Poems (1866): a machine-readable transcription

Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock (1826-1887)

Victorian Women Writers Project: an Electronic Collection

Poems

        All poems occur as DIV0. Sonnets are attributed as "type=sonnets"; the rest are "type=poem". All quotation marks, hyphens, dashes, apostrophes and colons have been transcribed as entity references. All <lg> (line groups) are attributed as cantos, stanzas, couplets, verse paragraphs, etc. All poems with regularly indented lines use the attribute "rend" in the <l> tag, with the value "indent1" for one tab stop, "indent2" for two tab stops, etc. All split lines are attributed as "type=i" for the initial portion, and "type=f" for the final portion.

        All apostrophes and single right quotation marks are encoded as &rsquo;.

        Any hyphens occurring in line breaks have been removed; all hyphens are encoded as &hyphen; and em dashes as &mdash;.

• Latin
• French
• Italian

• 1996-03-01
  Grace Chin and Ariadna Solovyova, editors.
  
  • finished data entry, basic encoding and proofing.
  
  
• 1996-08-01
  Perry Willett, general editor.
  
  • finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing.
  
  
• 1996-09-05
  Perry Willett, general editor.
  
  • corrected the list of languages in LANGUSAGE
  
  

POEMS

By

The Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman," etc.

(front)

        

University Press: Welch, Bigelow, & Co., Cambridge.

(preface)
    

PREFACE.

        Whether they were worth collecting, and are really "Poems," public opinion must decide.

        The present edition in the "Blue and Gold" series contains many pieces not heretofore collected.

(contents)
    

CONTENTS.

• PHILIP my King 1
• Thoughts in a Wheat-Field 3
• Immutable 5
• Four Years 7
• The Dead Czar 9
• The Wind at Night 11
• A Fable 14
• Labor is Prayer 16
• A Silly Song 18
• In Memoriam 19
• An Honest Valentine 20
• Looking Death in the Face 24
• By the Alma River 28
• Rothesay Bay 30
• Living: after a Death 32
• In our Boat 34
• The River Shore 35
• A Flower of a Day 36
• The Night before the Mowing 38
• Passion Past 39
• October 41
• Moon-Struck. A Fantasy 42
• A Stream's Singing 46

  ---

  Page viii

• A Rejected Lover 48
• A Living Picture 49
• Leonora 52
• Plighted 55
• Mortality 56
• Life Returning. After War-Time 58
• My Friend 59
• A Valentine 61
• Grace of Clydeside 64
• To a Beautiful Woman 65
• Mary's Wedding 67
• Between Two Worlds 69
• Cousin Robert 72
• At Last 75
• The Aurora on the Clyde 76
• An Aurora Borealis. Roslin Castle 79
• At the Linn-Side. Roslin 80
• A Hymn for Christmas Morning 82
• A Psalm for New Year's Eve 84
• Faithful in Vanity-Fair. I. And II. 86
• Her Likeness 89
• Only a Dream 90
• To my Godchild Alice 92
• SONNETS.
  • Resigning 94
  • Saint Elizabeth of Bohemia. I. and II. 95
  • A Marriage-Table 97
  • Michael the Archangel. I. and II. 98
  • Beatrice to Dante 100
  • Dante to Beatrice 101

    ---

    Page ix

  • A Question. I. and II. 102
  • Angel Faces. I. and II. 104
  • Sunday Morning Bells 106
  • Coeur de Lion. I. and II. 107
  • Guns of Peace 109
  • David's Child 110
  • A Word in Season 111
• The Path through the Snow 112
• The Path through the Corn 113
• The Good of it. A Cynic's Song 115
• Mine 117
• A Ghost at the Dancing 118
• My Christian Name 120
• A Dead Baby 122
• For Music 124
• The Canary in his Cage 125
• Constancy in Inconstancy 127
• Buried To-day 130
• The Mill 131
• North Wind 132
• Now and Afterwards 133
• A Sketch 134
• The Unknown Country 136
• A Child's Smile 137
• Violets 139
• Edenland 141
• The House of Clay 142
• Winter Moonlight 143
• The Planting 145
• Sitting on the Shore 148

  ---

  Page x

• Eudoxia. First Picture 149
• Eudoxia. Second Picture 151
• Eudoxia. Third Picture 153
• Benedetta Minelli. The Novice 155
• Benedetta Minelli. The Sister of Mercy 157
• A Dream of Death 160
• A Dream of Resurrection 162
• On the Cliff-Top 164
• An Evening Guest 165
• After Sunset 167
• The Garden-Chair. Two Portraits 169
• An Old Idea 170
• Parables 171
• Lettice 173
• A Spirit Present 174
• A Winter Walk 176
• "Will sail To-morrow" 178
• At Even-tide 180
• A Dead Sea-Gull. Near Liverpool 181
• Looking East. In January, 1858 183
• Over the Hills and Far Away 185
• Too Late 186
• Lost in the Mist 187
• Semper Fidelis 191
• One Summer Morning 193
• My Love Annie 194
• Summer Gone 195
• The Voice calling 198
• The Wren's Nest 200
• A Christmas Carol 202
• The Mother's Visits. From the French 203

  ---

  Page xi

• A German Student's Funeral Hymn 204
• Westward ho! 205
• POEMS SINCE 1860.
  • Our Father's Business 209
  • An Autumn Psalm for 1860 212
  • In the June Twilight 214
  • A Man's Wooing 216
  • The Cathedral Tombs 221
  • When Green Leaves come again 223
  • The First Waits 225
  • Day by Day 226
  • Only a Woman 228
  • A "Mercenary" Marriage 232
  • Over the Hillside 234
  • The Unfinished Book 236
  • Twilight in the North 238
  • Cathair Fhargus 240
  • A True Hero 244
  • At the Seaside 245
  • Fishermen--not of Galilee 248
  • The Golden Island: Arran from Ayr 249
  • Fallen in the Night! 251
  • A Lancashire Doxology 253
  • Year after Year 255
  • "Until her Death" 256
  • The Lost Piece of Silver 258
  • Outward Bound 259

POEMS.

PHILIP MY KING.

"Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty."

LOOK at me with thy large brown eyes,
    Philip my king,
Round whom the enshadowing purple lies
Of babyhood's royal dignities:
Lay on my neck thy tiny hand
With love's invisible sceptre laden;
I am thine Esther to command
Till thou shalt find a queen-handmaiden,
    Philip my king.

O the day when thou goest a wooing,
    Philip my king!
When those beautiful lips 'gin suing,
And some gentle heart's bars undoing

Thou dost enter, love-crowned, and there
Sittest love-glorified. Rule kindly,
Tenderly, over thy kingdom fair,
For we that love, ah! we love so blindly,
    Philip my king.

Up from thy sweet mouth,--up to thy brow,
    Philip my king!
The spirit that there lies sleeping now
May rise like a giant and make men bow
As to one heaven-chosen amongst his peers:
My Saul, than thy brethren taller and fairer
Let me behold thee in future years;--
Yet thy head needeth a circlet rarer,
    Philip my king.

--A wreath not of gold, but palm. One day,
    Philip my king,
Thou too must tread, as we trod, a way
Thorny and cruel and cold and gray:
Rebels within thee and foes without,
Will snatch at thy crown. But march on, glorious,
Martyr, yet monarch: till angels shout
As thou sit'st at the feet of God victorious,
    "Philip the king!"

THOUGHTS IN A WHEAT-FIELD

        "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels"

IN his wide fields walks the Master,
In his fair fields, ripe for harvest,
Where the evening sun shines slant-wise
On the rich ears heavy bending;
    Saith the Master: "It is time."
Though no leaf shows brown decadence,
And September's nightly frost-bite
Only reddens the horizon,
"It is full time," saith the Master,
    The wise Master, "It is time."

Lo, he looks. That look compelling
Brings his laborers to the harvest;
Quick they gather, as in autumn
Passage-birds in cloudy eddies
    Drop upon the seaside fields;
White wings have they, and white raiment,
White feet shod with swift obedience,
Each lays down his golden palm branch,
And uprears his sickle shining,
    "Speak, O Master,--is it time?"

O'er the field the servants hasten,
Where the full-stored ears droop downwards,
Humble with their weight of harvest:
Where the empty ears wave upward,
    And the gay tares flaunt in rows:
But the sickles, the sharp sickles,
Flash new dawn at their appearing,
Songs are heard in earth and heaven,
For the reapers are the angels,
    And it is the harvest time.

O Great Master, are thy footsteps
Even now upon the mountains?
Are thou walking in thy wheat-field?
Are the snowy-wingèd reapers
    Gathering in the silent air?
Are thy signs abroad, the glowing
Of the distant sky, blood-reddened,--
And the near fields trodden, blighted,
Choked by gaudy tares triumphant,--
    Sure, it must be harvest time?

Who shall know the Master's coming?
Whether it be at dawn or sunset,
When night dews weigh down the wheat-ears,
Or while noon rides high in heaven,
    Sleeping lies the yellow field?
Only, may thy voice, Good Master,

Peal above the reapers' chorus,
And dull sound of sheaves slow falling,--
"Gather all into My garner,
    For it is My harvest time."

IMMUTABLE.

