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 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 POEMS 
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE 
 
 BY THE KEY. 
 
 JOHN HOWARD CRAWFORD, M.A. 
 
 L ' 
 
 EDINBURGH: JAMES GEMMELL 
 1889
 
 AD MA TREM DESIDERA TISSIMA M. 
 
 My Mother ! Need we wait and weep beside 
 Tht silent sea, because a -wandering wave 
 Hath sundered us afar, if we but save 
 
 From wreck the love that can overleap the wide 
 
 Chasm of the bitter, deep, estranging tide, 
 
 Whose hither shore, alas, we call the grave ? 
 Where is its further strand f Why need I crave 
 
 To know, since thither thy love is my guide * 
 
 I can but follow where thou leadesl me; 
 Dear love, I would dwell ever in thy light; 
 And if my soul should show one faintest ray 
 
 Of love or truth, it shineth but from thee, 
 From thy star, which I mirror in the night, 
 On earth a star, in heaven the perfect day.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE ....... xi 
 
 I. THE SOUL 
 
 The Two Unknowns ..... i 
 
 The Guardian Angel, Present and Absent . . 4 
 
 Ways into Heaven ..... 7 
 
 The Dreams of Infancy . . . . 10 
 
 The Inner Voice . . . . .12 
 
 The Seekers for God . . . . .15 
 
 Differing Views . . . . .17 
 
 Hope ....... 19 
 
 The Soul's Union with God .... 20 
 
 Love and the Soul . . . . .21 
 
 The Pilgrimage of the Human Race ... 22 
 
 The Soul alone in the Wilderness ... 24 
 
 The Immortal Life ..... 27 
 
 Ephemerae ...... 29 
 
 Service and Reward . . . . .31 
 
 Secret Sins ...... 33 
 
 Is Life a Failure ? . . . -35 
 
 The Peace of Song ..... 36 
 
 The Pain of Beauty ..... 38 
 
 The Soul's Discontent ..... 40 
 
 My Faint Star ...... 42
 
 V111 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE SOUL continued. PAGE 
 
 The Search for Love ..... 44 
 
 A Leader's Death ..... 47 
 
 The Light that was Lost .. . . .49 
 
 The Soul a True Magnet . . . . 52 
 
 Self in the Soul ..... 54 
 
 The Thirst of the Soul . . . . -57 
 
 Home ....... 59 
 
 The Doubtful Life-work . . . .61 
 
 The Impatient Prayer ..... 63 
 
 The Garden of the Soul .... 64 
 
 Waiting for Light ..... 66 
 
 Repentance . . . . .67 
 
 Death the Purifier ..... 72 
 
 The Soul seeks a Crown of Sorrow ... 76 
 
 The Duty of Joy ..... 77 
 
 The Soul's Remorse ..... 79 
 
 The Soul's Vestal Fire . . . . .82 
 
 Forgetting those Things that are behind . . 83 
 
 Bereavement . . . . . .84 
 
 Joy Cometh in the Morning . . . .86 
 
 The Still Small Voice ..... 87 
 
 The Brotherhood of Man .... 89 
 
 The Future in the Present . . . .91 
 
 The Night Cometh ..... 93 
 
 The Dying Year ..... 94 
 
 Apocalypses ...... 96 
 
 Nunc Dimittis .... . .98 
 
 Pisgah Sight ....... 99 
 
 Songs of the Soul ..... 102 
 
 II. THE WORLD 
 
 Sowing and Reaping ..... 107 
 Love Visits the Earth ..... 109 
 After the Storm . . . . .no 
 
 The Good of Evil . . . . .112 
 
 The Day of Rest . . . .113 
 
 Art is Brief, and Life is Long . . . .11$
 
 CONTENTS IX 
 
 II. THE WORLD continued. PAGE 
 
 The New Dives . . . .117 
 
 The Dead Faith . . . . .119 
 
 Art Enslaved . . . . . .121 
 
 The World Well Lost . . . . .123 
 
 The World Passeth Away . . . .126 
 
 To a Socialist. (A Sonnet) .... 127 
 
 III. THE CHURCH 
 
 Holy Communion. (A Sonnet) . . . 128 
 
 Holy Baptism . . . . . .129 
 
 The Unity of the Church. (A Sonnet) . . 131 
 
 The Church in Chains . . . . .132 
 
 Through a Glass, darkly . . . .133 
 
 A Daily Pentecost . . . . 135 
 
 Church Music, Old and New . . . .136 
 
 The Unity of the Church. (According to St Gregory) 138 
 
 Increasing in the Knowledge of God . . . 140 
 
 The Church Closed on Weekdays . . . 141 
 
 Missions. (A Sonnet) ..... 142 
 
 Elisha . . . . . . .143 
 
 A Dream of Saints. (A Sonnet) . . . 146 
 
 From East and West ..... 147 
 
 Private Baptism ..... 148 
 
 The Heaven of Angels ..... 149 
 
 IV. THE MASTER 
 
 The Annunciation . . . . .150 
 
 The Nativity ...... 152 
 
 The Sacrifice of the Father . . . .153 
 
 The Circumcision . . . . 155 
 
 The Baptism . . . . . .156 
 
 The Thirty Years' Preparation . . . .157 
 
 Is not this the Carpenter? , . . 159 
 
 The Triumphal Entry . . . . . 161 
 
 The Cross ...... 163 
 
 The Resurrection . . . . .164 
 
 The Ascension ...... 166 
 
 The Heart of Jesus ..... 168
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 V. THE DISCIPLES ?\GE 
 
 St Matthew . . - i?i 
 
 StMark .... .173 
 
 St Luke .... .175 
 
 Stjohn .... .177 
 
 St Peter .... .178 
 
 St James .... .179 
 
 StPaul .... .180 
 
 St Andrew ...... l82 
 
 St Bartholomew ... l8 4 
 
 St Thomas . . . .18; 
 
 St Matthias .... . 186 
 
 St Barnabas .... .188 
 
 St Stephen .... .189 
 
 St Mary Magdalene . . . .190 
 
 INDEX . - J 9i
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE writer trusts that this little book of devotional 
 and reflective verse will be found catholic in feeling 
 and teaching. 
 
 The thoughts of the soul do not differ much from 
 age to age; but the writer has tried to utter them in 
 the speech of our own time. Accordingly, one or two 
 pieces will be found referring to subjects, such as Art, 
 which we now bring into the scope of our religious 
 life. 
 
 The writer hopes that what he here gives may be of 
 some use among the doubts of the inner life, as well 
 as in the cares and sorrows of the outward. 
 
 The book is arranged according to subjects, but an 
 index is given which will enable it to be used in 
 connection with the Sundays and Holidays of the 
 Sacred Year.
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 SouL 
 
 THE TWO UNKNOWNS. 
 
 As I journey on, 
 
 One step I take out of the light, 
 A cloud falls deadlier than night 
 
 Where the noonday shone. 
 
 But a step aside, 
 
 To pluck a flower of crimson bloom, 
 That blazed from out the wood's grey gloom, - 
 
 And the daylight died.
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 And the voices came, 
 Hoarse in the murk, fearfully calling, 
 While trees were crashing, rocks were falling, 
 
 'Mid flashes of flame. 
 
 And the mountains shook, 
 The while a Shadow sweeping vast 
 The very darkness overcast, 
 
 From one step I took. 
 
 But why need I fear ? 
 Why cower beneath this grisly terror ? 
 It was but one brief step in error, 
 
 Is our hell so near ? 
 
 Oh, my soul is blind ! 
 Bear we some pain of sin unknown 
 As we drift on to earth alone 
 
 From the life behind ? 
 
 As I journey on, 
 
 Slowly and sadly 'neath the moon. 
 There leaps a light brighter than noon, 
 
 And long ere the dawn.
 
 THE TWO UNKNOWNS 
 
 And the sweetest song 
 Bursts from the blithe birds in the night, 
 And the flowers ope to the strange light, 
 
 As I journey along. 
 
 And the glory brings 
 Angels of blinding whiteness round, 
 And heaven is ringing with the sound 
 
 Of their sweeping wings. 
 
 From what stars unknown 
 Does the entrancing light awake, 
 Whose flooding beams upon me break 
 
 As I journey along ? 
 
 Who unfolds the door 
 Through which we see far radiant skies ? 
 It is the day that never dies 
 
 Of the life before. 
 

 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE GUARDIAN ANGEL PRESENT AND 
 ABSENT. 
 
 (Suggested by the picture of Grimcaux) 
 
 FAINT are the stars and the wind high ; 
 Beneath him dark abysses lie ; 
 From stone to stone the child alone 
 Leaps fearlessly. 
 
 Fair roses rim the shelving side 
 That woo the wayfarer to glide 
 Over the steep, into the deep 
 And eager tide. 
 
 The child ne'er halts a moment's space ; 
 He journeys on with thoughtless face ; 
 With danger near, dreams not of fear 
 I' the deadliest place.
 
 THK GUARDIAN ANGEL 
 
 The angel's wings around him keep, 
 His feet scarce touch the fatal steep, 
 Safely upborne, from murk to morn, 
 As if asleep. 
 
 Ah me ! we still tread the same way, 
 And death waits on us if we stray 
 Where roses hide the awful side- 
 Souls to betray. 
 
 Sweet angel, whither art thou fled ? 
 Where is the light thy bright wings shed 
 When day had failed, and clouds had veiled 
 Stars overhead ? 
 
 Slowly along the ridge we creep 
 And shudder at the crumbling steep, 
 The stones that fall dread echoes call 
 From the naked deep. 
 
 Gone are our happy childhood's days ; 
 And though we thread the ambushed maze, 
 And stars deny to midnight sky 
 Their guiding rays,
 
 A CIRCLE OK THE SOUL 
 
 We have but Reason's weary eye 
 To lead our souls all silently. 
 Yet why should men for years again 
 Of childhood sigh ?
 
 WAYS INTO HHAVKN 
 
 WAYS INTO HEAVEN. 
 
 OUTSIDE the gate of Paradise, 
 Denied its sunshine and its dew, 
 Some earth-born flowers in shadow grew, 
 
 All lustreless to heavenly eyes. 
 
 Not all the flowers God keeps within ; 
 Some hide their light in sunless woods, 
 Some scent the silent solitudes, 
 
 God spares some to the world of sin. 
 
 The angels from the mercy seat 
 
 Oft passed the flowers, but their star-eyes 
 Ever upturned to the clear skies, 
 
 Ne'er saw the blossoms at their feet.
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 The autumn fell ; then with its pall 
 Winter eclipsed their timid light, 
 And save a daisy, and a bright 
 
 Sweet-scented rose, they faded all. 
 
 An angel gleaming like a gem 
 
 Swept by with fragrant offerings sent 
 From earth, saw the red rose, and bent 
 
 Over the flowers to gather them. 
 
 The daisy fell unblest, alone ; 
 
 But in her jewelled crown the rose 
 
 Was twined. The gates of Heaven unclose, 
 
 The gifts are laid before the throne. 
 
 The rose had entered Paradise, 
 Triumphant as a throned queen, 
 New-born to an unearthly sheen ; 
 
 The daisy all forgotten lies. 
 
 At eve a lonely angel came, 
 
 Her robe all trailing in the wet ; 
 
 Sad with the sorrow she had met, 
 Stained with the sin, sick with the shame
 
 WAYS INTO HKAVEN 
 
 Of the dark places of the earth, 
 
 Half-fearing that the gates ne'er parted 
 To ope to one so heavy hearted, 
 
 Whose poor work was so little worth. 
 
 But as she fared on, tired and late, 
 Her robe caught up the daisy lying, 
 And as the day too soon was dying, 
 
 The flower thus clinging passed the gate. 
 
 And a child angel came to greet 
 
 With sweet welcome the tearful one, 
 Saw, when her garments were undone, 
 
 The daisy nestling at her feet. 
 
 O little flower, I love thee best : 
 
 Didst thou not bring it for thy child ? ' 
 The angel spoke not, but she smiled 
 
 As the child pressed it to her breast. 
 
 *. a In the above, the writer has made use of a passage in Dobell's Balder.
 
 10 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE DREAMS OF INFANCY. 
 
 WHO can read the hidden 
 
 Light of the veiled beams 
 Of the eye, as unbidden 
 
 The infant smiles in dreams 
 To the gentle calling 
 
 To her soul of her guest Divine, 
 Like the moonlight falling 
 
 From out its cloud-built shrine ? 
 
 The slumber is breaking, 
 
 The soft, sweet eyes unfold ; 
 They turn on awaking 
 
 To the sunlight stream of gold, 
 Pouring its scattered 
 
 Rays from its radiant height. 
 Ere our souls are shattered, 
 
 They love and long for the light.
 
 THK DREAMS OF INFANCY II 
 
 The birds arc all singing 
 
 With the leaping glow of song ; 
 The sunbeams are flinging 
 
 Their glory the earth along ; 
 Through a cloudlet lying 
 
 On the breast of the beryl skies, 
 Their splendour is flying 
 
 To make life and beauty arise. 
 
 The child's soul-gladness 
 
 Echoes the joy of the earth : 
 Ah, why does our sadness 
 
 O'ershadow the bliss of our birth ! 
 O Love that bestowest 
 
 The boon of Thy Spirit on men, 
 Our blindness Thou knowest, 
 
 Bring back our childhood again !
 
 12 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE INNER VOICE. 
 
 I WAS with thee when the first morning beamed 
 
 Upon thy birth ; 
 I claimed thee then as one of My redeemed, 
 
 Dear child of earth ! 
 
 It was My love that filled with joy untold 
 
 Thy infant smile ; 
 I clasped thee as the circling seas enfold 
 
 The lonely isle. 
 
 child, My love lit the first earthly sun 
 
 That met thy gaze : 
 
 1 died for thee ere yet thy life begun 
 
 Its few sad days.
 
 THK INNKR VOICE 13 
 
 When the first slumber wrapt thy soul, I lay 
 
 Within thy breast ; 
 Far in its deeps I dwelt, and still would stay 
 
 A silent Guest. 
 
 In ocean-wandered caves, the echoes soimd 
 
 Of murmurs deep, 
 Lonely and far ; the secrets who hath found 
 
 Of thy first sleep ? 
 
 Thy trembling lamp at which the nightwinds blew, 
 
 Cruel and wild, 
 I sheltered in my robe of sanguined hue, 
 
 Lone, quivering child ! 
 
 Poor, fluttering dove that from the silent Vast 
 
 Awoke to life, 
 Dost thou not long to see the river past, 
 
 That ends the strife 
 
 Of Soul and World, where human wills begin 
 
 A self to free 
 From the dumb All, and long to lose it in 
 
 The boundless sea
 
 Of the one Soul in whom they live, and there 
 
 Forever rest, 
 As dewdrops rise at noon to azure air, 
 
 To deck its breast. 
 
 O Soul, I cannot leave thee ; in thy heart 
 
 O let Me stay 
 Until the shadows and the clouds depart, 
 
 At break of day !
 
 THE SKKKKRS FOR GOD 15 
 
 THE SEEKERS FOR GOD. 
 
 'SHOW US THE FATHER.' 
 
 O REST, my strength is slain with sleep,' 
 ' Nay, the marsh dew has deadly power, 
 
 We dare not linger here one hour, 
 On, on, and up the distant steep.' 
 
 Wayworn and weary on they sped, 
 
 The pilgrims, up the mountain side. 
 ' 'Tis for God's face they seek,' one cried, 
 4 For long, long years He has been dead.' 
 
