My wife contrived a fleecy thing
    Her husband to infold,
    For 'tis the pride of woman still
    To cover from the cold:
    My daughter made it a new text
    For a sermon very old.

    The child came trotting to her side,
    Ready with bootless aid:
    "Lily make veckit for papa,"
    The tiny woman said:
    Her mother gave the means and ways,
    And a knot upon her thread.

    "Mamma, mamma!--it won't come through!"
    In meek dismay she cried.
    Her mother cut away the knot,
    And she was satisfied,
    Pulling the long thread through and through,
    In fabricating pride.

    Her mother told me this: I caught
    A glimpse of something more:
    Great meanings often hide behind
    The little wo...

        Show me the way that leads to the true life.
    I do not care what tempests may assail me,
        I shall be given courage for the strife;
    I know my strength will not desert or fail me;
        I know that I shall conquer in the fray:
    Show me the way.

        Show me the way up to a higher plane,
    Where body shall be servant to the soul.
        I do not care what tides of woe or pain
    Across my life their angry waves may roll,
        If I but reach the end I seek, some day:
    Show me the way.

        Show me the way, and let me bravely climb
    Above vain grievings for unworthy treasures;
        Above all sorrow that finds balm in time;
    Above small triumphs or belittling pleasures;
        Up to those heights where...

I.
From heavy dreams fair Helen rose,
And eyed the dawning red:
"Alas, my love, thou tarriest long!
O art thou false or dead?"

II.
With gallant Fred'rick's princely power
He sought the bold Crusade;
But not a word from Judah's wars
Told Helen how he sped.

III.
With Paynim and with Saracen
At length a truce was made,
And every knight return'd to dry
The tears his love had shed.

IV.
Our gallant host was homeward bound
With many a song of joy;
Green waved the laurel in each plume,
The badge of victory.

V.
And old and young, and sire and son,
To meet them crowd the way,
With shouts, and mirth, and melody,
The debt of love to pay.

VI.
Full many a maid her true-love met,
And sobb'd ...

They try to persuade me, my dear little sprite,
That you're not a true daughter of ether and light,
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your eye
As mortal as ever drew gods from the sky.
But I will not believe them--no, Science, to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu:
Still flying from Nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight by exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,
Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know.
Oh! who, that has e'er enjoyed rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet;
How rays are confused, or how particles fly
Through the medium refined of a glance or a ...

Hasten thee, Kronos!
On with clattering trot
Downhill goeth thy path;
Loathsome dizziness ever,
When thou delayest, assails me.
Quick, rattle along,
Over stock and stone let thy trot
Into life straightway lead

Now once more
Up the toilsome ascent
Hasten, panting for breath!
Up, then, nor idle be,
Striving and hoping, up, up!

Wide, high, glorious the view
Gazing round upon life,
While from mount unto mount
Hovers the spirit eterne,
Life eternal foreboding.

Sideways a roof's pleasant shade
Attracts thee,
And a look that promises coolness
On the maidenly threshold.
There refresh thee! And, maiden,
Give me this foaming draught also,
Give me this health-laden look!

Down, now! quicker still, down!<...

Out of the heart of the city begotten
Of the labour of men and their manifold hands,
Whose souls, that were sprung from the earth in her morning,
No longer regard or remember her warning,
Whose hearts in the furnace of care have forgotten
Forever the scent and the hue of her lands;

Out of the heat of the usurer's hold,
From the horrible crash of the strong man's feet;
Out of the shadow where pity is dying;
Out of the clamour where beauty is lying,
Dead in the depth of the struggle for gold;
Out of the din and the glare of the street;

Into the arms of our mother we come,
Our broad strong mother, the innocent earth,
Mother of all things beautiful, blameless,
Mother of hopes that her strength makes tameless,
Where the voices of grief and of battle are...

Spring sleeps and stirs and trembles with desire
Pure as a babe's that nestles toward the breast.
The world, as yet an all unstricken lyre,
With all its chords alive and all at rest,
Feels not the sun's hand yet, but feels his breath
And yearns for love made perfect. Man and bird,
Thrilled through with hope of life that casts out death,
Wait with a rapturous patience till his word
Speak heaven, and flower by flower and tree by tree
Give back the silent strenuous utterance. Earth,
Alive awhile and joyful as the sea,
Laughs not aloud in joy too deep for mirth,
Presageful of perfection of delight,
Till all the unborn green buds be born in white.

Now let us pray the Holy Ghost,
Of all things, for the true faith most,
In that to preserve us when we are dying,
And going home out of this vale of crying:
        Kyrioleis.

Thou noble light, shine as thou hast shone;
Teach us to know Jesus Christ alone,
That we the true Saviour hold by the hand
Who us has brought to the real fatherland:
        Kyrioleis.

Thou sweet Love, grant us thy favour, that so
We feel of thy love the inward glow,
That we from our hearts may love each the other,
Dwelling in peace, of one mind together:
        Kyrioleis.

Comfort highest, in danger or blame
Help us to fear neither death nor shame;
Nor let weak senses with fears confuse us
When the enemy comes to accuse us:
        Kyrioleis.

Flee into some forgotten night and be
Of all dark long my moon-bright company:
Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come,
There, out of all remembrance, make our home:
Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair,
Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair
Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound,
Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound.
Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea
Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me,
There of your beauty we would joyance make -
A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake:
Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire,
Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre,
Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space,
Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace,
Where two might happy be - just you and I -
Lost in the uttermost of Eternity.
Think! In...

Saint Brandan sails the northern main;
The brotherhood of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again;
So late! such storms! The Saint is mad!

