Chapter I: WISH thee sound health and true sanity,

Ripe youth, a summer heart in age’s snow,
Abiding joy in knowledge, wealth enow
That of the best thou ne’er mayst hindered be;
Long life, love, marriage, children, faithful friends,
Purpose in all thy doing, stintless zeal,
Ambition, enthusiasm, the power to feel
Thy country dearer than thy private ends;
The threefold joy of Nature, books, and fun,
To be thy solace in adversity,
To keep thy father’s name as clean as he,
And so transmit it stainless to thy son;
And lastly, crown of glory and of strife,
May honored death give thee Eternal Life.

Now count my wishes, and, the numbering done,
You’ll find the enumeration—twenty-one.

“MANY WATERS CANNOT QUENCH LOVE.”

A LITTLE grave in a desolate spot,
Where the sun scarce shines and flowers grow not,
Where the prayers of the church are never heard,
And the funeral bell swings not in air,
And the brooding silence is only stirred
By the cries of wild birds nesting there;
A low headstone, and a legend, green
With moss: “Leonora, just seventeen.”

Here she was laid long years ago,
A child in years, but a woman in woe.
Her sorrowful story is half forgot,
Her playmates are old and bent and gray,
And no one comes to visit the spot
Where, watched by the law, was hurried away
The youth cut short, and the hapless bloom
Which fled from its sorrow to find the tomb.

Her mourning kindred pleaded in vain
The broken heart and the frenzied brain;
The church had no pardon for such as died
Unblessed by the church, and sternly barred
All holy ground to the suicide;
So death as life to the girl was hard,
And the potter’s field with its deep disgrace
Was her only permitted resting-place.

So the friends who loved her laid her there
With no word of comfort, no word of prayer,
And years went by; but as, one by one,
They dropped from their daily tasks and died,
And turned their faces from the sun,
They were carried and buried by her side,—
Each gave command that such should be,
“For love to keep her company.”

So the little grave, with the letters green,
Of “Leonora, just seventeen,”
Is ringed about with kindred dust,
Not lonely like the other graves
In that sad place, wherein are thrust
Outcasts and nameless folk and slaves,
But gently held and folded fast
In the arms that loved her first and last.

O potter’s field, did I call you bare?
No garden on earth can be more fair!
For deathless love has a deathless bloom,
And the lily of faithfulness a flower,
And they grow beside each lowly tomb,
And balm it with fragrance every hour;
And with God, who forgiveth till seven times seven,
A potter’s field may be gate of heaven.

UNEXHAUSTED.

ARE all the songs sung, all the music played?
Are the keys quite worn out, and soundless quite,
Which since sweet fancy’s dawning day have made
Perpetual melody for man’s delight,
And charmed the dull day and the heavy night?

Must we go on with stale, repeated themes,
Content with threadbare chords that faint and fail,
Till all the fairy fabric of old dreams
Becomes a jaded, oft-repeated tale,
And poetry grows tired, and romance pale?

I cannot think it; for the soul of man
Is strung to answer to such myriad keys
Set and attuned and chorded on a plan
Of intricate and vibrant harmonies,
How shall we limit that, or measure these?

As free and urgent as the air that moves,
As quick to tremble as Æolian strings,
The soul responds and thrills to hates and loves,
Desires and hopes, and joys and sufferings,
And sympathy’s soft touch and anger’s stings.

How dare we say the breezes all are blown,
The chords have no reserved sweet in store;
Or claim that all is tested and made known,—
That nightingales may trill, or skylarks soar,
But neither can surprise us any more?

The world we call so old, God names his new;
The thought we christen stale shall outlast men,
While moons shall haunt the sky, and stars gleam through,
While roses blossom on their thorny stem,
And spring comes back again, and yet again;

While human things like blossoms small and white
Are dropped on earth from unseen parent skies,
The olden dreams shall please, the songs delight,
And those who shape and weave fair fantasies
Shall catch the answering shine in new-born eyes.

WELCOME AND FAREWELL.

WHEN the New Year came, we said,
Half with hope and half with dread:
“Welcome, child, new-born to be
Last of Time’s great family!
All thy brethren, bent and gray,
Aged and worn, have passed away
To the place where dead years go,—
Place which mortals cannot know.
Thou art fairest of them all,
Ivory-limbed and strong and tall,
Gold hair blown back, and deep eyes
Full of happy prophecies;
Rose-bloom on thy youthful cheek.
Welcome, child!” And all the while
The sweet New Year did not speak,
Though we thought we saw him smile.