        "With whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

Is there not one straw in life's whirling flood
To hold by, as the torrent sweeps us down,
Us, scattered leaves; eddied and broken; torn
Roughly asunder; or in smooth mid-stream
Divided each from other without pain;
Collected in what looks like union,
Yet is but stagnant chance,--stopping to rot
By the same pebble till the tide shall turn;
Then on, to find no shelter and no rest,
Forever rootless and forever lone.
O God, we are but leaves upon Thy stream,
Clouds on Thy sky. We do but move across
The silent breast of Thy infinitude
Which bears us all. We pour out day by day
Our long, brief moan of mutability
To Thine immutable--and cease.
                    Yet still
Our change yearns after Thine unchangedness;
Our mortal craves Thine immortality;
Our manifold and multiform and weak
Imperfectness, requires the perfect ONE.
For Thou art ONE, and we are all of Thee;
Dropped from Thy bosom, as Thy sky drops down
Its morning dews, which glitter for a space,
Uncertain whence they fell, or whither tend,
Till the great Sun arising on his fields
Upcalls them all, and they rejoicing go.

So, with like joy, O Light Eterne, we spring
Thee-ward, and leave the pleasant fields of earth,
Forgetting equally its blossomed green
And its dry dusty paths which drank us up
Remorseless,--we, poor humble drops of dew,
That only wish to freshen a flower's breast,
And be exhaled to heaven.
                    O Thou supreme
All-satisfying and immutable One,
It is enough to be absorbed in Thee
And vanish,--though 't were only to a voice
That through all ages with perpetual joy
Goes evermore loud crying, "God! God! God!"

FOUR YEARS.

AT the midsummer, when the hay was down,
Said I, mournfully,--My life is at its prime,
Yet bare lie my meadows, shorn before the time,
In my scorched woodlands the leaves are turning brown.
It is the hot midsummer, and the hay is down.

At the midsummer, when the hay was down,
Stood she by the streamlet, young and very fair,
With the first white bindweed twisted in her hair,--
Hair that drooped like birch-boughs,--all in her simple gown.
For it was midsummer, and the hay was down.

At the midsummer, when the hay was down,
Crept she, a willing bride close into my breast:
Low piled the thunder-clouds had drifted to the west,--
Red-eyed out glared the sun, like knight from leaguered town,
That eve in high midsummer, when the hay was down.

It is midsummer,--all the hay is down;
Close to her bosom press I dying eyes,
Praying, "God shield thee till we meet in Paradise!"
Bless her in Love's name who was my brief life's crown,--
And I go at midsummer, when the hay is down.

THE DEAD CZAR.

LAY him beneath his snows,
The great Norse giant who in these last days
Troubled the nations. Gather decently
The imperial robes about him. 'T is but man,--
This demi-god. Or rather it was man,
And is--a little dust that will corrupt
As fast as any nameless dust which sleeps
'Neath Alma's grass or Balaklava's vines.

No vineyard grave for him. No quiet tomb
By river margin, where across the seas
Children's fond thoughts and women's memories come
Like angels, to sit by the sepulchre,
Saying: "All these were men who knew to count,
Front-faced, the cost of honor, nor did shrink
From its full payment: coming here to die,
They died--like men."

                    But this man? Ah! for him
Funereal state, and ceremonial grand,
The stone-engraved sarcophagus, and then
Oblivion.

                    Nay, oblivion were as bliss
To that fierce howl which rolls from land to land
Exulting,--"Art thou fallen, Lucifer,
Son of the morning?" or condemning,--"Thus
Perish the wicked!" or blaspheming,--"Here
Lies our Belshazzar, our Sennacherib,
Our Pharaoh,--he whose heart God hardenèd,
So that he would not let the people go."

Self-glorifying sinners! Why, this man
Was but like other men:--you, Levite small,
Who shut your saintly ears, and prate of hell
And heretics, because outside church-doors,
Your church-doors, congregations poor and small
Praise Heaven in their own way;--you, autocrat
Of all the hamlets, who add field to field
And house to house, whose slavish children cower
Before your tyrant footstep;--you, foul-tongued
Fanatic or ambitious egotist,
Who thinks God stoops from His high majesty
To lay His finger on your puny head,
And crown it,--that you henceforth may parade
Your maggotship throughout the wondering world,--
"I am the Lord's anointed!"

                    Fools and blind!
This Czar, this emperor, this disthronèd corpse,

Lying so straightly in an icy calm
Grander than sovereignty, was but as ye,--
No better and no worse;--Heaven mend us all!

Carry him forth and bury him. Death's peace
Rest on his memory! Mercy by his bier
Sits silent, or says only these few words,--
"Let him who is without sin 'mongst ye all
Cast the first stone."

THE WIND AT NIGHT.

O SUDDEN blast, that through this silence black
        Sweeps past my windows,
Coming and going with invisible track
        As death or sin does,--

Why scare me, lying sick, and, save thy own,
        Hearing no voices?
Why mingle with a helpless human moan
        Thy mad rejoices?

Why not come gently, as good angels come
        To souls departing,

Floating among the shadows of the room
        With eyes light-darting,

Bringing faint airs of balm that seem to rouse
        Thoughts of a Far Land,
Then binding softly upon weary brows
        Death's poppy-garland?

O fearful blast, I shudder at thy sound,
        Like heathen mortal
Who saw the Three that mark life's doomèd bound
        Sit at his portal.

Thou mightst be laden with sad, shrieking souls,
        Carried unwilling
From their known earth to the unknown stream that rolls
        All anguish stilling.

Fierce wind, will the Death-angel come like thee,
        Soon, soon to bear me
--Whither? what mysteries may unfold to me,
        What terrors scare me?

Shall I go wand'ring on through empty space
        As on earth, lonely?
Or seek through myriad spirit-ranks one face,
        And miss that only?

Shall I not then drop down from sphere to sphere
        Palsied and aimless?
Or will my being change so that both fear
        And grief die nameless?

Rather I pray Him who Himself is Love,
        Out of whose essence
We all do spring, and towards him tending, move
        Back to His presence,

That even His brightness may not quite efface
        The soul's earth-features,
That the dear human likeness each may trace
        Glorified creatures;

That we may not cease loving, only taught
        Holier desiring;
More faith, more patience; with more wisdom fraught,
        Higher aspiring.

That we may do all work we left undone
        Here--though unmeetness;
From height to height celestial passing on
        Towards full completeness.

Then, strong Azrael, be thy supreme call
        Soft as spring-breezes,

Or like this blast, whose loud fiend-festival
        My heart's blood freezes.

I will not fear thee. If thou safely keep
        My soul, God's giving,
And my soul's soul, I, wakening from death-sleep,
        Shall first know living.

A FABLE.

SILENT and sunny was the way
    Where Youth and I danced on together:
So winding and embowered o'er,
We could not see one rood before.
Nevertheless all merrily
We bounded onward, Youth and I,
    Leashed closely in a silken tether:
        (Well-a-day, well-a-day!)
Ah Youth, ah Youth, but I would fain
See thy sweet foolish face again!

It came to pass, one morn of May,
    All in a swoon of golden weather,
That I through green leaves fluttering
Saw Joy uprise on Psyche wing:

Eagerly, too eagerly
We followed after,--Youth and I,--
    Till suddenly he slipped the tether:
        (Well-a-day, well-a-day!)
"Where art thou, Youth?" I cried. In vain;
He never more came back again.

Yet onward through the devious way
    In rain or shine, I recked not whether,
Like many other maddened boy
I tracked my Psyche-wingèd Joy;
Till, curving round the bowery lane,
Lo,--in the pathway stood pale Pain,
    And we met face to face together:
        (Well-a-day, well-a-day!)
"Whence comest thou?"--and I writhed in vain--
"Unloose thy cruel grasp, O Pain!"

But he would not. Since, day by day
    He has ta'en up Youth's silken tether
And changed it into iron bands.
So through rich vales and barren lands
Solemnly, all solemnly,
March we united, he and I;
    And we have grown such friends together
        (Well-a-day, well-a-day!)
I and this my brother Pain,
I think we'll never part again.

LABOR IS PRAYER

LABORARE est orare:
    We, black-visaged sons of toil,
From the coal-mine and the anvil
    And the delving of the soil,--
From the loom, the wharf, the warehouse,
    And the ever-whirling mill,
Out of grim and hungry silence
    Raise a weak voice small and shrill;--
Laborare est orare:
    Man, dost hear us? God, He will.

We, who just can keep from starving
    Sickly wives,--not always mild:
Trying not to curse Heaven's bounty
    When it sends another child,--
We who, worn-out, doze on Sundays
    O'er the Book we strive to read,
Cannot understand the parson
    Or the catechism and creed.
Laborare est orare:--
    Then, good sooth, we pray indeed.

We, poor women, feeble-natured,
    Large of heart, in wisdom small,

Who the world's incessant battle
    Cannot understand at all,
All the mysteries of the churches,
    All the troubles of the state,--
Whom child-smiles teach "God is loving,"
    And child-coffins, "God is great":
Laborare est orare:--
    We too at His footstool wait.

Laborare est orare;
    Hear it, ye of spirit poor,
Who sit crouching at the threshold
    While your brethren force the door;
Ye whose ignorance stands wringing
    Rough hands, scamed with toil, nor dares
Lift so much as eyes to Heaven,--
Lo! all life this truth declares,
Laborare est orare;
    And the whole earth rings with prayers.

A SILLY SONG

"O HEART, my heart!" she said, and heard
    His mate the blackbird calling,
While through the sheen of the garden green
    May rain was softly falling,--
    Aye softly, softly falling.

The buttercups across the field
    Made sunshine rifts of splendor:
The round snow-bud of the thorn in the wood
    Peeped through its leefage tender,
    As the rain came softly falling.

"O heart, my heart!" she said and smiled,
    "There's not a tree of the valley,
Or a leaf I wis which the rain's soft kiss
    Freshens in yonder alley,
    Where the drops keep ever falling,--

"There's not a foolish flower i' the grass,
    Or bird through the woodland calling,
So glad again of the coming of rain
    As I of these tears now falling,--
    These happy tears down falling."

