Spirituality

As loving hind that (hartless) wants her deer,
Scuds through the woods and fern with hark'ning ear,
Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry,
Her dearest deer, might answer ear or eye;
So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss
A dearer dear (far dearer heart) than this.
Still wait with doubts, and hopes, and failing eye,
His voice to hear or person to descry.
Or as the pensive dove doth all alone
(On withered bough) most uncouthly bemoan
The absence of her love and loving mate,
Whose loss hath made her so unfortunate,
Ev'n thus do I, with many a deep sad groan,
Bewail my turtle true, who now is gone,
His presence and his safe return still woos,
With thousand doleful sighs and mournful coos.
Or as the loving mullet, that true fish,
Her fellow lost, nor...

Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul!
The singing mouse sings plaintively,
The sweet night-bird in the chesnut-tree -
They sing together, bird and mouse,
In starlight, in darkness, lonely, sweet,
The wild notes and the faint notes meet -
    Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul!

Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul!
Amid the lilies floats the moth,
The mole along his galleries goeth
In the dark earth; the summer moon
Looks like a shepherd through the pane
Seeking his feeble lamb again -
    Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul!

Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul!
Time comes to keep night-watch with thee
Nodding with roses; and the sea
Saith 'Peace! Peace!' amid his foam
White as thy night-clothes; 'O be still!'
The wind cries up the whisp'ring hill -
...

O the frozen valley and frozen hill make a coffin wide and deep,
And the dead river lies, all its laughter stilled within it, fast asleep.

The trees that have played with the merry thing, and freighted its breast with leaves,
Give never a murmur or sigh of woe - they are dead - no dead thing grieves.

No carol of love from a song-bird's throat; the world lies naked and still,
For all things tender, and all things sweet, have been touched by the gruesome chill.

Not a flower - a blue forget-me-not, a wild rose, or jasmine soft -
To lay its bloom on the dead river's lips, that have kissed them all so oft.

But look! a ladder is spanning the space 'twixt earth and the sky beyond,
A ladder of gold for the Maid of Grace - the strong, the subtle, the fond!

Spring, with...

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
Fair, 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 star glitters o'er us,

'Tis midnight, and solemn darkness broods
    In a lonely, sacred fane -
The church of Our Lady of Montserrat,
    So famous throughout all Spain;
For countless were the pilgrim hosts
    Who knelt at that sacred shrine
With aching hearts, that came to seek
    Relief and grace divine.

Pure as the light of the evening star
    Shines the lamp's pale, solemn ray,
That burns through midnight's hush and gloom,
    As well as the glare of day,
Like the Christian soul, enwrapped in God,
    Resigning each vain delight,
Each earthly lure, to burn and shine
    With pure love in His sight.

Softly the gentle radiance falls
    On a mail-clad warrior there,
Who humbly bows his stately head
    In silent, earnest prayer;
It flashes back f...

Backwoods cabin, opera house
from the pines awash with stars,
skullduggery in place over spruce hills
dredged to open revolt
against invading plough    -
where greenest leaves
in a miser's hand part
rotting gold bags
all nugget strewn, step to step,
with water speaking magic
over the sound of countless woodland ducks.

Hocus-pacus, the
flies are sleeves over the world,
black granite pull-overs
slung thru the air
a twinkling of the eye invokes
funeral trees, deerskin in colour,
the rabbit in the hat behind
rich birchbark racing thru the dark.

Hast thou then survived
Mild Offspring of infirm humanity,
Meek Infant! among all forlornest things
The most forlor, none life of that bright star,
The second glory of the Heavens?Thou hast,
Already hast survived that great decay,
That transformation through the wide earth felt,
And by all nations. In that Being's sight
From whom the Race of human kind proceed,
A thousand years are but as yesterday;
And one day's narrow circuit is to Him
Not less capacious than a thousand years.
But what is time? What outward glory? neither
A measure is of Thee, whose claims extend
Through "heaven's eternal year."Yet hail to Thee,
Frail, feeble Monthling! by that name, methinks,
Thy scanty breathing-time is portioned out
Not idly.Hadst thou been of Indian birth,
Couc...

The Child like mustard-seed
Rolls out of the husk of death
Into the woman's fertile, fathomless lap.

Look, it has taken root!
See how it flourisheth.
See how it rises with magical, rosy sap!

As for our faith, it was there
When we did not know, did not care;
It fell from our husk like a little, hasty seed.

Sing, it is all we need.
Sing, for the little weed
Will flourish its branches in heaven when we slumber beneath.

I know in part, but know not all,
The part I know is known;
What know I not I hope with Paul
To know before the throne.
Till then where knowledge fails I trust
The truth God has revealed,
As known by me, forever must
Be like the truth concealed.

I know God is, tho' hid from sight,
And know He cares for me;
In blessing me He takes delight,
And I by faith can see
His skilful hand and loving heart,
In all my life's affairs,
And feel content to know but part
If He knows all my cares.

I know God gave His Son to die
A sacrifice for man,
And live all who on Him rely,
And meet His claims I can,
Yet I know not how in Him meet
The human and divine;
But God He is, and at His feet
I fall, and feel Him mine.

