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A BENEDICTION
GOD give thee, love, thy heart’s desire!What better can I pray?For though love falter not, nor tire,And stand on guard all day,How little can it know or do,How little can it say!How hard it strives, and how in vain,By hope and fear misled,To make the pathway soft and plainFor the dear feet to tread,To shield from sun-beat and from rainThe one beloved head!Its wisdom is made foolishness;Its best intent goes wrong;It curses where it fain would bless,Is weak instead of strong, —Marring with sad, discordant sighsThe joyance of its song.I do not dare to bless or ban, —I am too blind to see, —But this one little prayer I canPut up to God for thee,Because I know what fair, pure thingsThy inmost wishes be;That what thy heart desires the mostIs what he loves to grant, —The love that counteth not its costIf any crave or want;The presence of the Holy Ghost,The soul’s inhabitant;The wider vision of the mind;The spirit bright with sun;The temper like a fragrant wind,Chilling and grieving none;The quickened heart to know God’s willAnd on his errands run;The ministry of little things, —Not counted mean or smallBy that dear alchemy which bringsSome grain of gold from all;The faith to wait as well as work,Whatever may befall.So, sure of thee, and unafraid,I make my daily prayer,Nor fear that my blind zeal be madeThy injury or snare:God give thee, love, thy heart’s desire,And bless thee everywhere!TO ARCITE AT THE WARS.
1759
A THOUSAND leagues of wind-blown space,A thousand leagues of sea,Half of the great earth’s hiding faceDivides mine eyes from thee;The world is strong, the waves are wide,But my good-will is stronger still,My love, than wind or tide.These sentinels which Fate has setTo bar and hold me hereI make my errand-men, to getA message to thine ear.The winds shall waft, the waters bear,And spite of seas I, when I please,Can reach thee everywhere.Prayers are like birds to find the way;Thoughts have a swifter flight;And mine stream forth to thee all day,Nor stop to rest by night.Like silent angels at thy sideThey stand unseen, they bend and lean,They bless and warn and guide.There is no near, there is no far,There is no loss or change,To love which, like a fixèd star,Abideth in one range,And shines, and shines, with quenchless eyes,And sends long rays in many waysTo lighten distant skies.Where sight is not, faith brighter burns;So faithfully I wait,Secure that loyal loving earnsIts guerdon soon or late, —Secure, though lacking word or sign,That thy true thought keeps as it oughtTryst with each thought of mine.NEW EVERY MORNING
EVERY day is a fresh beginning,Every morn is the world made new.You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,Here is a beautiful hope for you, —A hope for me and a hope for you.All the past things are past and over;The tasks are done and the tears are shed.Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,Are healed with the healing which night has shed.Yesterday now is a part of forever,Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight,With glad days, and sad days, and bad days, which neverShall visit us more with their bloom and their blight,Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night.Let them go, since we cannot re-live them,Cannot undo and cannot atone;God in his mercy receive, forgive them!Only the new days are our own;To-day is ours, and to-day alone.Here are the skies all burnished brightly,Here is the spent earth all re-born,Here are the tired limbs springing lightlyTo face the sun and to share with the mornIn the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.Every day is a fresh beginning;Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,And puzzles forecasted and possible pain,Take heart with the day, and begin again.LOHENGRIN
TO have touched Heaven and failed to enter in!Ah, Elsa, prone upon the lonely shore,Watching the swan-wings beat along the blue,Watching the glimmer of the silver mail,Like flash of foam, till all are lost to view, —What may thy sorrow or thy watch avail?He cometh nevermore.All gone the new hope of thy yesterday, —The tender gaze and strong, like dewy fire,The gracious form with airs of Heaven bedight,The love that warmed thy being like a sun: —Thou hadst thy choice of noonday or of night;Now the swart shadows gather, one by one,To give thee thy desire!To every life one heavenly chance befalls;To every soul a moment, big with fate,When, grown importunate with need and fear,It cries for help, and lo! from close at hand,The voice Celestial answers, “I am here!”Oh, blessed souls, made wise to understand,Made bravely glad to wait!But thou, pale watcher on the lonely shore,Where the surf thunders, and the foam-bells fly,Is there no place for penitence and pain,No saving grace in thy all-piteous rue?Will the bright vision never come again?Alas, the swan-wings vanish in the blue,There cometh no reply!A SINGLE STITCH