IN MEMORIAM

Obiit 1854.

HEAVEN rest thee!
We shall go about today
In our festal garlands gay;
Whatsoever robes we wear
Not a trace of black be there.
Well, what matters? none is seen
On thy daisy covering green,
Or thy pure white pillow, hid
Underneath a cofin lid.
Heaven rest thee!

Heaven take thee!--
Ay, heaven only. Sleeps beneath
One who died a virgin death:
Died so slowly, day by day,
That it scarcely seemed decay,
Till this lonely churchyard kind
Opened,--and we left behind
Nothing but a little dust;--
Heaven is pitiful and just:
Heaven take thee!

Heaven keep thee:
Nevermore above the ground
Be one relic of thee found:
Lay the turf so smooth, we crave,
None would guess it was a grave,
Save for grass that greener grows,
Or for wind that gentlier blows
All the earth o'er, from this spot
Where thou wert--and thou art not.
Heaven keep thee!

AN HONEST VALENTINE

Returned from the Dead-Letter Office

THANK you for your kindness,
    Lady fair and wise,
Though love's famed for blindness,
    Lovers--hem! for lies.
Courtship's mighty pretty,
    Wedlock a sweet sight;--
Should I (from the city,
    A plain man, Miss--) write,
Ere we spouse-and-wive it,
    Just one honest line,

Could you e'er forgive it,
    Pretty Valentine?

Honey-moon quite over,
    If I less should scan
You with eye of lover
    Than of mortal man?
Seeing my fair charmer
    Curl hair spire on spire,
All in paper armor,
    By the parlor fire;
Gown that wants a stitch in
    Hid by apron fine,
Scolding in her kitchen,--
    O fie, Valentine!

Should I come home surly
    Vexed with fortune's frown,
Find a hurly-burly,
    House turned upside down,
Servants all a-snarl, or
    Cleaning steps or stair:
Breakfast still in parlor,
    Dinner--anywhere:
Shall I to cold bacon
    Meekly fall and dine?
No,--or I'm mistaken
    Much, my Valentine.

What if we should quarrel?
    --Bless you, all folks do:--
Will you take the war ill
    Yet half like it too?
When I storm and jangle,
    Obstinate, absurd,
Will you sit and wrangle
    Just for the last word,--
Or, while poor Love, crying,
    Upon tiptoe stands,
Ready plumed for flying,--
    Will you smile, shake hands,
And the truth beholding,
    With a kiss divine
Stop my rough mouth's scolding?--
    Bless you, Valentine!

If, should times grow harder,
    We have lack of pelf,
Little in the larder,
    Less upon the shelf;
Will you, never tearful,
    Make your old gowns do,
Mend my stockings, cheerful,
    And pay visits few?
Crave nor gift nor donor,
    Old days ne'er regret,

Seek no friend save Honor,
    Dread no foe but Debt;
Meet ill-fortune steady,
    Hand to hand with mine,
Like a gallant lady,--
    Will you, Valentine?

Then, whatever weather
    Come, or shine, or shade,
We'll set out together,
    Not a whit afraid.
Age is ne'er alarming,--
    I shall find, I ween,
You at sixty charming
    As at sweet sixteen:
Let's pray, nothing loath, dear,
    That our funeral may
Make one date serve both, dear,
    As our marriage day.
Then, come joy or sorrow,
    Thou art mine,--I thine.
So we'll wed to-morrow,
    Dearest Valentine.

LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE

AY, in thy face, old fellow! Now's the time.
The Black Sea wind flaps my tent-roof, nor wakes
These lads of mine, who take of sleep their fill,
As if they thought they'd never sleep again,
Instead of--
                    Pitiless Crimean blast,
How many a howling lullaby thou'lt raise
To-morrow night, all nights till the world's end,
Over some sleepers here!
                    Some?--who? Dumb Fate
Whispers in no man's ear his coming doom;
Each thinks--"not I--not I."
                    But thou, grim Death,
I hear thee on the night-wind flying abroad,
I feel thee here, squatted at our tent-door,
Invisible and incommunicable,
Pointing:
"Hurrah!"
                    Why yell so in your sleep,
Comrade? Did you see aught?
                    Well--let him dream:
Who knows, to-morrow such a shout as this

He'll die with. A brave lad, and very like
His sister.
* * * * * *

                    So! just two hours have I lain
Freezing. That pale white star, which came and peered
Through the tent-opening, has passed on, to smile
Elsewhere, or lost herself i' the dark,--God knows.
Two hours nearer to dawn. The very hour,
The very hour and day, a year ago,
When we light-hearted and light-footed fools
Went jingling idle swords in waltz and reel,
And smiling in fair faces. How they'd start,
Those dainty red ad white soft faces kind,
If they could but behold my visage now,
Or his--or his--o some poor faces cold
We covered up with earth last noon.
                    --There sits
The laidly Thing I felt on our tent-door
Two hours back. It has sat and never stirred.
I cannot challenge it, or shoot it down,
Or grapple with it, as with that young Russ
Whom I killed yesterday. (What eyes he had!--
Great limpid eyes, and curling dark-red hair,--
A woman's picture hidden in his breast,--
I never liked this fighting hand to hand.)
No, it will not be met like flesh and blood,
This shapeless, voiceless, immaterial Thing,

Yet I will meet it. Here I sit alone,--
Show me thy face, O Death!
                    There, there. I think
I did not tremble.
                    I am a young man;
Have done full many an ill deed, left undone
Many a good one: lived unto the flesh,
Not to the spirit: I would rather live
A few years more, and try if things might change.
Yet, yet I hope I do not tremble, Death;
And that thy finger pointed at my heart
But calms the tumult there.
                    What small account
The All-living seems to take of this thin flame
Which we call life. He sends a moment's blast
Out of war's nostrils, and a myriad
Of these our puny tapers are blown out
Forever. Yet we shrink not,--we, such frail
Poor knaves, whom a spent ball can instant strike
Into eternity,--we helpless fools,
Whom a serf's clumsy hand and clumsier sword
Smiting--shall sudden into nothingness
Let out that something rare which could conceive
A universe and its God.
                    Free, open-eyed,
We rush like bridegrooms to Death's grisly arms:

Surely the very longing for that clasp
Proves us immortal. Immortality
Alone could teach this mortal how to die.
Perhaps, war is but Heaven's great ploughshare, driven
Over the barren, fallow earthly fields,
Preparing them for harvest; rooting up
Grass, weeds, and flowers, which necessary fall,
That in these furrows the wise Husbandman
May drop celestial seed.
                    So let us die;
Yield up our little lives, as the flowers do;
Believing He'll not lose one single soul,--
One germ of His immortal. Naught of His
Or Him can perish; therefore let us die.

I half remember, something like to this
She says in her dear letters. So--let us die.
What, dawn? The faint hum in the trenches fails.
Is that a bell i' the mist? My faith, they go
Early to matins in Sebastopol!--
A gun!--Lads, stand to your arms; the Russ is here.
                    Agnes.
Kind Heaven, I have looked Death in the face,
Help me to die.

BY THE ALMA RIVER.

WILLIE, fold your little hands;
    Let it drop, that "soldier" toy:
Look where father's picture stands,--
    Father, who here kissed his boy
Not two months since,--father kind,
Who this night may--Never mind
Mother's sob, my Willie dear,
Call aloud that He may hear
Who is God of battles, say,
"O, keep father safe this day
    By the Alma river."

Ask no more, child. Never heed
    Either Russ, or Frank, or Turk,
Right of nations or of creed,
    Chance-poised victory's bloody work:
Any flag i' the wind may roll
On thy heights, Sebastopol;
Willie, all to you and me
Is that spot, where'er it be,
Where he stands--no other word!
Stands--God sure the child's prayer heard--
    By the Alma river.

Willie, listen to the bells
    Ringing through the town to-day.
That's for victory. Ah, no knells
    For the many swept away,--
Hundreds--thousands! Let us weep,
We who need not,--just to keep
Reason steady in my brain
Till the morning comes again,
Till the third dread morning tell
Who they were that fought and fell
    By the Alma river.

Come, we'll lay us down, my child,
    Poor the bed is, poor and hard;
Yet thy father, far exiled,
    Sleeps upon the open sward,
Dreaming of us two at home:
Or beneath the starry dome
Digs out trenches in the dark,
Where he buries--Willie, mark--
Where he buries those who died
Fighting bravely at his side
    By the Alma river.

Willie, Willie, go to sleep,
    God will keep us, O my boy;
He will make the dull hours creep
    Faster, and send news of joy,

When I need not shrink to meet
Those dread placards in the street,
Which for weeks will ghastly stare
In some eyes--Child, sy thy prayer
Once again; a different one:
Say, "O God, Thy will be done
    By the Alma river."

ROTHESAY BAY.

FU' yellow lie the corn rigs
    Far doun the braid hillside;
It is the brawest harst field
    Alang the shores o'Clyde,--
And I'm a puir harst-lassie
    That stan's the lee-lang day
Shearing the corn-rigs of Ardbeg
    Aboon sweet Rothesay Bay.

O I had ance a true-love,--
    Now, I hae nane ava;
And I had ance three brithers,
    But I hae tint them a';
My father and my mither
    Sleep i' the mools this day.

I sit my lane amang the rigs
    Aboon sweet Rothesay Bay.