 The stars arose, midnight was near, 
 Yet still the pilgrims journeyed on, 
 When a swift spasm of splendour shone,- 
 ' Tis God ! 'tis God ! ' they cried in fear.
 
 1 6 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 ' Nay,' said the Angel, whose bright wing 
 
 Had burst upon their tranced eyes, 
 ' Nay, He has sent me from His skies, 
 Before His face your souls to bring.' 
 
 ' Up, up to heaven,' the pilgrims then, 
 ' Alas, how shall we thither rise ? ' 
 ' Nay,' said the Angel, ' our way lies 
 Far down the mountain-side again.' 
 
 Far down the mountain-side again, 
 The Angel led the pilgrims on, 
 Till stars had fled before the dawn, 
 
 And day was waking slumbering men. 
 
 To a low cot their way they took, 
 
 Whose latch the Angel softly press'd 
 The babe lay on the mother's breast, 
 
 The mother gazed with loving look. 
 
 ' My wife, my child, my own abode ! ' - 
 1 Hush/ said the Angel, ' God is nigh ; 
 But look into a loving eye, 
 Your quest is found, and you see God.'
 
 DIFFERING VIEWS 17 
 
 DIFFERING VIEWS. 
 
 So each must choose his own dim way, 
 For 'tis a hard knot to unravel ; 
 
 And yet will either dare to say 
 'Tis best alone to travel ? 
 
 If the great God is one, can we 
 
 Find room to tear our paths asunder ? 
 
 Can we divide or must we be 
 Agreed in heart, I wonder ? 
 
 To face the night, afield you go ; 
 
 But I mark out my course to sunward. 
 The world is wide enough to show 
 
 Broad ways to tempt us onward.
 
 1 8 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 The earth is round ; though weary feet 
 May far our eager spirits sever, 
 
 A day comes when our journeys meet 
 To part no more for ever.
 
 HOPK 1 9 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 WE cross the fields deep in the snow 
 The winter winds are sweeping 
 
 O'er downs enfolded in repose 
 More like to death than sleeping ; 
 
 With joy we see a Christmas rose : 
 Hope ever watch is keeping. 
 
 Tis sunset in the sweet o' the year, 
 When flocks at rest are lying ; 
 
 A blasted elm stands bare and sere, 
 Beyond it, day is dying : 
 
 For death and night are ever near, 
 And Hope is ever flying.
 
 20 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SOUL'S UNION WITH GOD. 
 
 WITHIN the cycles of the Thought 
 Of God, our willing souls remain, 
 Held in the endless golden chain ; 
 
 Still nearer to His Being brought 
 
 With every flooding pulse of change. 
 Yet all our hearts are ever free, 
 Can leave His love, and o'er Time's sea 
 
 Starless and rudderless may range. 
 
 O who would dare the speechless night ? 
 
 And unknown seas alone would brave ? 
 
 One wave may be a yawning grave, 
 One flaw of wind slay our faint light. 
 Suffer us not to stray from Thee, 
 
 But hold us in Thy perfect will, 
 
 And make our lives Thy life fulfil, 
 Till we share Thine eternity !
 
 LOVE AND THE SOUL 
 
 LOVE AND THE SOUL. 
 
 THOU wilt not enter in, 
 
 O Love Divine ! 
 Thou canst not dwell with sin 
 
 In heart of mine. 
 
 Love knows no sundered throne, 
 
 Nor strife of tides ; 
 The Soul is His alone, 
 
 Where He abides. 
 
 No longer in my breast 
 
 Is will but Thine ; 
 Tis Thy heart, and at rest, 
 
 Come, Love Divine !
 
 22 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 
 
 THEY have long vanished, the sweet years, 
 When earth and man and love were young, 
 The golden age the poets sung 
 
 Ere heart knew pain or eye knew tears. 
 
 Alas ! is man adown the slopes 
 Of sin and error ever driven, 
 Each race the further off from Heaven, 
 
 Each year a grave to human hopes, 
 
 As streamlets born in purity 
 In the Maremme marshes sleep, 
 Where dank and foul, they loathly creep 
 
 Unwilling to the healing sea.
 
 THE PILGRIMAGE OF THE HUMAN RACE 
 
 The growing burden of his sorrow 
 
 In vain man tried away to cast ; 
 
 The haunting spectre of the Past 
 But mocked him of the darker Morrow. 
 
 Though blind he groped through the long night, 
 Dreaming his path still downward lay, 
 God led him up an unknown way, 
 
 Until his eyes could bear the light. 
 
 And then he knew the golden stair 
 His wildered feet were loth to climb ; 
 He saw the dwindled stars of Time 
 
 All shining clear in the blue air. 
 
 And then he knew the sin forgiven, 
 The threatening Past all put to flight ; 
 And his soul sought a loftier height, 
 
 Each day an upward step to Heaven.
 
 24 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SOUL ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS. 
 
 WHO can dare to linger 
 
 In the waste apart ? 
 Dare to feel God's finger 
 
 Touch his inmost heart ? 
 
 Dost not fear the terror 
 Of the blackening night ? 
 
 But one step in error, 
 
 Who will guide thee right ? 
 
 Darest thou hear the skilful 
 Tempter's whisper sweet, 
 
 Which thy spirit wilful 
 Welcomes to thy feet ?
 
 THE SOUL ALONE IX THE \VILDERXESS 25 
 
 But one act of sinning 
 
 And the heart is dead ; 
 Eve is but beginning 
 
 But the day has fled ! 
 
 If a foe should wound me 
 
 In the open field, 
 Then, if friends surround me, 
 
 Is my pain half-healed. 
 
 But alone to perish 
 
 Of God's face bereft, 
 And with none to cherish 
 
 What of love was left ! 
 
 O no longer wander ! 
 
 Madness 'tis to roam ; 
 The light thou seekest yonder 
 
 Clearer shines at home. 
 
 Cease to pray that one light 
 
 Beam for thee alone ; 
 Who rests in God's wide sunlight 
 
 Needs no higher throne.
 
 26 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 One cord has been given 
 Souls to God to bind ; 
 
 Break it life is driven 
 Helpless in death's wind.
 
 THE IMMORTAL LIFK 2"] 
 
 THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 
 
 CAN we doubt the book without wronging 
 The Hand that wrote its lore ? 
 
 The Soul is the book, and her longing 
 Is the page that we muse o'er. 
 
 Can our narrow years, but the islands 
 Whose shores Death overcreeps. 
 
 Fulfil the vast dream of the silence 
 Of the Soul in her aching deeps ? 
 
 The visions of infinite distance 
 Are Divine preludings within, 
 
 The foregleams of endless existence 
 Which Time but ushers in.
 
 28 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Do we bring our sons to the gateway 
 Of life with its love and light, 
 
 To drift them in vessels that straightway 
 Will founder in storm and night ? 
 
 Can our God open life before us, 
 
 Enfold us in Fatherly care, 
 To throw a timeless pall o'er us 
 
 Of death, and night, and despair ? 
 
 O, my Soul, why wander so vainly 
 
 Through the mists of death's dark river ? 
 
 Has not our Jesus said plainly 
 We shall live with Him for ever ?
 
 EPHEMERAE 2Q 
 
 EPHEMERAE. 
 
 FRAIL insect, flying fast 
 
 Above the sunlit river, 
 
 Were but the daylight past, 
 
 Thy life were past for ever ? 
 
 The stars arise, the day has fled, 
 
 The world's asleep, and thou art dead. 
 
 The joy that flickers o'er 
 
 Thy waters, O my heart, 
 
 A moment and no more 
 
 Alights, but to depart. 
 
 'Tis but a smile on lips asleep, 
 
 A star that dies into the deep.
 
 30 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Dost know no richer joy 
 
 That does not die with day, 
 
 That death cannot destroy, 
 
 But wakes to fuller ray ? 
 
 O Soul, 'tis not poor love of thine 
 
 Which has such life and light Divine. 
 
 We love and we forget ; 
 
 We pray, while dreaming fast ; 
 We live in vain regret, 
 
 And die in doubt at last. 
 O on our love can we depend, 
 Which ne'er is faithful to the end ?
 
 SERVICE AND REWARD 31 
 
 SERVICE AND REWARD. 
 
 WHAT ! Shall I grudge to serve Him because 
 
 The future is dim ? 
 Shall I count up the envious hours and pause 
 
 O'er one spent for Him ? 
 
 Am I a hireling that waits at the close 
 
 Of his poorly done task, 
 For his penny a day ? What wages, God knows. 
 
 Would I dare to ask ? 
 
 'Tis a mean servant that always counts up 
 
 In work-hours his hire ; 
 What price shall we put on the poison cup, 
 
 Or the martyr fire ?
 
 32 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Rest and reward are before us, you sing. 
 And a glorious crown 
 
 But your dreams of ease behind me I fling. 
 No, I shall lay down 
 
 All I have done at Thy bleeding feet ; 
 
 'Tis done but in part, 
 Dear Master, I know, but I'm weak and entreat 
 
 Thou'lt forgive my poor heart !
 
 SECRET SINS 
 
 33 
 
 SECRET SINS. 
 
 How slowly the terrible noon creeps past 
 
 In this city of sudden death ! 
 How we pant for the spray of the driving blast 
 
 Of the sea-wind's billowy breath ! 
 
 One gust of hot air that comes up with caress 
 
 As false as a harlot's smile, 
 And the angel of death the poor life will possess, 
 
 Which was mine to be glad awhile. 
 
 Can it be that my faltering feet will fall 
 
 The moment I reach the goal ? 
 That some secret weakness will peril all 
 
 The hard toil of my soul ? 
 C
 
 34 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Does there lurk in some dark and far recess 
 
 Some silent and sullen foe, 
 Who waits for the hour of supremest success 
 
 To strike with the bitterer blow ? 
 
 O say to my soul 'tis a needless fear 
 That is haunting me night and day, 
 
 Though the path is plain, and the stars are clear, 
 That I lose my lonely way. 
 
 O say that the awful heritage 
 
 Of this madness that is mine 
 Will not drive my soul before the rage 
 
 Of the breeze and the rushing brine. 
 
 Ah, when to the seaman long storm -tost 
 Is his moment of deepest despair ? 
 
 And when to the wand'rer in wild woods lost 
 Is his solitude sorest to bear ? 
 
 Alas, it is then when 'tis borne to the mind 
 In the maze of the thronging trees, 
 
 That the clue is lost; when no course can it find 
 On the breast of the trackless seas !
 
 IS LIFE A FAILUKK ? 35 
 
 IS LIFE A FAILURE ? 
 
 NAY, pause, have you the whole ? 
 
 You count our meaner deeds, 
 The foul spume of the Soul, 
 
 Heap up the drifted weeds 
 That the tides shoreward roll. 
 
 You bend your careless sight 
 Upon earth's golden floor, 
 
 And see in the sunlight 
 The poppies, and no more. 
 
 Is this to judge aright ? 
 
 Some love-lights in the sky 
 We kindle one by one ; 
 
 While Christ is standing by, 
 Like stars before the sun, 
 
 To nothingness they die.
 
 36 A CIKCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE PEACE OF SONG. 
 
 OUR hearts are full ; a mist of tears 
 Veils to our eyes the vanished years 
 
 That back the hymn is bringing : 
 If joy of song has here such pain. 
 How shall we make our souls contain 
 
 The bliss of Heaven's singing? 
 
 Our wills too sullenly contend ; 
 Life is a discord without end, 
 
 How shall we cease our chiding ? 
 Pause in our fray, and rest to hear 
 The spell of music sweet and clear, 
 
 Within its peace abiding.
 
 THK PKACK OK SOXG 37 
 
 In that high noontide where our heart 
 Shall know and see no more in part 
 
 The love unchanging o'er us, 
 No bitter strivings cloud our souls, 
 Through endless years their music rolls 
 
 In one harmonious chorus.
 
 38 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE PAIN OF BEAUTY. 
 
 WHO could be a tranquil lover 
 
 Of such beauty passionate ? 
 When the clouds that o'er us hover 
 
 Seem to tremble as they wait, 
 All glowing in their rainbow light, 
 The noon haste down the steeps of night ? 
 
 Tears will come born of some sorrow, 
 From some fain heart-secret springing : 
 
 Who would dream that souls could borrow 
 Pain from Nature's sweetest singing ? 
 
 A fairer scene, a heavier pall; 
 
 One glimpse of Heaven, death's shadows fall.
 
 THE PAIN OK HKAUTV 39 
 
 Soul, unfold thy dumb regretting : 
 
 Tis no wish to gaze for aye, 
 
 To delay the daylight setting, 
 
 Or the wings of night to stay : 
 Thine anguish is the endless sigh 
 Of souls for kindred purity.
 
 4O A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SOUL'S DISCONTENT. 
 
 THE lily has withered ; you're weary and silent, 
 Would you fain wish it to bloom here alway ? 
 
 A toy for a little, a joy that the sky lent 
 To earth and to you, though but for a day. 
 
 Yet when it was fresh in its beauty, and scented 
 
 With breath where the dew and the dawn were 
 
 unsealed, 
 
 Was your soul with its plaything so fully contented 
 That no longing adventured still further afield? 
 
 Can nothing e'er fill our soul hunger to sate it ? 
 
 Must the joy of our heart leave a deeper desire ? 
 On their journey through life, must mortals be fated 
 
 To dwell in a fen, and to mountains aspire ?
 
 THE SOTI.S DISCONTENT 4! 
 
 Why, would you have us with puppets delighted, 
 Like children that play on a sunlit lawn ? 
 
 Baubles to heap for our soul and invite it 
 
 To sport in the sunshine and dream till the dawn. 
 
 High stars to awake our soul-sighs have been given ; 
 
 Wide is the earth to compel us to roam ; 
 For our goals are as far as the portals of heaven, 
 
 And there our desires rest their wings in their home.
 
 42 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 MY FAINT STAR, 
 
 MY hands are feeble, and the task 
 
 Thou givest me is small; 
 But, Master, I can only ask 
 
 For strength to do it all. 
 
 I know I cannot pray that I 
 
 May win a lofty goal ; 
 Nor need I hide from Thy kind eye 
 
 The weakness of my soul. 
 
 The angels speed not all their flight 
 With equal pulse of wing; 
 
 Some girdle Time like flaming light, 
 To earth the weary cling.
 
 MY FAINT STAR 43 
 
 Not all who sing in the great choir 
 
 Outvie the harps of gold; 
 Some lips are touched with altar fire 
 
 And some are pale and cold. 
 
 The eagle gaze of holy seer 
 
 Can see Thy Heaven afar; 
 I am denied his vision clear, 
 
 But still I have my star, 
 
 That leads me all my journey through, 
 
 Though night its shadow cast; 
 Its beams are few, but they shine true, 
 
 And Heaven will come at last.
 
 44 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SEARCH FOR LOVE. 
 
 WHAT blossom dost thon long to find ? 
 
 A thousand rise to kiss thy feet. 
 
 To thee, O soul, is no flower sweet. 
 That to the fairest thou art blind ? 
 
 Bright with the starlight of the dew, 
 Fragrant with tears that o'er them rain, 
 Their petals ope for thee in vain; 
 
 Thou seekest something strange and new. 
 
 In Life's wide plain thou passest by 
 The stately trees of love and fame, 
 And blood-red plumes of war that flame 
 
 'Mid paler blooms that lowly lie.
 
 THE SEARCH FOR LOVK 45 
 
 But lo ! the palm of Love that far 
 Out leaps all the earth-chained trees, 
 And climbs to heaven with kingly ease, 
 
 Where her sole crown dwells like a star. 
 