ONE stitch dropped as the weaver droveHis nimble shuttle to and fro,In and out, beneath, above,Till the pattern seemed to bud and growAs if the fairies had helping been, —One small stitch which could scarce be seen.But the one stitch dropped pulled the next stitch out,And a weak place grew in the fabric stout;And the perfect pattern was marred for ayeBy the one small stitch that was dropped that day.One small life in God’s great plan,How futile it seems as the ages roll,Do what it may, or strive how it canTo alter the sweep of the infinite whole!A single stitch in an endless web,A drop in the ocean’s flow and ebb!But the pattern is rent where the stitch is lost,Or marred where the tangled threads have crossed;And each life that fails of its true intentMars the perfect plan that its Master meant.REPLY
“WHAT, then, is Love?” she said.Love is a music, blent in curious keyOf jarring discords and of harmony;’Tis a delicious draught which, as you sip,Turns sometimes into poison on your lip.It is a sunny sky infolding storm,The fire to ruin or the fire to warm;A garland of fresh roses fair to sight,Which then becomes a chain and fetters tight.It is a half-heard secret told to two,A life-long puzzle or a guiding clew.The joy of joys, the deepest pain of pain; —All these Love has been and will be again.“How may I know?” she said.Thou mayest not know, for Love has conned the artTo blind the reason and befool the heart.So subtle is he, not himself may guessWhether he shall be more or shall be less;Wrapped in a veil of many colored mists,He flits disguisèd wheresoe’er he lists,And for the moment is the thing he seems,The child of vagrant hope and fairy dreams;Sails like a rainbow bubble on the wind,Now high, now low, before us or behind;And only when our fingers grasp the prize,Changes his form and swiftly vanishes.“Then best not love,” she said.Dear child, there is no better and no best;Love comes not, bides not at thy slight behest.As well might thy frail fingers seek to stayThe march of waves in yonder land-locked bay,As stem the surging tide which ebbs and fillsMid human energies and human wills.The moon leads on the strong, resisting sea;And so the moon of love shall beckon thee,And at her bidding thou wilt leap and rise,And follow o’er strange seas, ’neath unknown skies,Unquestioning; to dash, or soon or late,On sand or cruel crag, as is thy fate.“Then woe is me!” she said.Weep not; there is a harder, sadder thing, —Never to know this sweetest suffering!Never to see the sun, though suns may slay,Or share the richer feast as others may.Sooner the sealed and closely guarded wineShall seek again its purple clustered vine,Sooner the attar be again the rose,Than Love unlearn the secret that it knows!Abide thy fate, whether for good or ill;Fearlessly wait, and be thou certain still,Whether as foe disguised or friendly guestHe comes, Love’s coming is of all things best.TALITHA CUMI
OUR little one was sick, and the sickness pressed her sore.We sat beside her bed, and we felt her hands and head,And in our hearts we prayed this one prayer o’er and o’er:“Come to us, Christ the Lord; utter thine old-time word,‘Talitha cumi!’”And as the night wore on, and the fever flamed more high,And a new look burned and grew in the eyes of tender blue,Still louder in our hearts uprose the voiceless cry,“O Lord of love and might, say once again to-night,‘Talitha cumi!’”And then, and then – he came; we saw him not, but felt.And he bent above the child, and she ceased to moan, and smiled;And although we heard no sound, as around the bed we knelt,Our souls were made aware of a mandate in the air,“Talitha cumi!”And as at dawn’s fair summons faded the morning star,Holding the Lord’s hand close, the child we loved arose,And with him took her way to a country far away;And we would not call her dead, for it was his voice that said,“Talitha cumi!”THE BETTER WAY
WHO serves his country best?Not he who, for a brief and stormy space,Leads forth her armies to the fierce affray.Short is the time of turmoil and unrest,Long years of peace succeed it and replace:There is a better way.Who serves his country best?Not he who guides her senates in debate,And makes the laws which are her prop and stay;Not he who wears the poet’s purple vest,And sings her songs of love and grief and fate:There is a better way.He serves his country best,Who joins the tide that lifts her nobly on;For speech has myriad tongues for every day,And song but one; and law within the breastIs stronger than the graven law on stone:There is a better way.He serves his country bestWho lives pure life, and doeth righteous deed,And walks straight paths, however others stray,And leaves his sons as uttermost bequestA stainless record which all men may read:This is the better way.No drop but serves the slowly lifting tide,No dew but has an errand to some flower,No smallest star but sheds some helpful ray,And man by man, each giving to all the rest,Makes the firm bulwark of the country’s power:There is no better way.FOREVER