It's a bonnie bay at morning,
    And bonnier at the noon,
But it's bonniest when the sun draps
    And red comes up the moon:
When the mist creeps o'er the Cambrays,
    And Arran peaks are gray,
And the great black hills, like sleepin' kings,
    Sit grand roun' Rothesay Bay,

Then a bit sigh stirs my bosom,
    And a wee tear blin's my e'e,--
And I think o'that far Countrie
    What I wad like to be!
But I rise content i' the morning
    To wark while wark I may
I' the yellow harst field of Ardbeg
    Aboon sweet Rothesay Bay.

LIVING:

AFTER A DEATH.

        "That friend of mine who lives in God."

O LIVE!
(Thus seems it we should say to our beloved,--
Each held by such slight links, so oft removed;)
And I can let thee go to the world's end,
All precious names, companion, love, spouse, friend,
Seal up in an eternal silence gray,
Like a closed grave till resurrection-day:
All sweet remembrances, hopes, dreams, desires,
Heap, as one heaps up sarificial fires:
Then, turning, consecrate by loss, and proud
Of penury--go back into the loud
Tumultuous world again with never a moan--
Save that which whispers still, "My own, my own,"
Unto the same broad sky whose arch immense
Enfolds us both like the arm of Providence:
And thus, contended, I could live or die,
With never clasp of hand or meeting eye
On this side Paradise.--While thee I see
Living to God, thou art alive to me.

O live!
And I, methinks, can let all dear rights go,
Fond duties melt away like April snow,
And sweet, sweet hopes, that took a life to weave,
Vanish like gossamers of autumn eve.
Nay, sometimes seems it I could even bear
To lay down humbly this love-crown I wear,
Steal from my palace, helpless, hopeless, poor,
And see another queen it at the door,--
If only that the king had done no wrong,
If this my palace, where I dwelt so long,
Were not defiled by falsehood entering in:--
There is no loss but change, no death but sin,
No parting, save the slow corrupting pain
Of murdered faith that never lives again.

O live!
(So endeth faint the low pathetic cry
Of love, whom death has taught love cannot die,)
And I can stand above the daisy bed,
The only pillow for thy dearest head,
There cover up forever from my sight
My own, my earthly all of earth delight;
And enter the sea-cave of widowed years,
Where far, far off the trembling gleam appears
Through which thy heavenly image slipped away,
And waits to meet me at the open day.

Only to me, my love, only to me.
This cavern underneath the moaning sea;
This long, long life that I alone must tread,
To whom the living seem most like the dead,--
Thou wilt be safe out on the happy shore:
He who in God lives, liveth evermore.

IN OUR BOAT.

STARS trembling o'er us and sunset before us,
    Mountains in shadow and forests asleep;
Down the dim river we float on forever,
    Speak not, ah, breathe not,--there's peace on the deep.

Come not, pale Sorrow, flee till to-morrow,
    Rest softly falling o'er eyelids that weep;
While down the river we float on forever,
    Speak not, ah, breathe not,--there's peace on the deep.

As the waves cover the depths we glide over,
    So let the past in forgetfullness sleep,

While down the river we float on forever,
    Speak not, ah, breathe not,--there's peace on the deep.

Heaven shine above us, bless all that love us,
    All whome we love in thy tenderness keep!
While down the river we float on forever,
    Speak not, ah, breathe not,--there's peace on the deep.

THE RIVER SHORE.

For an old tune of Dowland's

WALKING by the quiet river
    Where the slow tide seaward goes,
All the cares of life fall from us,
    All our troubles find repose:
Naught forgetting, naught regretting,
    Lovely ghosts from days no more
Glide with while feet o'er the river,
    Smiling towards the silent shore.

So we pray in His good pleasure
    When this world we've safely trod,
We may walk beside the river
    Flowing from the throne of God:

All forgiving, all believing,
    Not one lost we loved before,
Looking towards the hills of heaven
    Calmly from the eternal shore.

A FLOWER OF A DAY.

OLD friend, that with a pale and pensile grace
Climbest the lush hedgerows, art thou back again,
Marking the slow round of the wond'rous years?
Didst beckon me a moment, silent flower?

Silent? As silent is the archangel's pen
That day by day writes our life chronicle,
And turns the page,--the half-forgotten page,
Which all eternity will never blot.

Forgotten? No, we never do forget:
We let the years go: eash then clean with tears,
Leave them to bleach, out in the open day,
Or lock them careful by, like dead friends' clothes,
Till we shall dare unfold them without pain,--
But we forget not, never can forget.

Flower, thou and I a moment face to face--
My face as clear as thine, this July noon
Shining on both, on bee and butterfly
And golden geetle creeping in the sun--
Will pause, and,lifting up, page after page,
The many-colored history of life,
Look backwards, backwards.

                    So, the volume close!
This July day, with the sun high in heaven,
And the whole earth rejoicing,--let it close.

I think we need not sigh, complain, nor rave;
Nor blush,--our doings and misdoing all
Being more 'gainst heaven than man, heaven them does keep
With all its doings and undoings strange
Concerning us.--Ah, let the volume close:
I would not alter in it one poor line.

My dainty flower, my innocent white flower
With such a pure smile looking up to heaven,
With such a bright smile looking down on me--
(Nothing but smiles,--as if in all the world
Were no such things as thunder-storms or frosts,
Or broken petals trampled on the ground,
Or shivering leaveswhirled in the wintry air
Like ghosts of last years joys:)--my pretty flower,

I'll pluck thee--smiling too. Not one salt drop
Shall stain thee:--if these foolish eyes are dim,
That they behold such beauty and such peace,
Such wisdom and such sweetness, in God's world.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE MOWING.

ALL shimmering in the morning shine
    And diamonded with dew,
And quivering in the scented wind
    That thrills its green heart through,--
The little field, the smiling field,
    With all its flowers a-blowing,
How happy looks the golden field
    The day before the mowing!

All still 'neath the departing light,
    Twilight, though void of stars,
Save where, low westering, Venus hides
    From the red eye of Mars;
How quiet lies the silent field
    With all its beauties glowing;
Just stirring,--like a child asleep,--
    The night before the mowing.

Sharp steel, inevitable hand,
    Cut keen, cut kind! Our field
We know full well must be laid low
    Before its wealth it yield:
Labor and mirth and plenty blest
    Its blameless death bestowing:
And yet we weep, and yet we weep,
    The night before the mowing.

PASSION PAST.

WERE I a boy, with a boy's heart-beat
At glimpse of her passing adown the street,
Of a room where she had entered and gone,
Or a page her hand had written on,--
Would all be with me as it was before?
O no, never! no, no, never!
Never any more.

Were I a man, with a man's pulse-throb,
Breath hard and fierce, held down like a sob,
Dumb, yet hearing her lightest word,
Blind, until only her garment stirred:

Would I pour my life like wine on her floor?
No, no, never: never, never!
Never any more.

Gray and withered, wrinkled and marred,
I have gone through the fire and come out unscarred,
With the image of manhood upon me yet,
No shame to remember, no wish to forget:
But could she rekindle the pangs I bore?--
O no, never! thank God, never!
Never any more.

Old and wrinkled, withered and gray,--
And yet if her light step passed to-day,
I should see her face all faces among,
And say,--"Heaven love thee, whom I loved long!
Thou hast lost the key of my heart's door,
Lost it ever, and forever,
Ay, forevermore."

OCTOBER.

IT is no joy to me to sit
    On dreamy summer eves,
When silently the timid moon
    Kisses the sleeping leaves,
And all things through the fair hushed earth
    Love, rest--but nothing grieves.
Better I like old Autumn
    With his hair tossed to and fro,
Firm striding o'er the stubble fields
    When the equinoctials blow.

When shrinkingly the sun creeps up
    Through misty mornings cold,
And Robin on the orchard hedge
    Sings cheerily and bold,
While the frosted plum
    Drops downward on the mould;--
And as he passes, Autumn
    Into earth's lap does throw
Brown apples gay in a game of play,
    As the equinoctials blow.

When the spent year its carol sinks
    Into a humble psalm,

Asks no more for the pleasure draught,
    But for the cup of balm,
And all its storms and sunshine bursts
    Controls to one brave calm,--
Then step by step walks Autumn,
    With steady eyes that show
Nor grief nor fear, to the death of the year,
    While the equinoctials blow.

MOON-STRUCK.

A FANTASY.

IT is a moor
Barren and treeless; lying high and bare
Beneath the archèd sky. The rushing winds
Fly over it, each with his strong bow bent
And quiver full of whistling arrows keen.

I am a woman, lonely, old, and poor.
If there be any one who watches me
(But there is none) adown the long blank wold,
My figure painted on the level sky

Would startle him as if it were a ghost,--
And like a ghost, a weary wandering ghost,
I roam and roam, and shiver through the dark
That will not hide me. O but for one hour,
One blessed hour of warm and dewy night,
To wrap me like a pall--with not an eye
In earth or heaven to pierce the black serene.
Night, call yet this? No night; no dark--no rest--
A moon-ray sweeps down sudden from the sky,
And smites the moor--
                    Is't thou, accursèd Thing,
Broad, pallid, like a great woe looming out--
Out of its long-sealed grave, to fill all earth
With its dead, ghastly smile? Art there again,
Round, perfect, large, as when we buried thee,
I and the kindly clouds that heard my prayers?
I'll sit me down and meet thee face to face,
Mine enemy!--Why didst thou rise upon
My world--my innocent world, to make me mad?
Wherefore shine forth, a tiny tremulous curve
Hung out in the gray sunset beauteously,
To tempt mine eyes--then nightly to increase
Slow orbing, till thy full, blank, pitiless stare
Hunts me across the world?
                    No rest--no dark.
Hour after hour that passionless bright face
Climbs up the desolate blue. I will press down

The lids on my tired eyeballs--crouch in dust,
And pray.
                    --Thank God, thank God!--a cloud has hid
My torturer. The night at last is free:
Forth peep in crowds the merry twinkling stars.
Ah, we'll shine out, the little silly stars
And I; we'll dance together across the moor,
They up aloft--I here. At last, at last
We are avengèd of our adversary!