He heard, across the howling seas,
Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;
He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
Twinkle the monastery-lights;

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd
And now no bells, no convents more!
The hurtling Polar lights are near'd,
The sea without a human shore.

At last (it was the Christmas night;
Stars shone after a day of storm)
He sees float past an iceberg white,
And on it Christ! a living form.

That furtive mien, that scowling eye,
Of hair that red and tufted fell
It is Oh, where shall Brandan fly?
The traitor Judas, out of hell!

Pa...

In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen,

When, in the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash,
In the warm summer weather,
Two maidens sat together.

They sat and watched in idle mood
The gleam and shade of lake and wood;
The beach the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat;

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying;
Hardback, and virgin's-bower,
And white-spiked clethra-flower.

With careless ears they heard the plash
And breezy wash of Attitash,
The wood-bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.

And teased the while, with playful band,
The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,

    In the desert by the bush,
    Moses to his heart said Hush.

    David on his bed did pray;
    God all night went not away.

    From his heap of ashes foul
    Job to God did lift his soul,

    God came down to see him there,
    And to answer all his prayer.

    On a dark hill, in the wind,
    Jesus did his father find,

    But while he on earth did fare,
    Every spot was place of prayer;

    And where man is any day,
    God can not be far away.

    But the place he loveth best,
    Place where he himself can rest,

    Where alone he prayer doth seek,
    Is the spirit of the meek.

    To the humble God doth come;
    In his heart he makes his home.

You better sure shall live, not evermore
Trying high seas; nor, while sea's rage you flee,
Pressing too much upon ill-harboured shore.

The golden mean who loves, lives safely free
From filth of foreworn house, and quiet lives,
Released from court, where envy needs must be.

The wind most oft the hugest pine tree grieves:
The stately towers come down with greater fall:
The highest hills the bolt of thunder cleaves.

Evil haps do fill with hope, good haps appall
With fear of change, the courage well prepared:
Foul winters, as they come, away they shall.

Though present times, and past, with evils be snared,
They shall not last:    with cithern silent Muse,
Apollo wakes, and bow hath sometime spared.

In hard estate, with stout shows, valour ...

During a heavy storm it chanced
That from his room a cockney glanced
At the fierce tempest as it broke,
While to his neighbour thus he spoke:
"The thunder has our awe inspired,
Our barns by lightning have been fired,
Our sins to punish, I suppose;
But in return, to soothe our woes,
See how the rain in torrents fell,
Making the harvest promise well!
But is't a rainbow that I spy
Extending o'er the dark-grey sky?
With it I'm sure we may dispense,
The colour'd cheat! The vain pretence!"
Dame Iris straightway thus replied:
"Dost dare my beauty to deride?
In realms of space God station'd me
A type of better worlds to be
To eyes that from life's sorrows rove
In cheerful hope to Heav'n above,
And, through the mists that hover here
God and his...

The bridge of prayer from heavenly heights suspended
    Unites the earth with spirit-realms in Space.
The interests of those separate worlds are blended
    For those whose feet turn often toward that place.

In troubled nights of sorrow and repining,
    When joy and hope seem sunk in dark despair,
We still may see above the shadows shining,
    The gleaming archway of the bridge of prayer.

From that fair height, our souls may lean and listen
    To sounds of music from the farther shore,
And through the vapours, sometimes dear eyes glisten
    Of loved ones who have hastened on before.

And angels come from their Celestial City -
    And meet us half way on the bridge of prayer.
God sends them forth, full of divinest pity
    To strengthen us for...

What's that we see from far? the spring of day
Bloom'd from the east, or fair enjewell'd May
Blown out of April, or some new
Star filled with glory to our view,
Reaching at heaven,
To add a nobler planet to the seven?
Say, or do we not descry
Some goddess in a cloud of tiffany
To move, or rather the
Emergent Venus from the sea?

'Tis she! 'tis she! or else some more divine
Enlightened substance; mark how from the shrine
Of holy saints she paces on,
Treading upon vermilion
And amber: spic-
ing the chaft air with fumes of Paradise.
Then come on, come on and yield
A savour like unto a blessed field
When the bedabbled morn
Washes the golden ears of corn.

See where she comes; and smell how all the street
Breathes vineyards and po...

I.
Oh, the beautiful girl, too white,
Who lived at Pornic, down by the sea,
Just where the sea and the Loire unite!
And a boasted name in Brittany
She bore, which I will not write.

II.
Too white, for the flower of life is red;
Her flesh was the soft seraphic screen
Of a soul that is meant (her parents said)
To just see earth, and hardly be seen,
And blossom in heaven instead.

III.
Yet earth saw one thing, one how fair!
One grace that grew to its full on earth
Smiles might be sparse on her cheek so spare,
And her waist want half a girdle’s girth,
But she had her great gold hair.

IV.
Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss,
Freshness and fragrance, floods of it, too!
Gold, did I say? Nay, gold’s mere dross:
Here, Lif...

Lo, a castle, tall, lake-mirrored,
Ringed around by mountain forms,
Roofless, ruined, still defying
Summer's rains and winter's storms.

Every shattered lifeless window,
Every stone in every wall,
Keep and gable, broken stairway,
Woman's faithful love recall.

Colin, called "the Swarthy," famous
In the annals of Lochow,
When a child, was gently fostered
Near where Orchy's waters flow.

The Black Knight, his sire, could value
Vassal's love and hardy fare;
To a gudewife gave him, saying,
"Train him with the sons you bear."

Strong he grew, and brave, till armies
Praised in him a man of men.
Came a peace--then love;--a lady
Ruled with him the Orchy's glen.

But afar from over Ocean
Rose a cry for Christian aid: