Where is your dwelling, ye Sainted?
    Thro' what Elysium more bright
Than fancy or hope ever painted,
    Walk ye in glory and light?
Who the same kingdom inherits?
    Breathes there a soul that may dare
Look to that world of Spirits,
    Or hope to dwell with you there?

Sages! who even in exploring
    Nature thro' all her bright ways,
Went like the Seraphs adoring,
    And veiled your eyes in the blaze--
Martyrs! who left for our reaping
    Truths you had sown in your blood--
Sinners! whom, long years of weeping
    Chastened from evil to good--

Maidens! who like the young Crescent,
    Turning away your pale brows
From earth and the light of the Present,
    Looked to your Heavenly Spouse--
Say, thro' what region enchante...

Was the aim frustrated by force or guile,
When giants scooped from out the rocky ground,
Tier under tier, this semicirque profound?
(Giants the same who built in Erin's isle
That Causeway with incomparable toil!)
Oh, had this vast theatric structure wound
With finished sweep into a perfect round,
No mightier work had gained the plausive smile
Of all-beholding Phoebus! But, alas,
Vain earth! false world! Foundations must be laid
In Heaven; for, 'mid the wreck of IS and WAS,
Things incomplete and purposes betrayed
Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass
Than noblest objects utterly decayed.

Not for the love of women toil we, we of the craft,
Not for the people's praise;
Only because our goddess made us her own and laughed,
Claiming us all our days,

Claiming our best endeavour, body and heart and brain
Given with no reserve,
Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain:
Still, we are proud to serve.

Not unto us is given choice of the tasks we try,
Gathering grain or chaff;
One of her favoured servants toils at an epic high,
One, that a child may laugh.

Yet if we serve her truly in our appointed place,
Freely she doth accord
Unto her faithful servants always this saving grace,
Work is its own reward!

‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed toward the land,
‘This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.’
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with sho...

        Sweet friends, receive my offering. You will find
        Against each worded page a white page set:--
        This is the mirror of each friendly mind
        Reflecting that. In this book we are met.
        Make it, dear hearts, of worth to you indeed:--
        Let your white page be ground, my print be seed,
        Growing to golden ears, that faith and hope shall feed.

        YOUR OLD SOUL

The full-orbed Paschal moon; dark shadows flung
On the brown Lenten earth; tall spectral trees
Stand in their huge and naked strength erect,
And stretch wild arms towards the gleaming sky.
A motionless girl-figure, face upraised
In the strong moonlight, cold and passionless.

    *    *    *    *    *

A proud spring sunset; opal-tinted sky,
Save where the western purple, pale and faint
With longing for her fickle Love, - content
Had merged herself into his burning red.
A fair young maiden, clad in velvet robe
Of sombre green, stands in the golden glow,
One hand held up to shade her dazzled eyes,
A bunch of white Narcissus at her throat.

    *    *    *    *    *

November's day, dark, leaden, lowering, -
Grey purple shadows fading on...

    [NOTE. - The following lines were written by request, to be read at a Meeting of the "Girls' Friendly Society."]


    What should a maiden be?    Pure as the rill,
    Ere it has left its first home in the hill;
    Thinking no evil, suspecting no guile,
    Cherishing nought that can harm or defile.

    What should a maiden be?    Honest and true,
    Giving to God and to neighbour their due;
    Modest and merciful, simple and neat,
    Clad in the white robe of innocence sweet.

    What should a maiden be?    She should be loath
    Lightly to give or receive loving troth;
    But when her faith is once plighted, till breath
    Leave her, her love should be stronger than death.

    What should a maiden be?    Merry, whene'er
    Merr...

Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,
Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.
Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,
Fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes,
Men die by millions now, because God blunders,
Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.

The Babe was laid in the Manger
Between the gentle kine,
All safe from cold and danger,
"But it was not so with mine,
(With mine! With mine!)
"Is it well with the child, is it well?"
The waiting mother prayed.
"For I know not how he fell,
And I know not where he is laid."

A Star stood forth in Heaven;
The Watchers ran to see
The Sign of the Promise given,
"But there comes no sign to me.
(To me! To me!)
"My child died in the dark.
Is it well with the child, is it well?
There was none to tend him or mark,
And I know not how he fell."

The Cross was raised on high;
The Mother grieved beside,
"But the Mother saw Him die
And took Him when He died.
(He died! He died!)
"Seemly and undefiled
His burial-place was made,...

Let us be drunk, and for a while forget,
Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,
Live without reason and despite of rhyme,
As in a dream preposterous and sublime,
Where place and hour and means for once are met.

