ttamimm IMmaitaitmmmismmm mmH^^ i i « w ■ iw wi» : ii ii i ini ii ij i iM"iJ i H i > i »^ « Mi iiiiw>^^ ^■^■^ fLIBRilRY OF CONGRESS #|lwp^-^.- fopntislif If, By daily access of thy faithful deed, By steps whereof God's mercy keeps the sum. Safely to stand where human praise is dumb, And Christ's " Well done " is thine eternal meed ! HYMN FOR THE FUNERAL SERVICES OF REV. RICHARD PIKE, FEBRUARY 20, 1863. Father ! our faith grasps upward through the gloom, Even from out these tears ! Not in the shadow of a hopeless tomb Lose we our friend of years. A dear and holy presence seemeth still Within our midst to sta^id, And such a silent priesthood to fulfil As maketh parting grand. 32 HYMN. We will bespeak each other words of cheer In this our saddened shrine, Above the darkened altar and the bier See we a light divine ! Bid thou the life that passeth from our sight Visit our souls with grace ! So may we also, through this mortal night. Reach to thy Holy Place. OF SUGGESTION LARV^. My little maiden of four years old — No myth, but a genuine child is she, With her bronze-brown eyes and her curls of gold — Came, quite in disgust, one day, to me. Rubbing her shoulder with rosy palm, As the loathsome touch seemed yet to thrill her. She cried, " O mother ! I found on my arm A horrible, crawling caterpillar ! " 36 LARViE. And with mischievous smile she could scarcely smother, Yet a glance in its daring half awed and shy, She added, *' While they were about it, mother, I wish they 'd just finished the butterfly ! " They were words to the thought of the soul that turns From the coarser form of a partial growth. Reproaching the infinite patience that yearns With an unknown glory to crown them both. Ah, look thou largely, with lenient eyes. On whatso beside thee may creep and cling. For the possible glory that underlies The passing phase of the meanest thing ! LARViE. 37 What if God's great angels, whose waiting love Beholdeth our pitiful life below From the holy height of their heaven above, Could n't bear with the worm till the wings should grow ? BEHIND THE MASK. It was an old, distorted face, — An uncouth visage, rough and wild, - Yet, from behind, with laughing grace, Peeped the fresh beauty of a child. And so, contrasting strange to-day, My heart of youth doth inly ask If half earth's wrinkled grimness may Be but the baby in the mask. Behind gray hairs and furrowed brow And withered look that life puts on, BEHIND THE MASK. 39 Each, as he wears it, comes to know How the child hides, and is not gone. For while the inexorable years To saddened features fit their mould, Beneath the work of time and tears Waits something that will not grow old ! The rifted pine upon the hill, Scarred by the lightning and the wind, Through bolt and blight doth nurture still Young fibres underneath the rind ; And many a storm-blast, fiercely sent, And wasted hope, and -sinful stain. Roughen the strange integument The struggling soul must wear in pain ; 40 BEHIND THE MASK. Yet when she comes to claim her own, Heaven's angels, haply, shall not ask For that last look the world hath known, But for the face behind the mask ! NORTHEAST. We had a week of rainy days ; The heaven was gray, the earth was grim ; And through a sea of hopeless haze The dreamy dayhght wandered dim. The saddened trees, with weary boughs, Drooped heavily, or sullen swayed Slow answer to the sobs and soughs The jaded east-wind, whimpering, made. Faint as the dawn the noonday seemed. With hardly more of stir or sound ; 42 NORTHEAST. The only noise or motion seemed That dull, cold dropping on the ground. Vainly the Soul her frame ignores ; Deep ansvvereth unto deep apart ; And the great weeping out of doors Touched the tear fountains in the heart. So life looked drear, and heaven was dim ; And though the Sun still strode the sky. Through the thick gloom that shrouded him Scarce trusted we the joy on high. But, sudden, from the leafy dark, — The close green covert rain-bestirred, — NORTHEAST. 43 Outbursting tremulously, hark, The carol of a little bird ! < Ah, long the storm ; yet none the less, Hid from the utmost reach of ill, And singing in the wilderness, Some small, sweet hope waits blithely still ! ANTIPHONY. Hanging where the May-tide splendor, pouring down the arches blue, Pierces, flooding with its fulness all the chamber through and through, — Swings a cage, atilt and vibrant with the rest- less feet and wings Of three glancing, golden-feathered, wonder- . throated little things. Little bits of living glory with a melody in- breathed ; Pulses of a mighty music in the sunlight caught and seethed, ANTIPHONY. 45 Till it grew concrete about them, shaped a body and a bound For the throbbing soul of sweetness striving ceaseless into sound. Scanted in their glimpse of heaven, peering with their witless eyes Outward, where the unmeasured answer to their untaught yearning lies ; Fluttering with a secret impulse kindred to the summer breeze, Springing to an unknown motion of the far-off forest trees. So God plumeth many a spirit, still withholding space to soar ; 46 ANTIPHONY. Bids it wait with folded pinion till He openeth the door : Seals a sense that still respondeth dimly to some distant good, Stirring all the mortal nature with an unborn angelhood. Sitting in the quiet chamber, where that magic of the May Glorified each dull surrounding with the over- flow of day, Only their soft song and flutter moved the silence of the room. And the clock upon the mantel telling out the strokes of doom. ANTIPHONY 47 Saying sternly, and repeating, with a cadence sure and slow, — While with onward march the minutes, pauseless and returnless, go, " Speeding, speeding, ever speeding, — ebbing, ebbing, still away ! Minutes, hours, and breath, and being! — life, and death, and night, and day ! " Still I heard as one unheeding, listening but the softened strain Of the prisoned joy that smote me with a strange rebuke of pain ; So its semblance did interpret hindered hopes my life had known, Waiting God's divine releasing, as these waited for mine own. 48 ANTIPHONY. Rising up, with ready finger straight I set the door avvide ; Swift they claimed the offered franchise, with its compass satisfied. Back and forth throughout the chamber, in their joy they went and came ; Then, as in a still assurance, settled o'er the window-frame. Presently a clear, triumphant paean cleft the startled air ; Notes that flashed like falling rain-drops, bright and sudden, everywhere ; Slender breaths of piercing sweetness, like keen needleshafts of sound. Then a tender, tremulous rapture, and a quiet closing round. ANTIPHONY. 49 Quiet. Yet from o'er the mantel came those urgent strokes of time, Meting the unmeasured stillness as a thought is pulsed with rhyme ; With their deep insistance uttering self-same syllables alvvay, — " Minutes, hours, and breath, and being ! — life, and death, and night, and day ! " While the birds above the casement, like souls stricken into shame, — All their sudden burst of joyance quivered out, like taper-flame, — Side by side sat hushed and awestruck, hearken- ing as with holden breath ; Every little heart-beat merging in those cadences of death! 50 ANTIPHONY. Ah, methought, the old incongruence ! still the strangeness and the strife ! Still the weary counterpoising, sense with soul, and law with life ! Feeling onl}^ for a little, what it is to wear the wings ; Just a breath of perfect music while the uncaged spirit sings ; Then the confine shutting round us, and a dull, relentless tone Finer utterance overbearing with the pressure of its own. Yet, with all its hard repeating, tells the letter less or more Than the brief and sweet revealing of the gospel gone before ? RELEASED. A LITTLE, low-ceiled room. Four walls Whose blank shut out all else of life, And crowded close within their bound A world of pain, and toil, and strife. Her world. Scarce furthermore she knew Of God's great globe that wondrously Outrolls a glory of green earth And frames it with the restless sea. Four closer walls of common pine ; And therein lying, cold and still, 52 RELEASED. The weary flesh that long hath borne Its patient mystery of ill. Regardless now of work to do, No queen more careless in her state, Hands crossed in an unbroken calm ; For other hands the work may wait. Put by her implements of toil ; Put by each coarse, intrusive sign ; She made a Sabbath when she died. And round her breathes a rest divine. Put by, at last, beneath the lid, The exempted hands, the tranquil face ; RELEASED. 53 Uplift her in her dreamless sleep, And bear her gently from the place. Oft she hath gazed, with wistful eyes, Out from that threshold on the night ; The narrow bourn she crosseth now ; She standeth in the eternal light. Oft she hath pressed, with aching feet, Those broken steps that reach the door ; Henceforth, with angels, she shall tread Heaven's golden stair, forevermore ! OVERSWEPT. A PICTURE. I SIT by a window high Looking out among waving trees That, across the blue of the sky, Move daintily with the breeze. And the draperies of green, And that purity serene. And the clouds of floating white Shining in upper light. Are all that may be seen. The world is beneath me, low. As if upon bended knee OVERSWEPT. 