The freshening of the night air feels like dawn.
Who said that I was mad? I will arise,
Throw off my burthen, march across the wold
Airily--Ha! what, stumbling? Nay, no fear--
I am used unto the dark, for many a year
Steering compassionless athwart the waste
To where, deep hid in valleys of white mist,
The pleasant home-lights shine. I will but pause,
Turn round and gaze--
                    O me! O miserable me!
The cloud-bank overflows: sudden outpour
The bright white moon-rays--ah! I drown, I drown,
And o'er the flood, with steady motion, slow
It walketh--my inexorable Doom.

No more: I shall not struggle any more:
I will lie down as quiet as a child,--
I can but die.

                    There, I have hid my face:
Stray travellers passing o'er the silent wold
Would only say, "She sleeps."
                    Glare on, my Doom;
I will not look at thee: and if at times
I shiver, still I neither weep nor moan:
Angels may see, I neither weep nor moan.

Was that sharp whistling wind the morning breeze
That calls the stars back to the obscure of heaven?
I am very cold.--And yet there is a change.
Less fiercely the sharp moonbeams smite my brain,
My heart beats slower, duller: soothing rest
Like a soft garment binds my shuddering limbs.--
If I looked up now, should I see it still
Gibbeted ghastly in the hopeless sky?--
No!
                    It is very strange: all things seem strange:
Pale spectral face, I do not fear thee now:
Was't this mere shadow which did haunt me once
Like an avenging fiend?--Well, we fade out
Together: I'll nor dread nor curse thee more.

How calm the earth seems! and I know the moor
Glistens with dew-stars. I will try and turn
My poor face eastward. Close not, eyes! That light
Fringing the far hills, all so fair--so fair,
Is it not dawn? I am dying, but 't is dawn.

"Upon the mountains I behold the feet
Of my Beloved: let us forth to meet"--
Death.
                    This is death. I see the light no more;
I sleep.
                    But like a morning bird my soul
Springs singing upward, into the deeps of heaven
Through world on world to follow Infinite Day.

A STREAM'S SINGING.

O HOW beautiful is Morning!
How the sunbeams strike the daisies,
And the kingcups fill the meadow
Like a golden-shielded army
    Marching to the uplands fair;--
I am going forth to battle,
And life's uplands rise before me,
And my golden shield is ready,
And I pause a moment, timing
My heart's pæan to the waters,
As with cheerful song incessant
    Onwards runs the little stream;
Singing ever, onward ever,
Boldly runs the merry stream.

O how glorious is Noon-day!
With the cool large shadows lying
Underneath the giant forest,
The far hill-tops towering dimly
    O'er the conquered plains below;--
I am conquering--I shall conquer
In life's battle-field impetuous:
And I lie and listen dreamy
To a double-voiced, low music,--
Tender beech-trees sheeny shiver
Mingled with the diapason
    Of the strong, deep, joyful stream,
Like a man's love and a woman's;
    So it runs--the happy stream!

O how grandly cometh Even,
Sitting on the mountain summit,
Purple-vestured, grave, and silent,
Watching o'er the dewy valleys,
    Like a good king near his end:--
I have labored, I have governed;
Now I feel the gathering shadows
Of the night that closes all things:
And the fair earth fades before me,
And the stars leap out in heaven,
While into the infinite darkness
    Solemn runs the steadfast stream--
Onward, onward, ceaseless, fearless,
    Singing runs the eternal stream.

A REJECTED LOVER.

You "never loved me," Ada. These slow words
Dropped softly from your gentle woman-tongue
Out of your true and kindly woman-heart,
Fell, piercing into mine like very swords
The sharper for their kindness. Yet no wrong
Lies to your charge, nor cruelty, nor art,--
Ev'n when you spoke, I saw the tender tear-drop start.

You "never loved me." No, you never knew,
You, with youth's morning fresh upon your soul,
What 't is to love: slow, drop by drop, to pour
Our life's whole essence, perfumed through and through
With all the best we have or can control
For the libation--cast it down before
Your feet--then lift the goblet, dry for evermore.

I shall not die as foolish lovers do:
A man's heart beats beneath thid breast of mine,
The breast where--Curse on that fiend-whispering

"It might have been!"--Ada, I will be true
Unto myself--the self that so loved thine:
May all life's pain, like these few tears that spring
For me, glance off as rain-drops from my white dove's wing!

May you live long, some good man's bosom flower,
And gather chldren round your matron knees:
So, when all this is past, and you and I
Remember each our youth-days as an hour
Of joy--or anguish, one, serene, at ease,
May come to meet the other's steadfast eye,
Thinking, "He loved me well!" clasp hands, and so pass by.

A LIVING PICTURE.

No, I'll not say your name. I have said it now,
As you mine, first in childish treble, then
Up through a score and more familiar years
Till baby-voices mock us. Time may come
When your tall sons look down on our white hair,
Amused to hear us call each other thus,
And question us about the old, old days,
The far-off days, the days when we were young.

How distant do they seem, and yet how near!
Now, as I lie and watch you come and go,
With garden basket in your hand; in gown
Just girdled, and brown curls that girl-like fall,
And straw hat flapping in the April breeze,
I could forget this lapse of years--start up
Laughing--"Come, let's go play!"
                    Well-a-day, friend,
Our play-days are all done.
                    Still, let us smile:
For as you flit about your garden here
You look like this spring morning: on your lips
An unseen bird sings snatches of gay tunes,
While, an embodied music, moves your step,
Your free, wild, springy step, like Atala's,
Or Pocahontas, careless child o' the sun--
Those Indian beauties I compare you to--
I, still your praiser,--
                    Nay, nay, I'll not praise,
Fair seemeth fairest, ignorant 't is fair:
That light incredulous laugh is worth a world!
That laugh, with childish echoes.
                    So then, fade,
Mere dream. Come, true and sweet reality:
Come, dawn of happy wifehood, motherhood,
Ripening to perfect noon! Come, peaceful round
Of simple joys, fond duties, gladsome cares,
When each full hour drops bliss with liberal hand,
Yet leaves to-morrow richer than to-day.

Will you sit here? the grass is summer-warm.
Look at those children making daisy-chains,
So did we too, do you mind? That eldest lad,
He has your very mouth. Yet, you will have 't
His eyes are like his father's? Perhaps so:
They could not be more dark and deep and kind.
Do you know, this hour I have been fancying you
A poet's dream, and almost sighed to think
There was no poet to praise you--
                    Why, you're flown
After those mad elves in the flower-beds there,
Ha--ha--you're no dream now.
                    Well, well--so best!
My eyelids droop content o'er moistened eyes:
I would not have you other than you are.

LEONORA.

LEONORA, Leonora,
How the word rolls--Leonora--
Lion-like, in full-mouthed sound,
Marching o'er the metric ground
With a tawny tread sublime--
So your name moves, Leonora,
Down my desert rhyme.

So you pace, young Leonora,
Through the alleys of the wood,
Head erect, majestic, tall,
The fit daughter of the Hall:
Yet with hazel eyes declined,
And a voice like summer wind,
And a meek mouth, sweet and good,
Dimpling ever, Leonora,
In fair womanhood.

How those smiles dance, Leonora,
As you meet the pleasant breeze
Under your ancestral trees:
For your heart is free and pure
As this blue March sky o'erhead,
And in the life-path you tread,

All the leaves are budding, sure,
All the primroses are springing,
All the birds begin their singing--
'T is your spring-time, Leonora,
May it long endure.

But it will pass, Leonora:
And the silent days must fall
When a change comes over all:
When the last leaf downward flitters,
And the last, last sunbeam glitters
On the terraced hillside cool,
On the peacocks by the pool:
When you'll walk along these alleys
With no lightsome foot that dallies
With the violets and the moss,--
But with quiet steps and slow,
And grave eyes that earthward grow,
And a matron-heart inured
To all women have endured,--
Must endure and ever will,
All the joy and all the ill,
All the gain and all the loss--
Can you cheerfully lay down
Careless girlhood's flowery crown,
And thus take up, Leonora,
Womanhood's meek cross?

Ay! your eyes shine, Leonora,
Warm, and true, and brave, and kind:
And although I nothing know
Of the maiden heart below,
I in them good omens find.
Go, enjoy your present hours
Like the birds and bees and flowers:
And may summer days bestow
On you just so much of rain,
Blessed baptism of pain!
As will make your blossoms grow.
May you walk, as through life's road
Every noble woman can,--
With a pure heart before God,
And a true heart unto man:
Till with this same smile you wait
For the opening of the Gate
That shuts earth from mortal eyes;
Till at last, with peaceful heart,
All contented to depart,
Leaving children's children playing
In these woods you used to stray in,
You may enter, Leonora,
Into Paradise.

PLIGHTED.

MINE to the core of the heart, my beauty!
Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty:
Love given willingly, full and free,
Love for love's sake--as mine to thee.
    Duty's a slave that keeps the keys,
But Love, the master, goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers with song and shout,
    Just as he please--just as he please.

Mine, from the dear head's crown, brown-golden,
To the silken foot that's scarce beholden;
Give to a few friends hand or smile,
Like a generous lady, now and awhile,
    But the sanctuary heart, that none dare win,
Keep holiest of holiest evermore;
The crowd in the aisles may watch the door,
    The high-priest only enters in.