THEY sat together in the sun,And Youth and Hope stood hovering near;Like dropping bell-notes one by oneChimed the glad moments soft and clear;And still amid their happy speechThe lovers whispered each to each,“Forever!”Youth spread his wings of rainbow light,“Farewell!” he whispered as he went;They heeded not nor mourned his flight,Wrapped in their measureless content;And still they smiled, and still was heardThe confidently uttered word,“Forever!”Hope stayed, her steadfast smile was sweet, —Until the even-time she stayed;Then with reluctant, noiseless feetShe stole into the solemn shade.A graver shape moved gently by,And bent, and murmured warningly,“Forever!”And then – where sat the two, sat one!No voice spoke back, no glance replied.Behind her, where she rested lone,Hovered the spectre, solemn-eyed;She met his look without a thrill,And, smiling faintly, whispered still,“Forever!”Oh, sweet, sweet Youth! Oh, fading Hope!Oh, eyes by tearful mists made blind!Oh, hands which vainly reach and gropeFor a familiar touch and kind!Time pauseth for no lover’s kiss;Love for its solace has but this, —“Forever!”MIRACLE
OH! not in strange portentous wayChrist’s miracles were wrought of old,The common thing, the common clay,He touched and tinctured, and straightwayIt grew to glory manifold.The barley loaves were daily bread,Kneaded and mixed with usual skill;No care was given, no spell was said,But when the Lord had blessed, they fedThe multitude upon the hill.The hemp was sown ’neath common sun,Watered by common dews and rain,Of which the fishers’ nets were spun;Nothing was prophesied or doneTo mark it from the other grain.Coarse, brawny hands let down the netWhen the Lord spake and ordered so;They hauled the meshes, heavy-wet,Just as in other days, and setTheir backs to labor, bending low;But quivering, leaping from the lakeThe marvellous, shining burdens riseUntil the laden meshes break,And, all amazèd, no man spake,But gazed with wonder in his eyes.So still, dear Lord, in every placeThou standest by the toiling folkWith love and pity in thy face,And givest of thy help and graceTo those who meekly bear the yoke.Not by strange sudden change and spell,Baffling and darkening Nature’s face;Thou takest the things we know so wellAnd buildest on them thy miracle, —The heavenly on the commonplace.The lives which seem so poor, so low,The hearts which are so cramped and dull,The baffled hopes, the impulse slow,Thou takest, touchest all, and lo!They blossom to the beautiful.We need not wait for thunder-pealResounding from a mount of fire,While round our daily paths we feelThy sweet love and thy power to heal,Working in us thy full desire.CHARLOTTE BRONTË
ORCHID, chance-sown among the moorland heather,Scarce seen or tasted by the infrequent bee,Set mid rough mountain growths, lashed by wild weather,With none to foster thee.We watch thee fronting all the blasts of heaven,Thy slender rootlets grappled fast to rock,Enduring from thy morning to thy evenThe buffet and the shock.Never thy sun vouchsafed a cloudless shining,Never the wind was tempered to thy pain;No cloud turned out for thee its silver lining,No rainbow followed rain.Nourished mid hardness, learning patience slowlyAs hearts must do which know no other food,Duty and Memory, companions holy,Shared thy bleak solitude.Cold touch of Memory, strong chill hand of Duty,These held thee fast and ruled thee to the end,Until, with smile mysterious in its beauty,Came Death, rewarding friend.Earth gave thee scanty cheer, but earth is ended,Finished the years of thwarted sacrifice.We see thee walking forward, well attended,Led into Paradise!Heaven is twice Heaven to one who, hungry-hearted,Goes thither knowing no satisfaction here;And when we thank the Lord for those departedIn this sure faith and fear,We think of thee, lonely no more forever,And tasting, while the eternal years unroll,That joy of Heaven, which like a flowing riverSatisfies every soul.END AND MEANS
WE spend our strength in labor day by day,We find new strength replacing old alway;And still we cheat ourselves, and still we say:“No man would work except to win some prize;We work to turn our hopes to certainties, —For gold, or gear, or favor in men’s eyes.”And all the while the goal toward which we strain —Up hill and down, in sunshine and in rain,Heedless of toil, if so we may attain —Is but a lure, a heavenly-set decoyTo exercised endeavor, full employOf every power, which is man’s highest joy.And work becomes the end, reward the means,To woo us from our idleness and dreams;And each is truly what the other seems.So, Lord, with such poor service as we do,Thy full salvation is our prize in view,For which we long, and which we press unto.Like a great star on which we fix our eyes,It dazzles from the high, blue distances,And seems to beckon and to say, “Arise!”And we arise and follow the hard way,Winning a little nearer day by day,Our hearts going faster than our footsteps may;And never guess the secret sweet deviceWhich lures us on and upward to the skies,And makes each toil its own reward and prize.To give our little selves to thee, to blendOur weakness with thy strength, O Lord our Friend,This is life’s truest privilege and end.COMFORTED
