She plucketh many flowers,
Their beauty on her bosom's coldness killing;
She teacheth every melancholy sound
To winds and waters round;
She droppeth tears with seed where man is tilling
The rugged soil in his exhausted hours;
She smileth-ah me! in her smile doth go
A mood of deeper woe!
Hope tripped on out of sight
Crowned with an Eden wreath she saw not fade,
And went a-nodding through the wilderness
With brow that shone no less
Than sea-bird wings, by storm more frequent made,—
Searching the treeless rock for fruits of light;
Her fair quick feet being armed from stones and cold,
By slippers of pure gold.
Memory did Hope much wrong,
And, while she dreamed, her slippers stole away;
But still she wended on with mirth unheeding,
The while her feet were bleeding,
Till Memory met her on a certain day,
And with most evil eyes did search her long
And cruelly, whereat she sank to ground
In a stark deadly swound.
And so my Hope were slain,
Had it not been that THOU wert standing near,
Oh Thou, who saidest 'live' to creatures lying
In their own blood, and dying!
For Thou her forehead to thine heart didst rear
And make its silent pulses sing again,-
Pouring a new light o'er her darkened eyue,
With tender tears from Thine!
Therefore my Hope arose
From out her swound and gazed upon Thy face,
And, meeting there that soft subduing look
Which Peter's spirit shook,
Sank downward in a rapture to embrace
Thy pierced hands and feet with kisses close,
And prayed Thee to assist her evermore
To reach the things before.'
Then gavest Thou the smile
Whence angel-wings thrill quick like summer lightning,
Vouchsafing rest beside Thee, where she never
From Love and Faith may sever,-
Whereat the Eden crown she saw not whitening
A time ago, though whitening all the while,
Reddened with life, to hear the Voice which talked
To Adam as he walked.
WE Sow the glebe, we reap the corn,
We build the house where we may rest,
And then, at moments, suddenly,
We look up to the great wide sky,
Enquiring wherefore we were born . . .
For earnest, or for jest?
The senses folding thick and dark
About the stifled soul within,
We guess diviner things beyond,
And yearn to them with yearning fond;
We strike out blindly to a mark
Believed in, but not seen.
We vibrate to the pant and thrill
Wherewith Eternity has curled
In serpent-twine about God's seat!
While, freshening upward to His feet,
In gradual growth His full-leaved will
Expands from world to world.
And, in the tumult and excess
Of act and passion under sun,
We sometimes hear—oh, soft and far,
As silver star did touch with star,
The kiss of Peace and Righteousness
Through all things that are done.
God keeps his holy mysteries
Just on the outside of man's dream!
In diapason slow, we think
To hear their pinions rise and sink,
While they float pure beneath His eyes,
Like swans adown a stream.
Abstractions, are they, from the forms
Of His great beauty ?-exaltations
From His great glory ?-strong previsions
Of what we shall be ?-intuitions
Of what we are— -in calms and storms,
Beyond our peace and passions?
Things nameless! which, in passing so,
Do stroke us with a subtle grace.
We say, 'Who passes?'-they are dumb;
We cannot see them go or come;
Their touches fall soft-cold-as snow
Upon a blind man's face.
Yet, touching so, they draw above
Our common thoughts to Heaven's unknown,Our daily joy and pain, advance
To a divine significance,
Our human love-O mortal love,
That light is not its own!
And, sometimes, horror chills our blood
To be so near such mystic Things,
And we wrap round us, for defence,
Our purple manners, moods of sense-
As angels, from the face of God,
Stand hidden in their wings.
And, sometimes, through Life's heavy swound
We grope for them!-with strangled breath
We stretch our hands abroad and try
To reach them in our agony,-
And widen, so, the broad life-wound
Which soon is large enough for death.
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