 To Love's tall palm the joy is given 
 By inward, upward force to rise, 
 And to the blue she lifts her eyes, 
 
 And gives her branches but to heaven. 
 
 Why weepest thou that palms must die 
 At breath of our chill polar wind ? 
 Thou need'st not journey far to find 
 
 A growth as true and heart as high. 
 
 Though that Love-tree has royal grace, 
 The grass you tread beneath your feet, 
 In humble patience ever sweet, 
 
 Is child of the same lofty race. 
 
 And seekest thou some ardour high 
 
 That fills the earth and heaven with song 
 Some tide of passion full and strong, 
 
 Some love for which to live and die ?
 
 46 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Love asks no eagle's skyey nest, 
 
 But loves the green grass and the dew; 
 In timid hearts tender and true, 
 
 Love finds a home and sweetest rest.
 
 A LEADERS DEATH 47 
 
 A LEADER'S DEATH. 
 
 AH, it is over; that word was the last 
 From his lips we shall listen to here; 
 
 Had we but known ere the moment was past, 
 How his word would have flamed in the ear. 
 
 How, when no bell sent its knell to our hearts 
 As they echoed the summer's laughter, 
 
 Could we unbare the dark curtain that parts 
 The Here from the dumb Hereafter ? 
 
 Why did we leave for a moment his soul, 
 
 And but to return to our ease ? 
 Waves that he sundered together will roll, 
 
 While we struggle in midmost seas.
 
 48 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Yet, does the world ever pause in its song 
 
 When it loses a leader so brave ? 
 Flowers are as bright, and the sunlight as strong; 
 
 The earth smiles o'er the open grave. 
 
 Suns are but specks in the far; and the mote 
 Who shall miss in the measureless skies ? 
 
 Who in Time's heart ever lingers to note 
 Each beat as it swells and dies ? 
 
 Heroes may fall, and none follow to fill 
 
 With his sword the vacant place : 
 God can fulfil all His infinite Will 
 
 In the endless life of the race.
 
 THK LIGHT THAT WAS LOST 49 
 
 THE LIGHT THAT WAS LOST 
 
 IN deeps of space that lie afar 
 
 Beyond our blue and bounded skies, 
 Beyond the ken of straining eyes, 
 
 The night flamed with a golden star. 
 
 It flamed until its force was spent, 
 Fading in the abyss of night, 
 Until its flickering spray of light 
 
 Dissolved into the firmament. 
 
 But in its heart the fire still slept 
 Buried within its secret tomb; 
 Ensphered in the lonely gloom, 
 
 Its silent vigil ever kept. 
 
 D
 
 50 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 And long the light lay prisoned fast, 
 Until the star with thrilling pang 
 Asunder cleft, and the light sprang 
 
 Into the Ether dark and vast. 
 
 Into the Ether infinite, 
 All silent and all tenantless; 
 No wanderer could the lone light bless 
 
 Ere swallowed in the maw of night. 
 
 Dead, irrecoverably dead ! 
 
 And darkness still the lord of all. 
 
 Dead, and no hope of a recall, 
 If but one trembling beam to shed 
 
 Upon the lampless, shoreless sea, 
 Where a lone mariner afar 
 Is voyaging without a star 
 
 To guide him through infinity. 
 
 How calmly Nature glides to Night ! 
 
 Her power is squandered day by day; 
 
 Her life is ebbing fast away, 
 For ever vanquished in the fight
 
 THE LIGHT THAT WAS LOST 51 
 
 For ever fought with Time and Death 
 And Nothingness : of the wide wave 
 Of flooding sunlight, we but save 
 
 One drop ; the full tide hasteneth 
 
 To th' eager, unresponsive deep, 
 
 Through which the sun, an icy ghost, 
 His glowing life for ever lost, 
 
 In deathless darkness, dark will creep. 
 
 'Tis but an ever-boundless power 
 Could see Creation's open tomb, 
 Nor stoop to save, nor stay its doom ; 
 
 The dawn leaps from the darkest hour. 
 
 Nature and Man have second birth. 
 
 The one Creator Infinite 
 
 Will call from out the heart of night, 
 Another heaven, and a new earth.
 
 52 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SOUL A TRUE MAGNET. 
 ' If it were not so, I would have told you? 
 
 ' O CHILDREN, trust My love ; 
 
 Would I this boon withhold you ? 
 If one hope false should prove, 
 Trust Me, I would have told you. 
 
 A little while : no more 
 
 We hear our Master speaking. 
 
 The theme we pondered o'er 
 Is solved without our seeking. 
 
 The Soul's deepest desires, 
 
 Which e'en to speak she falters, 
 
 Are kindled at the fires 
 Of God's eternal altars.
 
 THE SOUL A TRUE MAGNET 53 
 
 Her murmur night and day 
 
 The Soul-harp never ceases, 
 But secret motives sway 
 
 Her strange and wild caprices. 
 
 When forth long unisons 
 
 The myriad strings are sending, 
 
 And in her solemn tones 
 Age after age is blending, 
 
 'Tis not from mortal thought 
 
 The melody is given; 
 'Tis music that is fraught 
 
 With the changeless song of Heaven. 
 
 Such veiled longings wait 
 
 Upon the Soul like angels; 
 God makes none desolate, 
 
 But crowns all with evangels.
 
 54 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 SELF IN THE SOUL. 
 
 'Tis the spring-time, budding spring-time. 
 Spring and youth are sweet ; 
 
 Clouds are breaking, earth is waking 
 In the noontide's kindly heat, 
 And day speeds with slower feet. 
 
 Love aye descends in richer showers 
 Than the returning dews that rise; 
 
 And though his path be strewn with flowers 
 The child ne'er asks what love supplies 
 
 The joy that fills his happy hours, 
 For self-delight too early wise.
 
 SELF IN THK SOUL 55 
 
 In the summer, rosy summer, 
 Life is full and brave : 
 
 Self its master, hourly faster 
 Binds the craven soul a slave, 
 While he leads love to his grave. 
 
 Our life is such an eager race, 
 
 We too must run, we know not why. 
 
 We strain to win a foremost place, 
 Nor care we aught whom we pass by. 
 
 They fall; we dare not slack our pace, 
 Triumph we must, though others die. 
 
 In the autumn, mellow autumn, 
 Opens wide the shade; 
 
 Winds are sighing, leaves are dying, 
 Flying through the reddened glade. 
 Say, O self, when wilt thou fade ? 
 
 Our heart is hardened by its fight 
 On the rude field of selfish gain ; 
 
 Each in the fray an Ishmaelite; 
 The prize a tract of treeless plain. 
 
 Wandering by day, weary by night, 
 Homeless at last, a life in vain.
 
 56 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 In the winter, storms of winter, 
 Tired life's ebbing tide, 
 
 From each sorrow self can borrow 
 Some sweet food to fill his pride. 
 Here, O Self, must aye abide ? 
 
 O Self, what cruel power compels 
 
 To seek thy waste, so bleak and broad, 
 
 Leaving our glades and quiet dells. 
 Which happy-hearted we have trod, 
 
 With song of birds, and sweet cool wells, 
 For deserts void of love and God ?
 
 THK THIRST OF THE SOUL 57 
 
 THE THIRST OF THE SOUL. 
 
 I'VE done my best, strained every nerve 
 
 And urged my willing soul: 
 Will all the toil and sweat not serve ? 
 
 life, where is thy goal ? 
 
 Why need I ask ? My strength is spent, 
 
 And still my soul's desire 
 With all I've won is ne'er content: 
 
 Whither does she aspire ? 
 
 Whence is it that in all my work 
 
 1 see a foiled hand ? 
 
 Where does the secret weakness lurk 
 That mars all I have planned ?
 
 58 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Too well he knows his eye grows dim r 
 Whose soul, too soon elate, 
 
 Sees naught awry in marble limb 
 Which his own hands create. 
 
 It is the spirit's nakedness 
 That flaunts it in the sun ; 
 
 It is the blind alone profess 
 The topmost peak is won. 
 
 The restless soul that still must scale 
 Height after height of Time, 
 
 That halts, but when her sinews fail, 
 Yet eager still to climb. 
 
 Has found upon her upward way 
 Some well of secret wine, 
 
 And, at the breaking of the day, 
 Has drunk the draught Divine. 
 
 And if this dower of light Divine 
 Is poured on her at birth, 
 
 How can the soul her sphere confine 
 To Self, and Time, and Earth ?
 
 HOME 59 
 
 HOME. 
 
 CAN it be Home where our beloved stay 
 But a brief hour before they haste away ? 
 
 Can it be Home where our soul will not rest 
 But ever knows herself a fleeting guest ? 
 
 The tents we pitch soon fall into decay, 
 
 And still we weave, and weave, and cast away. 
 
 How soon the young hopes fade of life's sweet morn r 
 Till age awakes to find a new world born. 
 
 Can Faith be Home which, as years onward glide, 
 Swells but to fall, an ebbing flowing tide ? 
 
 Would we in Beauty dwell ? Secret she lies. 
 And veils her radiance from all mortal eyes.
 
 60 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Iii Art, what find we but long discontent, 
 
 The end but failure when our strength is spent ? 
 
 What is our Knowledge but a phantom light 
 That leads the soul the deeper into night ? 
 
 Time fades our fairness, robs us of our youth, 
 Gives but its fashions for eternal Truth. 
 
 Oh, let the soul no longer vainly roam, 
 But lie at rest in Thee, O God, her home !
 
 THE DOUBTFUL LIKE- WORK 6 1 
 
 THE DOUBTFUL LIFE-WORK. 
 
 How shall I be led aright, 
 
 Stumbling, doubting, lost again ? 
 Did the Master leave a light ? 
 
 Was it blinded with the rain ? 
 Here am I in the midnight. 
 
 Here is work laid out for me, 
 Mean and earthly, I know well, 
 
 Poor seed for eternity. 
 
 Has it value ? Has a shell 
 
 'Mong the millions by the sea ?
 
 62 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 But if God made all things fit 
 In His secret master-plan, 
 
 Give me this niche where I sit 
 Blending with some fellow-man, 
 
 Who so rash as better it ? 
 
 All the slaves cannot abide 
 Safe within the palace walls, 
 
 Happy at the Master's side 
 Eager to obey His calls ; 
 
 Some must journey far and wide, 
 
 Over mountain, moor and fen, 
 Danger facing I'd be true 
 
 Were I in the fight but then 
 This poor task I have to do. 
 
 Well, 'tis God who judges men.
 
 THK IMPATIENT PKAYHR 63 
 
 THE IMPATIENT PRAYER. 
 
 WILL weeping wake the lingering spring, 
 Or prayers speed the slow year ? 
 
 Dost think the angels do not sing 
 Because thou canst not hear ? 
 
 Beneath the stars when thou art sleeping 
 
 The rose still swells its bud ; 
 The winter secret snows is keeping 
 
 To fill the April flood. 
 
 Cease thy loud prayers and tears and cries 
 
 Is God so far away ? 
 The darkest night that hides the skies 
 
 Sweeps on to the blue day.
 
 64 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL. 
 
 IN the wide sunlight of the autumn skies, 
 Still wet with dew of dawn a garden lies, 
 Full of fair flowers and murmuring melodies. 
 
 The lush grass droops in the thick autumn breath 
 
 The rose, sad that the sun soon hasteneth 
 
 To winter slopes, blooms brighter ere her death. 
 
 Alas, the weeds that breathe scents of the tomb ! 
 But patient care can wake them to sweet bloom 
 That the bees love, and tenderest perfume. 
 
 Weeds grow to flowers ; together oft they blend ; 
 Change follows change as years to night descend; 
 All nature is a motion without end.
 
 THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL 65 
 
 There to the noon the foul fen reeks its steam, 
 Yet on its breast the golden lilies dream, 
 And drink the dew, and smile in the sunbeam. 
 
 The sundering bounds are wide and strait by turns; 
 But every flower its measured margin spurns; 
 Life's river overleaps our shallow urns. 
 
 The Soul will yield to no mechanic might; 
 Her life is tremulous as a ship light 
 On heaving ocean in a windy night. 
 
 AN AFTERWORD. 
 
 'Tis but a childish fable, this of mine ; 
 No laws of earth can hold a life Divine, 
 She is of God Himself that Soul of thine !
 
 66 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 WAITING FOR LIGHT. 
 
 WHEN the moonlight tender 
 
 Has risen on the waiting sky, 
 She veileth her splendour 
 
 Too long from the ardent eye. 
 When on silver pinion 
 
 The unwilling clouds take flight, 
 In her sole dominion 
 
 She shines the queen of night. 
 
 The Truth may lie sleeping 
 
 In the song of sage and seer, 
 Till at dawn of the reaping 
 
 It breaks into glory clear. 
 The flash of the lightning 
 
 To the murkier midnight dies; 
 But when morn is brightening, 
 
 We know that noon shall rise.
 
 REPENTAN'CE 67 
 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 STILL in the shadow sleeping, 
 In the shadow dark and cool, 
 
 With the mossy rock-roof weeping 
 O'er the heart of the secret pool, 
 
 All blind and wingless lying, 
 
 The spirits of the well, 
 In speechless woe were sighing 
 
 In vain in their sullen cell. 
 
 Sad were the thoughts a-thronging 
 Their lonely languid hours, 
 
 Heart-sick with unknown longing 
 For sun and sky and flowers.
 
 68 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 While in its shelter darkling, 
 
 A drop found a path to the morn, 
 
 And dew-gems followed sparkling, 
 Till a rivulet was born. 
 
 And the heaven above was blue, 
 And the earth was gay with light, 
 
 And the eyes of the spirits knew 
 The measureless joy of sight. 
 
 The spirits lightly leaping 
 
 Flew down the mountain side, 
 
 On to the river sweeping, 
 On to the boundless tide. 
 
 Hid like an infant daughter 
 
 In a mother's warm white breast, 
 
 Lost in the wandering water, 
 At eve they lay at rest. 
 
 But the wild west wind came swirling, 
 And the sky was dark with night, 
 
 And ocean wide was hurling 
 Its waves to the welkin's height.
 
 REPENTANCE 69 
 
 Then the wind fell slowly, wailing 
 O'er the rage of the heaving deep, 
 
 And the clouds passed calmly sailing 
 'Neath the stars in their ageless sleep. 
 
 The night lay slowly dying 
 
 In the arms of the waking morn, 
 And the blush of the dawn came flying 
 
 To sing that day was born. 
 
 As the stars their watch were holding 
 
 In the deeps of the silent night, 
 The spirits felt unfolding 
 
 Their wings new-born for flight. 
 
 And they knew as the day was breaking 
 Through its veil in the eastern skies, 
 
 That their shining wings were aching 
 To dawn and heaven to rise. 
 
 As the fragrant dawn was pouring 
 
 Its light on the gleaming sea, 
 The spirits as angels were soaring 
 
 To the blue infinity.
 
 70 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 The Soul, in her dark possessing 
 
 The memory of her sin, 
 Shuts out the hope that is pressing 
 
 All eager to enter in. 
 
 In her haunted silence, fearful 
 
 She sinks to wan despair; 
 But hope, though troubled and tearful 
 
 Ne'er ceases its pleading prayer. 
 
 One thought of the loving Redeemer 
 To the Soul in her anguish stealing, 
 
 She awakes like a startled dreamer, 
 In a passion of sorrow, kneeling. 
 
 The Cross, with its awful splendours 
 Of the love of the Life without stain, 
 
 Arouses a grief that surrenders 
 All hoping for ever again. 
 
 Dare I in my sin come before Thee, 
 O infinite Love and Light ? 
 
