Consider the lilies. Luke 2:27.


Emblems of Christ our Lord,
Roses and lilies fair,
These flowers in His word,
His glory seem to share.

The lilies of the field,
Sweet teachers of the soul,
Which will their lessons yield
Long as the seasons roll,

They neither toil nor spin,
Exist without a care,
And yet no earthly king can win
A garb so chaste and rare.

Frozen, they burst to life,
To nature's minstrelsy
A resurrection type
Of immortality.

In a great western wind we climbed the hill
And saw the clouds run up, ride high and sink;
And there were shadows running at our feet
Till it seemed the very earth could not be still,
Nor could our hearts be still, nor could we think
Our hearts could ever be still, our thought less fleet
Than the dizzy clouds, less than the flying wind.
Eastward the valley and the dark steep hill
And other hills and valleys lost behind
In mist and light. The hedges were not yet bare
Though the wind picked at them as he went by.
The woods were fire, a fire that dense or clear
Burned steady, but could not burn up the shadows
Rooted where the trees' roots entangled lie,
In darkness; or a flame burned solitary
In the middle of the highest of brown meadows,
Burned solitary and unco...

As lords their labourers' hire delay,
Fate quits our toil with hopes to come,
Which, if far short of present pay,
Still, owns a debt and names a sum.

Quit not the pledge, frail sufferer, then,
Although a distant date be given;
Despair is treason towards man,
And blasphemy to Heaven.

‘Go, wash thyself in Jordan, go, wash thee and be clean! ‘
Nay, not for any Prophet will I plunge a toe therein!
For the banks of curious Jordan are parcelled into sites,
Commanded and embellished and patrolled by Israelites.

There rise her timeless capitals of Empires daily born,
Whose plinths are laid at midnight, and whose streets are packed at morn;
And here come hired youths and maids that feign to love or sin
In tones like rusty razor-blades to tunes like smitten tin.

And here be merry murtherings, and steeds with fiery hooves;
And furious hordes with guns and swords, and clamberings over rooves;
And horrid tumblings down from Heaven, and flights with wheels and wings;
And always one weak virgin who is chased through all these things.

And here is mock of f...

("Laissons le glaive à Rome.")

[Bk. III. xvi., October, 1852.]


Pray Rome put up her poniard!
And Sparta sheathe the sword;
Be none too prompt to punish,
And cast indignant word!
Bear back your spectral Brutus
From robber Bonaparte;
Time rarely will refute us
Who doom the hateful heart.

Ye shall be o'ercontented,
My banished mates from home,
But be no rashness vented
Ere time for joy shall come.
No crime can outspeed Justice,
Who, resting, seems delayed -
Full faith accord the angel
Who points the patient blade.

The traitor still may nestle
In balmy bed of state,
But mark the Warder, watching
His guardsman at his gate.
He wears the crown, a monarch -
Of knaves and stony hearts;
But tho...

If I should wish hereafter that your heart
Should beat with one fair memory of me,
May Time's hard hand our footsteps guide apart,
But lead yours back one spring-time to the Lea.
Nodding Anemones,
Wind-flowers pale,
Bloom with the budding trees,
Dancing to every breeze,
Mock hopes more fair than these,
Love's vows more frail.

For then the grass we loved grows green again,
And April showers make April woods more fair;
But no sun dries the sad salt tears of pain,
Or brings back summer lights on faded hair,
Nodding Anemones,
Wind-flowers pale,
Bloom with the budding trees,
Dancing to every breeze,
Mock hopes more frail than these,
Love's vows more frail.

HONOR TO LABOR! - it giveth health;
Honor to labor! - it bringeth wealth;
Honor to labor! - our glorious land
Displayeth its triumphs on every hand.
It has smoothed the plains, laid the forests low,
And brightened the vales with the harvest's glow, -
Reared cities vast with their marts of trade,
Where erst undisturbed lay the woodland shade, -
Brought up from the depths of the teeming mine,
Its treasured stores in the light to shine, -
Sent Commerce forth on his tireless wings
In search of all precious and goodly things -
Forth to the ice-bound Northern seas,
And to bright isles fanned by the Southern breeze,
Where the Orange deepens its sunset dyes,
And the Cocoa ripens 'neath glowing skies, -
To the sunny islands of Austral climes, -
To lands undreamt o...

So in the sinful streets, abstracted and alone,
I with my secret self held communing of mine own.
So in the southern city spake the tongue
Of one that somewhat overwildly sung,
But in a later hour I sat and heard
Another voice that spake another graver word.
Weep not, it bade, whatever hath been said,
Though He be dead, He is not dead.
In the true creed
He is yet risen indeed;
Christ is yet risen.

Weep not beside His tomb,
Ye women unto whom
He was great comfort and yet greater grief;
Nor ye, ye faithful few that wont with Him to roam,
Seek sadly what for Him ye left, go hopeless to your home;
Nor ye despair, ye sharers yet to be of their belief;
Though He be dead, He is not dead,
Nor gone, though fled,
Not lost, though vanished;
Thou...

Ah me! in ages far away,
    The good, the heavenly land,
Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
    And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here,
    Did love it more than this;
They enter in, are filled with cheer,
    And pain expires in bliss.

Oh, fairly shines the blessed land!
    Ah, God! I weep and pray--
The heart thou holdest in thy hand
    Loves more this sunny day.

I see the hundred thousand wait
    Around the radiant throne:
To me it is a dreary state,
    A crowd of beings lone.

I do not care for singing psalms;
    I tire of good men's talk;
To me there is no joy in palms,
    Or white-robed solemn walk.

I love to hear the wild winds meet,
    The wild old winds at night;<...

You are coming home with the breath of spring
    Flying home to a love-lined nest,
Most loving care hath made it fair
    Your hands will do the rest

And the bridal robe you have laid aside
    And the vail all of lacy foam,
The maiden's wed, the tour is sped
    So welcome, welcome home

The past is laid by with the bridal wreath
    The bride has come home a wife,
And now we pray that blessings may
    Crown all your wedded life

What shall be the blessing, my dearest dear,
    When it's all that we have to give?
That peace and love, from God above,
    Be yours while ye both shall live.

That high love that makes of the wife a queen,
    Of a cottage a palace home,
The coarse web fine, life's water wine,
    The fire-sid...

Colour fulfils where Music has no power:
By each man’s light the unjudging glass betrays
All men’s surrender, each man’s holiest hour
And all the lit confusion of our days
Purfled with iron, traced in dusk and fire,
Challenging ordered Time who, at the last,
Shall bring it, grozed and leaded and wedged fast,
To the cold stone that curbs or crowns desire.
Yet on the pavement that all feet have trod
Even as the Spirit, in her deeps and heights,
Turns only, and that voiceless, to her God
There falls no tincture from those anguished lights.
And Heaven’s one light, behind them, striking through
Blazons what each man dreamed no other knew.