Mine, my own, without doubts or terrors,
With all thy goodness, all thy errors,
Unto me and to me alone revealed,
"A spring shut up, a fountain sealed."
    Many may praise thee--praise mine as thine,

Many may love thee--I'll love them too;
But thy heart of hearts, pure, faithful, and true,
    Must be mine, mine wholly, and only mine.

Mine!--God, I thank Thee that Thou hast given
Something all mine on this side heaven:
Something as much myself to be
As this my soul, which I lift to Thee:
    Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,
Life of my life, whom Thou dost make
Two to the world for the world's work's sake--
    But each unto each, as in Thy sight, one.

MORTALITY.

        "And we shall be changed."

YE dainty mosses, lichens gray,
    Pressed each to each in tender fold,
And peacefully thus, day by day,
    Returning to their mould;

Brown leaves, that with aerial grace
    Slip from your branch like birds a-wing,
Each leaving in the appointed place
Its bud of future spring;--

If we, God's conscious creatures, knew
    But half your faith in our decay,
We should not tremble as we do
    When summoned clay to clay.

But with an equal patience sweet
    We should put off this mortal gear,
In whatsoe'er new form is meet
    Content to reappear.

Knowing each germ of life He gives
    Must have in Him its source and rise,
Being that of His being lives
    May change, but never dies.

Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
    Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
Go to your graves, as I will go,
    For God is also there.

LIFE RETURNING

After War-time.

O LIFE, dear life, with sunbeam finger touching
    This poor damp brow, or flying freshly by
    On wings of mountain wind, or tenderly
In links of visionary embraces clutching
    Me from the yawning grave--
Can I believe thou yet hast power to save?

I see thee, O my life, like phantom giant
    Stand on the hill-top, large against the dawn,
    Upon the night-black clouds a picture drawn
Of aspect wonderful, with hope defiant,
    And so majestic grown
I scarce discern the image as my own.

Those mists furl off, and through the vale resplendent
    I see the pathway of my years prolong;
    Not without labor, yet for labor strong;
Not without pain, but pain whose touch transcendent

    By love's divinest laws
Heart unto heart, and all hearts upwards, draws.

O life, O love, your diverse tones bewildering
    Make silence, like two meeting waves of sound;
I dream of wifely white arms, lisp of children--
    Never of ended wars,
Save kisses scaling honorable scars.

No more of battles! Save the combat glorious
    To which all earth and heaven may witness stand;
    The sword of the Spirit taking in my hand
I shall go forth, since in new fields victorious
    The King yet grants that I
His servant live, or His good soldier die.

MY FRIEND.

MY Friend wears a cheerful smile of his own,
    And a musical tongue has he;
We sit and look in each other's face,
    And are very good company.
A heart he has, full warm and red
    As ever a heart I see;

And as long as I keep true to him,
    Why, he'll keep true to me.

When the wind blows high and the snow falls fast
    And we hear the wassailers' roar--
My Friend and I, with a right good-will
    We bolt the chamber door:
I smile at him and he smiles at me
    In a dreamy calm profound,
Till his heart leaps up in the midst of him
    With a comfortable sound.

His warm breath kisses my thin gray hair
    And reddens my ashen cheeks;
He knows me better than you all know,
    Though never a word he speaks:--
Knows me as well as some had known
    Were things--not as things be.

But hey, what matters? my Friend and I
    Are capital company.

At dead of night, when the house is still,
    He opens his pictures fair;
Faces that are, that used to be,
    And faces that never were:
My wife sits sewing beside my hearth,
    My little ones frolic wild,
Though--Lilian's married these twenty years,
    And I never had a child.

But hey, what matters? When those who laugh
    May weep to-morrow, and they
Who weep be as those that wept not--all
    Their tears long wiped away.
I shall burn out, like you, my Friend,
    With a bright warm heart and bold,
That flickers up to the last--then drops
    Into quiet ashes cold.

And when you flicker on me, old Friend,
    In the old man's elbow-chair,
Or--something easier still, where we
    Lie down, to arise up fair
And young, and happy--why then, my Friend,
    Should other friends ask of me,
Tell them I lived and loved and died
    In the best of all company.

A VALENTINE.

YE are twa laddies unco gleg,
    An' blithe an' bonnie:
As licht o' heel as Anster's Meg;--
Gin ye'd a lassie's favor beg,
I' faith she couldna stir a peg
    Ance lookin' on ye!

He's a douce wiselike callant--Jim:
    Of wit aye ready.
Cuts aff ane's sentence, 't ither's limb,
An' whiles he's daft and whiles he's grim,
But brains?--wha's got the like o'him
    In's wee bit heidie?

Dear laddie wi' the curlin' hair,
    Gentlest of ony:
That gies kind looks an' speeches fair
To dour auld wives as lassies rare,--
I ken a score o' lads an' mair,
    But nane like Johnnie!

And gin ye learn the way to woo,
    Hae sweethearts mony,
O laddie, never say ye loe
An' gie fause coin for siller true;
A lassie's sair heart's naething new,--
    Mind o' that, Johnnie.

An' dinna change your luve sae fast
    For ilk face bonnie,
Lest waefu' want track wilfu' waste,
And a' your youthfu' years lang past,
Ye get the crookit stick at last,
    Ochone, puir Johnnie!

But callants baith, tak tent, and when
    Bright e'en hae won ye,
Tak each your jo--and keep her--then
Be faithfu' as ye're fond, ye ken,
Or--gang your gate like honest men,
    Young Jim and Johnnie.

Sae when auld Time his crookit claw
    Sall lay upon ye,
When, Jim, your feet that dance sae braw
Are no the lightest in the ha',
An' a' your curly haffets fa',
    My winsome Johnnie,--

May each his ain warm ingle view,
    Cosie as ony:
A gudewife sonsie, leal and true,
O' bonnie dochters not a few,
An' lads--sic lads as ye're the noo--
    Dear Jim and Johnnie!

GRACE OF CLYDESIDE.

AH, little Grace of the golden locks,
    The hills rise fair on the shores of Clyde.
As the merry waves wear out these rocks
She wears my heart out, glides past and mocks:
    But heaven's gate ever stands open wide.

The boat goes softly along, along,
    Like a river of life glows the amber Clyde;
Her voice floats near me like angel's song,--
Ah, sweet love-death, but thy pangs are strong!
    Though heaven's gate ever stands open wide.

We walk by the shore and the stars shine bright,
    But coldly, above the solemn Clyde:
Her arm touches mine--her laugh rings light--
ONE hears my silence: His merciful night
    Hides me--Can heaven be open wide?

I ever was but a dreamer, Grace:
    As the gray hills watch o'er the sunny Clyde,
Standing afar, each in his place,
I watch your young life's beautiful race,
    Apart--until heaven be opened wide.

And sometimes when in the twilight balm
    The hills grow purple along the Clyde,
The waves flow softly and very calm,
I hear all nature sing this one psalm,
    That "heaven's gate ever stands open wide."

So, happy Grace, with your spirit free,
    Laugh on! life is sweet on the banks of Clyde;
This is no blame unto thee or me;
Only God saw it could not be,
    Therefore His heaven stands open wide.

TO A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN.

"A daughter of the gods: divinely tall,
And most divinely fair."

SURELY, dame Nature made you in some dream
Of old-world women--Chriemhild, or bright
Aslauga, or Boadicea fierce and fair,
Or Berengaria as she rose, her lips
Yet ruddy from the poison that anoints
Her memory still, the queen of queenly wives.

I marvel, who will crown you wife, you grand
And goodly creature! who will mount supreme
The empty chariot of your maiden heart,
Curb the strong will that leaps and foams and chafes
Still masterless, and guide you safely home
Unto the golden gate, where quiet sits
Grave Matronhood, with gracious, loving eyes.

What eyes you have, you wild gazelle o' the plain,
You fierce hind of the forest! now they flash,
Now glow, now in their own dark down-dropt shade
Conceal themselves a moment, as some thought,
Too brief to be a feeling, flits across
The April cloudland of your careless soul--
There--that light laugh--and 't is full sun--full day.

Would I could paint you, line by line, ere Time
Touches the gorgeous picture! your ripe mouth,
Your white arched throat, your stature like to Saul's
Among his brethren, yet so fitly framed
In such harmonious symmetry, we say
As of a cedar among common trees
Never "How tall!" but only "O how fair!"

Who made you fair? moulded you in the shape
That poets dream of; sent you forth to men
His caligraph inscribed on every curve
Of your brave form?

    Is it written on your soul?
--I know not.
    Woman, upon whom is laid
Heaven's own sign-manual, Beauty, mock heaven not!
Reverence thy loveliness--the outward type
Of things we understand not, nor behold
But as in a glass, darkly; wear it thou
With awful gladness, grave humility,
That not contemns, nor boasts, nor is ashamed,
But lifts its face up prayerfully to heaven,--
"Thou who hast made me, make me worthy Thee!"

MARY'S WEDDING.

February 25th, 1851.

YOU are to be married, Mary;
    This hour as I wakeful lie
In the dreamy dawn of the morning,
    Your wedding hour draws nigh;
Miles off, you are rising, dressing,
    Your bridemaidens gay among,
In the same old house we played in,--
    You and I, when we were young.

Your bridemaids--they were our playmates:
    Those known rooms, every wall,
Could speak of our childish frolics,
    Loves, jealousies, great and small:
Do you mind how pansies changed we
    And smiled at the word "forget"?--
'T was a girl's romance: yet somehow
    I have kept my pansy yet.

Do you mind our poems written
    Together? our dreams of fame--
And of love--how we'd share all secrets
    When that sweet mystery came?
It is no mystery now, Mary;
    It was unveiled, year by year,
Till--this is your marriage morning;
    And I rest quiet here.