 In fe^rs and in tears I adore Thee, 
 But my soul shrinks from Thy sight
 
 REPENTANCE 71 
 
 Then His hand is put forttfto restore me, 
 
 Though I dare not look above, 
 And His golden stair is before me, 
 
 Which I climb to the sun of His love.
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 DEATH THE PURIFIER. 
 
 ' HERE, then, must I remain ? 
 My garments cling to me like lead, 
 The lustre of my crown is fled, 
 Alas, for ever slain ! 
 
 ' 'Tvvas but a moment's boast 
 Of swifter wing and clearer sight, 
 And I had fallen from the light, 
 And all my heaven was lost. 
 
 ' O, stranger, go not yet ! 
 Stay till your misty air I learn 
 To breathe, for since I ne'er return, 
 'Twere better to forget.'
 
 DEATH THE PURIFIER 73 
 
 A pilgrim, whose fain eyes 
 Were bent upon the Holy Tomb, 
 Had met beneath the gathering gloom 
 
 This child of fairer skies. 
 
 They slowly journeyed on : 
 The angel on the pilgrim leant, 
 While in the silent firmament 
 
 The fitful moonlight shone. 
 
 ' Naught of your life I know, 
 Teach me the whole I pray, that I, 
 No longer meet for song on high, 
 May serve my God below.' 
 
 ' O city, sweet and fair ! 
 To thee I travel many a day, 
 Till at the Holy Tomb I pray. 
 
 O Jesus, bring me there.' 
 
 Thus singing, fared they on, 
 Till rosy morn filled all the skies: 
 Joy held the angel's wondering eyes, 
 
 Who knew not day would dawn.
 
 74 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 ' What is the Tomb you seek ? 
 Is it some distant starry height, 
 Some glory like the crimson light 
 That flames on yonder peak ? ' 
 
 ' Alas, dost thou not know 
 That earth which smiles with joy and light 
 Will wrap us in the grave's deep night, 
 And thither we must go ? ' 
 
 ' And do thy weary feet 
 Go over mountain, stream, and sea, 
 To bring that sadder thought to thee, 
 When life and morn are sweet ? 
 
 ' But I, I too, must die; 
 Poor sprite, that could not unfold all 
 The bitter fruitage of thy fall 
 From thy unsetting sky ! ' 
 
 1 Sweet angel, do not weep, 
 For death is not without its end ; 
 We die ere we to heaven ascend, 
 'Tis but a deeper sleep.
 
 DEATH THE PURIFIER 75 
 
 ' And He whose sleeping-place 
 We hie towards, has gone before, 
 And opened wide the shining door 
 For all our mortal race.' 
 
 1 O joy,' the angel cried, 
 c As from the dark leaps dawn's sweet bloom, 
 So, by the sorrow of the tomb, 
 Our souls are purified.' 
 
 ' O joy,' the angel cried, 
 ' Then hope still shines her star for me, 
 And heaven and God I yet may see, 
 Since His own Son hath died.'
 
 76 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SOUL SEEKS A CROWN OF SORROW. 
 
 I WOULD not lose the burning tears that fall 
 From eyes that close beneath the awful pall 
 Of Death : nay, Master, let me suffer all. 
 
 I count it as my only life to share 
 
 Thy sorrow, Saviour : O if I might dare 
 
 To ask a crown of thorns for me to wear ! 
 
 Poor heart ! Wilt never cease thy boasting vain, 
 That shudderest at the very touch of pain ? 
 Art trusting in thy treacherous self again ?
 
 THE DUTY OF JOY 77 
 
 THE DUTY OF JOY. 
 
 WHY travel on with sackcloth dirges, 
 Sullen and slow, 
 With brow bent low, 
 As if a fate relentless urges 
 Our souls unwilling as they go? 
 
 Is our birth but a ruined portal, 
 Dark and defaced, 
 Through which we haste 
 In terror to a life immortal 
 Across a barren lightless waste ? 
 
 A seething scum within Time's chalice 
 
 With poison rife, 
 
 Is this our life ? 
 
 Or does it lurk in the Soul's palace 
 A dark assassin with the knife
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Waiting thy footfall, O thou purest, 
 Divinest guest, 
 Who on our breast 
 Liest, sweet Angel, and assurest 
 Our faithless hearts of endless rest ? 
 
 Life is a land of love and beauty ; 
 Though sin benumb, 
 And sorrow come, 
 The joy of song is sweetest duty : 
 Whose pallid lips dare to be dumb ?
 
 THE SOUL'S REMORSE 
 
 79 
 
 THE SOUL'S REMORSE. 
 
 O WEEP, 
 
 My soul, O weep ! 
 Thy tears will serve to hide 
 The spectres at thy side, 
 
 That ever keep 
 On thee their dread and deep 
 And deadly gaze even in thy sleep. 
 
 What eyes 
 Before me rise 
 To pierce my fevered heart ? 
 O when will they depart ? 
 
 The daylight flies, 
 The stars fill all the skies, 
 Their awful haunting never dies.
 
 8o A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 What rest 
 For soul oppressed ? 
 O in a far dream-haze 
 To wrap me from that gaze ! 
 
 Or as a guest 
 Unbidden, in the breast 
 Of Death to hide the life unblest ! 
 
 O thirst 
 
 Of Soul, that durst 
 But slake with the salt sea 
 What sweet spring is for thee ? 
 
 Till eyeballs burst, 
 Blind with the draught accurst. 
 Need Death delay ? He's done his worst. 
 
 O Soul, 
 
 O hapless Soul ! 
 Those eyes upon thee cast 
 Were eyes of thy dead past. 
 
 The shattering roll 
 Of seas that on thee stole 
 Came from dead years with deathless dole.
 
 THE SOUL'S REMORSE 
 
 In vain, 
 Alas, in vain ! 
 The past is ne'er undone. 
 Who can recall the sun 
 
 To noon again 
 That dies into the main ? 
 In vain our toils, our tears, our pain. 
 
 81
 
 82 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE SOUL'S VESTAL FIRE. 
 
 THE golden eve has lit the towers aglow. 
 Sweet Nature of her beauty prodigal ! 
 'Tis years since ruin laid their glory low ; 
 We store our wrath, Nature forgives us all. 
 
 Rank weeds and shattered urns lie at our feet, 
 And all the garden flowers are long since dead, 
 Save where the wallflower breathes its odour sweet, 
 Pale aftermath of splendour that is fled. 
 
 There is no heart so desolate within 
 
 That there fair flowers of goodness do not bloom ; 
 
 Earth cannot bury all our soul in sin ; 
 
 The light of God still shines from out her tomb. 
 
 God's angels ever guard the vestal fire, 
 And keep for ever pure the inner shrine ; 
 The soul has all her life from God her Sire, 
 Nor storm nor night can slay her light divine.
 
 FORGETTING THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE BEHIND 83 
 
 FORGETTING THOSE THINGS WHICH ARE 
 BEHIND. 
 
 Too long in the confessional 
 
 Of our own Soul our thoughts have stayed 
 Too long have tarried 'neath the shade 
 
 Of our past sin, and its death-pall. 
 
 No more we breathe the fogs that move 
 From out the marshes of our life, 
 The while the summer breeze is rife 
 
 With sweet scents of forgiving love. 
 
 The years are dead ; why should they blast 
 
 Forever all the years before ? 
 
 All is forgiven ; then why brood o'er 
 The empty tombs of the dead Past. 
 
 The trumpet greets the risen sun ; 
 
 The dawn too soon will haste to eve ; 
 
 Have hurrying souls a time to grieve ? 
 When can we say our work is done ?
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 AH, Heaven is barred ! Has God no care 
 Though hearts are breaking ? 
 
 Or is our faith, driven by despair, 
 Our souls forsaking ? 
 
 Say not the sun is shining still, 
 
 'Tis but my weeping 
 That blinds my sight : o'er me the chill 
 
 Of night is creeping. 
 
 A love serene can conquer grief; 
 
 But ah, what sorrow 
 Too weak to-day to find relief 
 
 In joy to-morrow !
 
 BEREAVEMENT 85 
 
 Say to my soul that days will come 
 
 When tears are ended ; 
 But with the woe that strikes us dumb, 
 
 What hope is blended ? 
 
 Poor heart, that clings to our brief love, 
 
 Born but to wither ! 
 Our true life flows from founts above, 
 
 Returning thither.
 
 86 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 JOY COMETH IN THE MORNING. 
 
 THE sea hath pearls within its heart 
 Which far from mortal gaze it hides ; 
 
 When storms arise and waters part, 
 
 The gems are thrown up with the tides. 
 
 Life has a shining soul of love 
 
 Which in calm hours in silence sleeps, 
 
 Till sorrows come and trials prove 
 What light Divine dwells in its deeps. 
 
 The green earth, wounded by the living, 
 Wreaks not its vengeance on the dead ; 
 
 But, all our battle-scars forgiving, 
 Sends fairer flowers to deck their bed. 
 
 The jarring chord but holds the ear 
 
 Till into harmony it dies ; 
 The discords of our lower sphere 
 
 Usher the soul to Paradise.
 
 THE STILL SMALL VOICE 87 
 
 THE STILL SMALL VOICE. 
 
 ACROSS the sand the whirlwinds sweep 
 
 From the black southern seas ; 
 The caravan lies buried deep, 
 The bones are blanching in a heap ; 
 
 We tremble on our knees. 
 
 The lightning's fiery bolt has riven 
 
 The terror-stricken night ; 
 The flames before the gale are driven, 
 The forest blazes to the heaven : 
 
 Our pale soul flees the sight. 
 
 The roaring cataract is whirled 
 
 A-down the foaming steep ; 
 The earthquake pang shakes the round world, 
 And isles from ocean depths are hurled ; 
 
 O silent strength asleep !
 
 88 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 O Soul, that seest but the show 
 
 Of life that passes by, 
 The calm repose thou canst not know 
 Of secret floods that ever flow 
 
 In speechless majesty ! 
 
 The power that holds the lakes asleep 
 
 Beneath the still sunshine, 
 Can move the earth to its heart-deep, 
 Can give the stars their course to keep; 
 Its whisper is Divine. 
 
 Why should the fearful spirit cower 
 
 At some portent afar, 
 When at our feet the wayside flower 
 Speaks of a mystery of power 
 
 O'er passing sun and star ? 
 
 Why should our souls linger to pray 
 
 For meteor fires above, 
 When in our life from day to day 
 The light that glows with constant ray 
 
 Can lead us to his love ?
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 89 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN. 
 
 THE clear soul of the glad Hellcn 
 Sat in her temple as a queen. 
 Had child of light a brotherhood 
 With the clay-born barbarian brood ? 
 
 His dauntless sword the Roman drew; 
 His was the wide world to subdue; 
 His the one race for freedom meet, 
 All else but slaves to kiss his feet. 
 
 He dwelt his holy shade beside, 
 The silent Jew, in his soul-pride ; 
 He was the child of God alone; 
 The awful name who else had known ?
 
 QO A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 The dweller on the topmost height 
 Of life, within its love and light, 
 Gathers his garments lest they soil 
 From the slave weeping at his toil. 
 
 The narrow walls we build between 
 Our hearts, from heaven can ne'er be seen; 
 The world is one star in the sky, 
 Its dwellers but one family. 
 
 The nearer to God's heart we stand, 
 The wider grows our fatherland; 
 Our love o'er leaps the skyey dome; 
 Earth is too strait, Heaven is our home.
 
 THE FUTURE IX THE PRESENT 9 1 
 
 THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT. 
 
 WITH fevered hands prest to his brow, 
 The eager seeker waits to hear; 
 The prophetess in trance of fear 
 
 With broken accents mutters low. 
 
 In vain, in vain ; night will not bare 
 The breast of Time to peering eyes: 
 The ageless curtain will not rise: 
 
 The oracle scorns all our prayer. 
 
 With mystic book and secret rite 
 And lonely quest beneath the moon, 
 The soul wins but a fruitless boon; 
 
 Some meteor mocks her in the night.
 
 92 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Why roam we through the roofless halls 
 Of fate, where in the wind and rain 
 Our light is quenched, and there remain 
 
 But echoes of our own footfalls ? 
 
 O Soul, thy hands this moment grasp 
 
 A key the future to unfold : 
 
 The hours that stand beside thee hold 
 The days unborn within their clasp. 
 
 The years to come, and years that are 
 Are but the echo and the lute, 
 Are but the blossom and the fruit, 
 
 The twinkling streamlet and the star. 
 
 Time works no fairy spell with men ; 
 
 Fate ever nestles in their hands; 
 
 They do not enter unknown lands; 
 The new is but the old again.
 
 THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK 93 
 
 THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN 
 CAN WORK. 
 
 WAKE, though our life is but a throb, a sigh, 
 And then at rest we lie, 
 And our brown leafage fades 
 Too soon in glades 
 
 Where stars are shining in the open sky. 
 
 Work at some high task, though thou leavelundone, 
 And sadly quit the sun, 
 And fruits fall in their green 
 Unheard, unseen; 
 
 Life fades, but Truth abides for ever one. 
 
 Lift high thy glance ; life is no land to dream. 
 The starlight pours its stream 
 Sleepless o'er us. The soul 
 That moves the whole 
 
 Is the one Toiler, ceaseless and supreme.
 
 94 A CIRCLE OK THE SOUL 
 
 THE DYING YEAR. 
 
 OVER Time's wrinkled sea we sail, 
 And each breaking crest 
 On its furrowed breast 
 Leaps high above our bark, too frail 
 For shock of Death's remorseless gale. 
 
 But ocean's rim a level bar 
 
 Of moonlight lies, 
 
 Till whirlwinds rise 
 And show in flash of falling star 
 The skyline swell and fall afar. 
 
 The years surge high as our souls climb, 
 
 But in our wake 
 
 No billows break 
 
 The plain, save where some deed sublime 
 Still throbs on the far edge of Time.
 
 THE DYING YEAR 95 
 
 The rill of life that rises clear, 
 
 And hoards its gains 
 
 From the spring rains 
 At last must flow through desert sere, 
 Narrow and shrink and disappear. 
 
 Few hours we have ere set of sun ; 
 
 Our task is long, 
 
 But souls are strong 
 That have Thine aid, O timeless One ! 
 In Thee alone our work is done.
 
 96 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 APOCALYPSES. 
 
 ARE the deep visions that arise 
 From Patmos and its fateful scroll 
 But dreamland wanderings of a soul 
 
 Weary of life's all leaden skies ? 
 
 'Tis no thin web of fevered sleep 
 
 That flies at the keen morning light, 
 No whispered call to silent night 
 
 That dies void to the darkness deep. 
 
 'Tis a long gaze to sunset red 
 To the last field that sleeps afar, 
 When the last foes have fought their war, 
 
 And evil lies all cold and dead.
 
 APOCALVPSKS 97 
 
 So the wild thoughts that flew afar, 
 Despairing dreams of ancient days, 
 Shine lucent in the living rays 
 
 That gleam from Truth's new-risen star. 
 
 The throned halls the poets raise, 
 
 Rapt in the passion of their art, 
 
 Unveil a new world to our heart, 
 To be our home in unborn days. 
 
 All Nature is a vast revealing. 
 
 We know our Soul's infinity 
 
 When on still moor or silent sea, 
 She sways with the great pulse of feeling, 
 
 That gives the speechless starry hours 
 Their voice Divine, whose murmurs roll 
 In rhythmic cadence with the Soul, 
 
 And wake her secret, boundless powers.
 
 98 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 NUNC DIMITTIS. 
 
 BUT one brief hour of vision sweet, 
 
 Ere night appear. 
 A moment's halt for weary feet, 
 
 But home is near. 
 