When the Old Year went, we said,
Looking at his grim gray head,
At the shoulders burden-bowed,
And the sad eyes dark with cloud:
“Was he ever young and fair?
Did we praise his sunny hair
And glad eyes, with promise lit?
We can scarce remember it.
Treacherously he smiled, nor spoke,
Hiding ’neath his rainbow cloak
Store of grievous things to strew
On the way that we must go.
Vain to chide him; old and weak,
He is dying; let him die.”
And the Old Year did not speak,
But we thought we heard him sigh.

LIFE.

MORE life we thirst for, but how can we take?
We sit like children by the surging sea,
Dip with our shallow shells all day, and make
A boast of the scant measure, two or three
Brief drops caught from the immensity;
But what are these the long day’s thirst to slake?

There is the sea, which would not be less full,
Though all the lands should borrow of its flood;
The sea of Life, fed by the beautiful
Abounding river of the smile of God,
Source of supply and fountain of all good,
Boundless and free and inexhaustible.

There is the sea; and close by is our thirst,
Yet here we sit and gaze the waters o’er,
And dip our shallow shells in as at first.
Just where the ripples break to wash the shore,
And catch a tantalizing drop, nor durst
The depth or distance of the wave explore.

Ah, mighty ocean which we sport beside,
One day thy wave will rise and foam, and we,
Lost in its strong, outgoing, refluent tide,
Shall be swept out into the deeper sea,
Shall drink the life of life, and satisfied
Smile at the shore from far eternity.

SHUT IN.

And the Lord shut him in.—_Gen._ vii. 16.

WAS it the Lord who shut me in
Between these walls of pain?
Who drew between me and the sun
The darkening curtains, one by one,
Cold storm and bitter rain,
Hiding all happy things and fair,
The flying birds, the blowing air,
And bidding me to lie,
All sick of heart and faint and blind,
Waiting his will to loose or bind,
To give or to deny?

Was it the Lord who shut me in
Within this place of doubt?
I chose not doubt, my doubt chose me,
Not unpermitted, Lord, of thee,—
It had not dared without:
What doubt shall venture to uprear
And whisper in a human ear,
If thou, Lord, dost forbid?
Yet is it of thy blessed will
That I sit questioning, grieving, chill,
Nor joy as once I did?

Is it the Lord that shuts me in?
Then I can bear to wait!
No place so dark, no place so poor,
So strong and fast no prisoning door,
Though walled by grievous fate,
But out of it goes fair and broad
An unseen pathway, straight to God,
By which I mount to thee.
When the same Love that shut the door
Shall lift the heavy bar once more,
And set the prisoner free.

GOOD-BY.

THE interlacing verdurous screen
Of the stanch woodbine still is green,
And thickly set with milk-white blooms
Gold-anthered, breathing out perfumes;
The clematis on trellis bars
Still flaunts with white and purple stars;
No missing leaf has thinner made
The obelisks of maple shade;
Fresh beech boughs flutter in the breeze
Which, warm as summer, stirs the trees;
The sun is clear, the skies are blue:
But still a sadness filters through
The beauty and the bloom; and we,
Touched by some mournful prophecy,
Whisper each day: “Delay, delay!
Make not such haste to fly away!”
And they, with silent lips, reply:
“Summer is gone; we may not stay.
Summer is gone. Good-by! good-by!”
Roses may be as fragrant fair
As in the sweet June days they were;
No hint of frost may daunt as yet
The clustering brown mignonette,
Nor chilly wind forbid to ope
The odorous, fragile heliotrope;
The sun may be as warm as May,
The night forbear to chase the day,
And hushed in false security
All the sweet realm of Nature be:
But the South-loving birds have fled,
By their mysterious instinct led;
The butterflies their nests have spun,
And donned their silken shrouds each one;
The bees have hived them fast, while we
Whisper each day: “Delay, delay!
Make not such haste to fly away!”
And all, with pitying looks, reply:
“Summer is fled; we may not stay.
Summer is gone. Good-by! good-by!”

WHAT THE ANGEL SAID.

THEY sat in the cool of the day to rest,—
Adam and Eve, and a nameless guest.
The sky o’er the desert was hot and red,
But the palm boughs nestled overhead,
And the bubbling waters of the well
Up and down in their basin fell,
And the goats and the camels browsed at ease,
And the confident song birds sang and flew
In the shade of the thick mimosa trees;
For fear was not when the world was new.

