Spirituality

Dark and yet darker my day's clouded o'er;
Are its bright joys all fled, and its sunshine no more?
I look to the skies for the bright bow in vain,
For constantly "clouds return after the rain."

Must it always be thus, peace banished forever,
And joy to this sad heart returned again never?
I long for the rest that I cannot obtain,
For the clouds, so much dreaded, return after rain.

Is there not in this wide world one spot that is blessed
With exemption from suffering, where one may find rest;
Where sickness and sorrow no entranpe can gain,
And the clouds do not return after the rain?

Ah! deceive not thyself by a vain hope like this,
Nor expect in this world to enjoy lasting peace:
But bow with submission to God's holy will,
For the hand that afflic...

Immortal Love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never-ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away!
Shine out, O Light Divine, and show
How wide and far we stray!

Hush every lip, close every book,
The strife of tongues forbear;
Why forward reach, or backward look,
For love that clasps like air?

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape,
The lineaments restore
Of Him we know in outward shape
And in the...

Bishops and Priests, blessed are ye, if deep
(As yours above all offices is high)
Deep in your hearts the sense of duty lie;
Charged as ye are by Christ to feed and keep
From wolves your portion of his chosen sheep:
Labouring as ever in your Master's sight,
Making your hardest task your best delight,
What perfect glory ye in Heaven shall reap!
But, in the solemn Office which ye sought
And undertook premonished, if unsound
Your practice prove, faithless though but in thought,
Bishops and Priests, think what a gulf profound
Awaits yon then, if they were rightly taught
Who framed the Ordinance by your lives disowned!

Come blest Spirit from above,
Come and fill my heart with love;
Love to God, and love to man,
Love to do the good I can;
Love to high, and love to low,
Love to friend, and love to foe.
Love to rich, and love to poor,
Love to beggar at my door.
Love to young, and love to old,
Love to hardened heart and cold.
Love, true love, my heart within
For the sinner, not the sin;
Love to holy Sabbath day,
Love to meditate and pray,
Love for love, for hatred even;
Love like this, is born of Heaven.

"Poet by the grace of God."


    You sing of winter gray and chill,
    Of silent stream and frozen lake,
    Of naked woods, and winds that wake
    To shriek and sob o'er vale and hill.

    And straight we breathe the bracing air,
    And see stretched out before our eyes
    A white world spanned by brooding skies,
    And snowflakes drifting everywhere.

    You sing of tender things and sweet,
    Of field, of brook, of flower, of bush,
    The lilt of bird, the sunset flush,
    The scarlet poppies in the wheat.

    Until we feel the gleam and glow
    Of summer pulsing through our veins,
    And hear the patter of the rains,
    And watch the green things sprout and grow.

    You sing of joy, and we do mark<...

The pebbly brook is cold to-night,
Its water soft as air,
A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind
Shadowless and bare,
Leaping and running in this world
Where dark-horned cattle stare:

Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm
On the dark pavements of the sky,
And trees are mummies swathed in sleep
And small dark hills crowd wearily;
Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds
Without a sound march by.

Down at the bottom of the road
I smell the woody damp
Of that cold spirit in the grass,
And leave my hill-top camp -
Its long gun pointing in the sky -
And take the Moon for lamp.

I stop beside the bright cold glint
Of that thin spirit in the grass,
So gay it is, so innocent!
I watch its sparkling footsteps pass
Lightly from sm...

Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that t...

Friend of my early days, we meet once more!
Once more I stand thine aged boughs beneath,
And hear again the rustling music pour,
Along thy leaves, as whispering spirits breathe.

Full many a day of sunshine and of storm,
Since last we parted, both have surely known;
Thy leaves are thinned, decrepit is thy form,
And all my cherished visions, they are flown!

How beautiful, how brief, those sunny hours
Departed now, when life was in its spring
When Fancy knew no scene undecked with flowers,
And Expectation flew on Fancy's wing!

Here, on the bank, beside this whispering stream,
Which still runs by as gayly as of yore,
Marking its eddies, I was wont to dream
Of things away, on some far fairy shore.