 The mists, that long have veiled the skies, 
 
 Have risen from earth; 
 One look of love that meets the eyes 
 
 Is a new birth. 
 
 O Time, stay not without the gate, 
 
 Till day be fled, 
 Lest thy slow wing enter too late, 
 
 And love be dead !
 
 PISGAH SIGHT 99 
 
 PISGAH SIGHT. 
 
 OUR way is dusky, and we know 
 
 But one step onward. 
 Through tangled brakes, we can but'go 
 
 With faces sunward. 
 
 We come out to the open skies 
 
 With day declining ; 
 Alas, 'mid hills, and still our eyes 
 
 For distance pining ! 
 
 We slowly climb, and see at last 
 
 Fair fields before us ; 
 But what avails when day is past, 
 
 And night is o'er us ?
 
 100 A CIRCLK OF THE SOUL 
 
 When stars arise, though faint and few, 
 
 And heaven is clouded, 
 Long vistas open to our view 
 
 In darkness shrouded. 
 
 Ah, heavy hearts, whose Pisgah sight 
 
 So long forbade u?, 
 But comes at the approach of night. 
 
 And wrapt in shadows! 
 
 But oft the way-worn spirit thrills 
 
 As opes to greet her 
 A moment's glimpse of bluer hills, 
 
 And meadows sweeter, 
 
 And streams that flow beneath the noon 
 
 All golden gleaming; 
 With joy of vision our souls swoon; 
 
 We walk on, dreaming. 
 
 And tears can cleanse the sight, and teach 
 
 How Time deceives us, 
 Hanging false jewels in our reach, 
 
 Till daylight leaves us.
 
 PISGAH SIGHT 
 
 And evening brings its cooling bree/e, 
 
 Our fever healing, 
 Brings scents of the unvoyaged seas, 
 
 On the soul stealing 
 
 With murmurs of a far-off time 
 
 Of past existence, 
 With odours of a fragrant clime 
 
 Faint in the distance. 
 
 So find we rest and soon forget 
 
 Toils without number ; 
 For though the stones with dew are wet, 
 
 Here must we slumber. 
 
 The night is calm ; the darkness deep 
 
 Will serve for awning ; 
 The mountain air woos us to sleep ; 
 
 We sleep till dawning.
 
 102 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 SONGS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 I. 
 
 O SOUL, by what dark sea 
 Liest thou silently ? 
 
 In what unwonted clime 
 Dost thou, alone and bare, 
 Shudder in the chill air ? 
 
 Tis the bleak land of Time. 
 
 O narrow, narrow strand, 
 And barren shifting sand ! 
 
 Must my soul rest in thee ? 
 O day hasting to night, 
 Ere eyes have filled with light! 
 
 Art all the noon we see ?
 
 SONGS OK THK SOUL 103 
 
 O songs, but scattered notes 
 That break in choking throats, 
 
 To die in deafened ears ! 
 O streams that sink and fail, 
 O flowers all sere and pale, 
 
 Has life no summer years ? 
 
 II. 
 
 O silent star, 
 That shinest all alone, 
 
 And leadest far 
 To fields and seas unknown ! 
 
 O lead us not 
 To palace halls of praise; 
 
 But to the cot 
 Of service all our days ! 
 
 III. 
 
 O come not when our day is dying, 
 
 And all the trees are bare, 
 And winter winds are sighing, sighing, 
 
 All through the sunless air. 
 O Sorrow, spare 
 
 The soul sick with a life-long care !
 
 104 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Come not when night with its dead finger 
 The aching sight has blurred ; 
 
 Come not when long-lost voices linger 
 In eddies time has stirred : 
 Ah, then is heard 
 
 From thy calm lips no holy word. 
 
 Come in the noon of summer gladness, 
 
 Come when the soul can sing, 
 Come when no echo of night-sadness 
 
 To happy dawn we fling. 
 
 Then thy dark wing 
 To Heaven our careless thoughts can bring. 
 
 IV. 
 
 They breathe upon me like the wind 
 
 At dawn from summer seas : 
 Though I ne'er seek, yet oft I find 
 Fruit from their shining trees. 
 O angels sweet, 
 Whose flaming feet 
 Light all my spirit's thronging street !
 
 SONGS OF THK SOTI. 105 
 
 O thoughts Divine of lofty flight ! 
 
 O calls to purpose high ! 
 They pass all fruitless to the night, 
 Yet quicken ere they die. 
 O silent string, 
 Still slumbering, 
 While gales on thee their treasures fling! 
 
 V. 
 
 What seekest thou, 
 O Soul that sighest all day long ? 
 
 To crown thy brow 
 With faith for our poor life too strong? 
 
 A flashing light 
 
 In Time's dull night 
 To bring thee into God's own sight ? 
 
 O Soul, ne'er seek 
 A peak too high for men to dare_: 
 
 Our eyes are weak, 
 And cannot bear the noonday glaie. 
 
 And fires that fly 
 
 Too early die, 
 And leave behind a darker sky.
 
 lo6 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 I only pray 
 For faith to keep the Master's side ; 
 
 That day by day 
 In lowly ways He be my guide : 
 
 No meteor blaze, 
 
 But constant rays 
 To light me all my travelling days. 
 
 VI. 
 
 O rosy eve and dawning fair ! 
 
 O blithe and bounding sea ! 
 And fields aglow in summer air ; 
 
 No more, my Soul, for thee ! 
 
 No more for thee, 
 No more shall Time for ever be. 
 
 O golden mists in twain that roll ! 
 
 O Life's all radiant door ! 
 Now we see Beauty's open soul, 
 
 For you we sigh no more. 
 
 We sigh no more, 
 The night, the sighs of night, are o'er.
 
 WorlD. 
 
 SOWING AND REAPING. 
 
 THE lagging years, the long and toilsome years 
 Whose hoarded hire frees the expectant slave, 
 
 Brief liberty their bare reward appears ; 
 We can be free at all times in the grave. 
 
 The lonely labourer, 'mid the deadly fumes 
 Of Nature's incense watching night and day, 
 
 Weary may, enter late her secret rooms : 
 Does the poor prize the life forspent repay ? 
 
 The soldier wins slow wounds and lingering death 
 As all the guerdon of the battle-field ; 
 
 The seaworn traveller finds the fetid breath 
 Of fever all the fruit new islands yield.
 
 I08 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 O world, that urgest to thy vain pursuit, 
 
 What magic draught hast thou to fire our brain ? 
 
 At harvest, when we garner up the fruit, 
 A heap of dust baffles our toil and pain. 
 
 Life's struggles are a dream that hurries by, 
 While the pale sleepers vainly toss and gasp ; 
 
 The crown, for which we sweat and bleed and die, 
 Fades to thin air in our too eager grasp. 
 
 Ah, life that hoard'st the selfish hours that fly, 
 In vain thy feet the weary round have trod ; 
 
 The souls that in their trembling silence sigh 
 For the pure heart shall wake to see their God.
 
 LOVE VISITS THE EARTH 109 
 
 LOVE VISITS THE EARTH. 
 
 THE wind came up from the sea, 
 
 With whispers and scents of the wave, 
 
 Breathing the breath of the free 
 To plague dwellings of the slave. 
 
 The wind came down from the hill 
 
 O'er hedges blossom-sweet, 
 Its song and its roses to spill 
 
 In a shower on the fevered street. 
 
 The wind left the city behind 
 
 As it bore our care awav, 
 A sad and wingless wind 
 
 At the dying of the day.
 
 110 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 AFTER THE STORM. 
 
 THE summer morn is veiled in cloud, 
 
 And the storm is drawing nigh; 
 The wind is rising fierce and loud, 
 
 And the sea is running high; 
 And the thrush has stilled the song that thrilled 
 
 The woods and the fields and the sky. 
 
 The summer storm has fled, and now 
 
 The clouds have oped to view 
 The noonday sun that pours its glow 
 
 On fields of fairer hue, 
 And greener trees and bounding seas, 
 
 Reborn to a glory new. 
 
 Though storms pass o'er our tearful way, 
 
 And our souls by grief are riven, 
 Though darkness overcast the day, 
 
 And our bark be tempest-driven, 
 Yet the clouds will break, and the sorrow wake 
 
 Our eyes to a nearer Heaven.
 
 AFTER THE STORM III 
 
 The northern wind is wild, and raves 
 
 From winter's icy gate, 
 Through crashing woods and lashing waves 
 
 Like a messenger of hate. 
 The death-work done, the cruel sun 
 
 Shines on earth desolate. 
 
 O utter grief and blinded sight, 
 And speechless, hopeless pain ; 
 
 O awful grave and timeless night, 
 And love all, all in vain, 
 
 Of heart that knows not Love bestows 
 Clear shining after rain ! 
 
 The summer gale leaves earth a-glow 
 With sweetness when 'tis past; 
 
 But terror and destruction strew 
 The track of the wintry blast: 
 
 So hearts are dead when faith has fled, 
 But love finds peace at last.
 
 112 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE GOOD OF EVIL. 
 
 IF life were all a tranquil meadow 
 
 A-glow with the sunlight, 
 And never fell a darker shadow 
 
 Than from a cloud snow-white, 
 Would not our spirits idly sleeping 
 
 From dreams unwilling rise, 
 In narrow bounds of self e'er keeping 
 
 Their earth-enchained eyes ? 
 
 Where summer suns have fiercest splendours, 
 
 Pale fever fills the breeze; 
 Where earth untilled her fruitage renders, 
 
 Man sinks to swinish ease. 
 The Soul can bear her sad denial, 
 
 And suffer, and be strong, 
 But who unscathed may dare the trial 
 
 Of changeless joy and song ?
 
 THE DAY OK REST 113 
 
 THE DAY OF REST. 
 
 ' HASTE with your task, ye idle crowd,' 
 A tyrant spake in accents loud, 
 As he passed on, cruel and proud. 
 
 'Twas Mammon, lord of all our race, 
 Who grudges us our little space 
 Of rest within the Holy Place. 
 
 'Tis not in vain that knees are bent, 
 Though oft to prayer our souls are lent, 
 But as to a stringed instrument, 
 
 Whose chords but tremble ere they die, 
 A moment breathe and silent lie, 
 And we forget the melody. 
 H
 
 114 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 It is in toil our souls are blind, 
 See not before, look not behind ; 
 Our true life on our knees we find. 
 
 Our longing soul to-day may lean 
 O'er our cell-window, view the green 
 And sunlit fields, and heaven serene. 
 
 O life that hurriest to the grave, 
 
 Deny not to thy weary slave 
 
 The one home-glimpse his soul must crave !
 
 ART IS BRIEF, AND LIFE IS LONG 115 
 
 ART IS BRIEF, AND LIFE IS LONG. 
 
 WHOSE is the crown of song ? 
 Apollo wins by his inspired art. 
 It boots not whose may be the purer heart, 
 
 If but the voice be strong. 
 
 No more our souls entreat, 
 If but the song be sweet from silvery tongue ; 
 Who asks if it be folly that is sung 
 
 If but the song be sweet ? 
 
 If Raphael should will 
 Out of the night to wake the Holy Child, 
 Or idle dream of fancy running wild, 
 
 His is the garland still.
 
 Il6 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Art has no tireless powers; 
 She cannot soar to Beauty's soul sublime; 
 She loves the fragrant earth, the songs of Time, 
 
 And life's fair fleeting flowers. 
 
 Like light of dawning sweet, 
 The rippling smile of Art moves o'er our life; 
 And even the holy songs we hear are rife 
 
 With echoes of light feet. 
 
 Like the mermaid that dwells 
 In ocean's dim grey beams, she cannot bear 
 The sunlight splendours of the upper air, 
 
 But seeks her coral cells. 
 
 Into the inner light, 
 
 The core of Beauty's perfect joy, what Art 
 Can ever penetrate ? The naked heart 
 
 Alone has perfect sight.
 
 THE NEW DIVES ll"J 
 
 THE NEW DIVES. 
 
 AH me, how all the wrong and pain 
 
 The poor endure, 
 Surge on my heart, seethe in my brain 
 
 God help the poor! 
 
 He spake resting in ease and light 
 
 And quiet pleasure; 
 His the calm day, the happy night, 
 
 The heart at leisure. 
 
 His soul but gave a tear, a prayer, 
 
 Then turned aside; 
 Some other thought had entered there. 
 
 The poor still cried.
 
 Il8 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 But if love's messenger alight 
 
 And linger by, 
 The flame she wakes may leap to sight, 
 
 Before it die. 
 
 A hasty gift at random sent 
 
 (God will repay !) 
 A curious glance on Lazarus bent, 
 
 As if he lay 
 
 Some strange drift from a foreign strand, 
 
 No kin of ours : 
 Some weed cast by a careless hand 
 
 'Mong garden flowers. 
 
 O tyrant heart that sees the whole 
 
 Of life's sad lot, 
 As but a play to move the soul 
 
 And be forgot ! 
 
 O selfish tears ! Hunger and pain 
 
 Are not sent sleeping 
 By idle tears : weep not again, 
 
 Who give but weeping.
 
 THE DEAD FAITH 
 
 THE DEAD FAITH. 
 
 Is Jesus' name but a dying gleim, 
 
 A vanished dream? 
 A fond belief of our eager youth, 
 
 No heart of truth ? 
 And childhood never returns again, 
 
 To careworn men. 
 
 We wander on in regions wide 
 
 Without a guide : 
 O lead us back where the trodden way 
 
 Is clear in the day ! 
 O that I were a child again ! 
 
 The wish is vain.
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Were it but ours the fresh young gaze 
 
 Of long past days, 
 When first to the great Love-mystery 
 
 We turned our eye, 
 And saw~with fear the Saviour ope 
 
 His door of hope ! 
 
 But the soul must under her burden bend 
 
 On to the end. 
 Some lone stars pierce the welkin black, 
 
 But not a track 
 On the broad waste of the wild I see. 
 
 Ah, woe is me ! 
 
 Fear fills our souls, for soon we close 
 
 With the last of foes. 
 O soul, in thy solitude feel no alarm ; 
 
 The mighty arm 
 Of the Love we have left to safety receives us ; 
 
 God never leaves us.
 
 ART ENSLAVED T2I 
 
 ART ENSLAVED. 
 
 O SOUL of Beauty, when our soul descries 
 The flashing of her eyes 
 Low-mirrored in dull streams, 
 Do the sungleams 
 
 Show thy dim phantom ere the vision flies ? 
 
 Is Truth the murmur of the soul, no more 
 The wave-wash on the shore, 
 The shore of the strait isle 
 Of self, the while 
 
 Time's ocean ebbs and flows with sullen roar ? 
 
 While we look on with self-entranced eyes 
 At our own fairness, rise 
 The witching nymphs who seize 
 Our souls and freeze 
 
 Their fire Divine in languid luxuries.
 
 122 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Is Art but ease ? And life the long delight 
 
 In gardens summer-bright ? 
 
 The boat that drifts adown 
 
 The river brown 
 Will wreck on furious seas in starless night. 
 
 Who fills our heart with song ? With grace unbought 
 
 Our hands ? Shall she be taught 
 
 To heap our sordid gold, 
 
 As Judas sold 
 His Master's love, and lost his heaven for naught ?
 
 THE WORLD WELL LOST 123 
 
 THE WORLD WELL LOST. 
 
 How sweet are the flowers : and the jewels of earth 
 
 How gaily they shine ! 
 For sunlight and splendour and music and mirth 
 
 Are life's rich wine. 
 
