Bird of the fanciful plumage,
That foldest thy wings in the west,
Imbuing the shimmering ocean
With the hues of thy delicate breast,
Passing away into Dreamland,
To visions of heavenly rest!

Spirit! when thou art permitted
To bask in the sunset of life;
Serene in thine eventide splendour,
Thy countenance victory rife;
Leaving the world where thou'st triumphed
Alike o'er its greatness and strife:

Thine be the destiny, spirit,
To set like the sun in the west;
Folding thy wings of rare plumage,
Conscious of infinite rest,
Heralded on to thy haven,
The Fortunate Isles of the Blest.

        1.

        ALAS, my tent! see through it a whirlwind sweep!
        Moaning, poor Fancy's doves are swept away.
        I sit alone, a sorrow half asleep,
        My consciousness the blackness all astir.
        No pilgrim I, a homeless wanderer--
        For how canst Thou be in the darkness deep,
        Who dwellest only in the living day?

        2.

        It must be, somewhere in my fluttering tent,
        Strange creatures, half tamed only yet, are pent--
        Dragons, lop-winged birds, and large-eyed snakes!
        Hark! through the storm the saddest howling breaks!
        Or are they loose, roaming about the bent,
        The darkness dire deepening with moan and scream?--
        My Morning, rise, and all shall be a dream....

Spirit girl to whom 'twas given
To revisit scenes of pain,
From the hell I thought was Heaven
You have lifted me again;
Through the world that I inherit,
Where I loved her ere she died,
I am walking with the spirit
Of a dead girl by my side.

Through my old possessions only
For a very little while,
And they say that I am lonely,
And they pity, but I smile:
For the brighter side has won me
By the calmness that it brings,
And the peace that is upon me
Does not come of earthly things.

Spirit girl, the good is in me,
But the flesh you know is weak,
And with no pure soul to win me
I might miss the path I seek;
Lead me by the love you bore me
When you trod the earth with me,
Till the light is clear before me
And my spiri...

What here we hope for, we shall once inherit;
By faith we all walk here, not by the Spirit.

One with the Heaven above
Am I its bliss:
Part of its truth and love,
And what God is.
I heal the soul and mind:
I work their cures:
Not Grief, that rends Mankind,
But Joy endures.

I

There is no great and no small
To the Soul that maketh all:
And where it cometh, all things are;
And it cometh everywhere.

II

I am owner of the sphere,
Of the seven stars and the solar year,
Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain,
Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain.

Between the gates of birth and death
An old and saintly pilgrim passed,
With look of one who witnesseth
The long-sought goal at last.

O thou whose reverent feet have found
The Master's footprints in thy way,
And walked thereon as holy ground,
A boon of thee I pray.

"My lack would borrow thy excess,
My feeble faith the strength of thine;
I need thy soul's white saintliness
To hide the stains of mine.

"The grace and favor else denied
May well be granted for thy sake."
So, tempted, doubting, sorely tried,
A younger pilgrim spake.

"Thy prayer, my son, transcends my gift;
No power is mine," the sage replied,
"The burden of a soul to lift
Or stain of sin to hide.

"Howe'er the outward life may seem,
For pardoning...

        Let there be many windows to your soul,
        That all the glory of the universe
        May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
        Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
        That shine from countless sources. Tear away
        The blinds of superstition; let the light
        Pour through fair windows broad as Truth itself
        And high as God.

    Why should the spirit peer
        Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
        Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
        The splendor from unfathomed seas of space
        Might bathe it with the golden waves of Love?
        Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths;
        Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
        And throw your soul wide open to the light
...

The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed
If Thou the spirit give by which I pray:
My unassisted heart is barren clay,
That of its native self can nothing feed:
Of good and pious works thou art the seed,
That quickens only where thou say'st it may:
Unless Thou show to us thine own true way
No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.
Do Thou, then, breathe those thoughts into my mind
By which such virtue may in me be bred
That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;
The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind,
That I may have the power to sing of thee,
And sound thy praises everlastingly.

The tree of Faith its bare, dry boughs must shed
That nearer heaven the living ones may climb;
The false must fail, though from our shores of time
The old lament be heard, "Great Pan is dead!"
That wail is Error's, from his high place hurled;
This sharp recoil is Evil undertrod;
Our time's unrest, an angel sent of God
Troubling with life the waters of the world.
Even as they list the winds of the Spirit blow
To turn or break our century-rusted vanes;
Sands shift and waste; the rock alone remains
Where, led of Heaven, the strong tides come and go,
And storm-clouds, rent by thunderbolt and wind,
Leave, free of mist, the permanent stars behind.

Therefore I trust, although to outward sense
Both true and false seem shaken; I will hold
With newer light my reve...

There is in all the sons of men
A love that in the spirit dwells,
That panteth after things unseen,
And tidings of the future tells.