5 5 Receiving the chrism that so Baptizeth her gloriously ; For the light is like answer given From the open gates of heaven To prayers from the souls of her saints, that rise Through the tender noon-hush, into the skies. And the silently folding air Is luminous everywhere With a misty shimmer of gold ; Till but for the sweet and merciful blue In the far, deep heaven unrolled, — The mystery infinite presence comes through, — Struck by the glory unconfined, The soul and the vision alike were blind. 56 OVERSWEPT. From the chambers of the west There cometh a rush and a stir ; And across the Noon's deep rest A thrill that arouseth her. For the Wind hath lifted his wings In the heights where his hidings are, And the earth, wilh tremulous shudderings, Acknowledgeth him afar. A gloom creeps over the gold From a pall with a waving fringe That against the sunlight is suddenly rolled, And the tree-tops huddle and cringe In the first, quick whisper of the blast That down from the great hills hurrieth fast. OVERSWEPT. 57 And the sweeping, wavering cloud Is seen as a distant rain That rustles its garments aloud, And poureth along the plain. The quivering forest groans, And tosses her arms on high, And struggles, and writhes, and moans. Like a soul in agony. Till her high imperial crown, In cowering panic and fear. At the pitiless presence near. Bends blindly and wreK:hedly down. And the tempest, that comes with a terrible stride. Sets his dusky foot on her forehead of pride. 58 OVERSWEPT. The valley is filled with mist ; With a drifting, powdery cloud ; And the hills that the sunlight kissed Are wrapped in a winding shroud. Yet afar off, over the sea And along the distant shore, Still a moment, quenchlessly, Doth an unreached splendor pour ; Like a hope kept safe in the coming years For a life that looks on through a mist of tears. While the rain from overhead, With a steep and passionate rush, A sounding sweep and crush, Cometh down like drops of lead ; And on field, and forest, and hill, OVERSWEPT. 59 The terror and struggle are past ; For the paralyzed earth is still In the clutch of the storm at last. And high in his towering pride Doth the sheeted giant stand,. With his watery robe unfolded wide And trailing along the land. Yet look ! for its border is riven ! Already the light of the skies Hath touched with the beauty of heaven The hem that behind him lies ; And while with a face of wrath He hasteneth on to the sea, The step of the sunbeam along his path Is following urgently. 6o OVERSWEPT. Ah, thus to the eyes that look below From the far-off heights of the heavenly towers On the birth and end of this life of ours, Doth it still from glory to glory go; — From the sun-bathed hills to the deep serene, — Though the shifting storm may hang between ! BEAUTY FOR ASHES. We have no glory of the woods this year ! The Summer lieth dead upon her bier, And parched and brown, with faint and fluttering fall, Gaunt arms drop down her melancholy pall. Like some remorseful spirit she hath gone, Finding no wedding garment to put on ; From fever dropt to silence ; day by day, Her green hope lost, — so perishing away. All passion-burned were her meridian hours, Untouched by any tenderness of showers : 62 BEAUTY FOR ASHES. Too late the wild winds and the penitent rain Vex the dead days that are not born again. So said we in the early autumn-time. Missing the red leaf and the golden prime ; And still the rain fell with sweet, patient woe, Like heart sin-broken, that can only so. Then there befell a wonder. Scathed and burned, Great trees stood leafless ; but the earth-soul yearned Toward her salvation, and it came to pass, — Green resurrection of young, gentle grass. Fair in October as it had been May ! No matter for the season passed away, BEAUTY FOR ASHES. 6$ For shortening suns, or useless little while : Heaven's outright grace gave back that vernal smile. We missed no more the golden and the red, For joy that the deep heart was quick, not dead. We saw as angels see ; through loss and sinnings : All times are spring to God's dear new be- ginnings. A RHYME OF MONDAY MORNING. One half the world is wringing wet, Or on the lines a-drying ; That so the seven days' smirch may get A weekly purifying. A smoke goes up through all the air, And dims its summer glory ; Like that which doth the torment bear Of souls in purgatory. Vainly to shun the tax we seek ; In penance for our sinning, A RHYME OF MONDAY MORNING. 