 At the banquet of life when the rainbow showers 
 
 Of roses fall, 
 
 A voice is heard in our happiest hours, 
 ' Leave all, leave all.' 
 
 And must we leave all when we follow the Cross 
 
 At our Master's behest ? 
 Our gold and our fame and our love ? But the loss 
 
 Is a trifle at best.
 
 124 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Must we snatch from the clutches of Time the few hours 
 
 We spend on his shore, 
 And sigh no regrets for all that was ours, 
 
 And ours is no more ? 
 
 We lay all our treasures beneath His great throne; 
 
 (Our treasures poor pelf!) 
 We pray that He lend them once more for our own, 
 
 To spend for Himself. 
 
 Were it best that our souls the boon should receive 
 
 To a prayer so bold ? 
 His wisdom has given : the doubt we may leave 
 
 For His love to unfold. 
 
 Should He mark out our path in a desert sere, 
 
 'Neath a wintry sky, 
 Can we grieve if our way to the end is clear, 
 
 And heaven so nigh ? 
 
 If I grudged my poor shred of life to His Cross, 
 
 I'd die with the shame; 
 But this weak selfish soul at best is but dross, 
 
 And never will flame
 
 THE WORLD WELL LOST ] 
 
 With the love Divine of the life that died 
 
 On the Cross for us all. 
 O Love, wilt forgive when we stray from Thy side, 
 
 Nor scorn when we fall !
 
 126 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE WORLD PASSETH AWAY AND THE 
 LUST THEREOF. 
 
 O SELF, our spirit's ocean tomb, 
 
 Brief life's one foe ! 
 
 The madness and music, the glory and gloom, 
 Are only the drift and the wrack and the spume 
 
 Of thine ebb and flow. 
 
 The world its arms around us flings, 
 
 False, feigning friend, 
 Like clammy clay to the corpse that clings, 
 Awaiting the hour when corruption brings 
 Earth's bitter end. 
 
 But Love's fair floweret never dies : 
 
 The cold snow may 
 Oft hide it from our wistful eyes, 
 Nor Self nor World can stay its rise 
 
 To deathless day.
 
 TO A SOCIALIST 127 
 
 TO A SOCIALIST. 
 
 (A SONNKT.) 
 
 THE storm is loud, and the wild waves run high, 
 The storm of wrong over life's heaving main; 
 The angry billows rise of lusting gain, 
 
 And dark injustice, and fierce tyranny. 
 
 The crazy crafts wreck 'neath the cruel sky, 
 Misshapen things that hours of toil and pain 
 Have wrought and the poor seamen call in vain 
 
 For aid; the night is deep, and none is nigh. 
 
 Thou callest, Leave the ships and shun the shore, 
 And dost bring us from the shattering seas 
 To a low cavern, where in sombre grey 
 
 We toil and rest in one, and fear no more 
 
 The spasms of fateful skies ; but the fresh breeze 
 We feel no more, ncr the free light of day.
 
 Gbe Cburcb. 
 
 HOLY COMMUNION. 
 
 (A SONNET.) 
 
 O LIGHT of Light, in Heaven's high noontide lying, 
 I lave my soul within Thy radiant river, 
 Which flows and will flow on, till it deliver 
 
 The day from night, and give its death to dying. 
 
 O Life, for Thee my life is ever sighing, 
 
 My life, whose naked limbs with terror quiver, 
 
 My life, whose faint streaks in the night-wind shiver, 
 
 While Time and Death are with me onward flying. 
 
 Though overhead I hear their pinions sweeping, 
 I hear with joy, for sooner will be over 
 The silent sorrow of the veiled distance, 
 
 Our straining eyes but dimmer make with weeping, 
 And see Thee not, until Thou day discover, 
 And our souls find in Thee their lost existence.
 
 HOLY BAPTISM 129 
 
 HOLY BAPTISM. 
 
 As we wait beside the happy shore 
 Of the mystic sea, 
 
 The sea of love Divine, 
 Until the sacred drops shall pour 
 
 To Christ to welcome thee, 
 O babe, the heart of God we see 
 
 Already thine. 
 
 The clouds that hung around thy birth 
 Of sin and pain 
 
 Have winged away their flight; 
 And Heaven united now to earth 
 
 Shines on thy life again; 
 And thy soul's equipped for her battle-plain 
 
 With a Saviour's might. 
 I
 
 130 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 O sweet and cheerful fount of love, 
 
 Round thee we stand, 
 And Heaven unfolds in thee. 
 Exiles on earth, our hearts above 
 
 Have yet a fatherland, 
 And thy spring flows in time's bleak sand 
 
 From the crystal sea !
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 131 
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 (A SONXET.) 
 
 'Tis God that weaves the secret cords that bind 
 His children's souls through the wide earth in one; 
 And neither the fierce fire of summer sun, 
 
 Nor the wild turbulence of winter wind, 
 
 One weak place in the golden threads can find. 
 Though man and devil cry // is undone, 
 And our hearts dream in fear Time has begun 
 
 To gnaw it with his tooth, 'tis we are blind. 
 
 Can our word stay the sun, though oft we hide 
 From its full light, and cry The day has died, 
 
 While from its clasp the world can never part ? 
 Can Love and Truth be rent by mortal hands, 
 When we see beating in their living strands 
 
 The blood that flows from God's all silent heart ?
 
 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE CHURCH IN CHAINS. 
 
 ALL fettered and forlorn, 
 
 She stands, with eyes that strain 
 Far to the slow-paced morn, 
 
 In vain, in vain, in vain. 
 
 The waves break o'er the stone 
 And chafe the golden chain; 
 
 But still she stands alone 
 
 And strains her sight in vain. 
 
 The world worships her gold; 
 
 Her priests are sold for gain ; 
 For the free days of old 
 
 The Church still sighs in vain. 
 
 O simple life of love ! 
 
 Wilt never dawn again, 
 Till the one Church above 
 
 Need pray no more in vain !
 
 THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY 133 
 
 THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY. 
 
 A LITTLE church, where roses creep, 
 And ivy climbs, and slumberous waves 
 Girdle the long-forgotten graves, 
 
 And lull them to a deeper sleep. 
 
 The windows in the noontide rays 
 
 Gleam with the flaming hues, that pour 
 To chequer all the storied floor, 
 
 And wrap the church in rainbow haze. 
 
 Well did we love the clear sunbeams 
 In quaint old panes our childhood knew, 
 Before this gentler light came through, 
 
 To steep our soul in sacred dreams.
 
 134 A CIRCLE OK THE SOUL 
 
 When the sweet hymn rose from the choir 
 We stood and gazed across the bay, 
 That in its Sabbath silence lay 
 
 Beneath the noon, streaked with its fire. 
 
 And when the evening fell, and dim 
 The low lamp flickered in the aisle, 
 We saw the starry heaven smile, 
 
 And seemed to hear its sphering hymn. 
 
 Though Art has made more than of yore 
 Our Father's temple beautiful, 
 Yet thence sweet morn, and evening cool, 
 
 And sun and stars, we see no more. 
 
 The simple story of God's love, 
 That comes in clear white light to men, 
 Can our souls see it now, as when 
 
 It fell from its pure founts above ? 
 
 May not the Church the truth eclipse, 
 Veil it in clouds of many hues, 
 Until at last our souls refuse 
 
 To hear it flow from Jesus' lips ?
 
 A DAILY PENTECOST 135 
 
 A DAILY PENTECOST. 
 
 WHO sends the Soul her sudden gleams 
 
 From fires above, 
 When the vain throng wake from dull dreams 
 
 To truth and love? 
 
 What secret waves of passion seize 
 
 The spell-bound crowd, 
 As tall pine-trees bend to the breeze 
 
 When winds are loud ? 
 
 The Spirit in the storm descends 
 
 Upon our soul, 
 And awful bliss our being rends 
 
 'Neath His control. 
 
 The power Divine, we do not dare 
 
 View without fear, 
 Is ever in the simplest prayer 
 
 We whisper here !
 
 136 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE moonlight over Rome imperial 
 
 Its flood is flinging; 
 When from the tombs there streams a dying fall 
 
 Of some sad singing. 
 
 The low lamps set in niches for the dead 
 
 Are shining dim, 
 The secret scroll in silent awe is read 
 
 Ere the slow hymn. 
 
 The chant serene and solemn flows : what kin 
 
 Had song Divine 
 With the gay music of Rome's purple sin, 
 
 Its dance and wine ?
 
 CHURCH MUSIC, OLD AND NEW 137 
 
 Ere the young faith could dare to brave the light 
 
 Of the open day, 
 Its songs were meet for pilgrims of the night 
 
 On their lone way. 
 
 Long years have passed, and now the Church is strong, 
 
 And loves the light, 
 Her temples send the anthem's pealing song 
 
 To Heaven's blue height.
 
 138 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 
 (ACCORDING TO ST GREGORY.) 
 
 AH ! how her outer vesture's rent, 
 
 (The monk was wrapt in thought} 
 How dare we to her Lord present 
 This worn and torn and stained tent, 
 For the fair bride He bought ? 
 
 White as the snow her inner soul, 
 
 (He rose from bended knee), 
 In sordid shreds her seamless stole ; 
 We hear Thy chariot nearer roll ; 
 
 Can she be worthy Thee ? 
 
 The Church her arms is stretching wide 
 
 Far to the setting sun; 
 But sundering ways the more divide : 
 Who will into the secret guide 
 
 That knits her hearts in one ?
 
 THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH 139 
 
 The Church on earth for union sighs ; 
 
 In Heaven how wins she peace ? 
 'Tis from the songs of Paradise, 
 The same sweet songs from all that rise, 
 
 That rise and never cease. 
 
 How shall our warring spirits bring 
 
 Their lips to kiss in love ? 
 The same sweet music let us sing, 
 From shore to shore one incense wing 
 
 Its circling flight above. 
 
 The murmurs of the soul within 
 
 With holy chanting blend, 
 Till our lulled hearts from out the din 
 Of the world's jarring strife and sin 
 
 In praise to Heaven ascend. 
 
 Alas, fain dream ! The darker years 
 
 Have frighted thee from men. 
 The noise of fight rings in our ears, 
 Yet must we wait till Heaven appears 
 
 To see one Church again ?
 
 14 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 'INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE 
 OF GOD.' 
 
 (A SONNET.) 
 
 THE stars of Truth shine brighter year by year. 
 Our eye is keener, and our heart more fain 
 To enter Nature's inner shrine; we strain 
 
 Up steeper hills for longer vistas; hear 
 
 A thousand songs at morning ringing clear 
 
 That were all dumb of yore; and the wide plain 
 Of heaven we girdle with a dewdrop chain, 
 
 Dreaming that thus to God our souls are drawing near. 
 
 Earth yields to us her deepest golden lode, 
 
 And Time's broad stream lays bare his pearly bed, 
 
 And Life stands naked in the open light; 
 But do we know the more of love and God ? 
 Stands not the truth in what the Master said, 
 The eye of childhood has the purer sight ?
 
 THE CHURCH CLOSED ON WEEKDAYS 14! 
 
 THE CHURCH CLOSED ON WEEKDAYS. 
 
 (IN THE CITY.) 
 
 THE doors are shut; though men pass year by year, 
 Here is no welcome, none may enter here. 
 The doors are shut; tomb of a faith long dead, 
 Of some blind God whose name is perished. 
 
 Must the brisk current of our busy day 
 From holy stillness ever keep away ? 
 Has our life ne'er a rill that seeks a road 
 'Neath the cool shadows of the Church of God ? 
 
 Is life so sundered by these iron gates, 
 That toil on prayer, and heaven on earth ne'er waits ? 
 Can lips that have been sealed the whole week long, 
 Burst through their cerements for one holy song ? 
 
 The doors are shut; though open wide remain 
 The gilded gates of Mammon's towering fane. 
 The world is his; the Heaven of God is far; 
 Who knows the way if fog hides sun and star ?
 
 142 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 MISSIONS. 
 
 (A SONNET.) 
 
 ' And He had compassion on the multitudes. 
 
 SWEET springs were far; beneath the cruel blaze 
 Of shadeless skies lay the sun-blasted sand : 
 The Master leads to His love's morning land, 
 
 Where are no withered wastes, nor flowerless days. 
 
 We lay all famine-stricken, nor could raise 
 
 A cry from parched throats, when His dear hand 
 Brought to our lips the living water, and 
 
 Oped golden fields before our new-born gaze. 
 
 O Fount that freely flowest through the sere 
 And storm-swept wilderness, where pilgrims lie 
 A-fevered with their thirst, nor can descry 
 
 The brimming fulness of thy river clear, 
 
 Shall we whom Thou hast saved, sit ruthless by, 
 Nor eager bear to others ere they die ?
 
 ELISHA 143 
 
 ELISHA : THE CHURCH IN WAR AND 
 PEACE. 
 
 THE secret mountains dwell 
 Again in silence dim; 
 
 The fires from Heaven that fell 
 Rest 'neath the cherubim. 
 
 The prophet leaves the peaks 
 
 Of loneliness behind; 
 His gentler spirit seeks 
 
 A dwelling with his kind. 
 
 No more the prophet's word 
 In awful desert hides, 
 
 But in their streets is heard, 
 And in their homes abides.
 
 144 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 How sweet to eyes that gaze 
 Too long on Alpine snow, 
 
 All dazzled with its blaze, 
 The fertile plains below ! 
 
 How sweet to tread again, 
 
 With footsteps once more free, 
 
 The broad Lombardic plain 
 That sleeps beside the sea ! 
 
 The martyr fires are dead ; 
 
 The saint seeks not a cell ; 
 Yet their light has not fled, 
 
 Their souls still with us dwell. 
 
 We follow them afar, 
 
 The journey cannot cease; 
 
 They with the songs of war, 
 We with the works of peacs. 
 
 The Church through blood and tears 
 Her faith and freedom knew; 
 
 In sweet and tranquil years 
 Her stately fabric grew.
 
 ELISHA 
 
 All have their call from God ; 
 
 A lowlier mission ours; 
 No heights where martyrs trod, 
 
 But paths all fair with flowers. 
 
 Our hearts are weak, and ask 
 
 No lofty deed to do; 
 God grant that to their task 
 
 Our souls be ever"true ! 
 
 M5 
 
 K
 
 146 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 A DREAM OF SAINTS. 
 
 (A SONNET.) 
 
 A STARRY throng are round the great white throne ; 
 
 From every shore they hear the trumpet call. 
 
 Far from the saints and martyrs, least of all, 
 I stand on the threshold of Heaven alone. 
 Does any claim the garland for his own, 
 
 The highest place in the wide banquet hall ? 
 
 Whom does the Master crown ? Peter or Paul ? 
 Afar I stand, it is to me unknown. 
 
 A murmur through the singing crowd is heard, 
 And as the Master leads one to His side, 
 
 The hymn of praise swells with a triumph- burst. 
 I ask an angel who has been preferred, 
 ' A lowly mother, who had lived and died 
 For her poor babes.' In Heaven the last is first.
 
 KKOM EAST AND WEST 147 
 
 FROM EAST AND WEST. 
 
 SWEET dream of Love's high feast, 
 When we shall greet with song 
 
 God's garnered souls from west and east, 
 In the white-vestured throng ! 
 
 You dream of days unborn 
 
 When all are one in love; 
 O sundered souls, make here the morn 
 
 Which shall be noon above. 
 
 Thou dreamest thou wilt sing 
 
 And wake the golden air, 
 As the far isles kneel to their King : 
 
 But, soul, wilt thou be there ?
 
 148 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 PRIVATE BAPTISM. 
 