THE last sweet flowers are dying,The last green leaves are red;The wild geese southward flying,By law mysterious led,Scream noisily o’erhead;The honey-bees have hived them,The butterflies have shrived them;All hushed the song and twitterAnd flutter of glad wing; —How could we bear the autumnIf t’were not for the spring?To see the summer banished,Nor dare to bid her stay;To mourn o’er beauty vanishedAnd joyance driven away;To mark the shortening day;To note the sad winds plaining,The storm cloud and the raining;To see the frost lance stabbingEach faint and wounded thing; —Oh, we should hate the autumnExcepting for the spring!To know that life is failingAnd pulses beating slow;To catch the unavailingSad monotones of woeAll the earth over go;To know that snows must coverThe grave of friend and lover,To hide them from the eyes and handsThat still caress and cling; —The heart would break in autumnIf there were not a spring!For every sleep a waking,For every shade a sun,A balm for each heart breaking,A rest for labor done,A life by death begun;And so in wintry weather,With smile and sigh together,We look beyond the present pain,The daily loss and sting,And welcome in the autumnFor the sure hope of spring.WORDS
A LITTLE, tender word,Wrapped in a little rhyme,Sent out upon the passing air,As seeds are scattered everywhereIn the sweet summer-time.A little, idle word,Breathed in an idle hour;Between two laughs that word was said,Forgotten as soon as uttered,And yet the word had power.Away they sped, the words:One, like a wingèd seed,Lit on a soul which gave it room,And straight began to bud and bloomIn lovely word and deed.The other careless word,Borne on an evil air,Found a rich soil, and ripened fastIts rank and poisonous growths, and castFresh seeds to work elsewhere.The speakers of the wordsPassed by and marked, one day,The fragrant blossoms dewy wet,The baneful flowers thickly setIn clustering array.And neither knew his word;One smiled, and one did sigh.“How strange and sad,” one said, “it isPeople should do such things as this!I’m glad it was not I.”And, “What a wondrous wordTo reach so far, so high!”The other said, “What joy ’twould beTo send out words so helpfully!I wish that it were I.”INFLUENCE
COUCHED in the rocky lap of hills,The lake’s blue waters gleam,And thence in linked and measured rillsDown to the valley stream,To rise again, led higher and higher,And slake the city’s hot desire.High as the lake’s bright ripples shine,So high the water goes,But not a drop that air-drawn linePasses or overflows;Though man may strive and man may woo,The stream to its own law is true.Vainly the lonely tarn its cupHolds to the feeding skies;Unless the source be lifted up,The streamlet cannot rise:By law inexorably blent,Each is the other’s measurement.Ah, lonely tarn! ah, striving rill!So yearn these souls of ours,And beat with sad and urgent willAgainst the unheeding powers.In vain is longing, vain is force;No stream goes higher than its source.AN EASTER SONG
A SONG of sunshine through the rain,Of spring across the snow,A balm to heal the hurts of pain,A peace surpassing woe.Lift up your heads, ye sorrowing ones,And be ye glad of heart,For Calvary and Easter Day,Earth’s saddest day and gladdest day,Were just one day apart!With shudder of despair and lossThe world’s deep heart was wrung,As lifted high upon his crossThe Lord of Glory hung,When rocks were rent, and ghostly formsStole forth in street and mart;But Calvary and Easter Day,Earth’s blackest day and whitest day,Were just one day apart!No hint or whisper stirred the airTo tell what joy should be;The sad disciples, grieving there,Nor help nor hope could see.Yet all the while the glad, near sunMade ready its swift dart.And Calvary and Easter Day,The darkest day and brightest day,Were just one day apart!Oh, when the strife of tongues is loud,And the heart of hope beats low,When the prophets prophesy of ill,And the mourners come and go,In this sure thought let us abide,And keep and stay our heart, —That Calvary and Easter Day,Earth’s heaviest day and happiest day,Were but one day apart!SO LONG AGO
THEY stood upon the vessel’s deckTo catch our farewell look and beck.Two girlish figures, fair and frail,Hovering against a great white sailLike spirit shapes in dazzling air, —I seem to see them standing there,Always together, always so, – ,’Twas long ago, oh, long ago!The east was bright with yellow noon,The flying vessel vanished soon.Flashes of jubilant white sprayBeckoned and pointed her the way.A lessening speck she outward sped;Sadly we turned, but still we said,,“They will come back again, we know,” —’Twas long ago, so long ago!Those faces sweet, those happy eyes,Looked nevermore on Western skies;Where the hot sunbeams weave their netO’er cedar-crowned, sad Olivet,They who had shared their lives shared death,Tasting at once the first strange breathOf those quick airs for souls that flowSo long ago, so long ago!In vain we picture to our eyesThe convent gray, the still, blue skies,The mountain with its bordering wood; —Still do they stand as then they stood,Hovering like spirits fair and frailAgainst the dazzle of the sail;The red lips part, the faces glow,As long ago, so long ago!A BIRTHDAY