Where is the use of effort?    Love and debt
And disappointment have us in a net.
Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .
Let us be drunk.

In vain our little hour we strut and fret,
And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:
We cannot please the tragicaster Time.
To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,
Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,
Let us be drunk!



***



When you are old, and I am passed away -
Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray -
I think, whate'er the end, ...

If GOD should say to me, Behold! -
    Yea, who shall doubt? -
They who love others more than me,
Shall I not turn, as oft of old,
My face from them and cast them out?
So let it be with thee, behold! -
I should not care, for in your face
    Is all GOD'S grace.

If GOD should say to me, Behold! -
    Is it not well? -
They who have other gods than me,
Shall I not bid them, as of old,
Depart into the outer HELL?
So let it be with thee, behold! -
I should not care, for in your eyes
    Is PARADISE.

Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter:
To what shall then' rarity be likened? What price shall count their worth?
Perfect and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches.
No lovely tiling on earth can picture all their beauty.
They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion,
Which Diligence loveth to gather, and hang around the neck of Memory;
They be white-winged seeds of happiness, wafted from the islands of the blessed.
Which Thought carefully tendeth, in the kindly garden of the heart;

They be sproutings of an harvest for eternity, bursting through the tilth of time,
Green promise of the golden wheat, that yieldeth angels' food;
They be drops of the crystal dew, which the wings of seraphs scatter,
When on some brighter...

For ages on our river borders,
These tassels in their tawny bloom,
And willowy studs of downy silver,
Have prophesied of Spring to come.

For ages have the unbound waters
Smiled on them from their pebbly hem,
And the clear carol of the robin
And song of bluebird welcomed them.

But never yet from smiling river,
Or song of early bird, have they
Been greeted with a gladder welcome
Than whispers from my heart to-day.

They break the spell of cold and darkness,
The weary watch of sleepless pain;
And from my heart, as from the river,
The ice of winter melts again.

Thanks, Mary! for this wild-wood token
Of Freya’s footsteps drawing near;
Almost, as in the rune of Asgard,
The growing of the grass I hear.

It is as if the ...

Is mine the part of no companion hand
Of help, except my shadow's silent self?
A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land
Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;

Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,
When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;
And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,
The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.

What shall I render to Thy name
Or how Thy praises speak?
My thanks how shall I testify?
O Lord, Thou know'st I'm weak.

I owe so much, so little can
Return unto Thy name,
Confusion seizes on my soul,
And I am filled with shame.

O Thou that hearest prayers, Lord,
To Thee shall come all flesh
Thou hast me heard and answered,
My plaints have had access.

What did I ask for but Thou gav'st?
What could I more desire?
But thankfulness even all my days
I humbly this require.

Thy mercies, Lord, have been so great
In number numberless,
Impossible for to recount
Or any way express.

O help Thy saints that sought Thy face
T' return unto Thee praise
And walk before Thee as they ought,
In strict and upright way...

Why is the nameless sorrowing look
So often thought a whim?
God-willed, the willow shades the brook,
The gray owl sings a hymn;

Sadly the winds change, and the rain
Comes where the sunlight fell:
Sad is our story, told again,
Which past years told so well!

Why not love sorrow and the glance
That ends in silent tears?
If we count up the world's mischance,
Grieving is in arrears.

Why should I know why I could weep?
The old urns cannot read
The names they wear of kings they keep
In ashes; both are dead.

And like an urn the heart must hold
Aims of an age gone by:
What the aims were we are not told;
We hold them, who knows why?

What though my harp and viol be
Both hung upon the willow tree?
What though my bed be now my grave,
And for my house I darkness have?
What though my healthful days are fled,
And I lie number'd with the dead?
Yet I have hope, by Thy great power,
To spring; though now a wither'd flower.

"And has the Sun his flaming chariot driven
Two hundred times around the ring of heaven,
Since Science first, with all her sacred train,
Beneath yon roof began her heavenly reign?
While thus I mused, methought, before mine eyes,
The Power of Education seemed to rise;
Not she whose rigid precepts trained the boy
Dead to the sense of every finer joy;
Nor that vile wretch who bade the tender age
Spurn Reason's law and humour Passion's rage;
But she who trains the generous British youth
In the bright paths of fair majestic Truth:
Emerging slow from Academus' grove
In heavenly majesty she seemed to move.
Stern was her forehead, but a smile serene
'Softened the terrors of her awful mien.'
Close at her side were all the powers, designed
To curb, exalt, reform th...