6$ One day is forfeit from the week, To make a clean beginning. For, gathering stain as on we go, — Type of our shame and sorrow, — White robes we wore but yesterday Are in the suds to-morrow. Ah, Hfe without and life within In unison consenting ! Six days contracting soil and sin ; One, washing and repenting! O world, once swept with awful flood From ages of pollution! 5 66 A RHYME OF MONDAY MORNING. O nations, cleansed with fire and blood In day of absolution ! Ma}^ God assoilzie all at last ! Of all be loving-heedful ! And place us where, earth's purging past, No washing-day is needful ! THE LAST REALITY. A CHILD'S SATIRE. Children want always the " truliest " things. The things that come nearest to Ufe ; Grown-up and real : for — sweet little souls — They believe in the world and his wife ! Grown-up is real : we stand in the light Of their heaven with our pitiful shows, Till the shams of our living become to their sight Most in earnest of all that it knows. Kathie wanted a doll for her Christmas this year, A doll that could do something grand ; 6S THE LAST REALITY. *' Not cry ; that 's for babies" ; nor might it suffice That she simply could sit and could stand. " And I don't care for eyes that will open and shut." " You did." *' Well, the care is all gone. I Ve seen 'em enough, mamma ; / want a doll Wtt/i Jiair that takes off and puts onV THE THREE LIGHTS. My window that looks down the west, Where the cloud-thrones and islands rest, One evening, to my random sight, Showed forth this picture of delight. The shifting glories were all gone ; The clear blue stillness coming on ; And the soft shade, 'twixt day and night Held the old earth in tender light. Up in the ether hung the horn Of a young moon ; and, newly born yO THE THREE LIGHTS. From out the shadows, trembled far The shining of a single star. Only a hand's breadth was between : So close they seemed, so sweet-serene, As if in heaven some child and mother. With peace untold, had found each other. Then my glance fell from that fair sky A little down, yet very nigh. Just where the neighboring tree-tops made A lifted line of billowy shade, — And from the earth-dark twinkled clear One other spark, of human cheer ; * A home-smile, telling where there stood A farmer's house beneath the wood. THE THREE LIGHTS. 7I Only these three in all the space ; Far telegraphs of various place. Which seeing, this glad thought was mine, — Be it but little candle-shine, Or golden disk of moon that swings Nearest of all the heavenly things, Or world in awful distance small. One Light doth feed and link them all ! HEARTH-GLOW. In the fireshine at the twilight, The pictures that I see Are less with mimic landscape bright Than with life and mystery. Where the embers flush and flicker With their palpitating glow, I see, fitfuller and quicker. Heart-pulses come and go. And here and there, with eager flame, A little tongue of hght HEARTH-GLOW. 73 Upreaches earnestly to claim A somewhat out of sight. I know, with instinct sure and high, A somewhat must be there ; Else should the fiery impulse die In ashes of despair. Through the red tracery I discern A parable sublime ; A solemn myth of souls that burn In ordeals of time. How the life-spark yearns and shivers Till the whiteness o'@r it creep ! Till the last, pale hope outquivers. And quenches into sleep ! 74 HEARTH-GLOW. Till 'mid the dust of what has been, It lieth dim and cold ; Yet holdeth secretly, within, Heart-fervor, as of old ! As from the darkening fireside I slowly turn away, I think how souls of men abide The breaking of the day When a morning touch shall stir again Those ashes of the night That gathered o'er our hearts of pain To keep their life alight ! IRIDESCENCE. A LESSON OF A SOAP-BUBBLE BENEATH A GAS-LIGHT. A DROP, a breath, and lo ! a sphere, Born instant and immaculate. In ring of silver resteth clear, Like soul in circle of her fate. As life that drinks the eternal light, It lies within the effulgent glow Out from whose depth, untracked of sight, Pulses of beauty fill and flow. Gather and flow, as sure and swift, In self-same order, one by one, 76 IRIDESCENCE. As the great waves that earthward drift Down from the heart-beats of the sun ! It seizes first the crimson gleam That morning Hghts in eastern skies, That bathes in one resplendent beam All heaven to eager morning eyes. Day's primal and redundant flower ; Life's earliest flush and plenitude ; The rose-bloom of earth's jubilant hour; Her passionate overflow of good. God giveth. Not his best at first ; He who set forth the feast of old Began with wine that was the worst ; After the crimson comes the gold. IRIDESCENCE. 