Spirituality

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]


    In the midst of the battle I turned,
    (For the thunders could flourish without me)
    And hid by a rose-hung wall,
    Forgetting the murder about me;
    And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
    In mirth, half prayer, half play: -
    "Send me a picture book,
    Send me a song, to-day."

    I saw him there by the wall
    When I scarce had written the line,
    In the enemy's colors dressed
    And the serpent-standard of wine
    Writhing its withered length
    From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
    And there by his shadowy breast
    The glorious poem I found.

    This was his world-old cry:
    Thus read the famous prayer:
    "Wine, wine, wine a...

In golden youth when seems the earth
A Summer-land of singing mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled under evening skies
A garden which we all must see -
The garden of Gethsemane.

With joyous steps we go our ways,
Love lends a halo to our days;
Light sorrows sail like clouds afar,
We laugh, and say how strong we are.
We hurry on; and hurrying, go
Close to the border-land of woe,
That waits for you, and waits for me -
Forever waits Gethsemane.

Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The garden lies. Strive as you may,
You cann...

    If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
            Pacing it wearily, wearily,
    Twixt chapel and cell till day were done--
            Wearily, wearily--
    How would it fare with these hearts of ours
    That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?

    To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,
            Morning foul or fair!--
    Such prayer as from weary lips might fall--
            Words, but hardly prayer--
    The chapel's roof, like the law in stone,
    Caging the lark that up had flown!

    Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
            The God-revealing,
    Turning thy face from the boundless boon--
            Painfully kneeling;
    Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,
    Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!
<...

    When man from pure perfection fell,
        And bathed his life in grief and woe,
        His angel heart had overthrow
    From all the joys he loved so well,
    And only Hope of all the host
    Remained to comfort him when lost.

    And when the other passions throw
        Their phantoms in the arms of death,
        And pour their last remaining breath
    Within the dismal haunts of woe,
    Then Hope alone of all remains
    To soothe our sorrows and our pains.

    Hope makes the fearful millions brave,
        The helpless and the weary strong,
        Gives courage to the fainting throng
    And whispers freedom to the slave,
    And unto each, where'er he lives,
    Unceasing cause to struggle gives.

    In heavy hour...

One effort more, one cheerful sally more,
Our destin'd course will finish. and in peace
Then, for an offering sacred to the powers
Who lent us gracious guidance, we will then
Inscribe a monument of deathless praise,
O my adventurous song. With steady speed
Long hast thou, on an untried voyage bound,
Sail'd between earth and heaven: hast now survey'd,
Stretch'd out beneath thee, all the mazy tracts
Of passion and opinion; like a waste
Of sands and flowery lawns and tangling woods,
Where mortals roam bewilder'd: and hast now
Exulting soar'd among the worlds above,
Or hover'd near the eternal gates of heaven,
If haply the discourses of the Gods,
A curious, but an unpresuming guest,
Thou might'st partake, and carry back some strain
Of divine wisdom, lawful to...

FOR MANY YEARS DEPRIVED OF SIGHT.


They say the sun is shining
In all his splendor now,
And clouds in graceful drapery,
Are sailing to an fro.

That birds of brilliant plumage,
Are soaring on the wing;
Exulting in the daylight,
Rejoicing as they sing.

They tell me too that roses,
E'en in my pathway lie;
And decked in rich apparel,
Attract the passers by.

They say the sun when setting,
Is glorious to behold;
And sheds on all at parting,
A radiant crown of gold.

And then the night's pale empress,
With all her glittering train,
The vacant throne ascending,
Resumes her peaceful reign.

That she in queenly beauty,
Subdued yet silvery light,
Makes scarcely less enchanting
Than day,...

I

How beautiful when up a lofty height
Honour ascends among the humblest poor,
And feeling sinks as deep! See there the door
Of One, a Widow, left beneath a weight
Of blameless debt. On evil Fortune's spite
She wasted no complaint, but strove to make
A just repayment, both for conscience-sake
And that herself and hers should stand upright
In the world's eye. Her work when daylight failed
Paused not, and through the depth of night she kept
Such earnest vigils, that belief prevailed
With some, the noble Creature never slept;
But, one by one, the hand of death assailed
Her children from her inmost heart bewept.

II

The Mother mourned, nor ceased her tears to flow,
Till a winter's noonday placed her buried Son
Before her eyes, last child...

Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying;
My dog and I are old, too old for roving.
Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying,
Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving.
I take the book and gather to the fire,
Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute
The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire,
Moves a thiun ghost of music in the spinet.
I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander
Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys
Ever again, nore share the battle yonder
Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies.
Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.

Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power,
The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace,
Summer of man its sunlight and its fl...

Pure fount, that, welling from this wooded hill,
Dost wander forth, as into life's wide vale,
Thou to the traveller dost tell no tale
Of other years; a lone, unnoticed rill,
In thy forsaken track, unheard of men,
Melting thy own sweet music through the glen.
Time was when other sounds and songs arose;
When o'er the pensive scene, at evening's close,
The distant bell was heard; or the full chant,
At morn, came sounding high and jubilant;
Or, stealing on the wildered pilgrim's way,
The moonlight "Miserere" died away,
Like all things earthly.
Stranger, mark the spot;
No echoes of the chiding world intrude.
The structure rose and vanished; solitude
Possessed the woods again; old Time forgot,
Passing to wider spoil, its place and name.
Since then, even as...