Nor do ...

The sky-line melts from russet into blue,
Unbroken the horizon, saving where
A wreath of smoke curls up the far, thin air,
And points the distant lodges of the Sioux.

Etched where the lands and cloudlands touch and die
A solitary Indian tepee stands,
The only habitation of these lands,
That roll their magnitude from sky to sky.

The tent poles lift and loom in thin relief,
The upward floating smoke ascends between,
And near the open doorway, gaunt and lean,
And shadow-like, there stands an Indian Chief.

With eyes that lost their lustre long ago,
With visage fixed and stern as fate's decree,
He looks towards the empty west, to see
The never-coming herd of buffalo.

Only the bones that bleach upon the plains,
Only the fleshless skeleto...

    Ah, in the night, all music haunts me here....
    Is it for naught high Heaven cracks and yawns
    And the tremendous Amaranth descends
    Sweet with the glory of ten thousand dawns?

    Does it not mean my God would have me say: -
    "Whether you will or no, O city young,
    Heaven will bloom like one great flower for you,
    Flash and loom greatly all your marts among?"

    Friends, I will not cease hoping though you weep.
    Such things I see, and some of them shall come
    Though now our streets are harsh and ashen-gray,
    Though our strong youths are strident now, or dumb.
    Friends, that sweet town, that wonder-town, shall rise.
    Naught can delay it.    Though it may not be
    Just as I dream, it comes at last I know
    With s...

Sons born of many a loyal Muse to Ben,
All true-begotten, warm with wine or ale,
Bright from the broad light of his presence, hail!
Prince Randolph, nighest his throne of all his men,
Being highest in spirit and heart who hailed him then
King, nor might other spread so blithe a sail:
Cartwright, a soul pent in with narrower pale,
Praised of thy sire for manful might of pen:
Marmion, whose verse keeps alway keen and fine
The perfume of their Apollonian wine
Who shared with that stout sire of all and thee
The exuberant chalice of his echoing shrine:
Is not your praise writ broad in gold which he
Inscribed, that all who praise his name should see?

Whene'er I try to read a book,
Across the page your face will look,
And then I neither know nor care
What sense the printed words may bear.

At night when I would go to sleep,
Thinking of you, awake I keep,
And still repeat the words you said,
Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed.

And when, with weariness oppressed,
I sink in spite of you to rest,
Your image, like a lovely sprite,
Haunts me in dreams through half the night.

I wake upon the autumn morn
To find the sunrise hardly born,
And in the sky a soft pale blue,
And in my heart your image true.

When out I walk to take the air,
Your image is for ever there,
Among the woods that lose their leaves,
Or where the North Sea sadly heaves.

By what enchantment shal...

She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white;
    She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
    And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
    Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into that tender breast at night
    The chastest stars may peep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.

She holds her little thoughts in sight,
    Though gay they run and leap.
She is so circumspect and right;
    She has her soul to keep.
She walks--the lady of my delight--
    A shepherdess of sheep.

Let other bards to groves repair,
    Where linnets strain their tuneful throats;
Mine be the Woods and Forests where
    The Treasury pours its sweeter notes.

No whispering winds have charms for me,
    Nor zephyr's balmy sighs I ask;
To raise the wind for Royalty
    Be all our Sylvan zephyr's task!

And 'stead of crystal brooks and floods,
    And all such vulgar irrigation,
Let Gallic rhino thro' our Woods
    Divert its "course of liquidation."

Ah, surely, Vergil knew full well
    What Woods and Forests ought to be,
When sly, he introduced in hell
    His guinea-plant, his bullion-tree;[1]--

Nor see I why, some future day,
    When short of cash, we should not send
Our Herries down--he knows the w...

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it, lie down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew.
And those that were good shall be happy; they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair.
They shall find real saints to draw from, Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing ...

Strange are the ways that her feet have trod
    Since first she was set in the path of duty,
Finished and fair by the hand of God,
    To carry her message of love and beauty.
Delicate creature of light and shade,
    She gleamed like an opal, on wide worlds under:
And earth looked up to her half afraid,
    While heaven looked down at her, full of wonder.

Flame of the comet and mist of the moon,
    And ray of the sun all mingled in her.
And the heart of her asked but a single boon -
    That love should seek her, and find her, and win her.
She grasped the scope of the First Intent
    That made her kingdom FOR HER, no other,
And joyfully into her place she went -
    The primal mate, and the primal mother.

Large was that kingdom and vast her sph...

Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.


Lean back, and get some minutes’ peace;
Let your head lean
Back to the shoulder with its fleece
Of locks, Faustine.

The shapely silver shoulder stoops,
Weighed over clean
With state of splendid hair that droops
Each side, Faustine.

Let me go over your good gifts
That crown you queen;
A queen whose kingdom ebbs and shifts
Each week, Faustine.

Bright heavy brows well gathered up:
White gloss and sheen;
Carved lips that make my lips a cup
To drink, Faustine,

Wine and rank poison, milk and blood,
Being mixed therein
Since first the devil threw dice with God
For you, Faustine.

Your naked new-born soul, their stake,
Stood blind between;
...