Chapter I: SAW the gardener bring and strew

Gray ashes where blush roses grew.
The fair, still roses bent them low,
Their pink cheeks dimpled all with dew,
And seemed to view with pitying air
The dim gray atoms lying there.
Ah, bonny rose, all fragrances,
And life and hope and quick desires,
What can you need or gain from these
Poor ghosts of long-forgotten fires?
The rose-tree leans, the rose-tree sighs,
And wafts this answer subtly wise:
“All death, all life are mixed and blent,
Out of dead lives fresh life is sent,
Sorrow to these is growth for me,
And who shall question God’s decree?”

Ah, dreary life, whose gladsome spark
No longer leaps in song and fire,
But lies in ashes gray and stark,
Defeated hopes and dead desire,
Useless and dull and all bereft,—
Take courage, this one thing is left:
Some happier life may use thee so,
Some flower bloom fairer on its tree,
Some sweet or tender thing may grow
To stronger life because of thee;
Content to play a humble part,
Give of the ashes of thy heart,
And haply God, whose dear decrees
Taketh from those to give to these,
Who draws the snow-drop from the snows
May from those ashes feed a rose.

ONE LESSER JOY.

WHAT is the dearest happiness of heaven?
Ah, who shall say!
So many wonders, and so wondrous fair,
Await the soul who, just arrivèd there
In trance of safety, sheltered and forgiven,
Opens glad eyes to front the eternal day:

Relief from earth’s corroding discontent,
Relief from pain,
The satisfaction of perplexing fears,
Full compensation for the long, hard years,
Full understanding of the Lord’s intent,
The things that were so puzzling made quite plain;

And all astonished joy as, to the spot,
From further skies,
Crowd our belovèd with white wingèd feet,
And voices than the chiming harps more sweet,
Faces whose fairness we had half forgot,
And outstretched hands, and welcome in their eyes;—

Heart cannot image forth the endless store
We may but guess;
But this one lesser joy I hold my own:
All shall be known in heaven; at last be known
The best and worst of me; the less, the more,
My own shall know—and shall not love me less.

Oh, haunting shadowy dread which underlies
All loving here!
We inly shiver as we whisper low,
“Oh, if they knew—if they could only know,
Could see our naked souls without disguise—
How they would shrink from us and pale with fear!”

The bitter thoughts we hold in leash within
But do not kill;
The petty anger and the mean desire,
The jealousy which burns,—a smouldering fire,—
The slimy trail of half-unnoted sin,
The sordid wish which daunts the nobler will.

We fight each day with foes we dare not name.
We fight, we fail!
Noiseless the conflict and unseen of men;
We rise, are beaten down, and rise again,
And all the time we smile, we move, the same,
And even to dearest eyes draw close the veil.

But in the blessed heaven these wars are past;
Disguise is o’er!
With new anointed vision, face to face,
We shall see all, and clasped in close embrace
Shall watch the haunting shadow flee at last,
And know as we are known, and fear no more.

CLOSE AT HAND.

“Did you not know Me, my child?” the lips and eyes that
were all love seemed to say to her. “You have thought
the thoughts that I inspired, you have spoken my words,
you set forth to fight on my side in the battle against
evil; and yet you forget me, and have often gone near
to deny me, while I was standing by your side and
giving you the strength to speak and think. Look at me
now, and see if I am not better than the images that
have hid me from you.”—_A Doubting Heart._

THE day is long, and the day is hard;
We are tired of the march and of keeping guard,
Tired of the sense of a fight to be won,
Of days to live through and of work to be done,
Tired of ourselves and of being alone.

And all the while, did we only see,
We walk in the Lord’s own company;
We fight, but ’tis he who nerves our arm,
He turns the arrows which else might harm,
And out of the storm he brings a calm.

The work which we count so hard to do,
He makes it easy, for he works too;
The days that are long to live are his,
A bit of his bright eternities,
And close to our need his helping is.

O eyes that were holden and blinded quite,
And caught no glimpse of the guiding light!
O deaf, deaf ears which did not hear
The heavenly garment trailing near!
O faithless heart, which dared to fear!

ONLY A DREAM.