In the early dawning had come the guest,
And whether from east or whether from west
They knew not, nor asked, as he stood and bent
At the entrance of the lowly tent:
He had dipped his hand in the bowl of food,
He had thanked and praised and called it good;
And now between his hosts he sat,
And talked of matters so deep and wise
That Eve looked up from her braiding mat
With wonderment in her beautiful eyes.

“All is not lost,” the stranger said,
“Though the garden of God be forfeited;
Still is there hope for the life of man,
Still can he struggle and will and plan,
Still can he strain toward the shining goal
Which tempts and beckons his sinewy soul;
Still there is work to brace his thews,
And love to sweeten the hard-won way,
And the power to give, and the right to choose,—
And—” He paused; and the rest he did not say.

Then silence fell, for their thoughts were full
Of the fair lost garden beautiful;
A homesick silence, which neither broke
Till once again the stranger spoke:
“You are strong,” he said, “with the strength of heaven,
And the world and its creatures to you are given;
You shall win in the fight, though many oppose.
You shall tread on the young of the lion’s den,
And the desert shall blossom as the rose
’Neath your tendance.” And Adam asked: “And then?”

“Then, ripening with the riper age,
Your sons, a goodly heritage,
Like palm-trees in their stately strength,
Shall win to man’s estate at length.
Beside thee shall they take their stand,
To do thy will, uphold thy hand,
To speed thy errands with eager feet,
To quit them in their lot like men,
With tendance and obedience meet.”
Then once more Adam said, “And then?”

“Then, as mild age draws slowly on,
And faintly burns thy westering sun,
When on the pulse no longer hot
Falls quietude which youth knows not,
When patience rules the tempered will,
And strength is won by sitting still,
Then shall a new-born pleasure come
Into thy heart and arms again,
As children’s children fill thy home.”
Eve smiled; but Adam said, “And then?”

“Then”—and the guest rose up to go—
“The best, the last thing shalt thou know:
This life of struggle and of fight
Shall vanish like a wind-blown light;
And after brief eclipse shall be
Re-lit, to burn more gloriously.
Men by a strange, sad name shall call
The darkness, and with bated breath
Confront it, but of God’s gifts all
Are nothing worth compared with death.”

Even as he spoke his visage gleamed
With light unearthly, and it seemed
That radiant wings, unseen till then,
Lifted and bore him from their ken.
Awe-struck the solitary two
Beheld him vanish from their view.
“It was the angel of the Lord,”
They said. “How blind we were and dull!
He did not bear the fiery sword;
Surely the Lord is pitiful.”

And then? The unrelenting years
Surged tide-like on, with hopes and fears
And labors full, but nevermore
Brought any angel to their door.
But still his words within her heart
Eve kept, and pondered them apart.
And when one fatal day they brought
Her Abel to her, cold and dead,
She stayed her anguish with this thought:
“’Tis God’s best gift, the angel said.”

COMMONPLACE.

“A COMMONPLACE life,” we say, and we sigh;
But why should we sigh as we say?
The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky,
Makes up the commonplace day;
The moon and the stars are commonplace things,
And the flower that blooms, and the bird that sings:
But dark were the world and sad our lot
If the flowers failed and the sun shone not;
And God, who studies each separate soul,
Out of commonplace lives makes his beautiful whole.

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, AND MYRRH.

GOLD, frankincense, and myrrh they brought the new-born Christ,—
Those wise men from the East,—and in the ox’s stall
The far-brought precious gifts they heaped, with love unpriced;
And Christ the babe looked on, and wondered not at all.

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh I, too, would offer thee,
O King of faithful hearts, upon thy Christmas Day;
And poor and little worth although the offering be,
Because thou art so kind, I dare to think I may.

I bring the gold of faith, which, through the centuries long,
Still seeks the Holy Child, and worships at his feet,
And owns him for its Lord, with gladness deep and strong,
And joins the angel choir, singing in chorus sweet.

The frankincense I bear is worship which can rise,
Like perfume floating up higher and higher still,
Till on the wings of prayer it finds the far blue skies,
And falls, as falls the dew, to freshen heart and will.

And last I bring the myrrh, half bitter and half sweet,
Of my own selfish heart, through sacrifice made clean,
And break the vase and spill the oil upon thy feet,
O Lord of Christmas Day, as did the Magdalene.