7/ The gold gives way to gentler green ; The green still calmeth into blue ; The rays grow tender and serene, As thins the film they brighten through. A nobler joy, a holier hope, A simple resting in the true, — So life within her trembling scope Unfolds each pure, progressive hue ; Until, just ere the veil is riven. Ere soul resolves from sense and sight. She catches from her opening heaven The inner, amethystine light ! SPARROWS. Little birds sit on the telegraph-wires, And chitter, and flitter, and fold their wings ; Maybe they think that for them and their sires Stretched always, on purpose, those wonderful strings : And perhaps the Thought that the world inspires Did plan for the birds, among other things. Little birds sit on the slender lines, And the news of the world runs under their feet : How value rises, and how declines, How kings with their armies in battle meet; SPARROWS. 79 And all the while, 'mid the soundless signs, They chirp their small gossipings, foolish- sweet. Little things light on the lines of our lives, — Hopes, and joys, and acts of to-day; And we think that for these the Lord contrives, Nor catch what the hidden lightnings say. Yet from end to end His meaning arrives, And His word runs underneath all the way. Is life only wires and lightnings then, Apart from that which a-bout it clings ? Are the thoughts, and the works, and the prayers of men So SPARROWS. Only sparrows that light on God's telegraph- strings, Holding a moment, and gone again ? Nay : He planned for the birds, with the larger things. OF INTERPRETATION AND HOPE. SUNLIGHT AND STARLIGHT. God sets some souls in shade, alone ; They have no daylight of their own : Only in lives of happier ones They see the shine of distant suns. God knows. Content thee with thy nighty Thy greater heaven Jiath grander light To-day is close ; the hours are small ; Thou sit'st afar, and hast them all. 84 SUNLIGHT AND STARLIGHT. Lose the less joy that doth but bHnd ; Reach forth a larger bliss to find. To-day is brief: the inclusive spheres Rain raptures of a thousand years. TWOFOLD. A DOUBLE life is this of ours ; A twofold form wherein we dwell: And heaven itself is not so strange, Nor half so far as teachers tell. With weary feet we daily tread The circle of a self-same round ; Yet the strong soul may not be held A prisoner in the petty bound. The body walketh as in sleep, A shadow among things that seem ; 86 TWOFOLD. While held in leash, yet far away, The spirit moveth in a dream. A living dream of good or ill, • In caves of gloom or fields of light ; Where purpose doth itself fulfil, And longing love is instant sight. Where time, nor space, nor blood, nor bond May love and life divide in twain ; But they whom truth hath inly joined Meet inly on their common plane. We need not die to go to God ; See how the daily prayer is given I TWOFOLD. Zj 'T is not across a gulf we cry, • " Our Father, who dost dwell in heaven ! " And " Let thy will on earth be done, As in thy heaven," by this, thy child ! What is it but all prayers in one. That soul and sense be reconciled ? That inner sight and outer seem No more in thwarting conflict strive ; But doing blossom from the dream, And the whole nature rise, alive ? There 's beauty waiting to be born. And harmony that makes no sound ; 88 TWOFOLD. And bear we ever, unaware, A glory that hath not been crowned. And so we yearn, and so we sigh, And reach for more than we can see ; And, witless of our folded wings, Walk Paradise unconsciously ; And dimly feel the day divine With vision half redeemed from night, Till death shall fuse the double life And God himself shall give us light ! "I WILL ABIDE IN THINE HOUSE." Among so many, can He care ? Can special love be everywhere ? A myriad homes, — a myriad ways, — And God's eye over every place. Over ; but in ? The world is full ; A grand omnipotence must rule ; But is there life that doth abide With mine own living, side by side "i So many, and so wide abroad: Can any heart have all of God } 90 "I WILL ABIDE IN THINE HOUSE." From the great spaces, vague and dim, May one small household gather Him? I asked: my soul bethought of this: — In just that very place of his Where He hath put and keepeth you, God hath no other thing to do ! UP IN THE WILD. Up in the wild, where no one comes to look, There lives and sings a little lonely brook : Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines, Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines. Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice caught, It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her thought ; And down dim hollows where it winds along, Pours its life-burden of unlistened song. I catch the murmur of its undertone. That sigheth ceaselessly. Alone ! alone ! 92 UP IN THE WILD. And hear afar the Rivers gloriously Shout on their paths toward the shining sea ! The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun, And wearing names of honor, every one : Outreaching wide, and joining hand with hand To pour great gifts along the asking land. Ah, lonely brook ! Creep onward through the pines ; Press through the gloom to where the daylight shines ! Sing on among the stones, and secretly Feel how the floods are all akin to thee ! UP IN THE WILD. 93 Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven sendeth ; Hold thine own path, howeverward it tendeth ; For somewhere, underneath the eternal sky. Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by and by ! RAIN. From all this vital orb of earth A breath exhaleth to the air, That, heaven-distilled to equal grace, Falls, a fresh bounty, everywhere. The dark mould drinks the sunset cloud. And tastes of heaven ; unconsciously Green forest-depths are stirred to catch A far-off flavor of the sea. No drop is lost. God counteth all ; And icy crests, in glory crowned RAIN. 95 With faint rose-petals, yield and take, And so the unwasted joy goes round. One spirit moveth in it all ; One life that worketh large and free, To each, from all, forevermore. Giving and gathering silently. God's stintless joy goes round, goes round : No soul that dwelleth so apart It may not feel the circling pulse Outwelling from the eternal heart. (•* Athirst ! athirst ! The sandy soil Bears no glad trace of leaf or tree ; 96 RAIN. No grass-blade sigheth to the heaven Its little drop of ecstasy : Yet other fields are spreading wide Green bosoms to the bounteous sun ; And palms and cedars shall sublime Their raptures for thee, waiting one ! It comes with smell of summer showers, To stir a dreamy sense within, Half hope, and half a pained regret ; — It may be, — or, it might have been ! The joy that knows there is a joy; That scents its breath, and cries, " 'Tis there !" RAIN. 97 And patient in its pure repose, Receiveth so the holier share. I know a life whose cheerless bound Is like a deep and silent chasm Left dark between the day-bright hills, In time long past, by fiery spasm. The mocking sunlight leaps across ; The stars, with Levite glance, go by : So vainly doth its dreary depth Plead to the far-off, pitiless sky. Yet ever from the flinty marge. And down each rough and cavernous side. gS RAIN. Trickle the drops that bear their balm From ferny bank and pasture wide. It drinketh, drinketh, day by day ; And still, within its bosom deep, The waiting water, filtered clear, Doth in a crystal beauty sleep. Waiting, and swelling, till it find God's outlet, long while placed and planned, Whence, strong and jubilant, it shall sweep Down, with a song-burst, o'er the land. EQUINOCTIAL. The sun of life has crossed the line ; The summer-shine of lengthened light Faded and failed, till where I stand 'T is equal day and equal night. One after one, as dwindling hours, Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away. And soon may barely leave the gleam That coldly scores a winter's day. I am not young ; I am not old ; The flush of morn, the sunset calm, 100 EQUINOCTIAL. Paling and deepening, each to each, Meet midway with a solemn charm. One side I see the summer fields Not yet disrobed of all their green ; While westerly, along the hills Flame the first tints of frosty sheen. Ah, middle point, where cloud and storm Make battle-ground of this, my life ! Where, even-matched, the night and day Wage round me their September strife ! I bow me to the threatening gale : I know when that is overpast, Among the peaceful harvest days, An Indian summer comes at last ! THE SECOND MOTHERHOOD. " He shall gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom ; and shall gently lead those that are with young." O HEARTS that long ! O hearts that wait, Burdened with love and pain, Till