Come through the gloom of clouded skies,
    The slow dim rain and fog athwart;
Through east winds keen with wrong and lies
    Come and lift up my hopeless heart.

Come through the sickness and the pain,
    The sore unrest that tosses still;
Through aching dark that hides the gain
    Come and arouse my fainting will.

Come through the prate of foolish words,
    The science with no God behind;
Through all the pangs of untuned chords
    Speak wisdom to my shaken mind.

Through all the fears that spirits bow
    Of what hath been, or may befall,
Come down and talk with me, for thou
    Canst tell me all about them all.

Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat,
    Heart of all joy, below, above!
Come near and let me kiss thy feet,<...

Mothers of men--the words are good indeed in the saying,
Pride in the very sound of them, strength in the sense of them, then
Why is it their faces haunt me, wistful faces as praying
Ever some dear thing vanished and ever a hope delaying,
Mothers of Men?

Mothers of Men, most patient, tenderly slow to discover
The loss of the old allegiance that may not return again.
You give a man to the world, you give a woman a lover--
Where is your solace then when the time of giving is over,
Mothers of Men?

Mothers of Men, but surely, the title is worth the earning.
You who are brave in feigning must I ever behold you then
By the door of an empty heart with the lamp of faith still burning,
Watching the ways of life for the sight of a child returning,
Mothers of Men?

Before an Altar



I wish I were the little key
That locks Love's Captive in,
And lets Him out to go and free
A sinful heart from sin.

I wish I were the little bell
That tinkles for the Host,
When God comes down each day to dwell
With hearts He loves the most.

I wish I were the chalice fair,
That holds the Blood of Love,
When every flash lights holy prayer
Upon its way above.

I wish I were the little flower
So near the Host's sweet face,
Or like the light that half an hour
Burns on the shrine of grace.

I wish I were the altar where,
As on His mother's breast,
Christ nestles, like a child, fore'er
In Eucharistic rest.

But, oh! my God, I wish the most
That my poor heart may be
A home...

Lord, let us pray.

Give us the open mind, O God,
    The mind that dares believe
In paths of thought as yet untrod;
    The mind that can conceive
Large visions of a wider way
Than circumscribes our world to-day.

May tolerance temper our own faith,
    However great our zeal;
When others speak of life and death,
    Let us not plunge a steel
Into the heart of one who talks
In terms we deem unorthodox.

Help us to send our thoughts through space,
    Where worlds in trillions roll,
Each fashioned for its time and place,
    Each portion of the whole;
Till our weak minds may feel a sense
Of Thy Supreme Omnipotence.

Let us not shame Thee with a creed
    That builds a costly church,
But blinds us to a brother's need...

I.

The sweetest dreams, it seems to me, that we can ever know,
Are those the fancy brings to us of days of long-ago,
When rainbow-tinted pictures all are like a mirage flung
Upon the canvas memory weaves--of days when we were young.


II.

The step may falter, eye be dim--the brow may wrinkles wear,
And underneath the crumbling mould our friends be sleeping there--
But oh, these visions come to us as to the rose the dew,
And while with raptured gaze we look the heart seems ever new.


III.

Oh, when perhaps at last we're left a laggard on life's stage,
This is the mellowed draught we quaff our longings to assuage--
As sweet as that from Paradise the smiling Houris hand
The Prophet's faithful followers when at its gates they stand!

Sometimes we feel so spent for want of rest,
We have no thought beyond. I know to-day,
When tired of bitter lips and dull delay
With faithless words, I cast mine eyes upon
The shadows of a distant mountain-crest,
And said “That hill must hide within its breast
Some secret glen secluded from the sun.
Oh, mother Nature! would that I could run
Outside to thee; and, like a wearied guest,
Half blind with lamps, and sick of feasting, lay
An aching head on thee. Then down the streams
The moon might swim, and I should feel her grace,
While soft winds blew the sorrows from my face,
So quiet in the fellowship of dreams.”

For all our works a recompence is sure;
'Tis sweet to think on what was hard t'endure.

UP, UP WITH THE SIGNAL!--The land is in sight!
We'll be happy, if never again, boys, to-night!
The cold cheerless ocean in safety we've passed,
And the warm genial earth glads our vision at last.
In the land of the stranger true hearts we shall find,
To soothe us in absence of those left behind.
Land!--land-ho!--All hearts glow with joy at the sight!
We'll be happy, if never again, boys, to-night!

THE SIGNAL IS WAVING!--Till morn we'll remain,
Then part in the hope to meet one day again!
Round the hearth-stone of home in the land of our birth,
The holiest spot on the face of the earth!
Dear country! our thoughts are as constant to thee
As the steel to the star, or the stream to the sea.
Ho!--land-ho!--We near it!--We bound at the sight!
Then be happy, if neve...

Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philosophy
To teach me what thou art;

Still seem; as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that Optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamt of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green, undeluged earth
Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's gray fa...

"Where are the angels, mother?
    Though you have often said
They watched at night around me,
    And safely kept my bed;

"Though every night I listen
    Their voices low to hear,
Yet I have never heard them,--
    Where are they, mother dear?

"And when the silver moonshine
    Fills all my room with light,
And when the stars are shining,
    So countless and so bright.

"I hope to see them coming,
    With their fair forms, to me;
Yet I have never seen them,--
    Mother, where can they be?