I cannot call up your face, Mary,
    The face of the bride to-day:
You have outgrown my knowledge,
    The years have so slipped away.
I see but your girlish likeness,
    Brown eyes and brown falling hair;--
God knows, I did love you dearly,
    And was proud that you were fair.

Many speak my name, Mary,
    While yours in home's silence lies:

The future I read in toil's guerdon,
    You will read in your children's eyes:
The past--the same past with either--
    Is to you a delightsome scene,
But I cannot trace it clearly
    For the graves that rise between.

I am glad you are happy, Mary!
    These tears, could you see them fall,
Would show, though you have forgotten,
    I have remembered all.
And though my cup may be empty
    While yours is all running o'er,
Heaven keep you its sweetness, Mary,
    Brimming for evermore.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS.

Parting for Australia.

HERE sitting by the fire
I aspire, love, I aspire--
Not to that "other world" of your fond dreams,
But one as nigh and nigher,
Compared to which your real, unreal seems.

Together as to-night
In our light, love, in our light
Of reunited joy appears no shade:
From this our hope's reached height
All things are possible and level made.

Therefore we sit and view--
I and you, love, I and you--
That wondrous valley o'er southern seas,
Where in a country new
You will make for me a sweet nest of ease;

Where I, your poor tired bird,
(Nothing stirred? Love, nothing stirred?)
May fold her wings and be no more distrest:
Where troubles may be heard
Like outside winds at night which deepen rest.

Where in green pastures wide
We'll abide, love, we'll abide,
And keep content our patriarchal flocks,
Till at our aged side
Leap our young brown-faced shepherds of the rocks.

Ah, tale that's easy told!
(Hold my hand, love, tighter hold.)
What if this face of mine, which you think fair--
If it should ne'er grow old,
Nor matron cap cover this maiden hair?

What if this silver ring
(Loose it clings, love, yet does cling:)
Should ne'er be changed for any other? nay,
This very hand I fling.
About your neck should--Hush! to-day's to-day:

To-morrow is--ah, whose?
You'll not lose, love, you'll not lose
This hand I pledged, if never a wife's hand
For tender household use
Led by your fearless into a far, far land.

Kiss me and do not grieve;
I believe, love, I believe
That He who holds the measure of our days,
And did thus strangely weave
Our opposite lives together, to His praise--

He never will divide
Us so wide, love, us so wide:
But will, whate'er befalls us, clearly show
That those in Him allied
In life or death are nearer than they know.

COUSIN ROBERT.

O COUSIN Robert, far away
    Among the lands of gold,
How many years since we two met?--
    You would not like it told.

O cousin Robert, buried deep
    Amid your bags of gold--
I thought I saw you yesternight
    Just as you were of old.

You own whole leagues--I half a rood
    Behind my cottage door;
You have your lacs of gold rupees,
    And I my children four;

Your tall barques dot the dangerous seas,
    My "ship's come home"--to rest
Safe anchored from the storms of life
    Upon one faithful breast.

And it would cause no start or sigh,
    Nor thought of doubt or blame,
If I should teach our little son
    His cousin Robert's name.--

That name, however wide it rings,
    I oft think, when alone,
I rather would have seen it graved
    Upon a churchyard stone--

Upon the white sunshining stone
    Where cousin Alick lies:
Ah, sometimes, woe to him that lives!
    Happy is he that dies!

O Robert, Robert, many a tear--
    Though not the tears of old--
Drops, thinking of your face last night
    Your hand's remembered fold;

A young man's face, so like, so like
    Our mothers' faces fair:
A young man's hand, so firm to clasp,
    So resolute to dare.

I thought you good--I wished you great;
    You were my hope, my pride:
To know you good, to make you great
    I once had happy died.

To tear the plague-spot from your heart,
    Place honor on your brow,
See old age come in crownèd peace--
    I almost would die now!

Would give--all that's now mine to give--
    To have you sitting there,
The cousin Robert of my youth--
    Though beggar'd, with gray hair.

O Robert, Robert, some that live
    Are dead, long ere they are old;
Better the pure heart of our youth
    Than palaces of gold;

Better the blind faith of our youth
    Than doubt, which all truth braves;
Better to mourn, God's children dear,
    Than laugh, the Devil's slaves.

O Robert, Robert, life is sweet,
    And love is boundless gain:
Yet if I mind of you, my heart
    Is stabbed with sudden pain:

And as in peace this Christmas eve
    I close our quiet doors,
And kiss "good-night" on sleeping heads--
    Such bonnie curls,--like yours:

I fall upon my bended knees
    With sobs that choke each word;--
"On those who err and are deceived
    Have mercy, O good Lord!"

AT LAST.

Down, down like a pale leaf dropping
    Under an autumn sky,
My love dropped into my bosom
    Quietly, quietly.

There was not a ray of sunshine
    And not a sound in the air,
As she trembled into my bosom--
    My love, no longer fair.

All year round in her beauty
    She dwelt on the tree-top high:
She danced in the summer breezes,
    She laughed to the summer sky.

I lay so low in the grass-dews,
    She sat so high above,
She never wist of my longing,
    She never dreamed of my life.

But when winds lay bare her dwelling,
    And her heart could find no rest,
I called--and she fluttered downward
    Into my faithful breast.

I know that my love is fading;
    I know I cannot fold
Her fragrance from the frost-blight,
    Her beauty from the mould:

But a little, little longer
    She shall contented lie,
And wither away in the sunshine
    Silently, silently.

Come when thou wilt, grim Winter,
    My year is crowned and blest
If when my love is dying
    She die upon my breast.

THE AURORA ON THE CLYDE.

September, 1850.

AH me, how heavily the night comes down,
    Heavily, heavily:
Fade the curved shores, the blue hills' serried throng,
The darkening waves we oared in light and song:
Joy melts from us as sunshine from the sky;
    And Patience with sad eye
Takes up her staff and drops her withered crown.

Our small boat heaves upon the heaving river,
    Wearily, wearily;
The flickering shore-lights come and go by fits;
Towering 'twixt earth and heaven dusk silence sits,
Death at her feet; above, infinity;
    Between, slow drifting by,
Our tiny boat, like life, floats onward ever.

Pale, mournful hour,--too early night that falls
    Drearily, drearily,
Come not too soon! Return, return, bright day,
Kind voices, smiles, blue mountains, sunny bay!
In vain! Life's dial cannot backward fly:
    The dark time comes. Low lie,
And listen, soul. Oft in the night, God calls.
* * * * * *

Light, light on the black river! How it gleams,
    Solemnly, solemnly!
Like troops of pale ghosts on their pensive march,
Treading the far heavens in a luminous arch,
Each after each: phantasms serene and high
    From that eternity
Where all earth's sharpest woes grow dim as dreams.

Let us drink in the glory, full and whole,
    Silently, silently:
Gaze, till it lulls all pain, all vain desires:--

See now, that radiant bow of pillared fires
Spanning the hills like dawn, until they lie
    In soft tranquillity,
And all night's ghastly glooms asunder roll.

Look, look again! the vision changes fast,
    Gloriously, gloriously:
That was heaven's gate with its illumined road,
But this is heaven; the very throne of God
Hung with flame curtains of celestial dye
    Waving perpetually,
While to and fro innumerous angels haste.

I see no more the stream, the boat that moves
    Mournfully, mournfully:
And we who sit, poor prisoners of clay:
It is not night, it is immortal day,
Where the One Presence fills eternity,
    And each, His servant high,
Forever praises and forever loves.

O soul, forget the weight that drags thee down
    Deathfully, deathfully:
Know thyself. As this glory wraps thee round,
Let it melt off the chains that long have bound
Thy strength. Stand free before thy God and cry--
    "My Father, here am I:
Give to me as thou wilt--first cross, then crown."

AN AURORA BOREALIS.

Roslin Castle.

O STRANGE soft gleam, o ghostly dawn
    That never brightens unto day;
Ere earth's mirk pale once more be drawn
    Let us look out beyond the gray.

It is just midnight by the clock--
    There is no sound on glen or hill,
The moaning linn adown its rock
    Leaps, but the woods lie dark and still.

Austere against the kindling sky
    Yon broken turret blacker grows;
Harsh light, to show remorselessly
    Ruins night hid in kind repose!

Nay, beauteous light, nay, light that fills
    The whole heaven like a dream of morn,
As waking upon northern hills
    She smiles to find herself new-born,--

Strange light, I know thou wilt not stay,
    That many an hour must come and go

Before the pale November day
    Break in the east, forlorn and slow.

Yet blest one gleam--one gleam like this,
    When all heaven brightens in our sight,
And the long night that was and is
    And shall be, vanishes in light:

O blest one hour like this! to rise
    And see grief's shadows backward roll;
While bursts on unaccustomed eyes
    The glad Aurora of the soul.

AT THE LINN-SIDE.

Roslin.

O LIVING, living water,
    So busy and so bright,
Aye flashing in the morning beams,
    And sounding through the night;
O golden-shining water--
    Would God that I might be
A vocal message from His mouth
    Into the world, like thee!

O merry, merry water,
    Which nothing e'er affrays;
And as it pours from rock to rock
    Nothing e'er stops or stays;
But past cool heathery hollows
    And gloomy pools it flows;
Past crags that fain would shut it in
    Leaps through--and on it goes.

O fresh'ning, sparkling water,
    O voice that's never still,
Though winter lays her dead-white hand
    On brae and glen and hill;
Though no leaf's left to flutter
    In woods all mute and hoar,
Yet thou, O river, night and day
    Thou runnest evermore.

