Bright stars of Faith and Hope, her eyes
Shall shine for us through all the years.
For all her life was Love, and fears
Touch not the love that never dies.

And Death itself, to her, was but
The wider opening of the door
That had been opening, more and more,
Through all her life, and ne'er was shut.

--And never shall be shut. She left
The door ajar for you and me,
And, looking after her, we see
The glory shining through the cleft.

And when our own time comes,--again
We'll meet her face to face;--again
Well see the star-shine; and again
She'll greet us with her soft, "Come ben!"

Could this early bliss but rest

Constant for one single hour!
But e'en now the humid West

Scatters many a vernal shower.
Should the verdure give me joy?

'Tis to it I owe the shade;
Soon will storms its bloom destroy,

Soon will Autumn bid it fade.

Eagerly thy portion seize,

If thou wouldst possess the fruit!
Fast begin to ripen these,

And the rest already shoot.
With each heavy storm of rain

Change comes o'er thy valley fair;
Once, alas! but not again

Can the same stream hold thee e'er.

And thyself, what erst at least

Firm as rocks appear'd to rise,
Walls and palaces thou seest

But with ever-changing eyes.
Fled for ever now the lip

That with kisses used to glo...

Stay, thou desired one, stay!
Brighten the curious darkness of the world.
Cold through the chill dark swings the sleeping world,
Sense-heavy, dreaming dully of clear day.
No moon, no stars, no sound of wind or seas:
Wearily sleeping in immense unease,
Dreams, dreams the world of day.
Stay, thou adored one, stay,
Who on the dark hang'st lamps of gold delight,
Gold flames amid the purple pit of night.
Stay, stay,
Who the cool dawn's most lovely gray
Mak'st lovelier with rose of far away.
Stay, thou, who buildest wonder of things mean
(More truly so they're seen).
Stay--nay, fly not, nay--stay;
Youth gone, remain thou yet and yet.
Though the world spin in darkness and forget
The light,
Stay thou, whose coming's joy and flight despair.
Thou uni...

In the silent watches of the night, calm night that breedeth thoughts.
When the task-weary mind disporteth in the careless play-hours of sleep,
I dreamed; and behold, a valley, green and sunny and well watered.
And thousands moving across it, thousands and tens of thousands:
And though many seemed faint and toil worn, and stumbled often, and fell,
Yet moved they on unresting, as the ever-flowing cataract.
Then I noted adders in the grass, and pitfalls under the flowers,
And chasms yawned among the hills, and the ground was cracked and slippery:
But Hope and her brother Fear suffered not a foot to linger;
Bright phantoms of false joys beckoned alluringly forward.
While yelling grisly shapes of dread came hunting on behind:
And ceaselessly, like Lapland swarms, that miserable crowd sped...

Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong
Thine heart to live, and love, and long;
But thou art wed to grief and wrong:
Live, then, and long, though hope be dead!
Live on, & labour thro' the years!
Make pictures through the mist of tears,
Of unforgotten happy fears,
That crossed the time ere hope was dead.
Draw near the place where once we stood
Amid delight's swift-rushing flood,
And we and all the world seemed good
Nor needed hope now cold and dead.
Dream in the dawn I come to thee
Weeping for things that may not be!
Dream that thou layest lips on me!
Wake, wake to clasp hope's body dead!
Count o'er and o'er, and one by one
The minutes of the happy sun
That while agone on kissed lips shone,
Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.
Weep...

Something compels me, somewhere.    Yet I see
No clear command in Life's long mystery.

Oft have I flung myself beside my horse,
To drink the water from the roadside mire,
And felt the liquid through my being course,
Stilling the anguish of my thirst's desire.

A simple want; so easily allayed;
After the burning march; water and shade.

Also I lay against the loved one's heart
Finding fulfilment in that resting-place,
Feeling my longing, quenched, was but a part
Of nature's ceaseless striving for the race.

But now, I know not what they would with me;
Matter or Force or God, if Gods there be.

I wait; I question; Nature heeds me not.
She does but urge in answer to my prayer,
"Arise and do!"    Alas, she adds not what;
"Arise and g...

I Heard the man of sin reproaching the goodness of Jehovah,
Wherefore, if he be Almighty Love, permitteth he misery and pain?
I saw the child of hope vexed in the labyrinth of doubt,
Wherefore, O holy One and just, is the horn of thy foul foe so high exalted? —
And, alas! for this our groaning world, for that grief and guilt are here;
Alas! for that Earth is the battle-field, where good must combat with evil:
Angels look on and hold their breath, burning to mingle in the conflict,
But the troops of the Captain of Salvation may be none but the soldiers of the cross:
And that slender band must fight alone, and yet shall triumph gloriously.
Enough shall they be for conquest, and the motto of their standard is, Enough.
Thou art sad, denizen of earth, for pains and diseases and death,
But ...

In all thy need be thou possess'd
Still with a well-prepared breast;
Nor let the shackles make thee sad;
Thou canst but have what others had.
And this for comfort thou must know
Times that are ill won't still be so.
Clouds will not ever pour down rain;
A sullen day will clear again.
First peals of thunder we must hear,
Then lutes and harps shall stroke the ear.

