A Few More Verses

THREE WORLDS

WITHIN three worlds my Sorrow dwells;Each made her own by heavenly right;And one is sadly sweet and fair,And one is bright beyond compare,And one is void of light.One is the world of long-past things;There she can go at will, and sitAnd sun herself in love’s embrace,And see upon a vanished faceThe tender, old-time meanings flit.The second, veiled in glory dim,She only dares in part explore;Upon its misty bound she stands,And reaches out imploring handsAnd straining eyes, but does no more.It is the world of unknown joy,Where thou, Beloved, amid thy kin,The saints of God, the Sons of Light,The company in robes of white,Hast been made free to enter in.She sees thee, companied with these,Standing far off among the Blest,And is content to watch and wait,To stand afar without the gate,Nor interrupt thy perfect rest.And so she turns, and down she sinksTo her third world, that dreary one,Which once was shared and lit by thee,And never any more can be,In which she dwelleth all alone.It were too dark a world to bear,Could she not go, her pain to still,Into the fair world of the Past,Into the glory, sure and vast,Made thine by the Eternal Will.In these three worlds my Sorrow sits,And each is dear because of thee;I joyed in that, I wait in this,And in the fulness of thy blissThou waitest too, I know, for me.

OPPORTUNITY

BUT yesterday, but yesterday,She stood beside our dusty way,Outreaching for one moment’s spaceThe key to fortune’s hiding-place.With wistful meanings in her eyes,Her radiance veiled in dull disguise,A moment paused, then turned and fled,Bearing her message still unsaid.And we? Our eyes were on the dust;Still faring on as fare all mustIn the hot glare of midday sunUntil the weary way be done.So, fast and far she sped and flewInto the depths of ether blue;And we, too late, make bitter cry,“Come back, dear Opportunity!”In vain: the fleet, unpausing wingsStay not in their bright journeyings;And sadly sweet as funeral bellThe answer drops, “Farewell! Farewell!”

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE.

A PICTURE

A DIM rich space, a vault of arching gold,A furious, shouting rabble pressing near,A single sentinel to bar and holdWith his one spear.I see the Roman ruler careless sitTo judge the cause in his accustomed place;I see the coarse, dull, cruel meanings flitAcross his face.I see the pitiless priests who urge and rave,Intent to see the victim sacrificed,Fearful that scruple or that plea should save —Where is the Christ?Not that pale shape which stands amid the press,In gentle patience uncomplainingly,Clad in the whiteness of his Teacher’s dress —That is not he!That slender flame were easily blown out;One furious gust of human hate, but one!One chilling breath of treason or of doubt —And it were gone!But thou, O mighty Christ, endurest still;Quenchless thy fire, fed by immortal breath,Lord of the heart, Lord of the erring will,And Lord of Death!King of the world, thou livest to the end,Ruling the nations as no other can;Best comrade, healer, teacher, guide, best friendAnd help of man.I see thee, not a wan and grieving shape,Facing, like lamb led forth for sacrifice,The destiny from which is no escape,With mild, sad eyes, —But strong and brave and resolute to bear,Knowing that Death, once conquered, was to beThy willing thrall, thy servant grave and fair,Best help to thee!The vision changes on the pictured scene;The pallid Victim fades, and in his placeComes a victorious, steadfast, glorious mien,The true Christ’s face.

NON OMNIS MORIAR

OH, blue and glad the summer skies,And golden green the widths of plainWhere sun and shadow mingled lay,As forth we went, with gay intent,Across the Mesa’s flowery rise,To where the shimmering mountain chainBeckoned and shone from far away!The noontide flashed, the noontide sang,Along the glittering distant track;The dancing wind made answer brave.It seemed that all kept festival,That joy fires burned and joy bells rang;But still our hearts went hovering backTo sit beside one lonely grave.It seems so strange, so half unkind,That still the earth with life should stir,That still we smile, and still we jest.And drink our share of sun and airAnd joy – and leave her there behind;Nor share such happy things with herWho always gave us all her best!And yet – our love is loyal still;And yet – she joyed to have us gay;And yet – the moving world moves on,And does not wait our sad estate,To soothe our hurt or note our ill,But, touch by touch, and day by day,Heals us, and changes every one.But she? What is her work to do?For never tell me that she liesInactive, lifeless, in the mould,Content to keep a moveless sleepWhile worlds revolve in courses new.Her fiery zeal, her quick emprise,Could never brook such rest to hold!That grave but hides her worn-out dress, —One of God’s sure-winged messengersI see her, on swift errand sped,Glad of the task which strong souls ask,Earth’s sharpest pain grown littlenessIn the new tide of life made hers,Smiling that we should call her dead!Smile on, dear Heart, until the dawn!When once the eternal heights are bared,And the long earthly shadows flit,And with clear eyes we front the skies,We too shall smile with heavenly scornAt the dull, human selves who daredTo call life “Death” and pity it!

