Hope

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
    And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
    Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!

"The forests are budding, the fruit-trees in bloom,
    And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
But my soul is bowed down by the spirit of gloom,
    I no longer rejoice as the blossoms expand.

"And April is here with her rich varied skies,
    Where the sunbeams of hope with the tempest contend,
And the bright drops that flow from her deep azure eyes
    On the bosom of nature like diamonds descend.

"She scatters her jewels o'er forest and lea,
    And casts in earth's lap all the wealth of the year;
But the promise she brings wakes no transports in ...

Be of good cheer, and have no fear
Of Fortune or Tomorrow:
To Hope's low whisper lend an ear
And turn away from Sorrow.

Time out of mind the soul is blind
To things God sends as blessings:
And Fortune often proves unkind
Merely in foolish guessings.

Within the soul we bear the whole
Of Hell and also Heaven;
And 'twixt the two is set the goal
Of dreams our lives have driven.

What counts above all deeds is Love,
And Friendship, that, remember,
In heart-beats keeps Life's record of
Its April and December.

To every one come rain and sun,
And calm and stormy weather:
What helps is not what Life has done,
But Life and Love together.

Of sun and rain and joy and pain
The web of Life is woven;
And ever through...

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life will be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last, far off, at last to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream; but who am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language, but a cry.

Oh dread uncertainty!
Life-wasting agony!
How dost thou pain the heart,
Causing such tears to start,
As sorrow never shed
O'er hopes for ever fled.
For memory hoards up joy
Beyond Time's dull alloy;
Pleasures that once have been
Shed light upon the scene,
As setting suns fling back
A bright and glowing track,
To show they once have cast
A glory o'er the past;
But thou, tormenting fiend,
Beneath Hope's pinions screened,
Leagued with distrust and pain,
Makest her promise vain;
Weaving in life's fair crown
Thistles instead of down.

Who would not rather know
Present than coming woe?
For certain sorrow brings
A healing in its wings.
The softening touch of years
Still dries the mourner's tears;
For human minds ...

Where is the heart that would not give
    Years of drowsy days and nights,
One little hour, like this, to live--
    Full, to the brim, of life's delights?
        Look, look around,
        This fairy ground,
    With love-lights glittering o'er;
        While cups that shine
        With freight divine
    Go coasting round its shore.

Hope is the dupe of future hours,
    Memory lives in those gone by;
Neither can see the moment's flowers
    Springing up fresh beneath the eye,
        Wouldst thou, or thou,
        Forego what's now,
    For all that Hope may say?
        No--Joy's reply,
        From every eye,
    Is, "Live we while we may,"

The rose of Hope, how rich and red
It blooms, and will bloom on, 't is said,
Since Eve, in Eden days gone by,
Plucked it on Adam's heart to lie,
When out of Paradise they fled,
With Sorrow and o'erwhelming Dread,
It was this flower that comforted,
This Rose of Hope, that can not die.
God's Rose of Hope.
When darkness comes, and you are led
To think that Hope at last is dead,
Take down your Bible; read; and try
To see the light; and by and by
Hope's rose will lift again its head
God's Rose of Hope.

    "These things are real," said one, and bade me gaze
        On black and mighty shapes of iron and stone,
    On murder, on madness, on lust, on towns ablaze,
        And on a thing made all of rattling bone:
    "What," said he, "will you bring to match with these?"
        "Yea! War is real," I said, "and real is Death,
    A little while - mortal realities;
        But Love and Hope draw an immortal breath."

    Think you the storm that wrecks a summer day,
        With funeral blackness and with leaping fire
    And boiling roar of rain, more real than they
        That, when the warring heavens begin to tire,
    With tender fingers on the tumult paint;
        Spanning the huddled wrack from base to cope
    With soft effulgence, like some haloed saint, ...

        "Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus,
            quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."



        I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
        With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
        I prayed that God might have her in His care
            And sight.

        Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
        (Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
        The path she showed was but the path of wrong
            And shame.

        "Cast her not out!" I cry.    God's kind words come --
        "Her future is with Me, as was her past;
        It shall be My good will to bring her home
            At last."

Hope stood one morning by the way,
And stretched her fair right hand to me,
And softly whispered, "For this day
I'll company with thee."

"Ah, no, dear Hope," I sighing said;
"Oft have you joined me in the morn,
But when the evening came, you fled
And left me all forlorn.

"'Tis better I should walk alone
Than have your company awhile,
And then to lose it, and go on
For weary mile on mile,"

She turned, rebuked. I went my way,
But sad the sunshine seemed, and chill;
I missed her, missed her all the day,
And O, I miss her still.