Una candida cerva sopra l' erba.

THE VISION OF THE FAWN.


    Beneath a laurel, two fair streams between,
At early sunrise of the opening year,
A milk-white fawn upon the meadow green,
Of gold its either horn, I saw appear;
So mild, yet so majestic, was its mien,
I left, to follow, all my labours here,
As miners after treasure, in the keen
Desire of new, forget the old to fear.
"Let none impede"--so, round its fair neck, run
The words in diamond and topaz writ--
"My lord to give me liberty sees fit."
And now the sun his noontide height had won
When I, with weary though unsated view,
Fell in the stream--and so my vision flew.

MACGREGOR.


    A form I saw with secret awe, nor ken I what it warns;
Pure as the sno...

    What hand is this, that unresisted grips
    My spirit as with chains, and from the sound
    And light of dreams, compels me to the bound
    Where darkness waits with wide, expectant lips?
    Albeit thereat my footing holds, nor slips,
    The threats of that Omnipotence confound
    All days and hours of gladness, girt around
    With sense of near, unswervable eclipse.

    So lies a land whose noon is plagued with whirr
    Of bats, than their own shadows swarthier,
    Whose flight is traced on roofs of white abodes,
    Wherein from court to court, from room to room,
    In hieroglyphics of abhorrent doom,
    Is slowly trailed the slime of crawling toads.

A joy from my soul's departed,
A bliss from my heart is flown,
As weary, weary-hearted,
I wander alone - alone!
The night wind sadly sigheth
A withering, wild refrain,
And my heart within me dieth
For the light in the window pane.

The stars overhead are shining,
As brightly as e'er they shone,
As heartless - sad - repining,
I wander alone - alone!
A sudden flash comes streaming,
And flickers adown the lane,
But no more for me is gleaming
The light in the window pane.

The voices that pass are cheerful,
Men laugh as the night winds moan;
They cannot tell how fearful
'Tis to wander alone - alone!
For them, with each night's returning,
Life singeth its tenderest strain,
Where the beacon of love is burning -
The light ...

FIRST SPEAKER, as David

I.
On the first of the Feast of Feasts,
The Dedication Day,
When the Levites joined the Priests
At the Altar in robed array,
Gave signal to sound and say,

II.
When the thousands, rear and van,
Swarming with one accord
Became as a single man
(Look, gesture, thought and word)
In praising and thanking the Lord,

III.
When the singers lift up their voice,
And the trumpets made endeavour,
Sounding, “In God rejoice!”
Saying, “In Him rejoice
“Whose mercy endureth for ever!”

IV.
Then the Temple filled with a cloud,
Even the House of the Lord;
Porch bent and pillar bowed:
For the presence of the Lord,
In the glory of His cloud,
Had filled the House of the Lord.

Far from the world, O Lord, I flee,
From strife and tumult far;
From scenes where Satan wages still
His most successful war.


The calm retreat, the silent shade,
With prayer and praise agree;
And seem by thy sweet bounty made
For those who follow thee.


There, if thy Spirit touch the soul,
And grace her mean abode,
Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love,
She communes with her God!


There like the nightingale she pours
Her solitary lays;
Nor asks a witness of her song,
Nor thirsts for human praise.


Author and Guardian of my life,
Sweet source of light divine,
And (all harmonious names in one)
My Saviour, thou art mine!


What thanks I owe thee, and what love,
A boundless, endless st...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)
        (What the Carpenter Said)


    The moon's a cottage with a door.
    Some folks can see it plain.
    Look, you may catch a glint of light,
    A sparkle through the pane,
    Showing the place is brighter still
    Within, though bright without.
    There, at a cosy open fire
    Strange babes are grouped about.
    The children of the wind and tide -
    The urchins of the sky,
    Drying their wings from storms and things
    So they again can fly.

Loud is the Vale! the Voice is up
With which she speaks when storms are gone,
A mighty unison of streams!
Of all her Voices, One!

Loud is the Vale; this inland Depth
In peace is roaring like the Sea
Yon star upon the mountain-top
Is listening quietly.

Sad was I, even to pain deprest,
Importunate and heavy load!
The Comforter hath found me here,
Upon this lonely road;

And many thousands now are sad,
Wait the fulfilment of their fear;
For he must die who is their stay,
Their glory disappear.

A Power is passing from the earth
To breathless Nature's dark abyss;
But when the great and good depart
What is it more than this.

That Man, who is from God sent forth,
Doth yet again to God return?
Such ebb and flo...

Woman's faith, and woman's trust
Write the characters in the dust;
Stamp them on the running stream,
Print them on the moon's pale beam,
And each evanescent letter
Shall be clearer, firmer, better,
And more permanent, I ween,
Than the thing those letters mean.

I have strain'd the spider's thread
'Gainst the promise of a maid;
I have weigh'd a grain of sand
'Gainst her plight of heart and hand;
I told my true love of the token,
How her faith proved light, and her word was broken:
Again her word and truth she plight,
And I believed them again ere night.

Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.

For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.

I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk within his cell;
But now the dream is lost, and hell

Holds me her captive tight and fast
Who prays and struggles for the past.
No living maid has charmed my eyes,
But now, my soul is wonder-wise.

For I have dreamed of her and seen
Her red-brown tresses' ruddy sheen,
Have known her sweetness, lip to lip,
The joy of her companionship.

When days were bleak and wi...