AT DAWN OF DAY

THE yellow lighthouse star is quenchedAcross the lonely sea;The mountains rend their misty veils,The wind of dawn blows free;The waves beat with a gladder thrill,Pulsing in lines of spray,And fast and far chime on the bar —God bless my Dear to-day!A thousand leagues may lie betweenA world of distance dim;But speeding with the speeding lightMy heart goes forth to him.Faster than wind or wave it flies,As love and longing may,And undenied stands by his side —God bless my Dear to-day!God bless him if he wake to smiles,Or if he wake to sighs;Temper his will to bear all fate,And keep him true and wise;Be to him all I fain would beWho am so far away, —Light, counsel, consolation, cheer —God bless my Dear to-day!The gradual light has grown full fain,And streameth far abroad.The urgence of my voiceless pleaIs gathered up by God.Take some sweet thing which else were mine,Inly I dare to pray,And with it brim his cup of joy —God bless my Dear to-day!

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

SO many things there might have been,Had our dear child not died.We count them up and call them o’er,We weigh the less against the more, —The joy she never knew or shared,The bitter woes forever spared,The dangers turned aside,Heaven’s full security, – and thenPerplexed we sigh, – all might have been.We might have seen her sweet cheeks glowWith love’s own happy bloom,Her eyes with maiden gladness full,Finding the whole world beautiful;We might have seen the joyance fail,The dear face sadden and grow pale,The smiles fade into gloom,Love’s sun grow dim and sink again, —Either of these it might have been.We might have seen her with the crownOf wifehood on her head,A queen of home’s fair sovereignties,With little children at her knees;Or, broken-hearted and alone,Bereft and widowed of her own,Mourning beside her dead, —This thing or that, beyond our ken,It might have been, it might have been.There is no need of question now,No doubts or risks or fears:Safe folded in the Eternal care,Grown fairer each day and more fair,With radiance in the clear young eyesWhich in cool depths of ParadiseLook without stain of tears,Reading the Lord’s intent, and thenSmiling to think what might have been.We too will smile, O dearest child!Our dull souls may not knowThe deep things hidden from mortal sense,Which feed thy heavenly confidence.On this one sure thought can we rest,That God has chosen for thee the best,Or else it were not so;He called thee back to Heaven againBecause he knew what might have been.

SOME TIME

THE night will round into the morn,The angry storm-wind cease to beat,The spent bird preen his wet tired wing,Grief ceaseth when the babe is born.There comes an end to hardest thingSome time, —Some time, some far time, late but sweet.I could not keep on with the fight;I could not face my want, my sin,The baffled hope, the urgent foe,The mighty wrong, the struggling right,Excepting that I surely knowSome time —Some time, some dear time, – I shall win.I could not hold so sure, so fast,The truth which is to me so true,The truth which men deride and shun,Were I not sure it shall at lastBe held as truth by every oneSome time, —Some time all men shall own it too.Some time the morning bells shall chime,Some time be heard the victor-song,Some time the hard goal be attained,The puzzles shall be clear some time,The tears all shed, the gains all gained,Some time —Ah, dear time, tarry not too long!

THE STARS ARE IN THE SKY ALL DAY

THE stars are in the sky all day;Each linkèd coil of Milky Way,And every planet that we know,Behind the sun are circling slow.They sweep, they climb with stately tread, —Venus the fair and Mars the red,Saturn engirdled with clear light,And Jupiter with moons of white.Each knows his path and keeps due tryst;Not even the smallest star is missedFrom those wide fields of deeper skyWhich gleam and flash mysteriously,As if God’s outstretched fingers mustHave sown them thick with diamond dust.There are they all day long; but we,Sun-blinded, have no eyes to see.The stars are in the sky all day;But when the sun has gone away,And hovering shadows cool the west,And call the sleepy birds to rest,And heaven grows softly dim and dun,Into its darkness one by oneSteal forth those starry shapes all fair —We say steal forth, but they were there,There all day long, unseen, unguessed,Climbing the sky from east to west.The angels saw them where they hid,And so, perhaps, the eagles did,For they can face the sharp sun-ray,Nor wink, nor need to look away;But we, blind mortals, gazed from far,And did not see a single star.I wonder if the world is fullOf other secrets beautiful,As little guessed, as hard to see,As this sweet starry mystery?Do angels veil themselves in space,And make the sun their hiding-place?Do white wings flash as spirits goOn heavenly errands to and fro,While we, down-looking, never guessHow near our lives they crowd and press?If so, at life’s set we may seeInto the dusk steal noiselesslySweet faces that we used to know,Dear eyes like stars that softly glow,Dear hands stretched out to point the way,And deem the night more fair than day.