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh,—’tis all I have to bring
To thee, O Holy Child, now throned in heaven’s mid!
Because thou art so kind, take the poor offering,
And let me go forth blessed, as once the Wise Men did.

A THOUGHT.

GOD, in his power, keeps making more men,
Peopling the great world again and again;
Age after age, as the centuries roll,
Never he makes a mistake with a soul,
Never neglects them, and never forgets.
Atoms in space from their birth to their end,
Dead or alive, he is always their friend.

Those who lived first, when the world was all new,
Still are as dear in his sight as are you;
Perished their names from the earth that they trod,
But every name is remembered by God,—
All that they sought for, and all that they wrought.
Fixed in unlikeness each separate soul,
Brethren and kin in the infinite whole.

Is God not tired, though almighty He is,
As the long years form the slow centuries,
And the slow centuries linked in embrace
Make up the cycles and meet into space?
Wearies He never, nor ceaseth His toil,
Nor says, “It is finished; creation is done”?—
Men are so many, and God is but one!

Foolish and childish the thought that I frame.
Meteors fall in, but the sun is the same.
What are the birds to the air-spaces free?
What are the fish to the surge or the sea,
Grains to the desert sands, motes to the beam?
Time hides its face at Eternity’s call;
Men may be many, but God he is all.

AT FLOOD.

ALL winter long it ebbed and ebbed, and left the cold earth bare.
No pulse of growth the bare boughs stirred, no hope the frozen air;
No twitters cheered the snow-heaped nests, no songs the vine and trees,
As outward, outward swept the tide, and left the world to freeze.

Then came a subtle change,—a time when for a moment’s space
Life seemed to stay its flying feet and cease its outward race,
And, poised as waves poise, turn its face toward the deserted shore,
And with a pitying rush come back to visit it once more.

We saw the freshening forces rise in every yellowing stem,
In budding oak and tasselled larch and scarlet maple gem.
Inch after inch, wave following wave, it rose on every side;
And now the tide is at its flood, the blessed summer-tide.

For every ebb there comes a flow; brave hearts can smile at both.
The waters come, the waters go; we watch them, nothing loath.
Led by a hand invisible, their bright waves seem to sing,
“The Lord who rules the winter is the Lord who sends the spring!”

THE ANGELS.

ARE the angels never impatient
That we are so weak and slow,
So dull to their guiding touches,
So deaf to the whispers low
With which, entreating and urging,
They follow us as we go?

Ah no! the pitiful angels
Are clearer of sight than we,
And they note not only the thing that we are,
But the thing that we fain would be,—
The hint of gold in the cumbering dross,
Of fruit on the bare, cold tree.

And I think that at times the angels
Must smile as mothers smile
At the peevish babies on their knees,
Loving them all the while,
And cheating the little ones of their pain
With sweet and motherly wile.

And if they are so patient, the angels,
How tenderer far than they
Must the mighty Lord of the angels be,
Whom the heavenly hosts obey,
Who speeds them forth on their errands,
And cares for us more than they!

NOT YET.

“NOT yet,” she cried, “not yet!
It is the dawning, and life looks so fair;
Give me my little hour of sun and dew.
Is it a sin that I should crave my share,
The common sunshine and the common air,
Before I go away, dark shade, with you?
Not yet!

“Not yet,” she cried, “not yet!
The day is hot, and noon is pulsing strong,
And every hour is measured by a task;
There is no time for sighing or for song.
Leave me a little longer, just so long
As till my work is done,—’tis all I ask.
Not yet!

“Not yet,” she cried, “not yet!
Nightfall is near, and I am tired and frail;
Day was too full, now resting-time has come.
Let me sit still and hear the nightingale,
And see the sunset colors shift and pale,
Before I take the long, hard journey home.
Not yet!”

And to all these in turn,
Comes Death, the unbidden, universal guest,
With deep and urgent meanings in his eyes,
And poppied flowers upon his brow, his breast,
Whispering, “Life is good, but I am best;”
And never a parted soul looks back and cries,
“Not yet!”

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.

TO-DAY is mine; I hold it fast,
Hold it and use it as I may,
Unmindful of the shadow cast
By that dim thing called Yesterday.

To-morrow hovers just before,
A bright-winged shape, and lures me on,
Till in my zeal to grasp and know her,
I drop To-day,—and she is gone.

The bright wings captured lose their light:
To-morrow weeps, and seems to say,
“I am To-day,—ah, hold me tight!
Erelong I shall be Yesterday.”

“THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, THAT LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD.”