"I saw a cloud, this evening,
    Red with the setting sun;
It was so very lovely,
    I thought it might be one.

"But when it faded slowly,
    I knew it could not be,
For they are always shining;
    Why c...

I saw it all in Fancy's glass--
    Herself, the fair, the wild magician,
Who bade this splendid day-dream pass,
    And named each gliding apparition.

'Twas like a torch-race--such as they
    Of Greece performed, in ages gone,
When the fleet youths, in long array,
    Past the bright torch triumphant on.

I saw the expectant nations stand,
    To catch the coming flame in turn;--
I saw, from ready hand to hand,
    The clear tho' struggling glory burn.

And oh! their joy, as it came near,
    'Twas in itself a joy to see;--
While Fancy whispered in my ear.
    "That torch they pass is Liberty!"

And each, as she received the flame,
    Lighted her altar with its ray;
Then, smiling, to the next who came,
    Speeded it on i...

Lonely and silent and calm it lies
'Neath rosy dawn or midnight skies;
So densely peopled, yet so still,
The murmuring voice of mountain rill,
The plaint the wind 'mid branches wakes,
Alone the solemn silence breaks.

Whatever changes the seasons bring, -
The birds, the buds of joyous spring,
The glories that come with the falling year
The snows and storms of winter drear, -
Are all unmarked in this lone spot,
Its shrouded inmates feel them not.

Thoughts full of import, earnest and deep,
Must the feeling heart in their spirit steep,
Here, where Death's footprints meet the sight:
The long chill rows of tombstones white,
The graves so thickly, widely spread,
Within this city of the Dead.

Say, who could tell what aching sighs,
What...

Like flowers sequestered from the sun
And wind of summer, day by day
I dwindled paler, whilst my hair
Showed the first tinge of grey.

"Oh, what is life, that we should live?
Or what is death, that we must die?
A bursting bubble is our life:
I also, what am I?"

"What is your grief? now tell me, sweet,
That I may grieve," my sister said;
And stayed a white embroidering hand
And raised a golden head:

Her tresses showed a richer mass,
Her eyes looked softer than my own,
Her figure had a statelier height,
Her voice a tenderer tone.

"Some must be second and not first;
All cannot be the first of all:
Is not this, too, but vanity?
I stumble like to fall.

"So yesterday I read the acts
Of Hector and each clangorous ...

NATHANIEL.
        Father! here father! I have found a horse-shoe!
        Faith it was just in time, for t'other night
        I laid two straws across at Margery's door,
        And afterwards I fear'd that she might do me
        A mischief for't. There was the Miller's boy
        Who set his dog at that black cat of hers,
        I met him upon crutches, and he told me
        'Twas all her evil eye.


FATHER.
            'Tis rare good luck;
        I would have gladly given a crown for one
        If t'would have done as well. But where did'st find it?


NATHANIEL.
        Down on the Common; I was going a-field
        And neighbour Saunders pass'd me on his mare;
        He had hardly said "good day," before I saw
        The ...

Britain!    Our Britain!    uprisen in the splendour
Of your white wrath at treacheries so vile;
Roused from your sleep, become once more defender
Of those high things which make life worth life's while!

Now, God be thanked for even such a wakening
From the soft dreams of peace in selfish ease,
If it but bring about the great heart-quickening,
Of which are born the larger liberties.

Ay, better such a rousing up from slumber;
Better this fight for His High Empery;
Better--e'en though our fair sons without number
Pave with their lives the road to victory.

But--Britain!    Britain!    What if it be written,
On the great scrolls of Him who holds the ways,
That to the dust the foe shall not be smitten
Till unto Him we pledge redeemèd days?--

O eyes! behold your happy Hesperus,
That luckie Load-starre of eternall light,
Left as that sunne alone to comfort vs,
When our worlds sunne is vanisht out of sight.
O starre of starres! fayre Planet mildly moouing,
O Lampe of vertue! sun-bright, euer shyning,
O mine eyes Comet! so admyr'd by louing,
O cleerest day-starre! neuer more declyning.
O our worlds wonder! crowne of heauen aboue,
Thrice happy be those eyes which may behold thee!
Lou'd more then life, yet onely art his loue
Whose glorious hand immortal hath enrold thee!
    O blessed fayre! now vaile those heauenly eyes,
    That I may blesse mee at thy sweet arise.

The miracle of our land's speech so known
And long received, none marvel when 'tis shown!

We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride
Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;
Nor with such arrant prodigality,
Beneath her any pagan's foot let lie...
Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days
To find and t'other half to bring to blaze:
Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan
The fiercer and more fiery heart of man:
Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies,
And Sapphires evening remembered skies:
Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show,
Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe;
And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ,
Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it.
Thereafter, in all manners worked and set,
Jade, coral, amber, crystal ivories, je...

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
--Goldsmith.


I fear the palace of the rich,
    I fear the hovel of the poor;
Though fortified by moat and ditch,
    The castle strong could not endure;
Nor can the squalid hovel be
    A source of strength, and those who cause
This widening discrepancy
    Infringe on God's eternal laws.

The heritage of man, the earth,
    Was framed for homes, not vast estates;
A lowering scale of human worth
    Each generation demonstrates,
Which feels the landlord's iron hand,
    And hopeless, plod with effort brave;
Who love no home can love no land;
    These own no home, until the grave.

The nation's strongest safeguards lie
In free...