the dear life-dream, earth-conceived, In heaven be born again ! O mother-souls, whose holy hope Is sorrowful and blind. Hear what He saith so tenderly Who keepeth you in mind ! Of all his flock He hath for you A sweet, especial grace ; 102 THE SECOND MOTHERHOOD. And guides you with a separate care To his prepared place. For all our times are times of type, Foretokened on the earth ; And still the waiting and the tears Must go before the birth. Still the dear Lord, with whom abides All Hfe that is to be, Keeps safe the joy but half fulfilled In his eternity. Our lambs He carries in his arms The heavenly meads among ; And gently leadeth here the souls Love-burdened with their vouns: ! CHRISTMAS. What is the Christ of God ? It is his touch, his sign, his making known. His coming forth from out the all-alone. The stretching of a rod Abloom with his intent, From the invisible. He made worlds so: And souls, whose endless life should be to know What the worlds meant. Christ is the dear " I Am." The Voice that the cool garden-stillness brake, — 104 CHRISTMAS. The Human Heart to human hearts that spake, . Long before Abraham. The word, the thought, the breath, — All chrism of God that in creation lay, — Was born unto a life and name this day ; Jesus of Nazareth ! With man whom He had made God came down side by side. Not from the skies In thunders, but through brother-lips and eyes, His messages He said. Close to our sin He leant, Whispering, " Be clean ! " The High, the Awful- , Holy,— CHRISTMAS. 105 Utterly meek, — ah ! infinitely lowly, — Unto our burden bent The might it waited for. " Daughter, be comforted. Thou art made whole. Son, be forgiven through all thy guilty soul. Sin — suffer ye — no more ! " " O dumb, deaf, blind, receive ! Shall He who shaped the ear not hear your cry ? Doth He not tenderly see who made the eye.'* Ask me, that I may give ! ^* O Bethany and Nain ! I show your hearts how safe they are with me. I06 CHRISTMAS. I reach into my deep eternity And bring your dead again ! " My kingdom cometh nigh. Look up, and see the Ughtening from afar. Over my Bethlehem behold the star Quickening the eastward sky ! *' From end to end, alvvay. The same Lord, I am with you. Down the night, My visible steps make all the mystery bright. Lo ! it is Christmas Day ! " EASTER. Do saints keep holyday in heavenly places ? Does the old joy shine new in angel faces ? Are hymns still sung the night when Christ was born, And anthems on the Resurrection morn ? Because our little year of earth is run, Do they keep record there beyond the sun ? And in their homes of light so far away Mark with us the sweet coming of this day ? What is their Easter ? For they have no graves. No shadow there the holy sunrise craves, — I08 EASTER. Deep in the heart of noontide marvellous Whose breaking glory reaches down to us. Hoiv did the Lord keep Easter? With his own ! Back to meet Mary where she grieved alone, With face and mien all tenderly the same, Unto the very sepulchre He came. Ah, the dear message that He gave her then, Said for the sake of all bruised hearts of men ! " Go, tell those friends who have believed on me I go before them into Galilee ! ** Into the life so poor, and hard, and plain. That for a while they must take up again, EASTER. • 109 My presence passes ! Where their feet toil slow, Mine, shining-swift with love, still foremost go ! " Say, Mary, I will meet them. By the way, To walk a little with them. Where they stay, To bring my peace. Watch ! for ye do not know The day, the hour, when I may find you so ! " And I do think, as He came back to her, The many mansions may be all astir With tender steps that hasten in the way, Seeking their own upon this Easter day. Parting the veil that hideth them about, I think they do come, softly wistful, out From homes of heaven that only seem so far, And w^alk in gardens where the new tombs are ! A VIOLET. God does not send us strange flowers every year. When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places, The same dear things lift up the same fair faces. The violet is here. It ail comes back : the odor, grace, and hue ; Each sweet relation of its life repeated : No blank is left, no looking-for is cheated; It is the thing we knew. A VIOLET. Ill So after the death-winter it must be. God will not put strange signs in the heavenly places : The old love shall look out from the old faces. Veilchen ! I shall have thee ! Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. liiiiBi ■I'-' :-i