THEY spy it from afar,
The beacon’s fiery star,
And storm-tossed birds, by fierce winds buffeted,
Rally with half-spent force,
And shape their struggling course
To where it rears its blazing, beckoning head.

Faintly the tired wings beat
That rhythmical repeat
Which was such joy in summer and in sun;
Glazed are the keen, bright eyes,
And heave with panting sighs
The soft and plumèd bosoms every one.

O’er the white, weltering waves,
Which yawn like empty graves,
Borne on the urgings of the wind, they fly;
They reach the luring glow,
They launch and plunge, and lo!
Are dashed upon the glass, and fall and die.

So through the storm and night,
Outwearied with long flight,
Our souls come crowding o’er the angry sea.
In North, in East, in West,
There is no place of rest,
Except, O kindly Light, except with thee.

No cold, unyielding glass
Bars and forbids to pass;
Thy dear light scorcheth not, nor burns in vain;
The soul that finds and knows
Such safe and sure repose
Need nevermore go out or roam again.

Ah, steadfast citadel!
Ah, lamp that burns so well
Upon the Rock of Ages, founded true!
Above the angry sea
We urge our flight to thee.
Shine, kindly Light, and guide us safely through!

THE STAR.

THEY followed the Star the whole night through;
As it moved with the midnight they moved too;
And cared not whither it led, nor knew,
Till Christmas Day in the morning.

And just at the dawn in the twilight shade
They came to the stable, and, unafraid,
Saw the Blessed Babe in the manger laid
On Christmas Day in the morning.

We have followed the Star a whole long year,
And watched its beckon, now faint, now clear,
And it now stands still as we draw anear
To Christmas Day in the morning.

And just as the wise men did of old,
In the hush of the winter dawning cold,
We come to the stable, and we behold
The Child on the Christmas morning.

And just as the wise men deemed it meet
To offer him gold and perfumes sweet,
We would lay our gifts at his holy feet,—
Our gifts on the Christmas morning.

O Babe, once laid in the ox’s bed,
With never a pillow for thy head,
Now throned in the highest heavens instead,
O Lord of the Christmas morning!—

Because we have known and have loved thy star,
And have followed it long and followed it far,
From the land where the shadows and darkness are,
To find thee on Christmas morning,—

Accept the gifts that we dare to bring,
Though worthless and poor the offering,
And help our souls to rise and to sing
In the joy of thy Christmas morning.

HELEN.

THE autumn seems to cry for thee,
Best lover of the autumn days!
Each scarlet-tipped and wine-red tree,
Each russet branch and branch of gold,
Gleams through its veil of shimmering haze,
And seeks thee as they sought of old;
For all the glory of their dress,
They wear a look of wistfulness.

In every wood I see thee stand,
The ruddy boughs above thy head,
And heaped in either slender hand
The frosted white and amber ferns,
The sumach’s deep, resplendent red,
Which like a fiery feather burns,
And over all, thy happy eyes,
Shining as clear as autumn skies.

I hear thy call upon the breeze
Gay as the dancing wind, and sweet,
And underneath the radiant trees,
O’er lichens gray and darkling moss,
Follow the trace of those light feet
Which never were at fault or loss,
But, by some forest instinct led,
Knew where to turn and how to tread.

Where art thou, comrade true and tried?
The woodlands call for thee in vain,
And sadly burns the autumn-tide
Before my eyes, made dim and blind
By blurring, puzzling mists of pain.
I look before, I look behind;
Beauty and loss seem everywhere,
And grief and glory fill the air.

Already, in these few short weeks,
A hundred things I leave unsaid,
Because there is no voice that speaks
In answer, and no listening ear,
No one to care now thou art dead!
And month by month, and year by year,
I shall but miss thee more, and go
With half my thought untold, I know.

I do not think thou hast forgot,
I know that I shall not forget,
And some day, glad, but wondering not,
We two shall meet, and face to face,
In still, fair fields unseen as yet,
Shall talk of each old time and place,
And smile at pain interpreted
By wisdom learned since we were dead.

LUX IN TENEBRIS.

DARK falls the night, withheld the day,
Weary we fare perplexed and chill,
Led by one little guiding ray
Shining from centuries far away,—
Good-will and Peace: Peace and Good-will.

The torch of glory pales and wanes,
The lamp of love must know decease,
But still o’er far Judæan plains
The quenchless star-beam lives and reigns,—
Peace and Good-will: Good-will and Peace.