NOW

LOVE me now! Love has such a little minute!Day crowds on day with swift and noiseless tread,Life’s end comes ere fairly we begin it;Pain jostles joy, and hope gives place to dread.Love me now!It will be too late when we are dead!Love me now! While we still are young together,While glad and brave the sun shines overhead,Hand locked in hand, in blue, smiling weather.Sighing were sin, and variance ill bestead;It will be too late when you are dead!Love me now! Shadows hover in the distance,Cold winds are coming, green leaves must turn red.Frownest thou, my Love, at this sad insistence?Even this moment may the dart be sped.Love me now!It will be too late when I am dead!

JUST BEYOND

WHEN out of the body the soul is sent,As a bird speeds forth from the opened tent,As the smoke flies out when it finds a vent,To lose itself in the spending, —Does it travel wide, does it travel far,To find the place where all spirits are?Does it measure long leagues from star to star,And feel its travel unending?And caught by each baffling, blowing wind,Storm-tossed and beaten, before, behind,Till the courage fails and the sight is blind,Must it go in search of its heaven?I do not think that it can be so;For weary is life, as all men know,And battling and struggling to and froMan goes from his morn to his even.And surely this is enough to bear, —The long day’s work in the sun’s hot glare,The doubt and the loss which breed despair,The anguish of baffled hoping.And when the end of it all has come,And the soul has won the right to its home,I do not believe it must wander and roamThrough the infinite spaces groping.No; wild may the storm be, and dark the day,And the shuddering soul may clasp its clay,Afraid to go and unwilling to stay;But when it girds it for going,With a rapture of sudden consciousness,I think it awakes to a knowledge of this,That heaven earth’s closest neighbor is,And only waits for our knowing;That ’tis but a step from dark to day,From the worn-out tent and the burial clay,To the rapture of youth renewed for aye,And the smile of the saints uprisen;And that just where the soul, perplexed and awed,Begins its journey, it meets the Lord,And finds that heaven and the great rewardLay just outside of its prison!

CONTACT

NO soul can be quite separate,However set apart by fate,However cold or dull or shy,Or shrinking from the public eye.The world is common to the race,And nowhere is a hiding-place;Before, behind, on either side,The surging masses press, divide;Behind, before, with rhythmic beat,Is heard the tread of marching feet;To left, to right, they urge, they fare,And touch us here, and touch us there.Hold back your garment as you will,The crowding world will rub it still.Then, since such contact needs must be,What shall it do for you and me?Shall it be cold and hard alone,As when a stone doth touch a stone,Fruitless, unwelcome, and unmeant,Put by as a dull accident,While we pass onward, deaf and blind,With no relenting look behind?Or as when two round drops of rain,Let fall upon a window-pane,Wander, divergent, from their course,Led by some blind, instinctive force,Mingle and blend and interfuse,Their separate shapes and being lose,Made one thereafter and the same,Identical in end and aim,Nor brighter gleam, nor faster run,Because they are not two, but one?Or shall we meet in warring mood,The contact of the fire and flood,Decreed by Nature and by Will,The one to warm, the one to chill,The one to burn, the one to slake,To thwart and counteract and makeEach other’s wretchedness, and dwellIn hate irreconcilable?Or as when fierce fire meets frail straw,And carries out the fatal lawWhich makes the weaker thing to beThe prey of strength and tyranny;A careless touch, half scorn, half mirth,A brief resistance, little worth;A little blaze soon quenched and marred,And ashes ever afterward?No; let us meet, since meet we must,Not shaking off the common dust,As if we feared our fellow-men,And fain would walk aloof from them;Not fruitlessly, as rain meets rain,To lose ourselves and nothing gain;Not fiercely, prey to adverse fate,And not to spoil and desolate.But as we meet and touch, each day,The many travellers on our way,Let every such brief contact beA glorious, helpful ministry;The contact of the soil and seed,Each giving to the other’s need,Each helping on the other’s best,And blessing, each, as well as blest.