Then every whirling leaf and bubbling ball,<...

    You are over there, Father Malloy,
    Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave,
    Not here with us on the hill -
    Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision
    And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins.
    You were so human, Father Malloy,
    Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us,
    Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River
    From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality.
    You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand
    From the wastes about the pyramids
    And makes them real and Egypt real.
    You were a part of and related to a great past,
    And yet you were so close to many of us.
    You believed in the joy of life.
    You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh.
    You faced life as it is,

When human touch (as monkish books attest)
Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells
Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells,
And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest;
Sweet tones, and caught by a noble Lady blest
To rapture! Mabel listened at the side
Of her loved mistress: soon the music died,
And Catherine said, "Here I set up my rest."
Warned in a dream, the Wanderer long had sought
A home that by such miracle of sound
Must be revealed: she heard it now, or felt
The deep, deep joy of a confiding thought;
And there, a saintly Anchoress, she dwelt
Till she exchanged for heaven that happy ground.

I

Between two sister moorland rills
There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.
And in this smooth and open dell
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a lonely hut;
And in this dell you see
A thing no storm can e'er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish Boy.

II

In clouds above, the lark is heard,
But drops not here to earth for rest;
Within this lonesome nook the bird
Did never build her nest.
No beast, no bird hath here his home;
Bees, wafted on the breezy air,
Pass high above those fragrant bells
To other flowers:to other dells
Their burthens do they bear;
The Danish Boy walks here alone:
The lovely dell is all his own....

Do you know the way that goes
Over fields of rue and rose,
Warm of scent and hot of hue,
Roofed with heaven's bluest blue,
To the Vale of Dreams Come True?

Do you know the path that twines,
Banked with elder-bosks and vines,
Under boughs that shade a stream,
Hurrying, crystal as a gleam,
To the Hills of Love a-Dream?

Tell me, tell me, have you gone
Through the fields and woods of dawn,
Meadowlands and trees that roll,
Great of grass and huge of bole,
To the Land of Hearts Made Whole?

On the way, among the fields,
Poppies lift vermilion shields,
In whose hearts the golden Noon,
Murmuring her drowsy tune,
Rocks the sleepy bees that croon.

On the way, amid the woods,
Mandrakes muster multitudes,
'Mid whose blo...

On to Iona! What can she afford
To 'us' save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord)
Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise.

Why, William, on that old gray stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

"Where are your books? that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

"The eye, it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are Power...

When on thy pillow lying,

Half listen, I implore,
And at my lute's soft sighing,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

For at my lute's soft sighing

The stars their blessings pour
On feelings never-dying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Those feelings never-dying

My spirit aid to soar
From earthly conflicts trying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

From earthly conflicts trying

Thou driv'st me to this shore;
Through thee I'm thither flying,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Through thee I'm hither flying,

Thou wilt not list before
In slumbers thou art lying:

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Beside us in our seeking after pleasures,
    Through all our restless striving after fame,
Through all our search for worldly gains and treasures,
    There walketh one whom no man likes to name.
Silent he follows, veiled of form and feature,
    Indifferent if we sorrow or rejoice,
Yet that day comes when every living creature
    Must look upon his face and hear his voice.

When that day comes to you, and Death, unmasking,
    Shall bar your path, and say, "Behold the end,"
What are the questions that he will be asking
    About your past?    Have you considered, friend?
I think he will not chide you for your sinning,
    Nor for your creeds or dogmas will he care;
He will but ask, "From your life's first beginning
    How many burdens have you helped to be...

1.
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me - who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!

2.
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart; -
As I must on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!

3.
Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast; -
Oh! press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last.

Steely stars and moon of brass,
How mockingly you watch me pass!
You know as well as I how soon
I shall be blind to stars and moon,
Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,
Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.

With envious dark rage I bear,
Stars, your cold complacent stare;
Heart-broken in my hate look up,
Moon, at your clear immortal cup,
Changing to gold from dusky red,
Age after age when I am dead
To be filled up with light, and then
Emptied, to be refilled again.

What has man done that only he
Is slave to death, so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?

Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your fragr...