And clear to-day as long ago
The angel-chorus echoes still,
Above the clamor and the throe
Of human passion, human woe,—
Good-will and Peace: Peace and Good-will.

Through eighteen hundred stormy years
The dear notes ring, and will not cease;
And past all mists of mortal tears
The guiding star rebukes our fears,—
Peace and Good-will: Good-will and Peace.

Shine, blessed star, the night is black,
Shine, and the heavens with radiance fill,
While on thy slender, guiding track
The angel voices echo back,—
Good-will and Peace: Peace and Good-will.

LENT.

IS it the Fast which God approves,
When I awhile for flesh eat fish,
Changing one dainty dish
For others no less good?

Do angels smile and count it gain
That I compose my laughing face
To gravity for a brief space,
Then straightway laugh again?

Does Heaven take pleasure as I sit
Counting my joys as usurers gold,—
This bit to give, that to withhold,
Weighing and measuring it;

Setting off abstinence from dance
As buying privilege of song;
Calling six right and seven wrong,
With decorous countenance;

Compounding for the dull to-day
By projects for to-morrow’s fun,
Checking off each set task as done,
Grudging a short delay?

I cannot think that God will care
For such observance; He can see
The very inmost heart of me,
And every secret there.

But if I keep a truer Lent,
Not heeding what I wear or eat,
Not balancing the sour with sweet,
Evenly abstinent,

And lay my soul with all its stain
Of travel from the year-long road,
Between the healing hands of God
To be made clean again;

And put my sordid self away,
Forgetting for a little space
The petty prize, the eager race,
The restless, striving day;

Opening my darkness to the sun,
Opening my narrow eyes to see
The pain and need so close to me
Which I had willed to shun;

Praying God’s quickening grace to show
The thing he fain would have me do,
The errand that I may pursue
And quickly rise and go;—

If so I do it, starving pride,
Fasting from sin instead of food,
God will accept such Lent as good,
And bless its Easter-tide.

PALM SUNDAY.

THE multitude was crowding all the way,
But yesterday,
To see and touch the Lord as he rode by,
To catch his eye,
Or at the very least a palm-branch fling
Upon the pathway of the chosen King.

Faded and dry those palms lie in the sun,
Witherèd each one;
Those glad, rejoicing shouters presently
Will flock to see,
With never thought of pity or of loss,
The King of Glory on his cruel cross.

Lord, we would fain some little palm-branch lay
Upon thy way;
But we have nothing fair enough or sweet
For holy feet
To tread, nor dare our sin-stained garments fling
Upon the road where rides the Righteous King.

Yet thou, all-gracious One, didst not refuse
Those fickle Jews;
And even such worthless leaves as we may cull,
Faded and dull,
Thou wilt endure and pardon and receive,
Because thou knowest we have naught else to give.

So, Lord, our stubborn wills we first will break,
If thou wilt take;
And next our selfishness, and then our pride,—
And what beside?
Our hearts, Lord, poor and fruitless though they be,
And quick to change, and nothing worth to see.

If but the foldings of thy garment’s hem
Shall shadow them,
These worthless leaves which we have brought and strewed
Along thy road
Shall be raised up and made divinely sweet,
And fit to lie beneath thy gracious feet.

SOUL AND BODY.

THE Soul said to the Body, in the watches of the night:
“I am the nobler part of thee, stronger and far more worth.
God gave me of his life of life a tiny point of light;
I show his glory to the world, but thou art of the earth.”

The Body answered to the Soul: “Lower I am, and yet
God made me in his image for angel eyes to see.
Thou art but viewless essence, whom all men would forget
Except for the abiding-place which thou hast found in me.”

The Soul said to the Body: “I guide thee at my will.
I am the wind within the sail, which else would lifeless swing;
I am the mainspring of the watch, which else, inert and still,
Would cumber all the universe, a dead and useless thing.”

“I too have rule,” the Body cried. “I curb thy higher flights;
I fetter all thy soarings, and I bind thee, and I grieve.
I can sting thee into wakefulness through long, unresting nights;
Can take the glory from thy noon, the splendor from thy eve.”

“And well can I return such wrong,” replied the eager Soul.
“How often hast thou laid thee down, to find thy sleep denied?
While I quickened in thy brain, robbed thy heart-beats of control,
And poured through every artery my warm, pulsating tide?