AN EASTER SONG

WE bore to see the summer go;We bore to see the ruthless windBeat all the golden leaves and redIn drifting masses to and fro,Till not a leaf remained behind;We faced the winter’s frown, and said,“There comes reward for all our pain,For every loss there comes a gain;And spring, which never failed us yet,Out of the snow-drift and the iceShall some day bring the violet.”We bore – what could we do but bear? —To see youth perish in its prime,And hope grow faint, and joyance grieved,And dreams all vanish in thin air,And beauty, at the touch of time,Become a memory, half believed;Still we could smile, and still we said,“Hope, joy, and beauty are not dead;God’s angel guards them all and sees —Close by the grave he sits and waits —There comes a spring for even these.”We bore to see dear faces pale,Dear voices falter, smiles grow wan,And life ebb like a tide at sea,Till underneath the misty veilOur best belovèd, one by one,Vanished and parted silently.We stayed without, but still could say,“Grief’s winter dureth not alway;Who sleep in Christ with Christ shall rise.We wait our Easter morn in tears,They in the smile of Paradise.”O thought of healing, word of strength!O light to lighten darkest way!O saving help and balm of ill!For all our dead shall dawn at lengthA slowly broadening Easter Day,A Resurrection calm and still.The little sleep will not seem long,The silence shall break out in song,The sealèd eyes shall ope, – and thenWe who have waited patientlyShall live and have our own again.

CONCORD

MAY 31, 1882

“FARTHER horizons every year!”Oh, tossing pines which surge and waveAbove the poet’s just made grave,And waken for his sleeping earThe music that he loved to hear,Through summer’s sun and winter’s chill,With purpose stanch and dauntless will,Sped by a noble discontent,You climb toward the blue firmament, —Climb as the winds climb, mounting highThe viewless ladders of the sky;Spurning our lower atmosphere,Heavy with sighs and dense with night,And urging upward year by yearTo ampler air, diviner light.“Farther horizons every year!”Beneath you pass the tribes of men,Your gracious boughs o’ershadow them;You hear, but do not seem to heedTheir jarring speech, their faulty creed.Your roots are firmly set in soilWon from their humming paths of toil;Content their lives to watch and share,To serve them, shelter, and upbear,Yet bent to win an upward wayAnd larger gift of heaven than they,Benignant view and attitude,Close knowledge of celestial sign,Still working for all earthly goodWhile pressing on to the Divine.“Farther horizons every year!”So he, by reverent hands just laidBeneath your boughs of wavering shade,Climbed as you climb the upward way,Knowing not boundary or stay.His eyes surcharged with heavenly lights,His senses steeped in heavenly sights,His soul attuned to heavenly keys,How should he pause for rest and ease,Or turn his wingèd feet again,To share the common feasts of men?He blessed them with his word and smile,But still, above their fickle moods,Wooing, constraining him awhile,Beckoned the shining altitudes.“Farther horizons every year!”To what immeasurable height,What clear irradiance of light,What far and all-transcendent goalHast thou now risen, O steadfast soul!We may not follow with our eyesTo where thy farther pathway lies,Nor guess what vision vast and freeGod keeps in store for souls like thee.But still the pines that bend and waveTheir boughs above thy honored graveShall be thy emblem brave and fit,Firm-rooted in the stalwart sod,Blessing the earth while spurning it,Content with nothing short of God.

HEREAFTER

WHEN we are dead, when you and I are dead,Have rent and tossed aside each earthly fetterAnd wiped the grave-dust from our wondering eyes,And stand together, fronting the sunrise,I think that we shall know each other better.Puzzle and pain will lie behind us then;All will be known and all will be forgiven.We shall be glad of every hardness past,And not one earthly shadow shall be castTo dim the brightness of the bright new heaven.And I shall know, and you as well as I,What was the hindering thing our whole lives through,Which kept me always shy, constrained, distressed;Why I, to whom you were the first and best,Could never, never be my best with you;Why, loving you as dearly as I did,And prizing you above all earthly good,I yet was cold and dull when you were by,And faltered in my speech or shunned your eye,Unable quite to say the thing I would;Could never front you with the happy easeOf those whose perfect trust has cast out fear,Or take, content, from Love his daily dole,But longed to grasp and be and have the whole,As blind men long to see, the deaf to hear.My dear Love, when I forward look, and thinkOf all these baffling barriers swept away,Against which I have beat so long and strained,Of all the puzzles of the past explained,I almost wish that we could die to-day.

