embers glow,
    While above them still I cower,
While a moment more I linger,
Though the clock, with lifted finger,
    Points beyond the midnight hour.

Sings the blackened log a tune
Learned in some forgotten June
    From a school-boy at his play,
When they both were young together,
Heart of youth and summer weather
    Making all their holiday.

And the night-wind rising, hark!
How above there in the dark,
    In the midnight and the snow,
Ever wilder, fiercer, grander,
Like the trumpets of Iskander,
    All the noisy chimneys blow!

Every quivering tongue of flame
Seems to murmur some great name,
    Seems to say to me, "Aspire!"
But the night-wind answers, "Hollow
A...

Fair now is the springtide, now earth lies beholding
    With the eyes of a lover the face of the sun;
Long lasteth the daylight, and hope is enfolding
    The green-growing acres with increase begun.

Now sweet, sweet it is through the land to be straying
    Mid the birds and the blossoms and the beasts of the field;
Love mingles with love, and no evil is weighing
    On thy heart or mine, where all sorrow is healed.

From township to township, o'er down and by tillage
    Far, far have we wandered and long was the day,
But now cometh eve at the end of the village,
    Where over the grey wall the church riseth grey.

There is wind in the twilight; in the white road before us
    The straw from the ox-yard is blowing about;
The moon's rim is rising, a s...

Though bleak these woods and damp the ground
With fallen leaves so thickly strewn,
And cold the wind that wanders round
With wild and melancholy moan,

There is a friendly roof I know
Might shield me from the wintry blast;
There is a fire whose ruddy glow
Will cheer me for my wanderings past.

And so, though still where'er I roam
Cold stranger glances meet my eye,
Though when my spirit sinks in woe
Unheeded swells the unbidden sigh,

Though solitude endured too long
Bids youthful joys too soon decay,
Makes mirth a stranger to my tongue
And overclouds my noon of day,

When kindly thoughts that would have way
Flow back discouraged to my breast
I know there is, though far away
A home where heart and soul may rest.

War...

Young Naiad of the sparry grot,
    Whose azure eyes before me burn,
In what sequestered lonely spot
    Lies hid thy flower-enwreathed urn?
Beneath what mossy bank enshrined,
    Within what ivy-mantled nook,
Sheltered alike from sun and wind,
    Lies hid thy source, sweet murmuring brook?

Deep buried lies thy airy shell
    Beneath thy waters clear;
Far echoing up the woodland dell
    Thy wind-swept harp I hear.
I catch its soft and mellow tones
    Amid the long grass gliding,
Now broken 'gainst the rugged stones,
    In hoarse, deep accents chiding.

The wandering breeze that stirs the grove,
    In plaintive moans replying,
To every leafy bough above
    His tender tale is sighing;
Ruffled beneath his viewless wing
  ...

Sweet guardian of the rosy cheek!
Whene'er to thee I raise my hands
Upon the mountain's breezy peak,
Or on the yellow winding sands,

If thou hast deign'd, by Pity mov'd,
This fev'rish phantom to prolong,
I've touch'd my lute, for ever lov'd,
And bless'd thee with its earliest song!

And oh! if in thy gentle ear
Its simple notes have sounded sweet,
May the soft breeze, to thee so dear,
Now bear them to thy rose-wreath'd seat!

For thou hast dried the dew of grief,
And Friendship feels new ecstacy:
To Pollio thou hast stretch'd relief,
And, raising him, hast cherish'd me.

So, whilst some treasur'd plant receives
Th' admiring florist's partial show'r,
The drops that tremble from its leaves
Oft feed some near uncultur'd flow'r....

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in his wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.


In holy contemplation,
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation,
And find it ever new.
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
E’en let the unknown to-morrow[1]
Bring with it what it may.


It can bring with it nothing,
But he will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing,
Will clothe his people too;
Beneath the spreading heavens
No creature but is fed;
And he who feeds the ravens,
Will give his children bread.


The vine nor fig-tree nei...