Said God, "You sisters, ere ye go
Down among men, my work to do,
I will on each a badge bestow:
Hope I love best, and gold for her,
Yet a silver glory for Despair,
For she is my angel too."

Then like a queen, Despair
Put on the stars to wear.
But Hope took ears of corn, and round
Her temples in a wreath them bound.
Which think ye lookt the more fair?

Our lives, discoloured with our present woes,
May still grow white and shine with happier hours.
So the pure limped stream, when foul with stains
Of rushing torrents and descending rains,
Works itself clear, and as it runs refines,
till by degrees the floating mirror shines;
Reflects each flower that on the border grows,
And a new heaven in it's fair bosom shows.

I see his Shape who should have led these ranks -
GARFIELD I see whose presence had evoked
The stormy rapture of a Nation's thanks -
His chariot stands unyoked!

Unyoked and empty, and the Charioteer
To Fame's expanded arms has headlong rushed
Ending the glories of a grand career,
While all the world stood hushed.

The thunder of his wheels is done, but he
Sustained by patience, fortitude, and grace -
A Christian Hero - from the struggle free -
Has won the Christian's race!

His wheel-tracks stop not in the Valley cold
But upward lead, and on, and up, and higher,
Till Hope can realize and Faith behold
His chariot mount in fire!

Therefore, my Countrymen, lift up your hearts!
Therefore, my Countrymen, be not cast down!
He lives wit...

Sweet Hope, so oft my childhood's friend,
I will believe thee still,
For thou canst joy with sorrow blend,
Where grief alone would kill.

When disappointments wrung my heart,
Ill brook'd in tender years,
Thou, like a sun, perform'dst thy part,
And dried my infant tears.

When late I wore the bloom of health,
And love had bound me fast,
My buoyant heart would sigh by stealth
For fear it might not last.

My sickness came, my bloom decay'd,
But Philip still was by;
And thou, sweet Hope, so kindly said,
"He'll weep if thou should'st die."

Thou told'st me too, that genial Spring
Would bring me health again;
I feel its power, but cannot sing
Its glories yet for pain.

But thou canst still my heart inspire,
And Heave...

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.

I ever love where never hope appears,
    Yet hope draws on my never-hoping care,
    And my life's hope would die but for despair;
My never certain joy breeds ever certain fears.
Uncertain dread gives wings unto my hope;
    Yet my hope's wings are laden so with fear
    As they cannot ascend to my hope's sphere,
Though fear gives them more than a heavenly scope.
Yet this large room is bounded with despair,
    So my love is still fettered with vain hope,
    And liberty deprives him of his scope,
And thus am I imprisoned in the air.
    Then, sweet despair, awhile hold up thy head,
    Or all my hope for sorrow will be dead.

A night was near, a day was near;
Between a day and night
I heard sweet voices calling clear,
Calling me:
I heard a whirr of wing on wing,
But could not see the sight;
I long to see my birds that sing, -
I long to see.

Below the stars, beyond the moon,
Between the night and day,
I heard a rising falling tune
Calling me:
I long to see the pipes and strings
Whereon such minstrels play;
I long to see each face that sings, -
I long to see.

To-day or may be not to-day,
To-night or not to-night;
All voices that command or pray,
Calling me,
Shall kindle in my soul such fire,
And in my eyes such light,
That I shall see that heart's desire
I long to see.

Twin stars, aloft in ether clear,
    Around each other roll alway,
Within one common atmosphere
    Of their own mutual light and day.

And myriad happy eyes are bent
    Upon their changeless love alway;
As, strengthened by their one intent,
    They pour the flood of life and day.

So we through this world's waning night
    May, hand in hand, pursue our way;
Shed round us order, love, and light,
    And shine unto the perfect day.

Himself I read beneath the words he writes ...
I may come back and sing again. - RYAN.


I.

This Bard's to me a whole-souled man
In honesty and might,
For when he sees Wrong in the van
He leaps like any Knight
To horse, and charging on the wrong
Smites it with the great sword of Song.


II.

Beneath the cassock of the Priest
There throbs another heart -
Another - but 'tis not the least -
Which in his Lays takes part,
So that 'mid clash of Swords and Spears
There is no lack of Pity's tears.


III.

This other heart is brave and soft,
As such hearts always are,
And plumes itself, a bird aloft,
When Morning's gates unbar -
Till high it soars above the sod
Bathed in the very light of God.<...