 'Tis the solemn hour when the heart is still, 
 And the toils of the day are folded in rest, 
 And the home is made heaven by the holy rill, 
 That flows from its fount in the Saviour's breast. 
 O Love Divine, 
 The babe is Thine, 
 And his heart prepared for Thy shrine. 
 
 Yet speak, for Thy voice is the wine of our life, 
 
 O speak but a word to our eager hearts ; 
 But a smile of peace for our weary strife, 
 A word or a smile ere this hour departs ! 
 In the infant's eye 
 Deep lights that lie 
 Are the voice and the smile for which you sigh.
 
 HKAYKX OF THK AXGKLS 149 
 
 THE HEAVEN OF THE ANGELS. 
 
 IN what far heaven is your high dwelling place, 
 
 O Angels of unwearied wing, 
 Where you for ever see God's blissful face, 
 
 Forever rest, forever sing ? 
 
 Heaven is not far, in stars of skies unknown ; 
 
 Heaven has its gates on earth below. 
 For ever love, for ever serve, what crown 
 
 Of sweeter gems could God bestow ?
 
 flDaster. 
 
 THE ANNUNCIATION 
 
 O MOTHER of the Child Divine, 
 
 That fearful heard'st, thou knowest now 
 How fair a crown God gave thy brow, 
 
 How infinite a glory thine ! 
 
 No glory thy meek soul pursued, 
 But that it might the call obey 
 To height sublime or lowly way : 
 
 Enough for thee thy motherhood. 
 
 Enough for thee to stand and wait 
 Beside the threshold of His soul : 
 Since God alone could know the whole, 
 
 Thy love ne'er pleaded at the gate.
 
 THK ANNUNCIATION 151 
 
 To enter there thy love ne'er tried, 
 
 But onward plied its humble task; 
 
 The faithful heart will only ask 
 One step to know where God is guide. 
 
 Within the veil if thou ne'er pressed, 
 The veil where thy Son lay concealed, 
 Our souls may leave the secret sealed, 
 
 Until we see thee on His breast.
 
 I5 2 A CIRCLE OP' THE SOUL 
 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 WHAT odour steals through Heaven's wide doors 
 
 To earth from flowers above ? 
 'Tis God that forth His Godhead pours 
 
 On the altar of His love. 
 
 What song fills earth and sea and sky ? 
 
 It is the joy untold 
 Of God's eternal heart, too high 
 
 For Heaven itself to hold. 
 
 What star moves in the sky alone ? 
 
 It shines in the clear wing 
 Of one, who stood around the Throne, 
 
 And still waits on his King.
 
 THE SACK1KICK OF THH D1V1NK FATHKk 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF THE DIVINE FATHER. 
 
 O FATHER, not the Son alone 
 
 Humbles Himself to men; 
 Thou earnest from Thy lofty throne 
 
 To win our gifts again. 
 
 No children that Thou could'st compel 
 
 To love and worship Thee, 
 Didst Thou bring forth on earth to dwell, 
 
 But souls for ever free ! 
 
 So in Divine humility 
 
 The day Thou waitest on, 
 When our love we shall offer Thee, 
 
 Because Thy love first shone.
 
 154 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 The very love we call our own 
 
 Is by Thy Spirit lent ; 
 That love alone before Thy throne 
 
 Our one gift we present. 
 
 O Love Divine, as high above 
 
 Our thought as Heaven from earth, 
 
 Receive our souls of trembling love, 
 Nor scorn their little worth !
 
 THE CIRCUMCISION 155 
 
 THE CIRCUMCISION. 
 
 WHY wrap in vestures Time has rent 
 The Soul's renewed youth ? 
 
 Why weave with a dead filament 
 The living web of Truth ? 
 
 The morn is up : its flood of light 
 Fills field and sea and stream; 
 
 Thy lamp is but a child of night, 
 A speck of gloom its beam. 
 
 Though temples fall, and rites decay, 
 
 And altar-books be dumb, 
 And tides of thought may sweep away 
 
 Our creeds in years to come, 
 
 The one true worship ne'er departs, 
 The soul keeps for her own, 
 
 The high communion of our hearts, 
 Alone with God alone.
 
 156 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 
 
 MASTER, if dusty way 
 
 Could stain Thy sacred feet 
 
 And make Thy baptism sweet, 
 What soiled spirit may 
 Forgo the holy cleansing even for a day ? 
 
 If thus the Master bow 
 
 His soul of shadeless noon 
 
 To seek the starlight boon, 
 Proud spirit, who art thou, 
 That scornest any seal the Church prints on thy brow ? 
 
 If in the Church's call, 
 
 Her voice scarce ringing clear, 
 
 Too much of earth we hear, 
 Of Heaven the faintest fall, 
 Shall we withhold one gift from her who giveth all ?
 
 THE LONG PREPARATION 157 
 
 THE LONG PREPARATION. 
 
 EARTH is by spring beguiled, 
 The frost still keeps its sway, 
 
 And the blue heaven that smiled 
 Is hid in winter grey. 
 
 The sun has only stayed 
 
 His might till his own hour; 
 
 The pause Nature has made 
 Has stored her secret power. 
 
 The gathering current, pent 
 Beneath the eager earth, 
 
 With sudden flow has rent 
 The flood-gates of new birth.
 
 158 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Though late our souls may brinj 
 The fruit of clearer sight 
 
 And stronger hope, they spring 
 The bolder to the light. 
 
 For thirty years One lay 
 Waiting His Father's call, 
 
 And on His harvest day, 
 Time could not hold it all.
 
 IS NOT THIS THE CAKPEXTKR ? 159 
 
 IS NOT THIS THE CARPENTER? 
 
 WHY should the Saviour bear the weight 
 
 Of golden wealth or purple state, 
 Which cumber life with dull desires, 
 And for dim lamps slay the star-fires ? 
 
 Our little honours have their worth 
 Within the narrow court of earth, 
 
 But from the height of Heaven they seem 
 The playthings of a childish dream. 
 
 The wayside flower that loves the dew 
 Blooms best beneath the open blue; 
 The hoarded heat and patient care 
 Are less to her than the free air.
 
 l6o A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 The Master seeks life's broad highway 
 
 That lies before in open day, 
 
 The lucent air, the sky-born rill, 
 The simpler needs, the purer will. 
 
 The still retreat, the shady dell, 
 
 Invite our sensual souls to dwell 
 Far from the sin and care and strife 
 Of the wide world's uneasy life : 
 
 But better far the brotherhood 
 
 Afoot among the multitude, 
 
 In toil and song who march along, 
 
 With smile and tear, in life's great throng. 
 
 The road of truer sympathies, 
 
 The open way 'neath open skies, 
 
 Where all fare on its generous plain, 
 Free as the sunshine and the rain.
 
 THK TRIUMPHAL KN'l'RY l6l 
 
 THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY : 
 A MITE OK TKIHUTK-MONEV. 
 
 'TwAS but a wayside flower 
 The Master gathered as He passed along 
 The shouts of children and the thoughtless throng- 
 
 A crown for but an hour. 
 
 Yet to the Master's soul 
 
 It was a glimpse of Heaven, whose entrance ways 
 Are garlanded with songs that children raise, 
 
 The cadence of the whole. 
 
 Ah, through the fragrant door 
 Of babes, by which the angels usher them 
 To God, by which He came to Bethlehem 
 
 Shall He return no more. 
 L
 
 162 A CIRCLE OF THK SOUL 
 
 Even now the shadows rise 
 Of the dark journey to His high abode; 
 The deepest gloom of that mysterious road 
 
 Is hid from mortal eyes. 
 
 When their true Lord appears, 
 Proud Wisdom's palm ne'er bows, nor lily sweet 
 Of Poesy : Love kneeling at His feet 
 
 Bedews them with her tears. 
 
 The lonely wounded bird, 
 
 That gasps its trembling trill with bleeding throat, 
 From the wide starry heaven has the key-note, 
 
 And there its song is heard. 
 
 And our weak, faltering flight, 
 That sends a broken cry on random wing, 
 Into the angel choir his love will bring, 
 
 And with their hymn unite.
 
 AT THE CROSS 163 
 
 AT THE CROSS. 
 
 O CROSS, I dare not lift my eyes 
 Upon thine awful agonies; 
 And still I dare not turn away, 
 For love compels my soul to stay. 
 
 O let me flee into the night ! 
 No eye can bear that loving light; 
 Nor may a mortal foot be found 
 Worthy to tread this holy ground. 
 
 O awful Cross, can I leave thee ? 
 What hope have I if hence I flee ? 
 Let me but in thy shadow lie; 
 By thee I live, in thee I die.
 
 164 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 SHALL sin and death in fear forsake 
 The earth, together with the night 
 Which the first Easter put to flight. 
 
 And still with thee a refuge take, 
 O soul of man, that to the deep 
 Art drifting on in dreamy sleep ? 
 
 Was't but a dream of long ago ? 
 The Master died, and buried lies : 
 A phantom born of haunted eyes 
 
 Was all the Easter earth can know. 
 Give not to useless tears one hour, 
 Lives not the Master's word of power ?
 
 KASTKR 165 
 
 As in Scirocco's scorching breath, 
 
 When wells are lost, and noon is near, 
 Sweet gleams of shining pools appear, 
 
 Spectres the eye creates in death ; 
 And as the pictured vapours fly, 
 The maddened pilgrims fall and die? 
 
 Thus came it from our soul's desire, 
 Of her despairing longing born, 
 The joy of that far Easter morn, 
 
 An inward flash of meteor fire ? 
 
 Cease from thy doubts, O pallid soul; 
 But follow, thou shalt know the whole.
 
 1 66 A CIRCLE OK THK SOUL 
 
 THE ASCENSION. 
 
 STILL tarry ! Go not yet, 
 
 O Master dear ! 
 Our souls are filled with fear, 
 Our eyes with tears are wet, 
 The Cross is still so near. 
 
 Has Heaven a need of Thee, 
 
 O Light of Light ? 
 Has some love taken flight, 
 That Thou alone canst free 
 From the death-grasp of night ? 
 
 Nay, Heaven is full of song, 
 
 Love at its height : 
 T'is noon of the true Light, 
 And wondering angels throng 
 For new bliss from His sight.
 
 THK ASCK.N?KJ\ 
 
 O Master, leave Thy love, 
 
 If Thou depart ! 
 'Twill give wings to our heart, 
 That ever strains above, 
 And rests but where Thou art.
 
 1 68 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 THE HEART OF JESUS. 
 
 CLOSE on Thy breast, 
 
 Thy bleeding breast, 
 Fainting and frozen let me rest ! 
 
 Through icy surging sea, 
 
 Through vast and wandering night, 
 Through starless, voiceless night, 
 
 O Heart, I come to Thee. 
 
 O cold, cold, cold, 
 
 My fingers fold 
 Like stone around the hand I hold ! 
 
 O Heart, it cannot be 
 
 That Thou art still and dead, 
 'Neath the blackness overhead, 
 
 By the eager, silent sea.
 
 THE HKART OF JKSUS 
 
 O Heart, 'tis I, 
 That fail and die ; 
 Keep Thou me fast and safe I lie. 
 In fight with the fierce flood 
 All my poor strength is spent, 
 My clinging garment rent 
 And stained o'er with blood. 
 
 I cling no more; 
 
 I clasp no more ; 
 What can I ? Hold Thou fast. Before 
 
 I grasp Thy hand, a sleep 
 Palsies my soul; I fall, 
 Ere yet my lips may call 
 
 Thee from Thy secret deep. 
 
 O still hold me ! 
 It was by Thee, 
 I knew it not, that o'er that sea, 
 That swallowing, shattering sea, 
 Benumbed, with brain aflame, 
 Out of the night I came, 
 To Thee, to Thee, to Thee !
 
 1 70 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 And the blood-stain 
 
 Was from Thy pain; 
 'Twas Thou didst wrestle with the main. 
 
 I knew it not, that Thou 
 Wast ever by my side : 
 How could I breast the tide 
 
 Who cannot hold Thee now ? 
 
 O Heart, 'tis naught 
 My soul has brought. 
 I have nor life, nor love, nor thought. 
 From Thy love I but fill 
 
 My soul with passion sweet ; 
 
 My life is but the beat 
 Of Thine eternal Will. 
 
 timeless Heart, 
 
 1 am a part 
 
 Of Thee, am naught but what Thou art. 
 For here no murmur rolls 
 
 Of Time's uneasy car: 
 
 My soul falls like a star 
 Into the Sun of souls.
 
 Disciples. 
 
 ST. MATTHEW 
 
 His gold was but a crumbled heap; 
 His soul wakes from its sordid swoon, 
 As one steps into summer noon, 
 
 Aroused from spell of poison-sleep. 
 
 'Twas but a word came, Follow Me, 
 And dawn upon his soul had risen; 
 The gates burst of his life-long prison; 
 
 His chains fall off; his soul is free. 
 
 The voice was clear when Jesus spake 
 
 In the far Galilean town; 
 
 The world's hoarse murmur did not drown. 
 Nor mists enshroud His shining wake.
 
 172 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 'Twas but a word that fell, and lo, 
 The upward path the seeker sees ; 
 His soul inbreathes the hillborn breeze; 
 
 He leaves the weltering world below. 
 
 But we who dwell deep in the vale, 
 Amid its vapours dank and dim, 
 How shall we strain our sight to Him. 
 
 When even the sun itself is pale ? 
 
 His feet but touched the battle-plain ; 
 One struggle, and his fight is o'er : 
 But we must bear the ceaseless pour 
 
 Of deadly shafts, and firm remain. 
 
 'Twas hard to leave, but God has given 
 
 A harder task for us to do; 
 
 To keep our soul in balance true, 
 Our feet on earth, our eyes on heaven.
 
 ST MARK 173 
 
 ST MARK. 
 
 ' Marcus, my fellow-labourer.' Sf Paul {Philemon 24). 
 ' Marcus, my son.' St Peter (I. Peter, r. 13). 
 
 TWIN rivers born on the same height, 
 Springing from the same stainless snow, 
 Down parting slopes they onward flow, 
 
 Till their far floods are lost to sight. 
 
 Their deeper streams the more divide, 
 Through warring lands their courses bend r 
 Till, sundered furthest at the end, 
 
 They clasp again in ocean wide. 
 
 Too early in the Church's youth 
 The severed camps and ensigns rise, 
 Till smoke of battle clouds the skies, 
 
 And hides from earth the Sun of truth.
 
 174 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 O happy learner to remain 
 Awhile at each Apostle's side, 
 And like a little child to guide 
 
 Them to their love and peace again ! 
 
 With Jesus' voice still in their ears, 
 If Paul and Peter drift asunder, 
 The Church need never weep and wonder 
 
 At her wound deepening with the years. 
 
 It is the darkness makes us fight 
 With friend as foe : as late alarms 
 Arouse the camp to hasty arms, 
 
 To slay a brother at midnight. 
 
 The ocean's floor all rugged lies, 
 
 With yawning chasm and mountain tall; 
 The sea of faith that covers all 
 
 Shines one bright plain in Heaven's eyes.
 
 ST LUKE 175 
 
 ST LUKE. 
 
 DOST thou seek for an inner light 
 
 To show the way ? 
 Trust to thy love : 'twill lead thee right, 
 
 If thou obey. 
 
 Thou needst not fear thy picture mars 
 
 The Life Divine; 
 The clouds may veil the glowing stars, 
 
 But still they shine. 
 
 A leaden stream from thy sweet source 
 
 Flowed by thy side,* 
 Till in Time's sand its dwindled course 
 
 Sullenly died. 
 
 * Marcion's Gospel.
 