OUR DAILY BREAD

“GIVE us our daily bread,” we pray,And know but half of what we say.The bread on which our bodies feedIs but the moiety of our need.The soul, the heart, must nourished be,And share the daily urgency.And though it may be bitter breadOn which these nobler parts are fed,No less we crave the daily dole,O Lord, of body and of soul!Sweet loaves, the wine-must all afoam,The manna, and the honey-comb, —All these are good, but better stillThe food which checks and moulds the will.The sting for pride, the smart for sin,The purging draught for self within,The sorrows which we shuddering meet,Not knowing their after-taste of sweet, —All these we ask for when we pray,“Give us our daily bread this day.”Lord, leave us not athirst, unfed;Give us this best and hardest bread,Until, these mortal needs all past,We sit at thy full feast at last,The bread of angels broken by thee,The wine of joy poured constantly.

SLEEPING AND WAKING

GOD giveth his beloved sleep;They lie securely ’neath his wingTill the night pale, the dawning break;Safe in its overshadowingThey fear no dark and harmful thing; —What does he give to those who wake?To those who sleep he gives good dreams;For bodies overtasked and spentComes rest to comfort every ache;To weary eyes new light is sent,To weary spirits new content; —What does God give to those who wake?His angels sit beside the bedsOf such as rest beneath his care.Unweariedly their post they take,They wave their wings to fan the air,They cool the brow and stroke the hair, —God comes himself to those who wake.To fevered eyes that cannot close,To hearts o’erburdened with their lot,He comes to soothe, to heal, to slake;Close to the pillows hard and hotHe stands, although they see him not,And taketh care of those who wake.Nor saint nor angel will he trustWith this one blessed ministry,Lest they should falter or mistake;They guard the sleepers faithfullyWho are the Lord’s beloved; but heWatches by those beloved who wake.Oh, in the midnight dense and drear,When life drifts outward with the tide,And mortal terrors overtake,In this sure thought let us abide,And unafraid be satisfied, —God comes himself to those who wake!

THORNS

ROSES have thorns, and love is thorny too;And this is love’s sharp thorn which guards its flower,That our beloved have the cruel powerTo hurt us deeper than all others do.The heart attuned to our heart like a charm,Beat answering beat, as echo answers song,If the throb falter, or the pulse beat wrong,How shall it fail to grieve us or to harm?The taunt which, uttered by a stranger’s lips,Scarce heard, scarce minded, passed us like the wind,Breathed by a dear voice, which has grown unkind,Turns sweet to bitter, sunshine to eclipse.The instinct of a change we cannot prove,The pitiful tenderness, the sad too-much,The sad too-little, shown in look or touch, —All these are wounding thorns of thorny love.Ah, sweetest rose which earthly gardens bear,Fought for, desired, life’s guerdon and life’s end,Although your thorns may slay and wound and rend,Still men must snatch you; for you are so fair.

A NEW-ENGLAND LADY

SHE talks of “gentry” still, and “birth,”And holds the good old-fashioned creedOf widely differing ranks and station,And gentle blood, whose obligationIs courteous word and friendly deed.She knows her own ancestral line,And numbers all its links of honor;But in her theory of right livingGood birth involves good will, good giving, —A daily duty laid upon her.Her hands are versed in household arts:She kneads and stirs, compounds and spices;Her bread is famous in the region;Her cakes and puddings form a legionOf sure successes, swift surprises.A lady in her kitchen apron;Always a lady, though she labors;She has a “faculty” prompt and certain,Which makes each flower-bed, gown, and curtainA standing wonder to her neighbors.Her days seem measured by some planetMore liberal than our common sun is;For she finds time when others miss itThe poor to cheer, the sick to visit,And carry brightness in where none is.Behold her as, her day’s work over,Her house from attic to door-scraperIn order, all her tasks completed,She sits down, calm, composed, unheated,To read her Emerson or her paper.She hears the new æsthetic Gospel,And unconvinced although surprised is;Her family knows what is proper.She smiles, and does not care a copper,Although her carpet stigmatized is.She does not quite accept tradition;She has her private theory ready;Her shrewd, quaint insight baffles leading;And straight through dogma’s special pleadingShe holds her own, composed and steady.Kindness her law; her king is duty.You cannot bend her though you break her;As tough as yew and as elasticHer fibre; unconvinced, unplastic, —She clasps conviction like a Quaker.Long live her type, to be our anchorWhen times go wrong and true men rally,Till aged Chocorua fails and bleachesBeside the shining Saco reaches,Monadnock by the Jaffrey valley.

UNDER THE SNOW