WHAT shall I do to keep your day,My darling, dead for many a year?I could not, if I would, forgetIt is your day; and yet, and yet —It is so hard to find a wayTo keep it, now you are not here.I cannot add the lightest thingTo the full sum of happinessWhich now is yours; nor dare I tryTo frame a wish for you, since IAm blind to know, as weak to bring,All impotent to aid or bless.And yet it is your day, and so,Unlike all other days, one beadOf gold in the long rosaryOf dull beads little worth to me.And I must keep it bright, and showThat what is yours is dear indeed.How shall I keep it here alone? —With prayers in which your name is set;With smiles, not tears; and sun, not rain;With memories sweeter far than pain,With tender backward glances thrown,And far on-lookings, clearer yet.The gift I would have given to you,And which you cannot need or take,Shall still be given; and it shall beA secret between you and me, —A sweet thought, every birthday new,That it is given for your sake.And so your day, yours safely still,Shall come and go with ebbing time, —The day of all the year most sweet, —Until the years so slow, so fleet,Shall bring me, as in time they will,To where all days are yours and mine.DERELICT
ABANDONED wrecks they plunge and drift,The sport of sea and wind,The tempest drives, the billows lift,The aimless sails they flap and shiftWith impulse vague and blind,As tossing on from wave to waveThey seek – and shun – the yawning grave.The decks once trodden by busy feetMan nevermore shall tread;The cargoes brave of wine or wheat,Now soaked with salt and drenched with sleet,And mixed and scatterèd,No merchant shall appraise or buyOr store in vat or granary.The wet ropes pull the creaking sails,As though by hands drawn tight.Echoes the hold with ghostly wails,While daylight wanes, and twilight pales,And drops the heavy night,And vast and silent fish swim by,And scan the wreck with cruel eye.Ha! lights ahead! A ship is near!The dumb wreck makes no sign;No lantern shows, returns no cheer,But straight and full, without a veer,Sped by the urging brineShe goes – a crash! her errand done,The deadly, lonely thing drives on.Oh, hopeless lives, distorted, crushed,Which, like the lonely wreck,Lashed by the waves and tempest-tossed,With rudder gone and cargo lost,Torn ribs and leaking deck,Plunge on through sunshine and eclipse,A menace to the happier ships.All oceans know them, and all lands.Speechless they drift us by;To questioning voices, friendly hands,Warnings or counsels or commands,Still making no reply.God send them help if help may be,Or sink them harmless in his sea.H. H
WHAT was she most like? Was she like the wind,Fresh always, and untired; intent to findNew fields to penetrate, new heights to gain;Scattering all mists with sudden, radiant wing;Stirring the languid pulses; quickeningThe apathetic mood, the weary brain?Or was she like the sun, whose gift of cheerEndureth for all seasons of the year,Alike in winter’s cold or summer’s heat?Or like the sea, which brings its gifts from far,And still, wherever want and straitness are,Lays down a sudden largess at their feet?Or was she like a wood, where light and shade,And sound and silence, mingle unafraid;Where mosses cluster, and, in coverts dark,Shy blossoms court the brief and wandering air,Mysteriously sweet; and here and thereA firefly flashes like a sudden spark?Or like a wilful brook, which laughs and leapsAll unexpectedly, and never keepsThe course predicted, as it seaward flows?Or like a stream-fed river, brimming high?Or like a fruit, where those who love descryA pungent charm no other flavor knows?I cannot find her type. In her were blentEach varied and each fortunate elementWhich souls combine, with something all her own,Sadness and mirthfulness, a chorded strain,The tender heart, the keen and searching brain,The social zest, the power to live alone.Comrade of comrades, giving man the slipTo seek in Nature truest comradeship;Tenacity and impulse ruled her fate,This grasping firmly what that flashed to feel, —The velvet scabbard and the sword of steel,The gift to strongly love, to frankly hate!Patience as strong as was her hopefulness;A joy in living which grew never lessAs years went on and age drew gravely nigh;Vision which pierced the veiling mists of pain,And saw beyond the mortal shadows plainThe eternal day-dawn broadening in the sky.The love of Doing, and the scorn of Done;The playful fancy, which, like glinting sun,No chill could daunt, no loneliness could smother.Upon her ardent pulse Death’s chillness lies;Closed the brave lips, the merry, questioning eyes.She was herself! – there is not such another.