“Thou shalt lie down to sleep one day, and long that sleep shall last,
For I will shake thy shackles off and soar up to the skies;
What power shall avail thee then to break thy slumber fast?
What voice shall reach thy dreaming ear, to say to thee, ‘Arise’?”

“Ah, Soul!” the Body humbly urged, “be merciful, I pray;
Thou art the nobler part, but thou canst never let me go.
I have my certain share of all, thy best, thy worst, alway:
We are inextricably blent. God willed it should be so.

“Thou wilt reach heaven before me, but I may follow too.
There is a resurrection for the Body, as the Soul;
Comrades to all eternity, we should be comrades true
Who own one common fate and life, who seek the self-same goal.

“Forbear, then, to reproach me, O brother given by Heaven!
I wrong myself in wronging thee, dearest and closest friend!
Let all our variance and strife be buried and forgiven,
And let us work together in love unto the end.”

Then the Soul smiled on the Body, and the Body drank the smile,
As meadow pastures drink the flood of sunshine still and deep;
And the two embraced each other, and in a little while,
Close folded in the Body’s arms, the Soul had fallen asleep.

SOUND AT CORE.

THE wind is fierce and loud and high,
The angry tempest hurtles by;
With quivering keel and straining sail
The ship of State confronts the gale.
Rocks are ahead and peril near;
But still we face the storm, nor fear,
Saying this brave truth o’er and o’er:
“The nation’s heart is sound at core.”

We knew it in those darker days
When all the kind, familiar ways
And all the tenderness of life
Seemed lost in bitterness and strife;
When, torn with shot and riddled through,
Lay in the dust our Red and Blue,
Dropped by the gallant hands that bore,
“The nation’s heart is sound at core.”

We said it when the war-cloud rent,
And out of field and out of tent
The bronzèd soldiers, Blue and Gray,
Took each the peaceful homeward way;
When the foiled traitors sought to attain
By fraud what force had failed to gain,—
Heart-sick, we said the words once more:
“The nation’s heart is sound at core.”

And always, as the worst seemed near,
And stout hearts failed for very fear,
Came a great throb the country through,—
The nation’s heart still beating true!
Ah, mother-land and mother-breast,
We still will trust you and will rest;
Although waves howl and tempests lower,
Your heart, our heart, is sound at core.

THE OLD VILLAGE.

IT lies among the greenest hills
New England’s depths can show;
About their base the river fills
And empties as the distant mills
Control its ebb and flow:
It had a quick life of its own,
But that was long ago.

Two centuries have rolled away
Since a small, hardy band
Turned their sad faces from the bay,
The dim sky-line where England lay,
And boldly marched inland.
Before them lay the wilderness,
Behind them lay the strand.

Bravely they plunged into the waste
By white foot never trod;
Bravely and busily they traced
The village boundaries, and placed
Their ploughs in virgin sod;
Built huts, and then a meeting-house
Where man might worship God.

The huts gave place to houses white;
The axe-affrighted woods
Shrank back to left, shrank back to right;
The valleys laughed with harvest light;
The river’s vagrant moods
Were curbed by clattering wheels, which shook
The once green solitudes.

And years flowed on, and life flowed by.
The hills were named and known.
The young looked out with eager eye
From the “old” village; by and by
They stole forth one by one,
Leaving the old folks in their homes
To labor on alone.

And one by one the old folks died,
Each in his lonely way.
The doors which once stood open wide,
To let a busy human tide
Sweep in and out all day,
Were closed; the unseeing windows stared
Just as a blind man may.

The mills, abandoned, ceased to whir;
The unchecked river ran
Its old-time courses, merrier,
And glad in spirit, as it were,
For its escape from man,
Teased the dumb wheels, and mocked and played
As only a river can.

Looking to-day across the space,
Beyond the flower-fringed track
Which once was road, the eye can trace
The outlines of a cellar-place,
A half-burned chimney-back:
They mark the ruins of a home
Now empty, cold, and black.

And here and there an old dame stands
Some farm-house window nigh,
Or, dark against the pasture-lands,
A ploughman old, with trembling hands,
Checks his team suddenly,
And turns a gray head to the road
To watch the passer-by.

Above the empty village lies
One thickly peopled spot,
Where gray stones in gray silence rise,
And tell to sunset and sunrise
Of past lives that are not,—
The lives that fought and strove and toiled
And builded. And for what?

’Tis Nature’s law in everything.
The river seeks the sea;
But not one droplet wandering
Goes ever back to feed the spring.
Such things are and must be.
The gone is gone, the lost is lost,
Fled irrevocably.