And God hath built his altar here
To keep this fire of faith alive,
And sent his priests in holy fear
To speak the truth--for truth to strive.

And hither come the pensive train
Of rich and poor, of young and old,
Of ardent youth untouched by pain,
Of thoughtful maids and manhood bold.

They seek a friend to speak the word
Already trembling on their tongue,
To touch with prophet's hand the chord
Which God in human hearts hath strung.

To speak the plain reproof of sin
That sounded in the soul before,
And bid you let the angels in
That knock at meek contrition's door.

A friend to lift...

Now when the spirit in us wakes and broods,
Filled with home yearnings, drowsily it flings
From its deep heart high dreams and mystic moods,
Mixed with the memory of the loved earth things;
Clothing the vast with a familiar face;
Reaching its right hand forth to greet the starry race.

Wondrously near and clear the great warm fires
Stare from the blue; so shows the cottage light
To the field labourer whose heart desires
The old folk by the nook, the welcome bright
From the house-wife long parted from at dawn--
So the star villages in God's great depths withdrawn.

Nearer to Thee, not by delusion led,
Though there no house fires burn nor bright eyes gaze,
We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways
By these ...

About a holy shrine or sacred place,
    Where many hearts have bowed in earnest prayer,
The loveliest spirits congregate from space,
    And bring their sweet, uplifting influence there.

If in your chamber you pray oft and well,
    Soon will these angel-messengers arrive
And make their home with you, and where they dwell
    All worthy toil and purposes shall thrive.

I know a humble, plainly furnished room,
    So thronged with presences serene and bright,
The heaviest heart therein forgets its gloom
    As in some gorgeous temple filled with light.

Those heavenly spirits, beauteous and divine,
    Live only in an atmosphere of prayer;
Make for yourself a sacred, fervent shrine,
    And you will find them swiftly flocking there.

The Higher Pantheism


The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains–
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?

Is not the Vision He? tho’ He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?

Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why;
For is He not all but that which has power to feel ‘I am I’?

Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom
Making Him broken gleams, and a stifled splendour and gloom.

Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet–
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.

G...

The sunset colours mingle in the sky,
And over all the Umbrian valleys flow;
Trevi is touched with wonder, and the glow
Finds high Perugia crimson with renown;
Spello is bright;
And, ah! St. Francis, thy deep-treasured town,
Enshrined Assisi, fully fronts the light.

This valley knew thee many a year ago;
Thy shrine was built by simpleness of heart;
And from the wound called life thou drew'st the smart:
Unquiet kings came to thee and the sad poor -
Thou gavest them peace;
Far as the Sultan and the Iberian shore
Thy faith and abnegation gave release.

Deeper our faith, but not so sweet as thine;
Wider our view, but not so sanely sure;
For we are troubled by the witching lure
Of Science, with her lightning on the mist;
Science that clears,

Yes, there are some who may look on these
Essential peoples of the earth and air
That have the stars and flowers in their care
And all their soul-suggestive secrecies:
Heart-intimates and comrades of the trees,
Who from them learn, what no known schools declare,
God's knowledge; and from winds, that discourse there,
God's gospel of diviner mysteries:
To whom the waters shall divulge a word
Of fuller faith; the sunset and the dawn
Preach sermons more inspired even than
The tongues of Penticost; as, distant heard
In forms of change, through Nature upward drawn,
God doth address th' immortal soul of Man.

To pray as Jesus prayed,
    When faithless brethren sleep, -
To weep the ruin sin has made -
    The only ones that weep, -
To bear the heavy cross, -
    To toil, yet murmur not, -
To suffer pain, reproach, and loss, -
    Be such our earthly lot.

Yet oh, how richly blest
    The Master's cup to share, -
The aching grief that wrung His breast, -
    His broken-hearted prayer, -
If thus we may but gain
    One sheaf of golden wheat
Gleaned from Earth's sultry harvest-plain,
    To lay at His dear feet! -

If thus we may but win
    One precious earthly gem
Snatched from the mire of vice and sin,
    For His rich diadem! -
Here, sorrow, patience, prayer;
    In Heaven, the rich reward!
Here, the sharp thorns, the cross,...

In Youth, when through our veins runs fast
The bright red stream of life,
The Soul’s Voice is a trumpet-blast
That calls us to the strife.

The Spirit spurns its prison-bars,
And feels with force endued
To scale the ramparts of the stars
And storm Infinitude.

Youth passes; like a dungeon grows
The Spirit’s house of clay:
The voice that once in music rose
In murmurs dies away.

But in the day when sickness sore
Smites on the body’s walls,
The Soul’s Voice through the breach once more
Like to a trumpet calls.

Well shall it be with him who heeds
The mystic summons then!
His after-life with loving deeds
Shall blossom amongst men.

He shall have gifts, the gift that feels
The germ within the clod,
And hears t...