I turn aside; and, in the pause, might start
As Mem'ry's elbow leans upon Time's Chart,
Which shows, alas! how soon all men must glide
Over meridians on life's ocean tide -
Meridians showing how both youth and sage
Are sailing northward to the zone of age:
On to an atmosphere of gloom I wist,
Where mariners are lost in melancholy mist.
But gayer thoughts, like spring-tide swallows, dart
Through youth's brave mind and animate its heart.


But Indolence is seen a pallid Ruth -
A timid gleaner in the fields of youth -
A wretched gath'rer of the scattered grain
Left by the reapers who have swept the plain;
But with no Boaz standing by the while,
To watch its figure with approving smile.

Eyes wide for wisdom, calm for joy or pain,
Bright hair alloyed with silver, scarcely gold.
And gracious lips flower pressed like buds to hold
The guarded heart against excess of rain.
Hands spirit tipped through which a genius plays
With paints and clays,
And strings in many keys -
Clothed in an aura of thought as soundless as a flood
Of sun-shine where there is no breeze.
So is it light in spite of rhythm of blood,
Or turn of head, or hands that move, unite -
Wind cannot dim or agitate the light.
From Plato's idea stepping, wholly wrought
From Plato's dream, made manifest in hair,
Eyes, lips and hands and voice,
As if the stored up thought
From the earth sphere
Had given down the being of your choice
Conjured by the dream long sought.

  ...

O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds:
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The Lord is God! He needeth not
The poor device of man.

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem:
Ye seek a king; I fain would to...

I saw in dream the spirits unbegot,
Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space;
For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place
Rang with an awful Voice:
            "Soul, choose thy lot!
Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower,
Slopes easily to every earthly prize.
Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes,
Thou and thy sons' sons shall have peace with power.
This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge,
Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed,
All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed,
Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge.
But in thy hand I place my lamp for light,
Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law,
Choose now for all the ages!"
            Then I saw
The unveiled spirit, grown divinely bright,
Choose t...

Fair Happiness, I've courted thee,
And used each cunning art and wile,
Which lovers use with maidens coy,
To win one tender glance or smile.
Thou hast been coy as any maid,
So lofty, distant, stern and cold,
And guarded from a touch of mine,
As miser guards his precious gold.

To win a smile from thee, did seem
A painful, fruitless thing to try,
Thy scornful, thin and cruel lips,
No pity gave thy steely eye.

Thy countenance, so sternly set,
Did seem to say how vain to knock
At thy heart's door, for all within
Was hard, as adamantine rock.

Thus unto me thy visage seem'd,
But faces do not always tell
The feelings of the heart within,
Or thoughts that underneath them dwell.

For e'en at times, I saw thy face
Relax, a...

I sometimes think as here I sit
Of things I have done,
Which seemed in doing not unfit
To face the sun:
Yet never a soul has paused a whit
On such not one.

There was that eager strenuous press
To sow good seed;
There was that saving from distress
In the nick of need;
There were those words in the wilderness:
Who cared to heed?

Yet can this be full true, or no?
For one did care,
And, spiriting into my house, to, fro,
Like wind on the stair,
Cares still, heeds all, and will, even though
I may despair.

In every breast Affection fires, there dwells
    A secret consciousness to what degree
    They are themselves belov'd. - We hourly see
    Th' involuntary proof, that either quells,
Or ought to quell false hopes, - or sets us free
    From pain'd distrust; - but, O, the misery!
    Weak Self-Delusion timidly repels
    The lights obtrusive - shrinks from all that tells
Unwelcome truths, and vainly seeks repose
    For startled Fondness, in the opiate balm,
    Of kind profession, tho', perchance, it flows
To hush Complaint - O! in Belief's clear calm,
    Or 'mid the lurid clouds of Doubt, we find
    LOVE rise the Sun, or Comet of the Mind.

So humble things Thou hast borne for us, O God,
Left'st Thou a path of lowliness untrod?
Yes, one, till now; another Olive-Garden.
For we endure the tender pain of pardon,--
One with another we forbear.    Give heed,
Look at the mournful world Thou hast decreed.
The time has come.    At last we hapless men
Know all our haplessness all through.    Come, then,
Endure undreamed humility: Lord of Heaven,
Come to our ignorant hearts and be forgiven.

Dream not, O Soul, that easy is the task
Thus set before thee. If it proves at length,
As well it may, beyond thy natural strength,
Faint not, despair not. As a child may ask
A father, pray the Everlasting Good
For light and guidance midst the subtle snares
Of sin thick planted in life's thoroughfares,
For spiritual strength and moral hardihood;
Still listening, through the noise of time and sense,
To the still whisper of the Inward Word;
Bitter in blame, sweet in approval heard,
Itself its own confirming evidence
To health of soul a voice to cheer and please,
To guilt the wrath of the Eumenides

New flowery scents strewed everywhere,
New sunshine poured in largesse fair,
"We shall be happy now," we say.
A voice just trembles through the air,
And whispers, "May."

Nay, but we MUST! No tiny bud
But thrills with rapture at the flood
Of fresh young life which stirs to-day.
The same wild thrill irradiates our blood;
Why hint of "May"?

For us are coming fast and soon
The delicate witcheries of June;
July, with ankles deep in hay;
The bounteous Autumn. Like a mocking tune
Again sounds, "May."

Spring's last-born darling, clear-eyed, sweet,
Pauses a moment, with white twinkling feet,
And golden locks in breezy play,
Half teasing and half tender, to repeat
Her song of "May."

Ah, month of hope! all promised glee,
A...