Old village on the lonely hill,
Deserted by your own,
Your spended lifelike mountain rill
Has gone to swell the tide and fill
Some sea unseen, unknown.
Let this brave thought your comfort be,
As thus you die alone.

A GREETING.

OH, dear and friendly Death,
End of my road, however long it be,
Waiting with hospitable hands stretched out
And full of gifts for me!

Why do we call thee foe,
Clouding with darksome mists thy face divine?
Life, she was sweet, but poor her largess seems
When matched with thine.

Thy amaranthine blooms
Are not less lovely than her rose of joy;
And the rare, subtle perfumes which they breathe
Never the senses cloy.

Thou holdest in thy store
Full satisfaction of all doubt, reply
To question, and the golden clews to dreams
Which idly passed us by.

Darkness to tired eyes,
Perplexed with vision, blinded with long day;
Quiet to busy hands, glad to fold up
And lay their work away.

A balm for anguish past,
Rest to the long unrest which smiles did hide;
The recognitions thirsted for in vain,
And still by life denied.

A nearness, all unknown
While in these stifling, prisoning bodies pent,
Unto thy soul and mine, beloved, made one
At last in full content.

Thou bringest me mine own,
The garnered flowers which felt thy sickle keen,
And the full vision of that Face divine,
Which I have loved unseen.

Oh, dear and friendly Death,
End of my road, however long it be,
Nearing me day by day, I still can smile
Whene’er I think of thee!

CHANGELESS.

WE say, “The sun has set,” and we sorrow sore
As we watch the darkness creep the landscape o’er,
And the thick shadows fall, and the night draw on;
And we mourn for the brightness lost, and the vanished sun.

And all the time the sun in the self-same place
Waits, ready to clasp the earth in his embrace,
Ready to give to all of his stintless ray;
And ’tis we who have “set,” it is we who have turned away!

“The Lord has hidden his face,” we sadly cry,
As we sit in the night of grief with no helper by.
“Guiding uncounted worlds in their courses dim,
How should our little pain be marked by him?”

But all the while that we mourn, the Lord stands near,
And the Son divine is waiting to help and hear;
And ’tis we who hide our faces, and blindly turn away,
While the Sun of the soul shines on mid the perfect day.

EASTER.

FLOWERS die not in the winter-tide,
Although they wake in spring;
Pillowed ’neath mounds of fleecy snow,
While skies are gray and storm-winds blow,
All patiently they bide,
Fettered by frost, and bravely wait,
And trust in spring or soon or late.

Hope dies not in the winter-tide,
Though sore it longs for spring;
Cool morn may ripen to hot noon,
And evening dusks creep all too soon
The noonday sun to hide;
But through the night there stir and thrill
The sleeping strengths of life and will.

For souls there comes a winter-tide,
For souls there blooms a spring;
Though winter days may linger long,
And snows be deep and frosts be strong,
And faith be sorely tried,
When Christ shall shine, who is the Sun,
Spring-time shall be for every one.

Oh, mighty Lord of winter-tide!
Oh, loving Lord of spring!
Come to our hearts this Easter Day,
Melt all the prisoning ice away,
And evermore abide,
Making both good and ill to be
Thy blessed opportunity.

THE WORLD IS VAST.

THE world is vast and we are small,
We are so weak and it so strong,
Onward it goes, nor cares at all
For us,—our silence or our song,
Our fast-day or our festival.

We tremble as we feel it sway
Beneath our feet as on we fare;
But, like a ball which children play,
God spins it through the far blue air.
We are his own; why should we care?

* * * * *

Transcriber’s Note:

Ostensible errors in layout were checked against other publishings of the poem and adjusted as noted below.

Page 47, _A Birthday_, final line of stanza beginning (I cannot add the lightest thing) was indented four spaces from two. (All impotent to aid or bless)

Page 69, _One Lesser Joy_, fourth line of stanza beginning (Oh, haunting shadowy dread which underlies) indented two spaces from zero. (“Oh, if only they knew—if only they could know,)

Page 104, “Sopr, Arno” changed to “Sopr’ Arno” (Sopr’ Arno, “_Fuccio mi fecé_” and the date—)

Page 135, _Bereaved_, first stanza’s last three lines had indents that were the opposite of the rest of the poem. After consulting another publication, the stanza was adjusted.

Page 205, _Life_, final line of first stanza indented two spaces. (But what are these the long day’s thirst to slake?)