 176 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Though errors of the Church's youth 
 
 Defiled thy spring, 
 Still to thy sky-clear well of Truth 
 
 Our urns we bring. 
 
 Time winnows all his sheaves, and casts 
 
 The chaff behind ; 
 The true alone can bear the blasts 
 
 Of Death's keen wind. 
 
 The false are but the sweats that pour 
 From off Time's thrall : 
 
 Evil has but its hour no more, 
 Till good be all.
 
 ST JOHN 177 
 
 ST JOHN. 
 
 WIDER the gates of Heaven unfold 
 For thee than for all mortal sight. 
 What is thy Heaven ? A fadeless light, 
 
 A jewelled crown, a harp of gold ? 
 
 On earth thy love was wont to lie 
 A lily sheltered in His breast: 
 Dost drink thy full of fragrant rest 
 
 Now in thy changeless purity ? . 
 
 Nay, no eternal slumber sweet 
 
 Could e'er content thy tireless wing; 
 Thine ardent heart must ever bring 
 
 Some gift to lay at His dear feet. 
 
 A Heaven of service, not of rest, 
 Some task thy endless years to fill, 
 Noble or lowly at His will, 
 
 This is the Heaven thou lovest best. 
 M
 
 178 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 ST PETER. 
 
 NOT thine the vision pure, 
 
 That saw the noontide hues 
 Of Truth ; what child of man is sure 
 
 That his heart may not lose 
 Too much for gain so high ? 
 
 May lose the smiles and tears, 
 The sweeter soul of sympathy 
 
 With human hopes and fears ? 
 
 But do we love the less 
 
 Thine ardour passionate, 
 Though it should flicker in the stress 
 
 Of storm and night and fate ? 
 Nay, for the loving soul, 
 
 Though oft it fail and fall, 
 Alone may lead us to the goal ; 
 
 Love must be lord of all.
 
 ST PADT. 179 
 
 ST PAUL. 
 
 WHAT would awake in thy soul, didst thou view us 
 All in our meanness and selfishness dead ? 
 
 Would not thine eagle eye penetrate through us ? 
 (If at our shame he ne'er sickened nor fled.) 
 
 Love such as thine, and a service so fervent, 
 Where shall earth find them now as of yore ? 
 
 Where shall the Master now seek a true servant ? 
 Where, for Apostles are with us no more ! 
 
 Trifles we set our poor hearts on the heaping, 
 Light as the dew-drops at opening morn; 
 
 Wrapt in our self and our sin we are sleeping; 
 Where is the earth he had dreamed as new-born ?
 
 180 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 Turmoil of sect, singing gain and disaster, 
 Does not the Church own one Divine Head ? 
 
 Are not we vowed to serve the one Master ? 
 Say, is His Name as one of the dead ? 
 
 Love lights that kindled our spirits are paling, 
 Mists of self-seeking have made the sky dim; 
 
 Rivers of faith have long slowly been failing, 
 Hope ebbing out to the night's furthest rim. 
 
 Still vain disputes as of old in the dim age, 
 
 Ere we had Jesus arisen and here ! 
 Blind to forsake the real truth for its image, 
 
 Grope in the far for light that is near ! 
 
 O for the flash of thy lightning soul, falling 
 Down to our deeps like a heaven-kindled sign, 
 
 Out from the cells of our sordid hours calling 
 Back to the heart of our Master and thine !
 
 ST JAMES l8l 
 
 ST JAMES. 
 
 (A SONNET.) 
 
 How brief, alas, thy little earthly day, 
 
 How brief, but how it flushed with radiance high, 
 As when a rainbow rims the summer sky, 
 
 And holds our gaze until it steals away. 
 
 Thy mortal path was all a shining way : 
 Upon the glorious mount in light to lie, 
 Among the chosen three to see His agony, 
 
 The first at His dear feet thy life to lay. 
 
 And yet could thy soul leave without a tear 
 The vast field of the world unharvested, 
 
 Thy sheaves so few, the noon scarce at its height ? 
 
 Alas, how narrow is our earthly sphere ! 
 
 One flower alone may bloom, the rest lie dead, 
 For life's all-perfect crown we wait God's sight.
 
 1 82 A CIRCLE OK THE SOUL 
 
 ST ANDREW. 
 
 ' A ndrew first findcth his own brother Simon. 
 
 O SOUL, thine hour supreme 
 
 In the summer of thy youth, 
 Is when the morn of truth 
 
 Wakes thee with his full beam. 
 
 'Tis a twin joy to bring 
 
 A loved one to His feet, 
 When earth and Heaven meet 
 
 And two loves closely cling. 
 
 As the moon enfolds the star 
 The two shine side by side, 
 Till Time's estranging tide 
 
 Their Crosses sunders far.
 
 ST ANDREW 183 
 
 A little in the light, 
 
 We see thee pass athwart 
 The sky, and then them art 
 
 Hid from our straining sight. 
 
 A few brief years with Him, 
 An hour of Pentecost, 
 And then thy track is lost 
 
 Far in night's silence dim. 
 
 How pale the radiance thrown 
 From all our earthly fame ! 
 The saint is but a name, 
 
 God only gives the crown.
 
 1 8.4 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 ST BARTHOLOMEW. 
 
 (A SONNET.)" 
 ' An Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.' 
 
 SAY if a secret vision thy heart knew 
 
 That God's clear glory shone upon thy face ? 
 Or whence did thy soul win the fragrant grace, 
 
 To live in the false world, and yet be true ? 
 
 Did some sweet angel with strange power endue 
 To walk unsoiled in the foulest place, 
 Putting to flight all spirits dark and base, 
 
 Thy infant robe of light for ever new ? 
 
 Thy feet like ours trod in earth's sordid dust, 
 Thou hadst no charm to keep thy soul from ill, 
 Save that thy self were less, the more thy duty. 
 
 The angels and the spirits of the just, 
 
 Keep their hearts pure by service to God's will; 
 Who plies his task, vestures his soul with beauty.
 
 ST THOMAS 185 
 
 ST THOMAS. 
 
 1 Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet hare bc'iercil.' 
 
 ABOVE a river deep and dark 
 
 A quivering plank for passage lies, 
 And men cross it with wary eyes, 
 
 And every timid footstep mark. 
 
 The child recks not the parlous place, 
 Nor the swift stream, nor giddy height, 
 But runneth o'er with laughter light; 
 
 Her eyes are on her father's face. 
 
 The lowly path of Reason thine; 
 
 Thy downward gaze to earth is thrown; 
 
 Thou gropest on thy way unknown 
 With doubtful step, but onward line. 
 
 But Faith is conscious of her wings; 
 
 She knows high stars shine in the sky; 
 
 Fixing on them her heavenward eye, 
 Homeward with joy the soul she brings
 
 1 86 
 
 A CIRCLE OK THE SOUL 
 
 ST MATTHIAS. 
 
 AMONG the glorious company 
 
 Thine was the last, the lowest, place : 
 If thou didst see Thy Master's face, 
 
 To see Him were enough for thee. 
 
 The holy joy was never thine 
 
 To follow close at Jesus side; 
 
 Before the Cross thou wast denied 
 The deepest draughts of love's sweet wine. 
 
 No risen glory thou hadst known; 
 
 Thine were no sweet disciple years; 
 
 Apostle thou by toils and tears; 
 To thee thy Cross thy only crown.
 
 ST MATTHIAS 187 
 
 Why should we pray for heavenly flame 
 
 Upon our sacrifice to fall ? 
 
 His soul has heard his Master's call, 
 Who knows but the beloved Name. 
 
 The harvest field is ripe and golden, 
 And shall we lay our sickles by 
 Because we dream the Master's eye 
 
 Has been from us too long withholden ? 
 
 Nay, for the Master marks each one; 
 
 It is our vision which is dim. 
 
 Who gives his hours to toil for Him 
 Has full reward at set of sun.
 
 1 88 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 ST BARNABAS. 
 
 (A SONNET.) 
 ' A good man and full of the Holy Ghost.' 
 
 WHY should the Holy Spirit be thy guest, 
 Above the others that around thee stood ? 
 Why should He pour a fuller-flowing flood 
 
 Of light Divine to lie within thy breast ? 
 
 Was thy soul, by some birth all-glorious, blest 
 With keener passion for the true and good, 
 With loftier longings, with a nobler mood 
 
 Of loving life, that shamed all the rest? 
 
 How read we then of thy too bitter strife, 
 
 That showed the rent in thy soul's dwelling place, 
 When from the sweeter way of peace she 
 swerved ? 
 
 Ah, where shall we find any mortal life, 
 
 That God can rest in save by His kind grace ? 
 Alas, were gifts but to those who deserved !
 
 ST STKPHKN 189 
 
 ST STEPHEN. 
 
 WHICH jewel shone with clearest light, 
 The lowly service, or the life laid down ? 
 Which gem the brighter in thy crown ? 
 
 Which sweeter in thy Master's sight ? 
 
 In the calm rest of Paradise 
 
 Dost thou love best to dream again 
 Of humble duty done to men, 
 
 Or glory oped to martyr eyes ? 
 
 When wert thou nearer Jesus' heart ? 
 In fervours of thy martyr soul, 
 Or daily round with widow's dole ? 
 
 Which shall we deem the nobler part ?
 
 1 90 A CIRCLE OF THE SOUL 
 
 ST MARY MAGDALENE. 
 
 O LEAVE me not, leave me not, Master ! 
 
 The world is too whelming for me, 
 And will drift my frail bark to disaster, 
 
 To night, and to death, and from Thee ! 
 
 O Love, if now Thou hast found me, 
 All wrecked on the bleak ribbed sand, 
 
 Fold ever Thy bright arms around me. 
 (Ah, I see but Thy vanishing hand !) 
 
 O leave me not, leave me not, sighing 
 For the rest of which I despair, 
 
 A slave that awaits the day's dying 
 For the cool of the sea's salt air ! 
 
 O still my weak soul wilt Thou cherish ! 
 
 The world like a vampire is draining 
 My heart. Thou art gone ! I shall perish ! 
 
 Fain eyes to the darkness are straining !
 
 INDEX, 
 
 SHEWING THE SUBJECTS IN THE ORDER OF 
 THE CHURCH'S YEAR. 
 
 SUNDAYS IN ADVENT : PAOK 
 
 First The Triumphal Entry . . . .161 
 
 Second The Pilgrimage of the Human Race . 22 
 
 Third The Doubtful Life Work . . .61 
 
 Fourth The Duty of Joy . . . . 77 
 
 Christmas . . . . . . .152 
 
 St Stephen ....... 189 
 
 St John the Evangelist . . . . .177 
 
 Innocent's Day The Dreams of Infancy . . . 10 
 
 Sunday after Christmas The Dying Year ... 94 
 
 The Circumcision . . . . . 155 
 
 The Epiphany The Brotherhood of Man ... 89 
 
 SUNDAYS AFTER EPIPHANY : 
 
 First My Faint Star ..... 42 
 
 Second The Long Preparation . . . 157 
 
 Third From East and West . . . .147 
 
 Fourth The Impatient Prayer ... 63 
 
 Fifth The Peace of Song .... 36 
 
 Sixth Hope . . . . . .19 
 
 Septuagesima Service and Reward . . . 31 
 
 Sexagesima The Garden of the Soul 6
 
 192 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Quinquagesima Through a Glass, darkly . . . 133 
 
 Ash-Wednesday The Soul seeks a Crown of Sorrow . 76 
 
 SUNDAYS IN LENT : 
 
 First The Soul alone in the Wilderness . . 24 
 
 Second Repentance ..... 67 
 
 Third Waiting for Light .... 66 
 
 Fourth The Soul's Remorse .... 79 
 
 Fifth After the Storm . . . .no 
 
 Sunday before Easter Is not this the Carpenter ? . . 159 
 
 Monday before Easter Death the Purifier . . . 72 
 
 Tuesday before Easter The Dead Faith . . .119 
 
 Wednesday before Easter Love Visits the Earth . . 109 
 
 Thursday before Easter The Heart of Jesus . . 168 
 
 Good Friday . . . . . .163 
 
 Easter Even The World Passeth Away . . .126 
 
 Easter Day ....... 164 
 
 Monday in Easter Week Ways into Heaven . . 7 
 
 Tuesday in Easter Week The World Well Lost . . 123 
 
 SUNDAYS AFTER EASTER : 
 
 First Love and the Soul . . . . 2 r 
 
 Second Differing Views . . . . 17 
 
 Third-Self in the Soul .... 54 
 
 Fourth The Soul's Union with God . . .20 
 
 Fifth The Soul a True Magnet . . . 52 
 
 Ascension Day ...... 166 
 
 Sunday after Ascension Pisgah Sight . . . 99 
 
 Whitsunday A Daily Pentecost . . . 135 
 
 Monday in Whitsun. Week The Inner Voice . . 12 
 
 Tuesday in Whitsun. Week The Soul's Vestal Fire . 82 
 
 Trinity Sunday The Sacrifice of the Father . . 153 
 
 SUNDAYS AFTER TRINITY: 
 
 First The New Dives . . . ... 117 
 
 Second The Search for Love .... 44 
 
 Third Song of the Soul II. . . . .103 
 
 Fourth The Two Unknowns i 
 
 Fifth The Good of Evil 1 1 2
 
 INDEX 193 
 
 SUNDAYS AFTER TRINITY continued. ,, AGE 
 
 Sixth The Immortal Life . . . . 27 
 
 Seventh Missions ..... 142 
 
 Eighth The Soul's Discontent ... 40 
 
 Ninth The Future in the Present . . . yi 
 
 Tenth The Church in Chains . . .132 
 
 Eleventh The Still Small Voice . . .87 
 
 Twelfth Elisha ..... 143 
 
 Thirteenth Song of the Soul V. . . . 105 
 
 Fourteenth The Thirst of the Soul . . -57 
 
 Fifteenth Ephemerae . . . . .29 
 
 Sixteenth Bereavement .... 84 
 
 Seventeenth Unity of the Church, (According to St 
 
 Gregory) . . . . .138 
 
 Eighteenth The Guardian Angel ... 4 
 
 Nineceenth The Church Closed on Weekdays . 141 
 
 Twentieth Church Music, Old and New . . 136 
 
 Twenty-first The Day of Rest . . . 113 
 
 Twenty-second Forgetting those Things Avhich are 
 
 behind ...... 83 
 
 Twenty-third Home ..... 59 
 
 Twenty-fourth ' Increase in the Knowledge of God ' . 140 
 
 Twenty-fifth Joy cometh in the Morning . . 86 
 
 St Andrew ....... 182 
 
 St Thomas ....... 185 
 
 Conversion of St Paul . . . 180 
 
 The Purification Nunc Dimittis . . . . <jS 
 
 St Matthias ....... 186 
 
 The Annunciation . . . . . .150 
 
 St Mark . . . . . . .173 
 
 St Philip and St James Seekers for God . . . 15 
 
 St Barnabas ....... 188 
 
 St John Baptist The Baptism of Jesus . . .156 
 
 St Peter ....... 178 
 
 St James ...... 179 
 
 St Bartholomew ... . 184 
 
 St Matthew . ... 171
 
 194 
 
 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 St Michael and All Angels The Heaven of Angels . 149 
 
 StLuke .... . . 175 
 
 St Simon and St Jude The Unity of the Church . . 131 
 
 All Saints A Dream of Saints . M 6 
 Holy Baptism 
 
 Private Baptism . . . . 148 
 
 Holy Communion . .128 
 
 J. M1LLKK AND SON, PKINTKKS, KDINBUUftH
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
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