No foul thing can pollute thee;
    Thy swiftness casts aside
All ill, like a good heart and true,
    However sorely tried.
O living, living water,
    So fresh and bright and free--
God lead us through this changeful world
    Forever pure, like thee!

A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS MORNING.

1855.

IT is the Christmas time:
And up and down 'twixt heaven and earth,
In glorious grief and solemn mirth,
The shining angels climb.

And unto everything
That lives and moves, for heaven, on earth,
With equal share of grief and mirth,
The shining angels sing:--

"Babes new-born, undefiled,
In lowly hut, or mansion wide--
Sleep safely through this Christmas-tide
When Jesus was a child.

"O young men, bold and free,
In peopled town, or desert grim,
When ye are tempted like to Him,
'The man Christ Jesus' see.

"Poor mothers, with your hoard
Of endless love and countless pain--

Remember all her grief, her gain,
The Mother of the Lord.

"Mourners, half blind with woe,
Look up! One standeth in this place,
And by the pity of His face
The Man of Sorrows know.

"Wanderers in far countrie,
O think of Him, who came, forgot,
To His own, and they received Him not--
Jesus of Galilee.

"O all ye who have trod
The wine-press of affliction, lay
Your hearts before His heart this day--
Behold the Christ of God!"

A PSALM FOR NEW YEAR'S EVE.

1855.

A FRIEND stands at the door;
In either tight-closed hand
Hiding rich gifts, three hundred and three score:
Waiting to strew them daily o'er the land
Even as seed the sower.
Each drops he, treads it in and passes by:
It cannot be made fruitful till it die.

O good New Year, we clasp
This warm shut hand of thine,
Loosing forever, with half sigh, half gasp,
That which from ours falls like dead fingers' twine:
Ay, whether fierce its grasp
Has been, or gentle, having been, we know
That it was blessed: let the Old Year go.

O New Year, teach us faith!
The road of life is hard:
When our feet bleed and scourging winds us scathe,
Point thou to Him whose visage was more marred
Than any man's: who saith

"Make straight paths for your feet"--and to the opprest--
"Come ye to Me, and I will give you rest."

Yet hang some lamp-like hope
Above this unknown way,
Kind year, to give our spirits freer scope
And our hands strength to work while it is day.
But if that way must slope
Tombward, O bring before our fading eyes
The lamp of life, the Hope that never dies.

Comfort our souls with love,--
Love of all human kind;
Love special, close--in which like sheltered dove
Each weary heart its own safe nest may find;
And love that turns above
Adoringly; contented to resign
All loves, if need be, for the Love Divine.

Friend, come thou like a friend,
And whether bright thy face,
Or dim with clouds we cannot comprehend,--
We'll hold out patient hands, each in his place,
And trust thee to the end.
Knowing thou leadest onwards to those spheres
Where there are neither days nor months nor years.

FAITHFUL IN VANITY-FAIR.

I.

THE great human whirlpool--'t is seething and seething:
On! No time for shrieking out--scarcely for breathing:
All toiling and moiling, some feebler, some bolder,
But each sees a fiend-face grim over his shoulder:
    Thus merrily live they in Vanity-fair.

The great human caldron--it boils ever higher:
Some drowning, some sinking; while some, stealing nigher
Athirst, come and lean o'er its outermost verges,
Or touch, as a child's feet touch, timorous, the surges--
    One plunge--lo! more souls swamped in Vanity-fair.

Let's live while we live; for to-morrow all's over:
Drink deep, drunkard bold; and kiss close, maddened lover;

Smile, hypocrite, smile; it is no such hard labor,
While each stealthy hand stabs the heart of his neighbor--
    Faugh! Fear not: we've no hearts in Vanity-fair.

The mad crowd divides and then soon closes after:
Afar towers the pyre. Through the shouting and laughter
"What new sport is this?" gasps a reveller, half turning.--
"One Faithful, meek fool, who is led to the burning,
    He cumbered us sorely in Vanity-fair.

"A dreamer, who held every man for a brother;
A coward, who, smit on one cheek, gave the other;
A fool, whose blind soul took as truth all our lying,
Too simple to live, so best fitted for dying:
    Sure, such are best swept out of Vanity-fair."

    

II.

SILENCE! though the flames arise and quiver:
Silence! though the crowd howls on forever:
Silence! Through this fiery purgatory
God is leading up a soul to glory.

See, the white lips with no moans are trembling,
Hate of foes or plaint of friends' dissembling;
If sighs come--his patient prayers outlive them,
"Lord--these know not what they do. Forgive them!"

Thirstier still the roaring flames are glowing;
Fainter in his ear the laughter growing;
Brief will last the fierce and fiery trial,
Angel welcomes drown the earth denial.

Now the amorous death-fires, gleaming ruddy,
Clasp him close. Down drops the quivering body,
While through harmless flames ecstatic flying
Shoots the beauteous soul. This, this is dying.

Lo, the opening sky with splendor rifted,
Lo, the palm-branch for his hands uplifted:
Lo, the immortal chariot, cloud-descending,
And its legioned angels close attending.

Let his poor dust mingle with the embers
While the crowds sweep on and none remembers:
Saints unnumbered through the Infinite Glory,
Praising God, recount the martyr's story.

HER LIKENESS.

A GIRL, who has so many wilful ways
    She would have caused Job's patience to forsake him;
Yet is so rich in all that's girlhood's praise,
Did Job himself upon her goodness gaze,
    A little better she would surely make him.

    Yet is this girl I sing in naught uncommon,
And very far from angel yet, I trow.
Her faults, her sweetnesses, are purely human;
Yet she's more lovable as simple woman
    Than any one diviner that I know.

Therefore I wish that she may safely keep
    This womanhede, and change not, only grow;
From maid to matron, youth to age, may creep,
And in perennial blessedness, still reap
    On every hand of that which she doth sow.

ONLY A DREAM.

"I waked--she fled: and day brought back my night."

METHOUGHT I saw thee yesternight
    Sit by me in the olden guise,
The white robes and the pain foregone,
Weaving instead of amaranth crown
    A web of mortal dyes.

I cried, "Where hast thou been so long?"
    (The mild eyes turned and mutely smiled:)
"Why dwellest thou in far-off lands?
What is that web within thy hands?"
    --"I work for thee, my child."

I clasped thee in my arms and wept;
    I kissed thee oft with passion wild:
I poured fond questions, tender blame;
Still thy sole answer was the same,--
    "I work for thee, my child."

"Come and walk with me as of old."
    Then camest thou, silent as before;
We passed along that churchyard way
We used to tread each Sabbath day,
    Till one trod earth no more.

I felt thy hand upon my arm,
    Beside me thy meek face I saw,
Yet through the sweet familiar grace
A something spiritual could trace
    That left a nameless awe.

Trembling I said, "Long years have passed
    Since thou wert from my side beguiled;
Now thou'rt returned and all shall be
As was before."--Half-pensively
    Thou answered'st--"Nay, my child."

I pleaded sore: "Hadst thou forgot
    The love wherewith we loved of old,--
The long sweet days of converse blest,
The nights of slumber on thy breast,--
    Wert thou to me grown cold?"

There beamed on me those eyes of heaven
    That wept no more, but ever smiled;
"Love only is love in that Home
Where I abide--where, till thou come,
    I work for thee, my child."

If from my sight thou passedst then,
    Or if my sobs the dream exiled,
I know not: but in memory clear
I seem these strange words still to hear,
    "I work for thee, my child."

TO MY GODCHILD ALICE.

ALICE, Alice, little Alice,
My new-christened baby Alice,
    Can there ever rhymes be found
To express my wishes for thee
In a silvery flowing, worthy
    Of that silvery sound?
Bonnie Alice, Lady Alice,
    Sure, this sweetest name must be
A true omen to thee, Alice,
    Of a life's long melody.

Alice, Alice, little Alice,
Mayst thou prove a golden chalice,
    Filled with holiness like wine:
With rich blessings running o'er
Yet replenished evermore
    From a fount divine:
Alice, Alice, little Alice,
    When this future comes to thee,
In thy young life's brimming chalice
    Keep some drops of balm for me!

Alice, Alice, little Alice,
Mayst thou grow a goodly palace,

    Fitly framed from roof to floors,
Pure unto the inmost centre,
While high thoughts like angels enter
    At the open doors:
Alice, Alice, little Alice,
    When this beauteous sight I see,
In thy woman-heart's wide palace
    Keep one nook of love for me.

Alice, Alice, little Alice,--
Sure the verse halts out of malice
    To the thoughts it feebly bears,
And thy name's soft echoes, ranging
From quaint rhyme to rhyme, are changing
    Into silent prayers.
God be with thee, little Alice,
    Of His bounteousness may He
Fill the chalice, build the palace,
    Here, unto eternity!

EIGHTEEN SONNETS.

RESIGNING.

"Poor heart, what bitter words we speak
When God speaks of resigning!"

SAINT ELIZABETH OF BOHEMIA.

"Would that we two were lyingBeneath the churchyard sod,
With our limbs at rest in the green earth's breast,
    And our souls at home with God."Kingsley's Saint's Tragedy.

I.

II.

A MARRIAGE-TABLE.

W. H. L. and F. R.

MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL.

A Statuette.

I.

II.

I.

BEATRICE TO DANTE.

"Guardami ben. Ben son, ben son."*

DANTE TO BEATRICE.

II.

A QUESTION.

I.

II.

ANGEL FACES.

"And with the dawn those angel faces smile
That I have loved long since, and lost awhile."

I.

II.

SUNDAY MORNING BELLS.

CŒUR DE LION.

I.

II.

GUNS OF PEACE.

Sunday Night, March 30th, 1856.